Stanhope Forbes 'The Quarry Team' Print. 1894
Interesting times as the Chinese philosopher said. I have officially returned to NTU School of Art and Design to teach on Animation and Graphic Design courses ….I applied for a reduction in hours to support a more intense period of PhD application but have been told not possible so have to maintain my 0.5 contract for now. If I get any PhD support from other institutions I may try again in a year’s time for reduced hours.
I am moving back towards trying to obtain a fully funded PhD. I cannot afford full funding and supporting myself but maybe can get part funded and keep teaching?
The PhD ‘path’ I considering will bring together the basic premise of the ‘ANAMNESIA’ project but maybe with more focus on the impact of Railway on arts. For now the ‘Popular Culture’ angle one I looking at most intently.
Here are some preliminary proposals:
I am particularly interested in the concept of embedded literature and using illustrations and a narrative/travelogue approach in my research in the manner of W.G. Sebald and Patrick Keiller’s work with art and technology and region.
The PhD ‘paths’ I now considering below have developed out of the original Leverhulme Proposal and draws on material researched in my aborted M.A. Multimedia ‘ANAMNESIA’ project but with more focus on the impact of Railway on arts. For now the ‘Popular Culture’ angle one I looking at most intently.
The Leverhulme Proposal available online here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/249245353/PhD-Levenhulme-Proposal
Possible lines of research investigation in this art history and technology area being considered are:
- Rain, Steam, Speed:
Art, Modernism and Technology 1840-1940.
The Railway, Radio and Telegraph in the development of Rural Artistic Communities (Networks) and Small Presses. Focusing on how ‘new technology’ created new artistic forms and communities from Dickens’s Pickwick Papers to The Cockerel Press.
2.‘Shifting Modes of Narrative’: Investigating illustration and sequential drawing as a response to the ‘new media’ of photography and cinema. 1836 – 1914.
Starting with Dickens illustrators and moving up to ‘Birth of Cinema’. Less regionally focussed.
- Drifting Focus 1830 – 1890:
Kinema, photography, fine art and illustration. An investigation of new media networks in the first possibly’ Transmediale’ railway age.
Focusing on the narrative arts post ‘Railway’ and relating to contemporary definitions of networks and Transmediale new technologies.
Further details available online at my Transmedia Research Blog:
Shaun Belcher 10.07.2015
