A Fray of Messays: Unraveling Research Toward the Deep Future
The Royal Academy of Art (KABK) Deep Futures Research Group is proud to announce the release of a publication which forges fresh pathways for creative practice research as a form of knowledge production.
Since 2021 the Deep Futures Research Group, chaired by KABK’s Research Professor Alice Twemlow, has provided a framework in which artists and designers who teach at KABK can conduct research to develop alternative imaginaries toward more equitable climate futures.
Now a new book published by the KABK Design Lectorate and Metropolis M Books presents this important body of research, while expanding on how creative practice can contribute to knowledge in the realm of climate and environmental justice.
Collectively edited by Twemlow with seven members of the group, and designed by KABK Graphic Design tutor Bart de Baets, the book assembles documentation of, and candid reflections on, research conducted between 2021-2024.
Titled A Fray of Messays: Unraveling Research Toward the Deep Future, the publication features the work of creative practitioners in performance, filmmaking, photography, interactive media, fine art, architecture and the sonic, whose work enriches, and challenges the boundaries of, their respective fields.
The term ‘messay’ refers to a format members of the Research Group have explored over the past few years: a blend of making and essaying; a site of physical construction; and a provisional holder for a collective writing practice. Incomplete and iterative, a ‘messay’ reveals its own structures of composition. Its edges remain resolutely frayed—signalling to a reader that there is plenty of room for alternative perspectives and approaches.
In its provision of behind-the-scenes-access to specific research processes, tools, theoretical concepts and methods, A Fray of Messays suggests how best practices discerned in these specific cases might be embedded in all kinds of art and design practices and cultural and educational contexts.
Table of Contents
Messaying: A Method-Mode in Creative Practice Research
This essay introduces the Research Group’s practice of ‘writing together’ and of ‘messaying’—a neologism to express the type of essaying that is ongoing, unresolved essay, multiply-authored, and in which the modes and mindsets of making are wielded as argument and scaffolding.
Chapter One: Siting: Research Locations
From a sonic landscape of accelerated climate change in the High Arctic Tundra to the deceptively tranquil toxic lakes of the ‘Over de Maas’ area in the Netherlands; and from the recesses of a computer hard drive to the heating ducts and staircases of an art academy, the Deep Futures Research Group’s sites of research are as diverse as the questions that emerge from them. In this chapter the researchers introduce their interpretations of, and engagements with, their sites of research—as points of departure and return.
Chapter Two: Doing: Research Tools, Methods, Processes
Creative practice researchers draw methods and tools from other disciplines and adapt and alter them as needed or identify those buried within their own ways of working. Being reflective about these choices—discussing and sharing all aspects of a creative research process—is to open up what often remains hidden or ‘behind-the-scenes’ and to offer points of reference for others to engage with **the work.
Chapter Three: Sharing + Reflecting: Research in Education, Practice, Society
In this chapter, the researchers reflect on the doubts, dilemmas and complexities of their individual research projects. These reflections are a written form of the discussions held at each other’s research sites, or when students, colleagues, or guests from other institutions were invited to engage with the ongoing research.
Creative practice research, as understood and practiced by the Deep Futures Research Group, is never truly complete—and certainly not until it is encountered and reckoned with by its publics, until it is offered up for debate.
Deep Futuring: A Concept in Creative Practice Research
This closing essay explores the chasm, or ‘magnitudinal gap’ that lies between the immense scale of climate and ecological crisis and a creative practice-based researcher’s ability to comprehend, let alone conduct creative practice-based research in the face of it.
Back Matter: About the Deep Futures Research Group, Research Project Overviews, Biographies
Table of Contents
Messaying: A Method-Mode in Creative Practice Research
This essay introduces the Research Group’s practice of ‘writing together’ and of ‘messaying’—a neologism to express the type of essaying that is ongoing, unresolved essay, multiply-authored, and in which the modes and mindsets of making are wielded as argument and scaffolding.
Chapter One: Siting: Research Locations
From a sonic landscape of accelerated climate change in the High Arctic Tundra to the deceptively tranquil toxic lakes of the ‘Over de Maas’ area in the Netherlands; and from the recesses of a computer hard drive to the heating ducts and staircases of an art academy, the Deep Futures Research Group’s sites of research are as diverse as the questions that emerge from them. In this chapter the researchers introduce their interpretations of, and engagements with, their sites of research—as points of departure and return.
Chapter Two: Doing: Research Tools, Methods, Processes
Creative practice researchers draw methods and tools from other disciplines and adapt and alter them as needed or identify those buried within their own ways of working. Being reflective about these choices—discussing and sharing all aspects of a creative research process—is to open up what often remains hidden or ‘behind-the-scenes’ and to offer points of reference for others to engage with **the work.
Chapter Three: Sharing + Reflecting: Research in Education, Practice, Society
In this chapter, the researchers reflect on the doubts, dilemmas and complexities of their individual research projects. These reflections are a written form of the discussions held at each other’s research sites, or when students, colleagues, or guests from other institutions were invited to engage with the ongoing research.
Creative practice research, as understood and practiced by the Deep Futures Research Group, is never truly complete—and certainly not until it is encountered and reckoned with by its publics, until it is offered up for debate.
Deep Futuring: A Concept in Creative Practice Research
This closing essay explores the chasm, or ‘magnitudinal gap’ that lies between the immense scale of climate and ecological crisis and a creative practice-based researcher’s ability to comprehend, let alone conduct creative practice-based research in the face of it.
Back Matter: About the Deep Futures Research Group, Research Project Overviews, Biographies
Featuring research by the KABK Deep Futures Research Group:
Hannes Bernard’s practice encompasses graphic design, video, curatorial assemblage, and generative design. At KABK he is a tutor in BA Graphic Design and in Master Industrial Design.
Louis Braddock Clarke is an artist working in the fields of geological listening, esoteric philosophy, and deep time cinema. At KABK he is a tutor in BA Graphic Design.
Jasper Coppes’ practice takes shape across film, writing, sculpture, architecture and sound. At KABK he is a tutor, and interim head, in Master Artistic Research.
Alexander Cromer is a spoken word performance artist, poet, artistic researcher, and PhD candidate at Leiden University. At KABK he is an Individual Study Track coach in BA Graphic Design.
Carl Johan Högberg is an artist and theorist, and at KABK he is co-head in BA Fine Arts.
Katrin Korfmann is a photographic artist, researcher, and educator. At KABK she is a tutor in BA Graphic Design and in **Master Non Linear Narrative.
Victoria Meniakina is a researcher, educator and strategic advisor with a background in architecture. At KABK she is a tutor in BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design.
Alice Twemlow is a design historian and curator. At KABK she is Research Professor and leads the Design Lectorate.
Featuring research by the KABK Deep Futures Research Group:
Hannes Bernard’s practice encompasses graphic design, video, curatorial assemblage, and generative design. At KABK he is a tutor in BA Graphic Design and in Master Industrial Design.
Louis Braddock Clarke is an artist working in the fields of geological listening, esoteric philosophy, and deep time cinema. At KABK he is a tutor in BA Graphic Design.
Jasper Coppes’ practice takes shape across film, writing, sculpture, architecture and sound. At KABK he is a tutor, and interim head, in Master Artistic Research.
Alexander Cromer is a spoken word performance artist, poet, artistic researcher, and PhD candidate at Leiden University. At KABK he is an Individual Study Track coach in BA Graphic Design.
Carl Johan Högberg is an artist and theorist, and at KABK he is co-head in BA Fine Arts.
Katrin Korfmann is a photographic artist, researcher, and educator. At KABK she is a tutor in BA Graphic Design and in **Master Non Linear Narrative.
Victoria Meniakina is a researcher, educator and strategic advisor with a background in architecture. At KABK she is a tutor in BA Interior Architecture & Furniture Design.
Alice Twemlow is a design historian and curator. At KABK she is Research Professor and leads the Design Lectorate.
Information
Title: A Fray of Messays: Unraveling Research Toward the Deep Future
Publisher: KABK Design Lectorate x Metropolis M Books
Editing: Deep Futures Research Group
Design: Bart de Baets
Printing + binding: Wilco Art Books
112 pp | 24 x 16 cm (h x w) | English
ISBN: 978-90-81830-29-4
Information
Title: A Fray of Messays: Unraveling Research Toward the Deep Future
Publisher: KABK Design Lectorate x Metropolis M Books
Editing: Deep Futures Research Group
Design: Bart de Baets
Printing + binding: Wilco Art Books
112 pp | 24 x 16 cm (h x w) | English
ISBN: 978-90-81830-29-4
