events
on this page:
On this page there is information about forthcoming events and previous events organised and/or co-organised by the Graduate School. If you would like to collaborate with the School in realising a research event or project, please contact us at aidan.mcelwaine(at)gradcam.ie
The school works to generate many public events ranging from small-scale and intimate roundtable events with audiences of 10 to 20 people; workshops with audiences of 10-40 people; public seminars and symposia with audieneces of 40 to 100 people; international conferences with audiences between 100 and 200 people. The school also produces exhibitions and other poublc art events. The basic purpose of the school in generating this broad range of activity is to create contexts within which peer networks of researchers can form and forge new dialogues, networks and collaborations. Many events are generated by seminar groups building upon the exchange of perspectives developed through the fortnightly meetings of the ten or more seminar groups now meeting regularly in the school.
forthcoming
- 'speaking matters'
[autumn/spring 2009-2010]
This is an ongoing series of talks, symposia, seminars and conferences across the GradCAM network.
- 'after the economy'
[autumn/spring 2009-2010]
This is an ongoing series of seminars exploring key concepts in the contemporary political economy of culture.
- 'art research: purposes and publics'
[15-19 February 2010]
This major international conference, with its accompanying exhibitions, marks the second birthday of the Graduate School and provides an opportunity for international exchange among creative arts and media researchers from a wide spectrum of disciplines and backgrounds, including Ireland, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Italy, Portugal, and from further afield beyond the EU 27. This event follows upon the inaugural GradCAM conference The State of Play in May 2008.
previous events
The School commenced the delivery of its programme from February 1st 2008.
- roundtable
event: culture and conflict 2.10.09
- roundtable
event: the university and the crisis 1.10.09
- one week summer school 21-25.9.09.
- public seminar: sound - space - network 28-31.8.09.
- exhibition: space is the place.
- public art event: mystical anarchism2.8.09.
- book launch venice 6.6.09.
- international conference: becoming bologna 6 & 7.6.09.
- public seminar: of pedagogies, publics and academies 5.6.09.
- public seminar & professional workshop: art, the public + its problems 28-29.5.09.
- workshop: career pathways for researchers 7.5.09.
- public event: earful @ project 1.5.09.
- international conference: filmsense 24.4.09.
- special guest lecture: military aesthetics and khaki contracts 17.4.09.
- public seminar: simon sheikh on the public 19.3.09.
- workshop: on peer review 12.3.09.
- special guest lecture: the architecture of aftermath.
- public seminar: critchley on ethics 26.2.09.
- special guest lecture:antiquarian to academic 18.2.09.
- performance event: first birthday 6.2.09.
- roundtable event: what is different now? 30.1.09.
- public screening: democracy + disappontment 19.1.09.
- international conference and exhibition: nameless science 12.12.08.
- public symposium: noise / silence 5.12.08.
- panel discussion: alas, are we still bad players? 3.12.08.
- public seminar: a new design 28.11.08.
- sympsoium: pre-ISEA 2009 12.11.08.
- public seminar: now as the divine hour 24.10.08.
- roundtable: ambivalent ruins 26.9.08.
- international conference: state of play 8 & 9.5.08.
- public exhibition and seminars series: curating degree zero archive.
- Welcome event. 8/2/08 Johns St.
Dublin.
some activities in the first 12 weeks of operation
may 8th + 9th 2008
arts research: the state of play 2008
Thursday 8th and Friday 9th May 2008
Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
Much of the discussion of research and arts practices has tended toward a debate about essence and epistemology. But what are people actually doing? Where are the excitement and engagement of artists, musicians, designers, architects, performers, curators being actualized and demonstrated? What is the state of play among arts researchers? More conference information here...
april 4th 2008
talking curators:
reviewing 10 years of curatorial discourse.

This seminar will take place in the context of the presentation of the Curating Degree Zero Archive at the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, on Friday 4 April from 2.00 – 5.00pm. The specific focus of the seminar will be the question of the future possibilities of curatorial discourses after the explosion of curatorial debates in the 1990s and 2000s. The seminar will use the opportunity provided by the presentation of the curating degree zero archive in Ireland to explore the current state of curatorial practice and the progress of the debate on curating over the last decade.
march 31st 2008
contemporary art and philosophy seminar
Dr. Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield led a seminar examining the intersection of contemporary art and contemporary philosophy with particular attention to the construction of question of the 'political' and of the 'aesthetic'. The work of Ranciere and Lyotard provided a point of departure for the discussion which examined the contested construction of the 'political' in the theorising of art.

Dr. Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield in discussion with Dr. Paul O'Brien (GradCAM Fellow at NCAD spring semester 2008).
(Short extract from the informal seminar discussion that followed on from the formal presentation.)
Dr. Dronsfield is Reader in Theory & Philosophy of Art at the University of Reading and sits on the executive of the Forum for European Philosophy at the London School of Economics, and on the board of AICA (Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art). He has published various papers in the area of continental philosophy, on art and on ethics especially. Currently he is writing two books: one on Derrida and the visual and another on Heidegger's Philosophy of Art. He was a researcher at the theory department of Jan van Eyck Academie from 2004 until 2006.
march 10th 2008
formal launch of the graduate school:
project arts centre.

Michael Kelly, Chairmain of the HEA, and Prof. Colm O Briain, Management Board Chair at the launch of the Gradaute School in Project Arts Centre, March 10th 2008.
Prof. Colm O Briain, Chair of the Board of Management of the Graduate School introduced Michael Kelly, Chairman of the Higher Education Authority, to speak on the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions as part of the official launch of the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media on March 10th at the Project Arts Centre.

Dr. Kerstin Mey, University of Ulster and Nollaig O Fionghaile, Development Manager, Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, at the launch event, Project Arts Centre, 10th March 2008.
feb 28th + 29th 2008
art in the life world

Tone Olaf Nielsen delivered a fascinating critical overview paper on Danish cultural policy and cultural politics: "The Culture War that Broke the Arm's Length Principle: The Transition from Social Democratic to Neoliberal Cultural Policy in Contemporary Denmark"
This conference - Art
In The Life World - has been curated by Aisling Prior of Breaking
Ground and was Chaired by the Dean of the Graduate School at her invitation.
The Graduate School researchers participated in the full programme. Tim
Stott, research scholar at the School, gave a paper entitled "Just
Playing: Unbinding and Belonging" starting from the premise
that the State is intolerant of forms of unbinding or belonging that cannot
be identified or accounted for in some way. Examining questions which
are crucial to thinking through the experience of the lifeworld in its
relation with systems of either bureaucratic-administrative or economic
control and to the tactical potential of artistic practice in its negotiations
with the same, Tim's paper asked: "What, then, is a form a co-belonging
without representation? In what way can we belong and unbind at the same
time, operations which, after all, seem to be exclude each other? Can
we understand belonging as an expression of our unity only insofar as
that unity is undone?" In his paper Tim used examples of animal-human
play, child’s play, rule-making and negotiation on the field of
play, and argued that "we can understand play or playfulness as a
peculiar mixture of both unbinding and belonging, and that if we are to
answer the questions above, our thinking must begin with play and the
radical equality of its initial address to the world."
Presenters and respondents at the Conference included: Aisling Prior,
Amanda McDonald Crowley (EYEBEAM New York), Prof. Tony Bennett, Maeve
Connolly (MAVIS Dublin), JJ Charlesworth (Art Review, London), David Tung
(Long March, Beijing), Tone Olaf Nielsen (Copenhagen), Declan Long (NCAD,
Art in the Contemporary World, Dublin), Dr. Paul O'Neill (Situations,
Bristol), Sarah Tuck (CREATE), Dr. Aislinn O’Donnell, Mitsuhiro
(Mitch) Yoshimoto (Tokyo Arts Consultant), Dr. Daniel Jewesbury (UU),
Maria Lind (Bard, New York) and Sarah Pierce (Metropolitan Complex and
MAVIS Dublin).
Part of the School's participation will entail the production of a critical evaluation of the conference-form as an instrument of practice and research communications across a numbe rof different professions and discioplines.

David Tung described The Long March project in his presentation.

JJ Charlesworth preparing to deliver his paper on the question of autonomy.
feb 8th 2008
welcome event: first funded phd scholars
The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media will be formally commencing
the delivery of its first PhD studies programme in February 2008. The
first cohort of full time funded PhD students will commence their studies
at the School from Feb 1st 2008. A small informal reception took place
in the Graduate School at Johns Street West, just off Thomas Street, at
1:00 pm on Friday, February 8th, to welcome the new research students
and mark the first week of their studies. This also provided an opportunity
to meet the GradCAM team including the academic development and services
staff, the fellows, as well as colleagues from the collaborating institutions.