Every UCA academic is contractually obliged to conduct “Research”. Research means staff continuing with their individual artistic and academic practice as well as setting up shared projects with colleagues within a subject area. As an activity, research often remains ‘out of sight’ to students. However, it is vital part of academic life and keeps teaching up to date, fresh and alive.
In 2007, Graphic Design staff at Maidstone initiated a new Research Cluster. It launched its activities with organizing an international one-day Symposium called “The Liquid Page” at Tate Britain on 20 June 2008. The conference investigated ‘the changing space of the book/ the artist’s book, print and reading’. It acknowledged that digital technology already has radically altered what constitutes ‘the page’, and asked: “What is the book to do?”
8 speakers - artists as well as theoreticians - from USA, Australia, Poland, France and the UK presented papers that took on board the above question. The two keynote Speakers were Prof Johanna Drucker, University of Virginia, USA, and Simon Morley, writer/ artist, France UK. Johanna Drucker is the author of - amongst many others titles - “The Century of Artists Books” and “Graphic Design History, A Critical Guide”. Simon Morley wrote “Writing on the Wall, Word and Image in Modern Art”.
In the morning, the symposium took on the way that the book can change from within or without through interactions with art, technology and/or literature. In the afternoon, the speakers looked at how books could be ‘claimed’ and referred to in other media, such as painting, photography, film and performance.
A very lively debate followed, new contacts were made and follow up activities (’Liquid Page 2’) are already under discussion.
You can read reviews of the ‘Liquid Page’ conference online:
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/the_liquid_page/
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/newspdfs/43.pdf
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