Material Cognition Research Group
This practice-based research group foregrounds the materially conditioned, multi-sensory and experiential aspects of making and encountering art.
Material Cognition is an experimental space for artists’ material research, connecting ideas of embodied cognition with new materialisms, phenomenological and post phenomenological thinking to give an impetus to practice as research.
Concerns with material agency and reactivity – alongside perceptual responses to volumes, surfaces, spaces and durations – reflect technical and research specialisms in sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking and curatorial practices.
The conventions of pictures, objects and exhibition frameworks and their dematerialisations give a grounding for considering the exchange between tactile and visual perception.
Ethical and ecological aspects of material choice underpin these concerns, valuing collaboration with and responsiveness to materials and processes as a non-anthropocentric view of material engagement.
Coordinators
Moyra Derby
Julia McKinlay
Jo McGonigal