BK1165 Material og Rom - Wood and the Digital Escapism

- Sign up Deadline for courses 15th september -
- First time 10th September

In ‘Wood and the digital escapism’ we will explore escapism as digital displacement from a physical reality. Wood and the digital escapism uses wood and processing of wood as material, as a concrete basis for reflecting on the digital structures. The idea is to understand and produce meaning in relation to materials at the same time reflecting aesthetically on the cultural and societal contexts. By contracting the material and the conceptual mechanisms in practice we become aware of the relation between abstract and material processes.

Wood and digital escapism is a course that combines a technical, manual approach with a conceptual, analytical approach, and attempts to base artistic reflection in relation to material properties. It is related to the wood workshop and based on the technical skills on the one hand and on the other reflecting, articulating and syntesising.

The course takes off from the idea that there is an important/intricate multi-sidedness to artistic
practice as such, and specifically to artistic thinking, that has to do with diverse modes of operation, of intervals and frequencies and materials of reflection.

The primary aim is to create a focus on the design of an artistic practice and the language surrounding it. We develop concrete projects and at the same time process and reflect them in language.

What elements constitute the practice?
What is the relation between thinking and doing in the practice?

Through discussing these questions in material and language we come to inhabit the individual spaces of practice. The learning outcome is to identify important productive links, rhythms, parameters between thinking and doing. Language and intuition. Between alternating modes of reflection. And thereby constructing the framework for developing a rich and complex practice.

Teaching methods are individual brainstorms, digital formats, guest talks, technical practice and collective discussions. And the outcome is what happens when merging these in alternating constellations.

The course also includes a guest talk with Danish artist Hannah Heilmann and visit to the VR Lab at Electronic System Design. It is expected that students produce a physical or digital work to be presented at the end of the course that is developed from the discourse of the course.