The Arts in Society Research Network

Dialogue between practice, theory, and public culture.

The Arts in Society Research Network organizes its activities around a set of evolving themes and productive tensions. These guide our conference discussions, editorial priorities, and collaborative projects—serving as touchstones for scholarly and creative inquiry.

Ruth Catlow, Tenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, Imperial College, London, UK (2015)
Ruth Catlow, Tenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, Imperial College, London, UK (2015)

Overview

Four thematic arenas shape ongoing debate: Artistic Form and Material Practice, exploring media, process, and innovation in visual, performative, and digital arts; Arts Education and Pedagogy, examining creative learning, curriculum design, and the role of art in lifelong education; Histories, Theories, and Critical Perspectives, investigating how cultural narratives, technologies, and institutions frame artistic meaning; and The Arts in Social and Political Contexts, addressing activism, community practice, and art’s contribution to civic life. Together, these themes surface tensions between autonomy and engagement, tradition and experimentation, aesthetics and ethics.

Themes & Tensions

Theme 1: Pedagogies of the Arts

Teaching and learning through and about the arts

Living Tensions:

  • Ways of Seeing, Learning, And Knowing – Whose Perspective?
  • Research Framing – Self-Inquiry or Collectible Inquiry
  • Marking Boundaries – Student, Researcher and Teacher
  • Maker and Critic – Teaching and Learning Arts Practices
  • Crossing Disciplinary Borders – From Cultural Theory to Anthropology, Ethnography, Sociology and Beyond
  • Passive Learners to Active Participants
  • Online Cultures, Social Networks and eLearning
  • Sense-Making – Connecting the Arts to Everyday Life

Theme 2: Arts Histories and Theories

Interrogating arts histories, theories, paradigms and frameworks for critical analysis

Living Tensions

  • Defining Aesthetics – From Inside or Outside
  • Inertia and Stasis – The Power of Continuity and Change
  • Art History – Purpose and Pedagogy
  • The Avant-Garde – The Creative, The Innovative, The New
  • Arts Objects – Aura and Artifact
  • Categorizing Genres – Naming and Classifying Art Forms
  • Mimesis – Perspectives on the ‘Real’ and ‘Representation’
  • Voice – Negotiating Authenticity and Authority

Theme 3: New Media, Technology, and the Arts

Making sense of emerging technologies, their practices, and agents

Living Tensions

  • Aesthetics of the Digital – Media and Mediation
  • Speculative Imaginaries – The ‘Virtual’ and the ‘Real’
  • Future Bodies – Techno-Organic, Hybrid and Synthetic Subjects
  • Creative Industries – From Information to Data Societies
  • Technological Mediums – Where is the Artist?
  • Artificial Intelligence – The Craft of Data
  • Tactical Media, Activism, and Hacktivism – (Re)Considering Agency

Theme 4: The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life

Addressing social, political, and community agendas in the arts

Living Tensions

  • Scales of Identity Making – Personal, Local, Regional, National, Global
  • Art of the Event – Exhibitions, Festivals, Biennales
  • Framing Boxes – Museums and galleries as Social Institutions
  • Abilities and Disabilities – Access, Inclusion, Participation
  • High and Low – Popular Culture and the Media
  • Business of Art – The Pressure of Art Markets
  • Whose Art? – Public Arts, Collective Memory, Cultural Heritage
  • Ethical Considerations – Human Rights, Social Justice, and the Arts
  • Inclusive Communities – Race, Identity, Gender

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