Research journal group: Seminar: Art, the Avant Gardes and Research Programmes, with John Roberts.

This seminar will discuss some key aspects of John Roberts work on the dialectics of deskilling/ reskilling, as pertaining to certain key transformations in the nature of artistic labour and cognition. The seminar will work in two parts and it would be beneficial to have read some of the key texts detailed on the blog here:http://researchjournalgroup.blogspot.com, or email info@bannerrepeater.org.

In the first part we will discuss some of the points set out in Roberts recent book; The Intangibilities of Form Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade. We will be concerned with discussing this work in light of its implications on avant-garde models of collaborative, interdisciplinary artistic labour. Particularly, how might we be able to think of socially extended cognition in art, through what Roberts terms a ‘research-model of practice’?

The second part will focus on Roberts recent essay: Revolutionary Pathos, Negation and the Suspensive Avant-Garde. This paper explicates further the 'research model of practice' as set out in The Intangibilities of Form. Here, it is brought into line with the concept of 'Research Programmes', derived from the philosopher of science; Imre Lakatos.

We will be concerned to discuss what a research programme is, and what it might do. What sought of truth-claims are advanced by art? Can art be thought of as advancing propositions, arguing a case, or involving knowledge-constitutive interests? Does art practice by definition, eliminate the scientific method from its procedures? What would have to occur to inaugurate a ‘community for the enquiry’ as distinct from the ‘community for the work of art’?

Reading:
Roberts, John (2011). Revolutionary Pathos, Negation and the Suspensive Avant-Garde, New Literary History, No 41.
Roberts, John (2007). The Intangibilities of Form Skill and Deskilling in Art After the Readymade. Verso, London, UK. (Chp. 4).