Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Models, as used in many disciplines, can be theoretical, conceptual, heuristic, and prototypical. Our theorizing goes beyond any particular model but inquires concepts and ideas of models and prototypes employed in creative practices. The critical discourse around the model object, or scaled object, invites different perspectives that address scaling, unscaling, a disruption of grand vision, the importance of the ‘locale’, and presents both specific and metaphorical space to test new and challenge existing paradigms. The ‘model’ discussion then enters current dialogues about the virtual, the digital as material and as spatial. We see the model (as simultaneously object and action) as a framework for both making theory and practicing theory. Playing on the cross-disciplinary language of the ‘model’ in academia, “modelling” is the working method to surface questions and situate creative inquiry. New Materialism offers a conceptual framework where humans, non-humans, machines and discourses challenge the boundaries of past disciplinary edges. Interested in this porosity we investigate new approaches to research through making through the use of the ‘model’ - as site for critical and creative thinking-through-making, to unpack what reductiveness might mean and to present a ‘new model’ allowing for intersections and generative potential. This project crosses disciplinary boundaries in re-evaluation of model spaces, including, Design, Art, Digital Humanities and New Materialism discussions to position Research-Creation as a “Thinking-through-Making” approach.