170731 UE Black visuality, performance, and performativity (2021W)

This is a seminar based on a non-dualistic idea of practice as research. Throughout the course, we will study several strands of theory and global art perspectives which propose non-traditional and creative ways of engaging in artistic research. The emphasis will be on exploring (and perhaps designing) new methodologies for doing research differently; honing instinctual methodologies around creatively capturing, through one’s practice, intangible and/or sensory experiences such as listening beyond what is audible, visualizing beyond what is visible, re-membering what is dismembered (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o), and/or imagining the in-between, in the gaps. Students will be supported and encouraged to think towards an Autohistoria‐teoría approach (Gloria Anzaldúa) which embraces and foregrounds the researcher's subjectivity rather than attempting to limit it, as it is the norm in empirical research.

Throughout the course, embodied practices and community based (and democratized) ways of knowledge creation will be explored. Emphasis will be placed on performative practices which rest in the intersection of art practice and research e.g. Theaster Gates (The black Monks of Missisipi), Torkwase Dyson (Dark Adaptive), and Arthur Jafa among others; as well as those which forefront different ways of knowing, and which intersect the traditional/spiritual with art practice, and research e.g., in the works of South African performance artists Buhlebezwe Siwani, Sikhumbuzo Makhandula, and Khanyisile Mintho Mbongwa. We will also explore several coordinates of black performativity, centering our conversations around theories of black visuality and the practice of refusal, as captured in the scholarship of Tina Campt.

The course will also study ways of (and practices which) engage with performance, performativity, and theatricality. The works of Kehinde Wiley and Zanele Muholi become relevant here. Similarly, some groundbreaking exhibitions that have taken place over the years such as Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, 2013 (Brown Foundation Gallery) also become relevant. In terms of theory, special emphasis will be placed on scholarships which challenge the conventional textocentric/scriptocentric approaches to research. The works of thinkers who make up the Practicing Refusal Collective (PR Collective) become relevant here. However, more focus will be put upon non-western, and post-colonial based/driven scholarship and approaches to research and knowledge creation; taking some of our cue from the performative, visual, textual, and/or audio prepositions and outputs put forward by spaces such as SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, and the Center for the Less Good Idea (by William Kentridge) in Johannesburg (to mention a few).

AIM:
Our aim for offering this course is to equip students with the tools and resources needed to develop a research-based practice (practice as research) which is centered around one’s context and situatedness. We want to offer an opportunity for our students to critically re-explore performative languages, media and disciplines; and regenerate the lines of discourse which are closest related to their practice. In the process, students will also learn to develop and hone instinctual methodologies for doing research; as well as explore and design other methodologies of doing research differently which are most fitting to their practice, and which are linked to new ways of thinking. We want to encourage collaboration, togetherness, as well as the practice of working across disciplines.