Heald, K. (2014) Practice-based PhD titled ‘Dream Films’ and Research as Collaborative Practice through Contemporary Art and Science Methodologies, Faculty of Arts, Environment & Society, The Leeds School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
My research charts a gradual transition from an individual working mode to involving collaborations with others. As a progression from undertaking artist-in-residency placements, collaborations have emerged with other creative practitioners, scientists of different professions and psychiatric patients. The research as collaborative practice is set within the context of contemporary art, arts and science research, feminist action, 'participation' and site-responsive approaches.
A complex collaborative methodology has been established through the performative use of time-based media while engaging with the psychoanalyst, linguist and philosopher, Julia Kristeva's concept of the semiotic chora. My working methodology draws on this notion as a preverbal and creative space that relates to rhythms, colours and trace. Using audio-visual technologies, the research expands on Kristeva's chora in relation to time and melancholia and also, as a way to further address these vulnerable states, identifies a number of new concepts: 'transitory strata', the 'unconscious thetic' and 'in-between-ness'.
The research outcomes are manifested as 'dream films' echoing the ephemeral and transitional spaces of the mind; the imaginary; reverie and states between wakefulness and sleep; the unconscious and layers of consciousness such as that of the creative or the depressive and psychotic who travels between several time zones simultaneously. Through painterly, poetic non-linear video narratives, these 'in-between' spaces are played out. The films aspire to be beautifully eloquent and texturally emotive while also intentionally ambivalent and often deliberately perturbing. As such the 'unconscious thetic' latently reveals itself to an enquiring viewer at the threshold of meaning.
There are three progressive sections on Collaborations: Chora - Dreams and Sleep - Operating 'in-between' Methods. The following artworks are featured: The Pillow Series; The Dream Space; Not still at home; 7qADV; Visualising the Invisible and In-between-ness.