- Stellenbosch University
Visual Arts Building (room 1002)
Victoria Street
Stellenbosch 7600
Kathryn Smith
Stellenbosch University, Visual Arts, Faculty Member
- Forensic Arts, Forensic Science, Forensic Psychology, Craniofacial Morphology, Craniofacial Identification, 20th century Avant-Garde, and 20 moreDada, The Abject Body, Photography Theory, Psychogeography, Psychoanalytic Theory, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Psychology, Creative Nonfiction, Socially Engaged Arts, Multimedia Artists, Creative Documentary Photography, Forensic Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology, Disaster Management, Psychology of Clandestine Burials, Mass Graves, Crimes Against Humanity, Death Studies, Death & Dying (Thanatology), and Subversive Artedit
- Kathryn Smith is an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator with an extensive exhibitions and publications histor... moreKathryn Smith is an interdisciplinary visual artist and curator with an extensive exhibitions and publications history. A graduate of art and science programmes at Wits University, the University of Dundee and Liverpool John Moores University, she is also trained in forensic facial imaging and advocates for vital pracademic exchange between operational, institutional and research environments. She prefers to work dialogically, thinking through orientations and site, with a special interest in re-mediation. Her forensic and curatorial work come together as dual expressions of critical care for bodies, infrastructures and non-human things, directed at mutual visibility and legibility. She is senior lecturer in Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University and senior curator at A4 Arts Foundation, District Six, Cape Town. She contributed to the development of the MA Art in Science programme at LJMU and has ongoing research collaborations with Face Lab.edit
This study attempted to assess the reproducibility of 2D and 3D forensic methods for facial depiction from skeletal remains (2D sketch, 3D manual, 3D automated, 3D computer-assisted). In a blind study, thirteen practitioners produced... more
This study attempted to assess the reproducibility of 2D and 3D forensic methods for facial depiction from skeletal remains (2D sketch, 3D manual, 3D automated, 3D computer-assisted). In a blind study, thirteen practitioners produced fourteen facial depictions, using the same skull model derived from CT data of a living donor, a biological profile and relevant soft tissue data. The facial depictions were compared to the donor subject using three different evaluation methods: 3D geometric, 2D face recognition ranking and familiar resemblance ratings. Five of the 3D facial depictions (all 3D methods) demonstrated a deviation error within ± 2 mm for ≥ 50% of the total face surface. Overall, no single 3D method (manual, computer assisted, automated) produced consistently high results across all three evaluations. 2D comparisons with a facial photograph of the donor were carried out for all the 2D and 3D facial depictions using four freely available face recognition algorithms (Toolpie; Photomyne; Face ++; Amazon). The 2D sketch method produced the highest ranked matches to the donor photograph, with overall ranking in the top six. Only one 3D facial depiction was ranked highly in both the 3D geometric and 2D face recognition comparisons. The majority (67%) of the facial depictions were rated as limited or moderate resemblance by the familiar examiner. Only one 2D facial depiction was rated as strong resemblance, whilst two 2D sketches and two 3D facial depictions were rated as good resemblances by the familiar examiner. The four most geometrically accurate 3D facial depictions were only rated as limited or moderate resemblance to the donor by the familiar examiner. The results suggest that where a consistent facial depiction method is utilised, we can expect relatively consistent metric reliability between practitioners. However, presentation standards for practitioners would greatly enhance the possibility of recognition in forensic scenarios.
Research Interests:
We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them... more
We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers’ cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area with the same surnames as the deceased. The restitution and redress process prioritises the descendant families’ memories, wishes and desire to understand the situation, and learn more about their ancestors. The descendant families have described the process as helping them to reconnect with their ancestors. A richer appreciation of their ancestors’ lives, gained in part from scientific analyses, culminating with reburial, is hoped to aid the descendant families and wider community in [re-]connecting with their heritage and culture, and contribute to restorative justice, reconciliation and healing while confronting a traumatic historical moment. While these nine individuals were exhumed as specimens, they will be reburied as people.
Research Interests:
Laws of the Face is a multi-modal, participant-observer study of forensic cultures of human identification which pursues practical and theoretical objectives as complementary, focusing on methods of post-mortem facial depiction as... more
Laws of the Face is a multi-modal, participant-observer study of forensic
cultures of human identification which pursues practical and theoretical
objectives as complementary, focusing on methods of post-mortem facial
depiction as forensic objects whose socio-cultural affordances have been
overlooked. Recognising Forensic Art’s epistemological precarity within
forensic science and ontological ambiguity as art, the cultural in/visibilities of the dead are considered through theories of faciality, photography and necropolitics, and the operational work of post-mortem forensic depictions is resituated with reference to the counter-forensic (Keenan, 2014a; Sekula, 2014), forensis (Weizman, 2014) and Humanitarian Forensic Action (Cordner and Tidball-Binz, 2017), with the work of citizen/netizen allies suggesting new ways to extend the forum of relational citizenship and forensic care (M’Charek and Casartelli, 2019).
An operational study undertaken in a medico-legal facility in Cape Town (South Africa) results in an evidence-based framework which supports the routine uptake of standardised post-mortem facial imaging/depiction in complex operational contexts, informed by ways in
which the so-called ‘migrant body’ is forcing change and innovation in forensic methods internationally. Fieldwork and semi-structured interviews (n=70) with forensic deathwork practitioners internationally provide a grounded analysis of the state of the field, culminating in a new critical framework for post-mortem Forensic Art as a form of ‘extra-ordinary deathwork’ (Moon, 2020), characterised by its re-mediating actions located both in the process of the work itself, and in the work these images are expected to perform, forensically and well as socially. Conventional frameworks of expert/amateur knowledge are challenged, and pracademic exchange promoted. The main tenets of the thesis are performed by an online artwork called Speaking Likeness, comprising eighteen audio-visual
portraits of forensic artists in which aspects of the hidden curriculum of this work is revealed through embodied knowledge and arts-based research.
cultures of human identification which pursues practical and theoretical
objectives as complementary, focusing on methods of post-mortem facial
depiction as forensic objects whose socio-cultural affordances have been
overlooked. Recognising Forensic Art’s epistemological precarity within
forensic science and ontological ambiguity as art, the cultural in/visibilities of the dead are considered through theories of faciality, photography and necropolitics, and the operational work of post-mortem forensic depictions is resituated with reference to the counter-forensic (Keenan, 2014a; Sekula, 2014), forensis (Weizman, 2014) and Humanitarian Forensic Action (Cordner and Tidball-Binz, 2017), with the work of citizen/netizen allies suggesting new ways to extend the forum of relational citizenship and forensic care (M’Charek and Casartelli, 2019).
An operational study undertaken in a medico-legal facility in Cape Town (South Africa) results in an evidence-based framework which supports the routine uptake of standardised post-mortem facial imaging/depiction in complex operational contexts, informed by ways in
which the so-called ‘migrant body’ is forcing change and innovation in forensic methods internationally. Fieldwork and semi-structured interviews (n=70) with forensic deathwork practitioners internationally provide a grounded analysis of the state of the field, culminating in a new critical framework for post-mortem Forensic Art as a form of ‘extra-ordinary deathwork’ (Moon, 2020), characterised by its re-mediating actions located both in the process of the work itself, and in the work these images are expected to perform, forensically and well as socially. Conventional frameworks of expert/amateur knowledge are challenged, and pracademic exchange promoted. The main tenets of the thesis are performed by an online artwork called Speaking Likeness, comprising eighteen audio-visual
portraits of forensic artists in which aspects of the hidden curriculum of this work is revealed through embodied knowledge and arts-based research.
Research Interests: Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, Necropolitics, STS (Anthropology), Visual Arts, and 7 moreArt and Design, Pracademics, Forensic Illustration and Medical Art, Human Identification (Forensic Anthropology), Forensic Science, Culture, Criminal Justice System, Forensic Art, and Forensic Humanitarian Action
Many chapters of Chemical Bodies illustrate how the history of the use of chemical agents as methods of control and coercion has been intimately tied to the rendering of harm as (in)visible. While suffering has been foregrounded to make... more
Many chapters of Chemical Bodies illustrate how the history of the use of chemical agents as methods of control and coercion has been intimately tied to the rendering of harm as (in)visible. While suffering has been foregrounded to make the case for brutality and exceptionality on some occasions, on other occasions, suffering has been downplayed, denied or backgrounded to make the case for benevolence and normality. This suggests the need for caution about what is and is not included in any accounts of chemical agents. Another source for caution is the way the development and use of chemical agents is often undertaken in conditions of secrecy. As a result, scholars, journalists, activists and others investigating such capabilities often take their task as one of exposing hidden truths or unappreciated events. The promise of revealing or unmasking offers a fetching allure for investigators and audiences alike: an invitation to become complicit in a shared but still exclusive understanding. Against the aforementioned points, this chapter takes the chemical and biological warfare (CBW) programme established under Apartheid South Africa (code named 'Project Coast') as a topic for attending to our commitments in representing the past. This secret military programme used an elaborate array of front companies to camouflage its activities to those both outside and inside of it. Through the endeavours of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and other investigations, Project Coast has come to symbolize the perversities of Apartheid. And yet, each attempt to determine what took place has been delimited by the very terms of the investigations setup to establish the truth. Thus, any attempt to present this programme needs to find ways of acknowledging the partiality of what accounts can be fashioned.
Research Interests:
The police composite sketch is arguably the most fundamental example of forensic art, and one which enjoys considerable cultural prominence. Intended to produce a positive identification of a specific individual, composites are a form of... more
The police composite sketch is arguably the most fundamental example of forensic art, and one which enjoys considerable cultural prominence. Intended to produce a positive identification of a specific individual, composites are a form of visual intelligence rather than hard evidence. Based on verbal descriptions drawn from memory deriving from highly contingent and possibly traumatic events, composites are by definition unique and precarious forensic objects, representing an epistemological paradox in their definition as simultaneous ‘artistic impression’ and ‘pictorial statement’. And despite decades of operational use, only in recent years has the field of cognitive psychology begun to fully understand and address the conditions that affect recognition rates both positively and negatively. How might composites contribute to our understanding of representational concepts such as ‘likeness’ and ‘accuracy’? And what role does visual medium – drawn, photographic or computerized depiction – play in the legibility of these images? Situated within the broader context of forensic art practices, this paper proceeds from an understanding that the face is simultaneously crafted as an analogy of the self and a forensic technology. In other words, the face is a space where concepts of identification and identity, sameness and difference (often uncomfortably) converge. With reference to selected examples from laboratory research, field application and artistic practice, I consider how composites, through their particular techniques and form, contribute to subject-making, and how they embody the fugitive, in literal and figurative terms.
Keywords: forensic art; memory; composites; facial features; justice; proof
Images:
https://effacedblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/portraits-likenesses-composites-facial-difference-in-forensic-art/
Keywords: forensic art; memory; composites; facial features; justice; proof
Images:
https://effacedblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/portraits-likenesses-composites-facial-difference-in-forensic-art/
Research Interests:
Faces of Merseyside is a gallery/online exhibition of digitally processed facial averages produced from Merseyside image collections by Face Lab, a research group in Liverpool School of Art & Design. The project sought to foreground the... more
Faces of Merseyside is a gallery/online exhibition of digitally processed facial averages produced from Merseyside image collections by Face Lab, a research group in Liverpool School of Art & Design. The project sought to foreground the question of cognitive bias in relation to facial images that claim to represent particular communities, in the context of a resurgence of interest in physiognomic judgements and discrimination. By revisiting Galton’s 19th century ‘composite portraiture’, as informed by current craniofacial research, Faces of Merseyside explores the claims advanced in relation to the representation of human diversity, and how they both inform and challenge social stereotyping.
A draft version of the manuscript accepted for publication is available at https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01747
Due for publication in October 2020 issue.
A draft version of the manuscript accepted for publication is available at https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01747
Due for publication in October 2020 issue.
Research Interests:
This paper describes the 3D facial depiction of a 2700-year-old mummy, Ta-Kush, stewarded by Maidstone Museum, UK, informed by new scientific and visual analysis which demanded a complete re-evaluation of her biography and presentation.... more
This paper describes the 3D facial depiction of a 2700-year-old mummy, Ta-Kush, stewarded by Maidstone Museum, UK, informed by new scientific and visual analysis which demanded a complete re-evaluation of her biography and presentation. This paper describes the digital haptic reconstruction and visualisation workflow used to reconstruct her facial morphology, in the context of the multimodal and participatory approach taken by the museum in the complete redesign of the galleries in which the mummy is displayed. Informed by contemporary approaches to working with human remains in heritage spaces, we suggest that our virtual modelling methodology finds a logical conclusion in the presentation of the depiction both as a touch-object as well as a digital animation, and that this ‘digital unshelving’ enables the further rehumanization of Ta-Kush. Finally, we present and reflect upon visitor feedback, which suggests that audiences respond well to interpretive material in museums that utilizes cutting-edge, multimedia technologies.
Highlights
•Biomedical imaging and scientific analysis of mummified remains produces new knowledge.
•Haptically-enabled digital 3D workflow for facial depiction embodied in museum ‘touch-object’.
•Non-destructive imaging does not equal claims to ‘non-invasiveness’ in relation to human remains.
•Creative collaboration results in innovation and positive visitor feedback despite small budget.
Highlights
•Biomedical imaging and scientific analysis of mummified remains produces new knowledge.
•Haptically-enabled digital 3D workflow for facial depiction embodied in museum ‘touch-object’.
•Non-destructive imaging does not equal claims to ‘non-invasiveness’ in relation to human remains.
•Creative collaboration results in innovation and positive visitor feedback despite small budget.
Research Interests:
Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed to raise... more
Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed to raise awareness and challenge common misconceptions about donation by encouraging the publics to engage in informed discussions about the different options available. This case study proposes graphic medicine as an alternative method of presenting donation information to a public audience, and illustrates how the comic medium can communicate body donation information in an accessible and engaging way.
Research Interests:
This poster presents how innovative scientific and curatorial approaches have figured in attempts to 'rehumanise' two ancient Egyptian individuals for display at Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, whilst encouraging critical... more
This poster presents how innovative scientific and curatorial approaches have figured in attempts to 'rehumanise' two ancient Egyptian individuals for display at Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, whilst encouraging critical interrogation of how knowledge is constructed and disseminated at the interface of art and science.
Responsible and respectful stewardship of human remains held in museum collections (particularly archaeological and ‘natural history’ institutions) has demanded close attention in recent years, particularly in the context of repatriation claims. But what of human remains for which there is little or no demand for repatriation, and which lend themselves to highly aesthetic treatment, as in the case with Ancient Egyptian material culture, including mummies? Conventions of trading, collecting and displaying such material undoubtedly contributes to their conceptual transformation from ‘human subject’ to ‘museum object’, crafting a critical distance between the body as individual, and cultural commodity.
Seeking to reverse this distinction, we focus on the process of producing facial depictions of two ancient Egyptian individuals who have been closely associated with the history of Johns Hopkins University since the early twentieth century. Carried out by LJMU’s Face Lab in close consultation with an interdisciplinary team at Johns Hopkins, the depictions were based on CT scan data, with 3D craniofacial reconstructions produced in Geomagic Freeform, and finally presented as 2D images textured in Adobe Photoshop. The depictions contributed to an extensive multimodal and conservation-driven study of these two individuals and their associated objects, the results of which include a reassessment of biological sex for one individual as well as a probable name, which now replaces the previous catalogue reference to the collector-patron who gifted her remains to the museum.
Reflecting on how curatorial decisions shape the visitor experience present an opportunity to critically assess the presentation of craniofacial reconstructions in museums. Specifically, we consider the presumptions of ‘non-invasive’ scientific technology and digital imaging, asking what might be at stake, for exhibition makers and visitors alike, in projecting contemporary ideas, including cognitive biases, onto past people?
Responsible and respectful stewardship of human remains held in museum collections (particularly archaeological and ‘natural history’ institutions) has demanded close attention in recent years, particularly in the context of repatriation claims. But what of human remains for which there is little or no demand for repatriation, and which lend themselves to highly aesthetic treatment, as in the case with Ancient Egyptian material culture, including mummies? Conventions of trading, collecting and displaying such material undoubtedly contributes to their conceptual transformation from ‘human subject’ to ‘museum object’, crafting a critical distance between the body as individual, and cultural commodity.
Seeking to reverse this distinction, we focus on the process of producing facial depictions of two ancient Egyptian individuals who have been closely associated with the history of Johns Hopkins University since the early twentieth century. Carried out by LJMU’s Face Lab in close consultation with an interdisciplinary team at Johns Hopkins, the depictions were based on CT scan data, with 3D craniofacial reconstructions produced in Geomagic Freeform, and finally presented as 2D images textured in Adobe Photoshop. The depictions contributed to an extensive multimodal and conservation-driven study of these two individuals and their associated objects, the results of which include a reassessment of biological sex for one individual as well as a probable name, which now replaces the previous catalogue reference to the collector-patron who gifted her remains to the museum.
Reflecting on how curatorial decisions shape the visitor experience present an opportunity to critically assess the presentation of craniofacial reconstructions in museums. Specifically, we consider the presumptions of ‘non-invasive’ scientific technology and digital imaging, asking what might be at stake, for exhibition makers and visitors alike, in projecting contemporary ideas, including cognitive biases, onto past people?
Research Interests:
Collaborations between artists and scientists are increasingly a feature of the cultural landscape. Traditionally this relationship is seen as art in the service of science whereby artists use their skills to visually communicate complex... more
Collaborations between artists and scientists are increasingly a feature of the cultural landscape. Traditionally this relationship is seen as art in the service of science whereby artists use their skills to visually communicate complex scientific ideas. However, a hybrid form of collaborative, experimentally-driven practice has emerged over the last 30 years where artists and scientists work together to explore the creative possibilities and speculative futures represented by the intersection of these two ‘cultures.’ The MA Art in Science programme at Liverpool School of Art and Design facilitates discussions and interactions between subjects that have traditionally been studied in isolation within Higher Education. This paper details and discusses the theoretical foundations that have informed the curriculum design and its pedagogical ethos, describes the collaborative learning experiences at the heart of the programme, and offers an insight on how the programme’s approach to transdisciplinary art-science collaborative practice could be utilised across disciplines.
Research Interests:
This paper focuses on the problem of transgression from the twin perspective of psychoanalysis and the history of science, using as evidence for its arguments various examples from the plastic arts and film. I will argue that... more
This paper focuses on the problem of transgression from the twin perspective of psychoanalysis and the history of science, using as evidence for its arguments various examples from the plastic arts and film. I will argue that transgression - defined as the deliberate flouting of a socially normative distinction between normality, abnormality and pathology - has become a central preoccupation of aesthetic representation, particularly since the early part of the twentieth century. We argue that this has to do partly with a wish to maintain aesthetic representation as a special category of human activity outside of the subjection of such activity to t a post-industrial technological order which encourages a view of humanity as thoroughly imbricated - even at the psychological level - with its technology. As a counter to this contemporary version of the identification of the human and the machine - the age of the cyborg, we might say - art (and indeed popular culture in some instances) has produced counter-discourses and images, such as those of Cindy Sherman, Joel-Peter Witkin, Damien Hirst, Kathryn Smith and popular science fiction, which raise the possibility of extreme representations of the body as a 'pathological' or transgressive form of the reaffirmation of human agency. We conclude with a closer look at the undermining of the very category of transgression, and this it's 'avant-garde' appeal for representation, by globalised and mass media versions of transgressive practices, a strategy predicted by postmodernist thought thirty years ago.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a small aspect of my ongoing doctoral research into current forensic investigative protocols for the unidentified dead considered from a cross-cultural perspective, with specific reference to forensic art. Forensic... more
This paper presents a small aspect of my ongoing doctoral research into current forensic investigative protocols for the unidentified dead considered from a cross-cultural perspective, with specific reference to forensic art.
Forensic art describes a range of facial depiction techniques applied within legal investigations to promote leads towards identifying unknown persons. It is a highly specialized yet unregulated field that demands interdisciplinary agility; its products are cognitively provocative and media-friendly yet poorly understood, and often misconstrued.
The online environment provides any number of opportunities to encounter representations of the dead, but I am particularly interested in websites and social media pages that publish unsolved case information about unidentified/unclaimed deceased or missing persons. Informed by Gillian Rose’s 4 ‘sites’ of a critical visual methodology – production, image, circulation, audience – and STS literatures that attend to ‘boundary work’, ‘absence’ and ‘matters of concern/care’, I analyse selected examples across a range of UK and US-related internet sites, from state-run or state-supported databases with varying degrees of public access, to individually-run social media accounts that harvest and republish material found online in a largely unregulated manner.
Guided by the question, ‘Do such sites complement or frustrate – or even jeopardise – official investigations?’ I consider the ‘spectrum of authority’ they represent in relation to current policy and practice informing forensic facial identification, the politics of in-group and out-group participation, and how notional desires for ‘justice’ become difficult to square with the way in which content is presented and, where relevant, discussed, and by whom. I further consider how these online sites contribute to the growing terrain of interest in ‘counter-‘ or ‘citizen-led’ forensics, particularly the ‘extreme’ forensic methods that the current crises of mass unidentified deaths are producing, in the face of political apathy, pushing disciplinary boundaries.
Forensic art describes a range of facial depiction techniques applied within legal investigations to promote leads towards identifying unknown persons. It is a highly specialized yet unregulated field that demands interdisciplinary agility; its products are cognitively provocative and media-friendly yet poorly understood, and often misconstrued.
The online environment provides any number of opportunities to encounter representations of the dead, but I am particularly interested in websites and social media pages that publish unsolved case information about unidentified/unclaimed deceased or missing persons. Informed by Gillian Rose’s 4 ‘sites’ of a critical visual methodology – production, image, circulation, audience – and STS literatures that attend to ‘boundary work’, ‘absence’ and ‘matters of concern/care’, I analyse selected examples across a range of UK and US-related internet sites, from state-run or state-supported databases with varying degrees of public access, to individually-run social media accounts that harvest and republish material found online in a largely unregulated manner.
Guided by the question, ‘Do such sites complement or frustrate – or even jeopardise – official investigations?’ I consider the ‘spectrum of authority’ they represent in relation to current policy and practice informing forensic facial identification, the politics of in-group and out-group participation, and how notional desires for ‘justice’ become difficult to square with the way in which content is presented and, where relevant, discussed, and by whom. I further consider how these online sites contribute to the growing terrain of interest in ‘counter-‘ or ‘citizen-led’ forensics, particularly the ‘extreme’ forensic methods that the current crises of mass unidentified deaths are producing, in the face of political apathy, pushing disciplinary boundaries.
Research Interests:
Being identified in death is recognized as a basic human right, and has significant legal, social and cultural implications. Yet increasingly, narratives about unidentified deaths are reaching us via the media, usually a result of a... more
Being identified in death is recognized as a basic human right, and has significant legal, social and cultural implications. Yet increasingly, narratives about unidentified deaths are reaching us via the media, usually a result of a single-event mass fatality, and less frequently as a result of concentrated, clandestine attempts to cross national borders.
Adopting a participant-observer perspective, this paper examines the politics of what it means to enter the medico-legal system in South Africa as an unidentified individual, and how the system – and those tasked with carrying out its policies and practices – copes with its enormous case load.
Ultimately this raises two questions: ‘Who forms part of the large post-mortem population residing in the country’s mortuaries?’ and ‘What practices might be introduced to address the crisis?’
This paper takes the view that the numbers of unidentified dead in South Africa are akin to a mass fatality event (and should therefore be addressed according to Disaster Victim Identification protocol) yet the situation does not attract the same attention, despite the fact that many of the country’s forensically-trained specialists are on the national response team register. I consider two contexts that offer useful parallels (and possibly lessons) for the South African context: the campaign to identify those who perish attempting to cross the Mediterranean led by Dr Cristina Cattaneo (LABANOF, Milan) and Operation ID at Texas State University, supporting the investigation of unidentified deaths in the US/Mexican border zone, led by Dr Kate Spradley. Both represent initiatives set up in the face of political apathy, with barely minimal resources, but which may end up innovating practices of forensic human identification more broadly.
Adopting a participant-observer perspective, this paper examines the politics of what it means to enter the medico-legal system in South Africa as an unidentified individual, and how the system – and those tasked with carrying out its policies and practices – copes with its enormous case load.
Ultimately this raises two questions: ‘Who forms part of the large post-mortem population residing in the country’s mortuaries?’ and ‘What practices might be introduced to address the crisis?’
This paper takes the view that the numbers of unidentified dead in South Africa are akin to a mass fatality event (and should therefore be addressed according to Disaster Victim Identification protocol) yet the situation does not attract the same attention, despite the fact that many of the country’s forensically-trained specialists are on the national response team register. I consider two contexts that offer useful parallels (and possibly lessons) for the South African context: the campaign to identify those who perish attempting to cross the Mediterranean led by Dr Cristina Cattaneo (LABANOF, Milan) and Operation ID at Texas State University, supporting the investigation of unidentified deaths in the US/Mexican border zone, led by Dr Kate Spradley. Both represent initiatives set up in the face of political apathy, with barely minimal resources, but which may end up innovating practices of forensic human identification more broadly.
Research Interests:
Kathryn Smith*, Mark Roughley*, Samantha Harris**, Evelyn Palmer** and Caroline Wilkinson* *Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University **Maidstone Museum, Kent This paper describes the facial depiction of a 2,500-year-old mummy in... more
Kathryn Smith*, Mark Roughley*, Samantha Harris**, Evelyn Palmer** and Caroline Wilkinson*
*Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University
**Maidstone Museum, Kent
This paper describes the facial depiction of a 2,500-year-old mummy in the collection of the Maidstone Museum (Kent, United Kingdom) that formed part of a multimodal reconsideration of the museum’s Ancient Lives displays, launched in September 2017. Scientific and visual analysis of the remains required a complete re-evaluation of the received history and identity of the mummy: the purportedly adolescent Ta-Kesh had to be reimagined as a post-menopausal Ta-Kush, which presented both challenges and opportunities for the various collaborative partners.
Considering this context, we focus on the facial depiction of Ta-Kush, based on a skull model derived from computed tomography. Seeking a solution beyond a 2D image, traditional sculptural depiction or ‘realistically’ textured mannequin, the haptically-enabled 3D virtual modelling software used to reconstruct her facial morphology finds a logical conclusion in the curatorial choice to present the depiction as a translucent, clinical-grade 3D print aimed at optimising the museum experience for visually-impaired visitors.
The museum display also includes full-colour digital animation. We reflect on the affordances and potential challenges of these haptic and digital solutions in heritage practices, through a description of the methods and techniques of the facial depiction process, and how these influenced presentation considerations in conversation with the museum staff, with particular reference to the ethical display of human remains, museum accessibility (including digital ‘unshelving’) and the engagement of younger audiences. The combination of limited budget and high level of inter-institutional collaboration is noteworthy in this project, but more so the willingness to consider creative and innovative responses to displaying human remains in a public museum context, including involving a museum youth group in the research for the new gallery design and artefact presentation.
*Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University
**Maidstone Museum, Kent
This paper describes the facial depiction of a 2,500-year-old mummy in the collection of the Maidstone Museum (Kent, United Kingdom) that formed part of a multimodal reconsideration of the museum’s Ancient Lives displays, launched in September 2017. Scientific and visual analysis of the remains required a complete re-evaluation of the received history and identity of the mummy: the purportedly adolescent Ta-Kesh had to be reimagined as a post-menopausal Ta-Kush, which presented both challenges and opportunities for the various collaborative partners.
Considering this context, we focus on the facial depiction of Ta-Kush, based on a skull model derived from computed tomography. Seeking a solution beyond a 2D image, traditional sculptural depiction or ‘realistically’ textured mannequin, the haptically-enabled 3D virtual modelling software used to reconstruct her facial morphology finds a logical conclusion in the curatorial choice to present the depiction as a translucent, clinical-grade 3D print aimed at optimising the museum experience for visually-impaired visitors.
The museum display also includes full-colour digital animation. We reflect on the affordances and potential challenges of these haptic and digital solutions in heritage practices, through a description of the methods and techniques of the facial depiction process, and how these influenced presentation considerations in conversation with the museum staff, with particular reference to the ethical display of human remains, museum accessibility (including digital ‘unshelving’) and the engagement of younger audiences. The combination of limited budget and high level of inter-institutional collaboration is noteworthy in this project, but more so the willingness to consider creative and innovative responses to displaying human remains in a public museum context, including involving a museum youth group in the research for the new gallery design and artefact presentation.
Research Interests:
The human face is a complex technology of expression, communication and interaction. Subject to the vicissitudes of aesthetic contemplation and scientific calculation, and by extension, of power and prejudice, the face is always ‘in... more
The human face is a complex technology of expression, communication and interaction. Subject to the vicissitudes of aesthetic contemplation and scientific calculation, and by extension, of power and prejudice, the face is always ‘in formation’. The face therefore can be understood as a space that is capable of acting and being acted upon. In other words, identity and identification are complementary but also divergent concepts.
Within forensic human identification, the face is recognised and mobilised as a biometric, and visualisations of these forensic methods have found a captive audience within popular culture, from CSI-procedural television shows to advertising to museum displays. But how might these ideas be shaping concepts of portraiture within contemporary visual art?
Taking an interdisciplinary practice-based approach, this presentation looks at the impact of quantitative approaches to human identification on recent contemporary art, with reference to recent projects by three visual artists (Adam Harvey, Zach Blas and Broomberg & Chanarin) who adopt different biometric strategies – algorithmic spoofing, graphic materialization and 3D mimicry – to reflect on the social and cultural impact of scientific methods of facial identification and the images such methods produce.
The presentation proposes that such critical methodological mimicry presents real challenges to empirical notions of objective truth from the realm of culture, and demonstrates the dual-use potential of biometric methods by highlighting their ethical, cultural, and ultimately political, effects on individual agency and contemporary society at large.
Within forensic human identification, the face is recognised and mobilised as a biometric, and visualisations of these forensic methods have found a captive audience within popular culture, from CSI-procedural television shows to advertising to museum displays. But how might these ideas be shaping concepts of portraiture within contemporary visual art?
Taking an interdisciplinary practice-based approach, this presentation looks at the impact of quantitative approaches to human identification on recent contemporary art, with reference to recent projects by three visual artists (Adam Harvey, Zach Blas and Broomberg & Chanarin) who adopt different biometric strategies – algorithmic spoofing, graphic materialization and 3D mimicry – to reflect on the social and cultural impact of scientific methods of facial identification and the images such methods produce.
The presentation proposes that such critical methodological mimicry presents real challenges to empirical notions of objective truth from the realm of culture, and demonstrates the dual-use potential of biometric methods by highlighting their ethical, cultural, and ultimately political, effects on individual agency and contemporary society at large.
Research Interests:
Between Subject and Object: human remains at the interface of art and science was an exhibition presented at Michaelis Galleries (University of Cape Town) in August 2014, curated by Kathryn Smith, Josephine Higgins and Penny Siopis. This... more
Between Subject and Object: human remains at the interface of art and science was an exhibition presented at Michaelis Galleries (University of Cape Town) in August 2014, curated by Kathryn Smith, Josephine Higgins and Penny Siopis. This was the first time a considered, curatorial effort was made to link anatomical specimens and creative visual practice in the same exhibition environment and as such, it signalled the nascent field of medical humanities as a focus of interdisciplinary research in that country.
This paper presents a critical reflection of the project towards a proposed publication. It focuses on the central pivot of the show, prompted by a consideration of contemporary post-mortem photography after two studies by Smith (1999) and Higgins (2013), that representations of the dead exist on a spectrum between an emphasis on the subject-ness of the deceased individual and the object-ness of the corpse. The collected works and artefacts (including performance and film) extended the conventional relationships that photography is understood to have with ‘the real’ – as index, representation or copy – towards a broader notion of ‘the photographic’, through ideas of trace and analogy (material, ontological, experiential, evidential, affective).
This analysis frames the project as an exploratory, self-reflexive, and dialogical attempt to challenge conventional post-mortem representations. The ethical imperatives of working with human remains (and representations thereof) are framed as primary considerations within a highly specific complex cultural context that lacks a robust scholarly focus on the visual and material cultures of death.
This paper presents a critical reflection of the project towards a proposed publication. It focuses on the central pivot of the show, prompted by a consideration of contemporary post-mortem photography after two studies by Smith (1999) and Higgins (2013), that representations of the dead exist on a spectrum between an emphasis on the subject-ness of the deceased individual and the object-ness of the corpse. The collected works and artefacts (including performance and film) extended the conventional relationships that photography is understood to have with ‘the real’ – as index, representation or copy – towards a broader notion of ‘the photographic’, through ideas of trace and analogy (material, ontological, experiential, evidential, affective).
This analysis frames the project as an exploratory, self-reflexive, and dialogical attempt to challenge conventional post-mortem representations. The ethical imperatives of working with human remains (and representations thereof) are framed as primary considerations within a highly specific complex cultural context that lacks a robust scholarly focus on the visual and material cultures of death.
Research Interests:
South Africa’s pre-democratic history is a story of racial segregation that found expression in all facets of human life. This segregation was most keenly experienced spatially, in spaces and structures of everyday life but also in death;... more
South Africa’s pre-democratic history is a story of racial segregation that found expression in all facets of human life. This segregation was most keenly experienced spatially, in spaces and structures of everyday life but also in death; racial segregration was applied in the planning of South African cemeteries before its application in other environments. In the post-democracy period, the traces of racial categorisation regarding the dead persist in explicit and implicit ways. This paper presents critical and creative reflections on the lives of the anonymous and unidentified dead in South African medico-legal archives and anatomical/anthropological collections via two artworks: ID/Inventory (1999) and The Studio Familiar: X0198/1669 (2014), and their installation in the context of the exhibition Between Subject and Object: Human Remains at the Interface of Art and Science (Cape Town, 2014). Produced more than 15 years apart, in direct response to working with/in forensic pathology and anthropology facilities in different cities in South Africa as a trained visual and forensic artist, these works echo issues raised in recent scholarship (Hook 2013, Sey 2015) that consider the effects (and affects) of visual representations of the dead in the context of South Africa’s history of violent political conflict. As such, this paper explores the role of the anonymous post-mortem body in processes of both physical identification and constructions of socio-cultural identity, in a highly complex and ideologically fraught contemporary context.
Research Interests:
This paper offers an alternative interpretation of ‘facial difference’, approaching it from the perspective of craniofacial identification and depiction, which is more commonly referred to as forensic art. Despite rigorous scientific... more
This paper offers an alternative interpretation of ‘facial difference’, approaching it from the perspective of craniofacial identification and depiction, which is more commonly referred to as forensic art. Despite rigorous scientific techniques for predicting and depicting faces from skulls, marked differences in results have been seen in attempted reconstructions of the same individual. Why does this happen? Is it an artefact of poorly applied scientific method or a result of inadequate artistic skills, or both? And how does this variation in quality of facial images impact on the science of facial identification and the practice of portraiture?
Using forensic facial depiction case studies (including depictions of historical individuals), this paper will consider and compare ideas about the face drawn from the literature of scientific standards, practitioner-derived data and critical visual studies to present some speculative ideas about the ‘laws of the face’. That is to say, the legal demands of evidence, and the socio-cultural enactments of the law (as lore) in the context of a conspicuous lack of theoretical consideration of the visual cultures of forensic work, and how aesthetic choices made by forensic artists may impact on the success or efficacy of facial depictions.
Using forensic facial depiction case studies (including depictions of historical individuals), this paper will consider and compare ideas about the face drawn from the literature of scientific standards, practitioner-derived data and critical visual studies to present some speculative ideas about the ‘laws of the face’. That is to say, the legal demands of evidence, and the socio-cultural enactments of the law (as lore) in the context of a conspicuous lack of theoretical consideration of the visual cultures of forensic work, and how aesthetic choices made by forensic artists may impact on the success or efficacy of facial depictions.
Research Interests:
This paper addresses an archive-based exhibition currently in development with the Nelson Mandela Foundation Centre of Memory in Johannesburg, South Africa, by a team of researchers affiliated to various academic, non-governmental and... more
This paper addresses an archive-based exhibition currently in development with the Nelson Mandela Foundation Centre of Memory in Johannesburg, South Africa, by a team of researchers affiliated to various academic, non-governmental and legacy institutions. The archive concerns a secret apartheid-era chemical and biological weapons programme code-named Project Coast, which came to light during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when several scientists associated with the programme sought amnesty. Despite numerous efforts to criminally prosecute (and then professionally sanction) Coast’s chief officer, Dr Wouter Basson, he remains in private practice as one of South Africa’s leading cardiologists. Tackling this archive as a subject for an exhibition presents a number of curatorial and ethical challenges. This paper reports on our research and consultation process over the past 18 months, including inputs from participants working in transitional justice, memory work and trauma studies, public health, bioethics, scientific research councils, heritage practices, and the visual arts, informed by the view that "In remembering Project Coast, and what motivated it, we hope to remind ourselves of how easy it can be to justify programmes like this when a government comes under pressure." (Gould et al, 2014)
Research Interests:
Medicine and the Arts is an interdisciplinary postgraduate module presented at UCT by Prof Susan Levine (Humanities) and Prof Steven Reid (Health Sciences). Selected sessions from the live seminars presented last year were recorded and... more
Medicine and the Arts is an interdisciplinary postgraduate module presented at UCT by Prof Susan Levine (Humanities) and Prof Steven Reid (Health Sciences). Selected sessions from the live seminars presented last year were recorded and made available as a free MOOC.
The course introduces the emerging field of medical humanities and the concept of whole person care, via six themes, namely The Heart of the Matter: A Matter of the Heart; Children’s Voices and Healing; Art and the Brain; Reproduction and Innovation; Tracing Origins; and Death and the Corpse.
The various presentations "question our propensity to separate the body from the mind in healthcare, consider what defines humanity, and share points of connection and difference between art and medicine."
My focus is on 'Forensic Aesthetics', how visual representation, specifically photography, shapes our experience of, and our ideas about, human remains. This contribution is included the final session, Death and the Corpse, co-presented with pathologist Prof Lorna Martin and sociologist Prof Deborah Posel.
I have had to upload the transcript of my video; no MP4s accepted on this platform yet. The material is licensed by the University of Stellenbosch under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC-BY-ND), which means it can be shared as long as there is attribution and it doesn’t get cut up/altered in anyway.
Registration for the MOOC is free at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/medicine-and-the-arts
The course introduces the emerging field of medical humanities and the concept of whole person care, via six themes, namely The Heart of the Matter: A Matter of the Heart; Children’s Voices and Healing; Art and the Brain; Reproduction and Innovation; Tracing Origins; and Death and the Corpse.
The various presentations "question our propensity to separate the body from the mind in healthcare, consider what defines humanity, and share points of connection and difference between art and medicine."
My focus is on 'Forensic Aesthetics', how visual representation, specifically photography, shapes our experience of, and our ideas about, human remains. This contribution is included the final session, Death and the Corpse, co-presented with pathologist Prof Lorna Martin and sociologist Prof Deborah Posel.
I have had to upload the transcript of my video; no MP4s accepted on this platform yet. The material is licensed by the University of Stellenbosch under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence (CC-BY-ND), which means it can be shared as long as there is attribution and it doesn’t get cut up/altered in anyway.
Registration for the MOOC is free at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/medicine-and-the-arts
Research Interests:
Over the last decade, the definition of ‘curator’ has expanded to cover such a broad range of activities that a job description traditionally associated with expert scholarship & conservation within a museological context, but which also... more
Over the last decade, the definition of ‘curator’ has expanded to cover such a broad range of activities that a job description traditionally associated with expert scholarship & conservation within a museological context, but which also embodies a form of authorship within the field of contemporary art, may now be applied to restaurant menus and playlists. What is common to all these applications are tasks of selection and care.
The conjoined demands of protective attention and potential violence, in the way it must excise, elide and exclude, makes curatorship a useful practice through which to focus a discussion on ethics, particularly as such work often demands – or is directed towards – public display.
This seminar offers a transdisciplinary perspective on working with objects, ideas and collections, using past projects as case studies that are offered up as propositions for critical discussion in the context of recent global events. The role of the curator prompts three questions: Should curators act responsively or responsibly? What is at stake is making objects ‘speak’? And what might a return to the material & affective afford us in a telematic, hyper-mediated ‘post-truth’ world?
The conjoined demands of protective attention and potential violence, in the way it must excise, elide and exclude, makes curatorship a useful practice through which to focus a discussion on ethics, particularly as such work often demands – or is directed towards – public display.
This seminar offers a transdisciplinary perspective on working with objects, ideas and collections, using past projects as case studies that are offered up as propositions for critical discussion in the context of recent global events. The role of the curator prompts three questions: Should curators act responsively or responsibly? What is at stake is making objects ‘speak’? And what might a return to the material & affective afford us in a telematic, hyper-mediated ‘post-truth’ world?
Research Interests:
Song Ci (alt. Sung Tz’u)’s 13thC Song Dynasty text 'Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified: the Washing Away of Wrongs' is widely regarded as the first forensic science treatise. Its demonstration of procedure and evidence have remained... more
Song Ci (alt. Sung Tz’u)’s 13thC Song Dynasty text 'Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified: the Washing Away of Wrongs' is widely regarded as the first forensic science treatise. Its demonstration of procedure and evidence have remained an enduring influence on how claims are made on behalf of objects and locations presented within the various fora we mandate to do the work of justice.
The forum, from which the word ‘forensic’ is derived, is not only a space of immutable authority, but also of courageous critique and challenge. Archival practices resonate here in relation to the dynamic character of evidence: records can be revisited, judgments overturned and alternative truths retrieved many years after an event has taken place. Such processes might be termed ‘counter-forensic’, particularly if they are citizen-led.
With reference to my own practice, which traverses both forensic and counter-forensic terrains, and the work of others that offer ways to think about the discourses of the ‘forensic’, this seminar offers a practice-based consideration of what it might mean to operate at the interface of the artistic and the forensic. Questions like Are ‘forensic’ and ‘artistic’ competing or complementary ideas? and Can we think of the studio – the artist’s laboratory – as a critical site for counter-forensic action? are considered in the broader context of contemporary currencies of ‘sci-art’ collaboration, biometric surveillance and pronouncements about our ‘post-truth’/’post-fact’ media realities.
The forum, from which the word ‘forensic’ is derived, is not only a space of immutable authority, but also of courageous critique and challenge. Archival practices resonate here in relation to the dynamic character of evidence: records can be revisited, judgments overturned and alternative truths retrieved many years after an event has taken place. Such processes might be termed ‘counter-forensic’, particularly if they are citizen-led.
With reference to my own practice, which traverses both forensic and counter-forensic terrains, and the work of others that offer ways to think about the discourses of the ‘forensic’, this seminar offers a practice-based consideration of what it might mean to operate at the interface of the artistic and the forensic. Questions like Are ‘forensic’ and ‘artistic’ competing or complementary ideas? and Can we think of the studio – the artist’s laboratory – as a critical site for counter-forensic action? are considered in the broader context of contemporary currencies of ‘sci-art’ collaboration, biometric surveillance and pronouncements about our ‘post-truth’/’post-fact’ media realities.
Research Interests:
Considering sculpture's continual engagement with the body as a point of departure, I will begin by presenting documentation of an object in the collection of the University of Cape Town's Pathology Learning Centre. This 'specimen' is... more
Considering sculpture's continual engagement with the body as a point of departure, I will begin by presenting documentation of an object in the collection of the University of Cape Town's Pathology Learning Centre. This 'specimen' is somewhat unclassifiable within this collection, as it both is, and is not, of the body. A woven textile thought to be a sock or kitchen rag, it is associated with a medico-legal investigation into a woman found dead in her bed in 1986. During the postmortem examination, it was discovered lodged deep in her oral cavity. Forces of trauma and rigor mortis have the transformed the banal into the extraordinary: the object has become a perfect impression of the interior of a mouth - her mouth - clearly delineating the hard palate and upper and lower teeth. The exact circumstances of the case are unknown and to date, and no documentation has been recovered (many police archives and other official documents were lost or destroyed during the unravelling of public institutions in the late Apartheid/democratic transition period in South Africa). Resembling a tongue that cannot enunciate, this object is part trace, sample, analogy, artefact, evidence, craft and prosthetic, and suggests ways to think through ideas related to subject/object relationships, 'things' that talk, material/immaterial bodies, and the ways that objects might embody the photographic.
Presented as part of the RCA's Sculpture seminar series, 'Everything is Sculpture: Immaterial Constructions/Material Realities', in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute.
Presented as part of the RCA's Sculpture seminar series, 'Everything is Sculpture: Immaterial Constructions/Material Realities', in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute.
Research Interests:
An edited anthology of responses from a broad range of respected artists, writers, curators and thinkers to the question: Is the avant-garde still a viable and/or tenable notion in the current contemporary movement? If not, why: and if... more
An edited anthology of responses from a broad range of respected artists, writers, curators and thinkers to the question: Is the avant-garde still a viable and/or tenable notion in the current contemporary movement? If not, why: and if so, how does the contemporary avant-garde
define itself? What forms does it take, and how does it differ - if it does - from the ‘historical’ avant-garde? Can it – or should it – be ‘rescued’ from its relationship to modernism, or is it
intractably bounded/ determined by that? If it does not exist in some or other form, what caused its ultimate death? Can we even speak about certain contemporary practices in terms of avant-garde discourse? In other words, if it looks like the avant-garde, and sounds like the avant-garde, is it the avant-garde?’ The book was conceived to accompany an exhibition by Douglas Gimberg, Christian Nerf, Ruth Sacks and
Ed Young at SMAC gallery (Stellenbosch, South Africa) in 2007, to ‘take the temperature’ of contemporary attitudes towards
avant-gardism, both as praxis and historical conceit. Contributors include Siemon Allen, Gustavo Artigas, Avant Car Guard, Wayne Barker, James Beckett, Candice Breitz, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Barend de Wet, Brian Eno, Elan Gamaker, Kendell Geers, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gimberg, Brenden Gray, Stacy Hardy, Trasi Henen, Aryan Kaganof, Andrew Lamprecht, Bettina Malcomess, Thando Mama, Rafael Mouzinho, Christian Nerf, Sean O’Toole, Sylvester Ogbechie, Kristofer Paetau, Peet Pienaar, Cesare Pietroiusti, Robin Rhode, Colin Richards, Ruth Sacks, James Sey, Michael Smith, Nathaniel Stern, Robert Storr, Johan Thom, Lize van Robbroek and Ed Young
define itself? What forms does it take, and how does it differ - if it does - from the ‘historical’ avant-garde? Can it – or should it – be ‘rescued’ from its relationship to modernism, or is it
intractably bounded/ determined by that? If it does not exist in some or other form, what caused its ultimate death? Can we even speak about certain contemporary practices in terms of avant-garde discourse? In other words, if it looks like the avant-garde, and sounds like the avant-garde, is it the avant-garde?’ The book was conceived to accompany an exhibition by Douglas Gimberg, Christian Nerf, Ruth Sacks and
Ed Young at SMAC gallery (Stellenbosch, South Africa) in 2007, to ‘take the temperature’ of contemporary attitudes towards
avant-gardism, both as praxis and historical conceit. Contributors include Siemon Allen, Gustavo Artigas, Avant Car Guard, Wayne Barker, James Beckett, Candice Breitz, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Barend de Wet, Brian Eno, Elan Gamaker, Kendell Geers, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gimberg, Brenden Gray, Stacy Hardy, Trasi Henen, Aryan Kaganof, Andrew Lamprecht, Bettina Malcomess, Thando Mama, Rafael Mouzinho, Christian Nerf, Sean O’Toole, Sylvester Ogbechie, Kristofer Paetau, Peet Pienaar, Cesare Pietroiusti, Robin Rhode, Colin Richards, Ruth Sacks, James Sey, Michael Smith, Nathaniel Stern, Robert Storr, Johan Thom, Lize van Robbroek and Ed Young
Research Interests:
Documenting a residential, socially-engaged project in the Karoo town of Laingsburg, facilitated by Kathryn Smith and Verna Jooste (2010/11) and produced by Visual Art students from Stellenbosch University and members of the local... more
Documenting a residential, socially-engaged project in the Karoo town of Laingsburg, facilitated by Kathryn Smith and Verna Jooste (2010/11) and produced by Visual Art students from Stellenbosch University and members of the local community.
A series of temporary and permanent artistic responses to the legacies and memorial practices of the 1981 Laingsburg Flood were produced, retrieving and presenting alternative and undocumented experiences of an event which remains South Africa's greatest natural disaster.
Initially commissioned as a single memorial artwork by the local municipality, the project was selected as part of the major National Lottery-supported initiative, 2010 REASONS TO LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN, led by the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA), which allowed us to engage more fully with the community as a whole, over a meaningful period of time.
A series of temporary and permanent artistic responses to the legacies and memorial practices of the 1981 Laingsburg Flood were produced, retrieving and presenting alternative and undocumented experiences of an event which remains South Africa's greatest natural disaster.
Initially commissioned as a single memorial artwork by the local municipality, the project was selected as part of the major National Lottery-supported initiative, 2010 REASONS TO LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN, led by the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA), which allowed us to engage more fully with the community as a whole, over a meaningful period of time.
Research Interests:
Between Subject and Object is the first exhibition of its nature in South Africa. A collateral event of the first Medical Humanities in African conference, it included the work of both South African and international artists, and related... more
Between Subject and Object is the first exhibition of its nature in South Africa. A collateral event of the first Medical Humanities in African conference, it included the work of both South African and international artists, and related scientific artefacts, exploring the depiction of human remains at the interface of art and science.
In the representation of the dead, there seems to be a continuum, or sliding scale, between an emphasis on the subject-ness of the deceased individual and the object-ness of the corpse. In this exhibition, the curators wished to draw attention to this continuum as an analytical tool to explore and deepen discussion regarding the depiction of human remains, drawing out similarities and differences between photographs, illustrations, films, performances and objects of scientific and cultural interest.
Whilst the exhibition began with a consideration of contemporary postmortem photography, the focus grew to incorporate a set of concerns around the idea of the ‘real’, whether articulated through objects, performance or modes of representation that are perceived to a particular kind of visual ‘truth-telling’. Photography functions as a key reference then, emphasizing the acts of looking, thinking and questioning.
The curatorial process was openly dialogical, with the three curators bringing their particular interests, experiences, institutional affiliations and personal concerns to bear on the selection of artworks and objects. In so doing, the ethical imperatives of working with human remains and the representations thereof, were a primary consideration, and actively informed the artworks and objects that form part of this temporary collection.
Death is a universal topic, yet is often inhibited by controversy and sensation, or taboo and nostalgia. In addition to the exhibition itself, a closing symposium further explored the difficult subject of representations of the dead/fragmented human body. The project as a whole served as an exploratory gesture, an attempt to approach and perhaps even challenge the ‘fixed’ frameworks we have about dead bodies from varying cultural perspectives.
Featured artists: Igshaan Adams (ZA), Jordan Baseman (UK), Maeve Berry (UK), Jack Burman (CND), Jillian Edelstein (ZA), Sue Fox (UK), Paul Greenway (ZA), Pieter Hugo (ZA), Gerhard Marx (ZA), Nelson Mukhuba (ZA), Colin Richards (ZA), Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta (DE), Jeffrey Silverthorne (US), Buhlebezwe Siwani (ZA) and Kathryn Smith (ZA).
The exhibition also includes selected items from the Collection of Medical Morphology Museum (Stellenbosch University) and Pathology Learning Centre (University of Cape Town).
In the representation of the dead, there seems to be a continuum, or sliding scale, between an emphasis on the subject-ness of the deceased individual and the object-ness of the corpse. In this exhibition, the curators wished to draw attention to this continuum as an analytical tool to explore and deepen discussion regarding the depiction of human remains, drawing out similarities and differences between photographs, illustrations, films, performances and objects of scientific and cultural interest.
Whilst the exhibition began with a consideration of contemporary postmortem photography, the focus grew to incorporate a set of concerns around the idea of the ‘real’, whether articulated through objects, performance or modes of representation that are perceived to a particular kind of visual ‘truth-telling’. Photography functions as a key reference then, emphasizing the acts of looking, thinking and questioning.
The curatorial process was openly dialogical, with the three curators bringing their particular interests, experiences, institutional affiliations and personal concerns to bear on the selection of artworks and objects. In so doing, the ethical imperatives of working with human remains and the representations thereof, were a primary consideration, and actively informed the artworks and objects that form part of this temporary collection.
Death is a universal topic, yet is often inhibited by controversy and sensation, or taboo and nostalgia. In addition to the exhibition itself, a closing symposium further explored the difficult subject of representations of the dead/fragmented human body. The project as a whole served as an exploratory gesture, an attempt to approach and perhaps even challenge the ‘fixed’ frameworks we have about dead bodies from varying cultural perspectives.
Featured artists: Igshaan Adams (ZA), Jordan Baseman (UK), Maeve Berry (UK), Jack Burman (CND), Jillian Edelstein (ZA), Sue Fox (UK), Paul Greenway (ZA), Pieter Hugo (ZA), Gerhard Marx (ZA), Nelson Mukhuba (ZA), Colin Richards (ZA), Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta (DE), Jeffrey Silverthorne (US), Buhlebezwe Siwani (ZA) and Kathryn Smith (ZA).
The exhibition also includes selected items from the Collection of Medical Morphology Museum (Stellenbosch University) and Pathology Learning Centre (University of Cape Town).
Research Interests:
See entry in Poisoned Pasts: Legacies of Project Coast
Research Interests: Bioethics, Science, Technology and Society, Transitional Justice, Museums and Exhibition Design, Public Health, and 5 moreSouth African history, Memorials and the Memorial Art-Work in the Public Arena, Transitional justice and reconciliation processes, Art History, Exhibition History, Museum and Curating Studies, and Science and Technology Studies
Poisoned Pasts is a collaborative exhibition by forensic artist Kathryn Smith (Liverpool John Moores University/Stellenbosch University), ISS researcher Dr Chandré Gould and sociologist Prof Brian Rappert (University of Exeter),... more
Poisoned Pasts is a collaborative exhibition by forensic artist Kathryn Smith (Liverpool John Moores University/Stellenbosch University), ISS researcher Dr Chandré Gould and sociologist Prof Brian Rappert (University of Exeter), presenting material associated with South Africa's apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare programme known as Project Coast.
In the exhibition, facts and testimony are set against contested and conflicting accounts, putting visitors in the position of an investigator. Concise, meticulously researched commentary accompanies powerful visual reportage. Original artifacts, reconstructions and historical documents illuminate the many narratives that Project Coast has produced and places them in context of international history, policy and practice.
The guide offers perspective and views from the exhibition curators as well as those who have played an integral role in the development of the exhibition, and in past attempts to bring scientists associated with the programme to justice, including Rian Blignaut, Y. Obenewa Amponsah, Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven, Leslie London and Lizeka Tandwa.
One of the main motivations behind Project Coast was the 1976 student uprising. Exactly 40 years later, we are once again seeing waves of violent student protests and a state under severe pressure. It is an appropriate moment to consider how the past has been and is being dealt with, and what implications this holds for the future.
It has also been 20 years since Coast's activities came to light during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The exhibition examines how we reckon with difficult pasts, while it also acknowledges and honours known and suspected victims of this programme and other abuses of medicines and toxic substances by the Apartheid state.
The burden of a toxic past will haunt future generations in ways that we cannot always anticipate, and South Africans will continue to grapple with questions on how to deal with the past, what is required to bring healing, and where to find assurance that historic harms will never be repeated. It also raises questions about how scientists and medical practitioners can be protected from becoming involved in similar programmes.
In the exhibition, facts and testimony are set against contested and conflicting accounts, putting visitors in the position of an investigator. Concise, meticulously researched commentary accompanies powerful visual reportage. Original artifacts, reconstructions and historical documents illuminate the many narratives that Project Coast has produced and places them in context of international history, policy and practice.
The guide offers perspective and views from the exhibition curators as well as those who have played an integral role in the development of the exhibition, and in past attempts to bring scientists associated with the programme to justice, including Rian Blignaut, Y. Obenewa Amponsah, Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven, Leslie London and Lizeka Tandwa.
One of the main motivations behind Project Coast was the 1976 student uprising. Exactly 40 years later, we are once again seeing waves of violent student protests and a state under severe pressure. It is an appropriate moment to consider how the past has been and is being dealt with, and what implications this holds for the future.
It has also been 20 years since Coast's activities came to light during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The exhibition examines how we reckon with difficult pasts, while it also acknowledges and honours known and suspected victims of this programme and other abuses of medicines and toxic substances by the Apartheid state.
The burden of a toxic past will haunt future generations in ways that we cannot always anticipate, and South Africans will continue to grapple with questions on how to deal with the past, what is required to bring healing, and where to find assurance that historic harms will never be repeated. It also raises questions about how scientists and medical practitioners can be protected from becoming involved in similar programmes.
Research Interests:
'aka Roodeplaat Research Laboratories' is part of a broader research project into Project Coast, the top secret apartheid-era chemical and biological weapons programme. This work presents photographs taken during a 2014 site visit to... more
'aka Roodeplaat Research Laboratories' is part of a broader research project into Project Coast, the top secret apartheid-era chemical and biological weapons programme.
This work presents photographs taken during a 2014 site visit to the Agricultural Research Council's offices at Roodeplaat in Gauteng. This facility used to be known as Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL) until 1993. RRL was one of a plethora of front companies of the South African Defence Force, and one of two principle laboratory complexes (the other was Delta G scientific) associated with Coast.
The secrecy surrounding Project Coast was such that information about the project only came to light during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when some of the scientists associated with the project submitted amnesty
applications. Its impetus was ‘effective crowd control’ after the 1976 Soweto uprising, and concerns that Soviet and Cuban troops in Angola might use chemical weapons against South
African soldiers in the Border War.
Project Coast's chief officer was doctor-soldier Wouter Basson who, although he has recently been found guilty of ethical misconduct by the Health Professions Council of South Africa, has managed to elude all other forms of criminal prosecution, despite significant evidence that he was the mastermind of one of the most complex cases of fraud and misconduct South
Africa's courts have yet seen.
RRL's once state-of-the-art facilities have since been sold back to the South African government. The laboratories where scientists now work to safeguard our food supply through
crop research are the same spaces where Basson's team manufactured vast quantities of teargas, Mandrax and Ecstasy, and where animal experimentation was undertaken to develop a contraceptive targeted exclusively at black women, and a poison undetectable postmortem, amongst other products such as beer laced with thallium (available in bottles or cans), cyanide and arsenic-laced peppermint chocolate, and sugar spiked with salmonella.
As it has been almost impossible to conclusively link victims to these activities - the poisoning of Reverend Frank Chikane is a possible exception - and the reluctance of those commanding the project to discuss their activities, our understanding of Project Coast remains largely unresolved. Needless to say, Project Coast raises key questions around science's complicity in apartheid-era human rights abuses, about which the scientific community has been conspicuously silent.
A recent article by Gould, Harris, Rappert and Smith (2014) notes, "In remembering Project Coast, and what motivated it, we hope to remind ourselves of how easy it can be to justify programmes like this when a government comes under pressure."
Basson currently practices as a highly regarded cardiologist in Durbanville. His HPCSA sentencing hearing is ongoing.
This work presents photographs taken during a 2014 site visit to the Agricultural Research Council's offices at Roodeplaat in Gauteng. This facility used to be known as Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL) until 1993. RRL was one of a plethora of front companies of the South African Defence Force, and one of two principle laboratory complexes (the other was Delta G scientific) associated with Coast.
The secrecy surrounding Project Coast was such that information about the project only came to light during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when some of the scientists associated with the project submitted amnesty
applications. Its impetus was ‘effective crowd control’ after the 1976 Soweto uprising, and concerns that Soviet and Cuban troops in Angola might use chemical weapons against South
African soldiers in the Border War.
Project Coast's chief officer was doctor-soldier Wouter Basson who, although he has recently been found guilty of ethical misconduct by the Health Professions Council of South Africa, has managed to elude all other forms of criminal prosecution, despite significant evidence that he was the mastermind of one of the most complex cases of fraud and misconduct South
Africa's courts have yet seen.
RRL's once state-of-the-art facilities have since been sold back to the South African government. The laboratories where scientists now work to safeguard our food supply through
crop research are the same spaces where Basson's team manufactured vast quantities of teargas, Mandrax and Ecstasy, and where animal experimentation was undertaken to develop a contraceptive targeted exclusively at black women, and a poison undetectable postmortem, amongst other products such as beer laced with thallium (available in bottles or cans), cyanide and arsenic-laced peppermint chocolate, and sugar spiked with salmonella.
As it has been almost impossible to conclusively link victims to these activities - the poisoning of Reverend Frank Chikane is a possible exception - and the reluctance of those commanding the project to discuss their activities, our understanding of Project Coast remains largely unresolved. Needless to say, Project Coast raises key questions around science's complicity in apartheid-era human rights abuses, about which the scientific community has been conspicuously silent.
A recent article by Gould, Harris, Rappert and Smith (2014) notes, "In remembering Project Coast, and what motivated it, we hope to remind ourselves of how easy it can be to justify programmes like this when a government comes under pressure."
Basson currently practices as a highly regarded cardiologist in Durbanville. His HPCSA sentencing hearing is ongoing.
Research Interests:
Why is it important that a disciplinary hearing of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPC) recently found Dr Wouter Basson guilty of unethical conduct in relation to the work he did as head of the apartheid state's chemical... more
Why is it important that a disciplinary hearing of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPC) recently found Dr Wouter Basson guilty of unethical conduct in relation to the work he did as head of the apartheid state's chemical and biological warfare programme? And why is it equally important that Basson receive an appropriate sanction from the HPC? Answers to these questions are suggested by a visit to the vast laboratory complex that was the home of military front company Roodeplaat Research Laboratories until 1993.
Research Interests:
A disciplinary hearing of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) recently found Dr Wouter Basson guilty of unethical conduct for work he did as head of the apartheid state's chemical and biologlcal warfare programme. On... more
A disciplinary hearing of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) recently found Dr Wouter Basson guilty of unethical
conduct for work he did as head of the apartheid state's chemical and biologlcal warfare programme. On Wednesday, 26 November, the HPCSA will begin hearing arguments relating to Basson's
sentencing. Why does this matter? And why Is It equally Important that Basson receive an appropriate sanction from the HPCSA?
conduct for work he did as head of the apartheid state's chemical and biologlcal warfare programme. On Wednesday, 26 November, the HPCSA will begin hearing arguments relating to Basson's
sentencing. Why does this matter? And why Is It equally Important that Basson receive an appropriate sanction from the HPCSA?
Research Interests:
In 2016, the art world celebrated the Dada centenary with festivities all over the globe; the interest in the European avant-garde movement appears stronger than ever. As long as six years ago, the exhibition “Dada South? Experimentation,... more
In 2016, the art world celebrated the Dada centenary with festivities all over the globe; the interest in the European avant-garde movement appears stronger than ever. As long as six years ago, the exhibition “Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance” took place in the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and made a significant contribution to the discourse on Dada in the global context. “Dada South?” opened up an intriguing position in a highly topical discourse. The show engaged in central issues of the current discussions on global art practice and opened the view to the North-South axis of Dadaist practice. The exhibition considered Dada’s legacies in relation to performance, counter-rational strategies, collectivity, deconstruction, and resistance in South African art practice and discursively engaged in the discussion of a global understanding of art and art history. However, the show was barely noticed in the international context. Especially regarding the current interest in Dada, and in the context of the discourse on global art and exhibition practice, “Dada South?” must be brought into focus. In this paper, the exhibition design and objective are analysed and the significance of the exhibition in the global context is addressed.
Keywords: Dada, avant-garde, deconstruction, global exhibition practice, transcultural art, global art history
Keywords: Dada, avant-garde, deconstruction, global exhibition practice, transcultural art, global art history
Research Interests:
This essay describes the conceptual and thematic frameworks that informed the 2009 exhibition 'Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance', presented at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2009/2010). The exhibition... more
This essay describes the conceptual and thematic frameworks that informed the 2009 exhibition 'Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance', presented at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2009/2010). The exhibition assembled over 400 works, including loans of authentic Dada art and publications from such institutions as Kunsthaus Zürich, Centre Pompidou, Berlinische Galerie and Akademie der Künste Berlin, curated alongside a broad selection of South African art, performance and publications produced between 1960 and 2009. For many of the European lenders, it was the first time that they had agreed to loan works to a South African (or African) institution.
Positioning itself contrary to dominant Western art historical narratives which frame homogenous notions of 'Africa' as the Primitive Exotic periphery against which theories of avant-garde(s) and modernist innovation continue to maintain a European centre, the exhibition presented new links & connections between artists from the African south and European north working from 1960-2009, opening up a rich vein of questions about the relationship of Dada to Africa, particularly sensitised by post apartheid and post colonial attitudes. As such, it presented alternative histories to the ‘Resistance Art’ narrative that has long dominated South African art of the last several decades.
Positioning itself contrary to dominant Western art historical narratives which frame homogenous notions of 'Africa' as the Primitive Exotic periphery against which theories of avant-garde(s) and modernist innovation continue to maintain a European centre, the exhibition presented new links & connections between artists from the African south and European north working from 1960-2009, opening up a rich vein of questions about the relationship of Dada to Africa, particularly sensitised by post apartheid and post colonial attitudes. As such, it presented alternative histories to the ‘Resistance Art’ narrative that has long dominated South African art of the last several decades.
Research Interests:
http://dadasouth.blogspot.co.uk/ The critically acclaimed exhibition Dada South? was one of the first locally-produced museum exhibitions in South Africa that focused on a major international art movement of the 20th century, but from... more
http://dadasouth.blogspot.co.uk/
The critically acclaimed exhibition Dada South? was one of the first locally-produced museum exhibitions in South Africa that focused on a major international art movement of the 20th century, but from the perspective of recent South African art. Drawing together the first collection of historical Dada works ever seen in South Africa, as well as an eclectic range of works by South African artists representing an assortment of experimental and underground positions, the exhibition proposed a review of the ambivalent relationship between cultural creation and political resistance, as well as how art historical ideas are received and interpreted in response to specific, local conditions.
Dada South? also invited consideration of another set of questions: What significance did African art hold for Dada and how do we understand their ideas about Africa? How are their counter-rational, collaborative and interdisciplinary strategies, dating back nearly 100 years now, still so resonant in contemporary art today? In particular, what does a Dada attitude to the political and spiritual reveal about individualism, collectivism and ethics in art today? As Marcel Duchamp said, “When you tap something, you don’t always recognize the sound. That’s apt to come later.” Could Dada be the only 20th century movement that still exists?
As a movement founded by exiles and migrants, Dada challenged notions of territoriality, nationality, ownership and prescribed identity. Dada’s lack of allegiance to any style or ideology, as well as its political and aesthetic contrariness offers an alternative lens through which to view creative tactics and tendencies in contexts which have experienced radical political change.
Whether we ask ‘What is Dada?’ or ‘What is not-Dada?’ (which is a rather Dada question), some of the topics covered include the relationship between Dada and Africa; the cultural underground and related periodicals; art practice as a tactics of action; relationships between forms of art and political agency; the tensions between institutions and experimentation; and counter-rational strategies (absurdism, chaos and chance) as methods for innovation.
The exhibition hosted a conference (18-19 February 2010) featuring keynote speakers including renowned Dada scholar Marc Dachy (Paris, FR); curator Susan Hapgood (New York, USA); performance theorist Jean Johnson-Jones (Surrey, UK) and artist and social provocateur Nina Romm (Johannesburg, ZA). Other speakers included Belinda Blignaut, Willem Boshoff, Fred de Vries, Kendell Geers, Thembinkosi Goniwe, the Gugulective, Stacy Hardy, Ashraf Jamal and James Sey among many others.
A closing weekend symposium (27-28 February) featured talks and performances by Adrian Notz (Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich), Shelley Sacks (Social Sculpture, Oxford Brookes) and Lia Perjovschi (artist, Romania).
The critically acclaimed exhibition Dada South? was one of the first locally-produced museum exhibitions in South Africa that focused on a major international art movement of the 20th century, but from the perspective of recent South African art. Drawing together the first collection of historical Dada works ever seen in South Africa, as well as an eclectic range of works by South African artists representing an assortment of experimental and underground positions, the exhibition proposed a review of the ambivalent relationship between cultural creation and political resistance, as well as how art historical ideas are received and interpreted in response to specific, local conditions.
Dada South? also invited consideration of another set of questions: What significance did African art hold for Dada and how do we understand their ideas about Africa? How are their counter-rational, collaborative and interdisciplinary strategies, dating back nearly 100 years now, still so resonant in contemporary art today? In particular, what does a Dada attitude to the political and spiritual reveal about individualism, collectivism and ethics in art today? As Marcel Duchamp said, “When you tap something, you don’t always recognize the sound. That’s apt to come later.” Could Dada be the only 20th century movement that still exists?
As a movement founded by exiles and migrants, Dada challenged notions of territoriality, nationality, ownership and prescribed identity. Dada’s lack of allegiance to any style or ideology, as well as its political and aesthetic contrariness offers an alternative lens through which to view creative tactics and tendencies in contexts which have experienced radical political change.
Whether we ask ‘What is Dada?’ or ‘What is not-Dada?’ (which is a rather Dada question), some of the topics covered include the relationship between Dada and Africa; the cultural underground and related periodicals; art practice as a tactics of action; relationships between forms of art and political agency; the tensions between institutions and experimentation; and counter-rational strategies (absurdism, chaos and chance) as methods for innovation.
The exhibition hosted a conference (18-19 February 2010) featuring keynote speakers including renowned Dada scholar Marc Dachy (Paris, FR); curator Susan Hapgood (New York, USA); performance theorist Jean Johnson-Jones (Surrey, UK) and artist and social provocateur Nina Romm (Johannesburg, ZA). Other speakers included Belinda Blignaut, Willem Boshoff, Fred de Vries, Kendell Geers, Thembinkosi Goniwe, the Gugulective, Stacy Hardy, Ashraf Jamal and James Sey among many others.
A closing weekend symposium (27-28 February) featured talks and performances by Adrian Notz (Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich), Shelley Sacks (Social Sculpture, Oxford Brookes) and Lia Perjovschi (artist, Romania).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Kathryn Smith’s Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs is a series of twelve prints comprising photographs and handwritten text, wherein she records her ‘pilgrimage’ to the former homes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen. As... more
Kathryn Smith’s Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs is a series of twelve prints comprising photographs and handwritten text, wherein she records her ‘pilgrimage’ to
the former homes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen. As such, it utilises photographic and autographic traces to ‘track’ the elusive traces left by Nilsen. Given the lapse of two decades
between Nilsen’s arrest and Smith’s visit, the traces of Nilsen’s ‘wrongs’ seem all but erased by the banal façade of suburban living which has continued on, regardless. In taking this as
a starting point, the following article considers the motif of absence that characterises Smith’s work as intrinsic to traces per se. This is not just because traces gravitate towards erasure though time and forgetting, but also because traces mark both the former presence and the current absence of whatever
caused them. With recourse to a variety of theories, including Peirce’s semiotics, Barthes’s meditations on photography, and
Derrida’s writings on the trace as being ‘under erasure’ or ‘sous rature’, this discussion seeks to critique the forensic certitude implicit in assertions that traces ‘bear witness’ to the ‘truth’ of past events. Rather, the suggestion is made that the trace, being paradoxically located in both presence and absence, is
not without its own nefarious trickery.
the former homes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen. As such, it utilises photographic and autographic traces to ‘track’ the elusive traces left by Nilsen. Given the lapse of two decades
between Nilsen’s arrest and Smith’s visit, the traces of Nilsen’s ‘wrongs’ seem all but erased by the banal façade of suburban living which has continued on, regardless. In taking this as
a starting point, the following article considers the motif of absence that characterises Smith’s work as intrinsic to traces per se. This is not just because traces gravitate towards erasure though time and forgetting, but also because traces mark both the former presence and the current absence of whatever
caused them. With recourse to a variety of theories, including Peirce’s semiotics, Barthes’s meditations on photography, and
Derrida’s writings on the trace as being ‘under erasure’ or ‘sous rature’, this discussion seeks to critique the forensic certitude implicit in assertions that traces ‘bear witness’ to the ‘truth’ of past events. Rather, the suggestion is made that the trace, being paradoxically located in both presence and absence, is
not without its own nefarious trickery.
Research Interests:
A critical appraisal of 'Incident Room', considered in relation to the work of Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, Barbara Balfour, and author Jennifer Law's own creative practice. Law writes: "Sometimes it is not the knowledge or the... more
A critical appraisal of 'Incident Room', considered in relation to the work of Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, Barbara Balfour, and author Jennifer Law's own creative practice.
Law writes: "Sometimes it is not the knowledge or the technology that is new, but the way in which it is combined with other technologies that is innovative. Along these lines, this paper builds upon my previous writing on the practice of 'transference' in relation to graphic knowledge and the ways in which artists employ print-based pedagogies to 'think' about making art. Here, contemporary print-based practice is understood not simply as an assortment of technological skills to be acquired and employed, but rather as a set of unique aesthetic and conceptual problem-solving strategies that may be transferred and applied across diverse media. Indeed, the future of print may not rely as much on the evolution of the machine - the press, the printer, the associated materials - as in the ways in which we think about and with print "
Law writes: "Sometimes it is not the knowledge or the technology that is new, but the way in which it is combined with other technologies that is innovative. Along these lines, this paper builds upon my previous writing on the practice of 'transference' in relation to graphic knowledge and the ways in which artists employ print-based pedagogies to 'think' about making art. Here, contemporary print-based practice is understood not simply as an assortment of technological skills to be acquired and employed, but rather as a set of unique aesthetic and conceptual problem-solving strategies that may be transferred and applied across diverse media. Indeed, the future of print may not rely as much on the evolution of the machine - the press, the printer, the associated materials - as in the ways in which we think about and with print "
Research Interests:
A short note reflecting on a week-long residency at A4 Arts in November 2018, who supported part of my doctoral fieldwork in the city by providing a studio and base from which to conduct interviews, meet participants and write. This was... more
A short note reflecting on a week-long residency at A4 Arts in November 2018, who supported part of my doctoral fieldwork in the city by providing a studio and base from which to conduct interviews, meet participants and write. This was to be the penultimate fieldwork session, prior to a visit to Korea as a guest of the National Forensic Service, and key threads of the project were coming together in a way that permitted clear reflection and ways forward. Best to view online (images and layout don't transfer to PDF), link here and below: https://a4arts.org/Kathryn-Smith-1
Research Interests:
Kathryn Smith spent two weeks working at The Artists' Press in early 2004, challenging Mark Attwood to come up with a new way of working in print. Mark watched in fascination as Kathryn Smith manipulated her DVD, digital camera and the... more
Kathryn Smith spent two weeks working at The Artists' Press in early 2004, challenging Mark Attwood to come up with a new way of working in print. Mark watched in fascination as Kathryn Smith manipulated her DVD, digital camera and the video machine all at the same time. Not to be outdone Mark added his own mix of lithography, polymer plates and the recently acquired etching press to Kathryn's mix.
The result was a suite of ten prints which toured the country as part of Smith's exhibition as the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award in 2004.
Kathryn Smith is a conceptual artist who works in a variety of media. Smith can be described as a performance artist, photographer, cultural agitator and manipulator of computer and video media to create her multi-layered artworks. Her interest in forensic pathology and psychology led to the creation of these prints which offer strong social commentary to those who wish to delve beyond the surface veneer of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe.
The result was a suite of ten prints which toured the country as part of Smith's exhibition as the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award in 2004.
Kathryn Smith is a conceptual artist who works in a variety of media. Smith can be described as a performance artist, photographer, cultural agitator and manipulator of computer and video media to create her multi-layered artworks. Her interest in forensic pathology and psychology led to the creation of these prints which offer strong social commentary to those who wish to delve beyond the surface veneer of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe.
Research Interests:
An experimental essay commissioned for the inaugural issue of art+reading, published by Arts+Letters Press. art+reading is an annual journal about reading and making. Co-edited by Jenn Law and Penelope Stewart, the first issue explores... more
An experimental essay commissioned for the inaugural issue of art+reading, published by Arts+Letters Press.
art+reading is an annual journal about reading and making. Co-edited by Jenn Law and Penelope Stewart, the first issue explores the theme of rupture through a multi-disciplinary lens. Signaling a radical shift in perception and conception, a refusal against the status quo, rupture is the overture to revolution, political or otherwise, signifying the very condition that makes innovation possible.
Featuring an in-depth interview with Taiwanese-Canadian artist, Ed Pien, as well as artist pages, poetry, creative prose, and critical writing by Barbara Balfour (Canada), Mary Anne Barkhouse (Canada), Sandra Brewster (Canada), Derek Coulombe (Canada), Andrew Omoding (Uganda, UK), Trevor Marchand (Canada, UK), Dyan Marie (Canada), David Moos(Canada), Penny Siopis (South Africa), Kathryn Smith (South Africa, UK), and Clive Van Den Berg (South Africa).
60 pages, full colour images
For further information please contact Arts+Letters Press
admin@artsandletterspress.com
T: 647.880.0438
Instagram: artsletterspress
art+reading is an annual journal about reading and making. Co-edited by Jenn Law and Penelope Stewart, the first issue explores the theme of rupture through a multi-disciplinary lens. Signaling a radical shift in perception and conception, a refusal against the status quo, rupture is the overture to revolution, political or otherwise, signifying the very condition that makes innovation possible.
Featuring an in-depth interview with Taiwanese-Canadian artist, Ed Pien, as well as artist pages, poetry, creative prose, and critical writing by Barbara Balfour (Canada), Mary Anne Barkhouse (Canada), Sandra Brewster (Canada), Derek Coulombe (Canada), Andrew Omoding (Uganda, UK), Trevor Marchand (Canada, UK), Dyan Marie (Canada), David Moos(Canada), Penny Siopis (South Africa), Kathryn Smith (South Africa, UK), and Clive Van Den Berg (South Africa).
60 pages, full colour images
For further information please contact Arts+Letters Press
admin@artsandletterspress.com
T: 647.880.0438
Instagram: artsletterspress
Research Interests:
Exhibition pamphlet for In Camera, a solo exhibitino at Fotografinshus, Stockholm (27 March - 26 April 2009)
Research Interests:
A short article featured in 'Art South Africa' (vol.11, issue 01, Spring 2012) describing a creative investigation into an unsolved, postwar murder case in Johannesburg.
Research Interests:
Lize van Robbroeck engages Kathryn Smith (KS) in a conversation about the collaborative project serialworks
Research Interests:
A limited edition publication, for the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts (2004), accompanying a solo, touring exhibition to six South African institutions. The catalogue features a survey essay by the late Colin... more
A limited edition publication, for the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts (2004), accompanying a solo, touring exhibition to six South African institutions.
The catalogue features a survey essay by the late Colin Richards, and an associated 'marginalia essay' by Kathryn Smith. Full colour reproductions of the works featured on the exhibition are included (with the exception of historical works by Walter Sickert, which were included at certain museum venues where they were part of said permanent collection).
The catalogue features a survey essay by the late Colin Richards, and an associated 'marginalia essay' by Kathryn Smith. Full colour reproductions of the works featured on the exhibition are included (with the exception of historical works by Walter Sickert, which were included at certain museum venues where they were part of said permanent collection).
Research Interests:
2018 will mark the ten-year anniversary of a reciprocal relationship between visual artist, Kathryn Smith, and author Margie Orford that began in the back room of the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town (South Africa). This paper reflects on... more
2018 will mark the ten-year anniversary of a reciprocal relationship between visual artist, Kathryn Smith, and author Margie Orford that began in the back room of the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town (South Africa).
This paper reflects on the dynamics of reciprocity in the context of the various creative works produced by Smith and Orford over this period.
Recognizing a mutual interest in gender-based violence, psychogeography and the uncanny insistence of historical trauma to haunt the present (particularly in the contemporary social and cultural context of Cape Town), our initial project was to explore our rapport through the differences in our respective processes; we each desired a deeper understanding – and practical application – of the other’s primary skills.
This self-reflexive and projective process produced several short-form pieces of writing (Smith and Orford), a short film (Smith), and a scholarly article (Orford), but most significantly, it has informed two books in Orford’s Clare Hart series of crime novels (Gallows Hill and Water Music) and produced a fictional artist, Sophie Brown, who exists in the interstitial space of our respective imaginaries, and through whose white, female, blonde body we have reflected on the paradoxes of power, privilege and violence.
Informed by Thomas Keenan’s development of the ‘counter-forensic’ (2014) and considering a recent reading of Smith’s work by David Houston Jones (2017, unpublished) as ‘queering the topos’ of the forensic aesthetic (Rugoff 1997; Keenan and Weizman 2012), this paper offers a critical reflection of the coalescing and entanglements of the writerly and the visual, and how it facilitates encounters with truths through fiction.
This paper reflects on the dynamics of reciprocity in the context of the various creative works produced by Smith and Orford over this period.
Recognizing a mutual interest in gender-based violence, psychogeography and the uncanny insistence of historical trauma to haunt the present (particularly in the contemporary social and cultural context of Cape Town), our initial project was to explore our rapport through the differences in our respective processes; we each desired a deeper understanding – and practical application – of the other’s primary skills.
This self-reflexive and projective process produced several short-form pieces of writing (Smith and Orford), a short film (Smith), and a scholarly article (Orford), but most significantly, it has informed two books in Orford’s Clare Hart series of crime novels (Gallows Hill and Water Music) and produced a fictional artist, Sophie Brown, who exists in the interstitial space of our respective imaginaries, and through whose white, female, blonde body we have reflected on the paradoxes of power, privilege and violence.
Informed by Thomas Keenan’s development of the ‘counter-forensic’ (2014) and considering a recent reading of Smith’s work by David Houston Jones (2017, unpublished) as ‘queering the topos’ of the forensic aesthetic (Rugoff 1997; Keenan and Weizman 2012), this paper offers a critical reflection of the coalescing and entanglements of the writerly and the visual, and how it facilitates encounters with truths through fiction.
Research Interests:
A short essay based on my contribution to the 'brainstorming /marathon' project 'b3: aggression, conflict, violence, trauma, negotiation', organised by artist Lia Perjovschi at Astra Library in Sibiu, Romania in September 2014, with the... more
A short essay based on my contribution to the 'brainstorming /marathon' project 'b3: aggression, conflict, violence, trauma, negotiation', organised by artist Lia Perjovschi at Astra Library in Sibiu, Romania in September 2014, with the support of tranzit.ro.
Perjovschi brought together a group working within and across art, curatorship, education, critical theory, anthropology, sociology, critical theory, literature and activism from locations including Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo, the US, South Africa, Bulgaria, Russia, Canada and the UK, to respond to a set of keywords framed by the centenary of WW1, and a contemporary "full world crisis, civil unrest, protests - economic, environmental and political, terrorism."
In Perjovschi's words, the meeting would represent "a symbolic scanning of the world from various points/views about what we feel/think now and what solutions we have to survive, to go on…"
The essay is in English and translated into Romanian. With thanks to Margie Orford and Chandre Gould; our conversations over the years have made a significant impression.
See http://ro.tranzit.org/en/project/sibiu/2014-09-27/b3brainstormingmarathon for more information
Perjovschi brought together a group working within and across art, curatorship, education, critical theory, anthropology, sociology, critical theory, literature and activism from locations including Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo, the US, South Africa, Bulgaria, Russia, Canada and the UK, to respond to a set of keywords framed by the centenary of WW1, and a contemporary "full world crisis, civil unrest, protests - economic, environmental and political, terrorism."
In Perjovschi's words, the meeting would represent "a symbolic scanning of the world from various points/views about what we feel/think now and what solutions we have to survive, to go on…"
The essay is in English and translated into Romanian. With thanks to Margie Orford and Chandre Gould; our conversations over the years have made a significant impression.
See http://ro.tranzit.org/en/project/sibiu/2014-09-27/b3brainstormingmarathon for more information
Research Interests:
An essay commissioned for a monograph on the South African artist James Webb, published by blank projects and released to coincide with Webb's solo exhibition 'What Fresh Hell ls This' ( 19 March - 3 July 2020), which presciently opened... more
An essay commissioned for a monograph on the South African artist James Webb, published by blank projects and released to coincide with Webb's solo exhibition 'What Fresh Hell ls This' ( 19 March - 3 July 2020), which presciently opened just as South Africa went into Covid-19 lockdown. The essay centres on La Syzygie (2016), a major commission for the Théâtre Graslin in Nantes, France, which I describe as "an ambitious exercise in architectural literacy that produced a constellation of layered, evocative and playful sonic interventions that gesture to the secret life of a French opera house and its investments. A syzygy is an alignment; it speaks of connections, correspondences and conjunctions, often made in opposition, with particular reference to language and space. In poetry, syzygy describes alliteration of the middle parts of words; in astronomy, an eclipse is a type of syzygy, which in turn may provide astrologers with vatic clues." (p.17)
The essay attempts "an alignment of selected works produced to date that demonstrate how gestures and experiments have become methodologies that enable Webb to work ambitiously across open systems of his own design, in which discrete works exude the quiet assurance of recognising their place in the mix." (p.17)
Uploaded courtesy of the artist and blank projects.
The essay attempts "an alignment of selected works produced to date that demonstrate how gestures and experiments have become methodologies that enable Webb to work ambitiously across open systems of his own design, in which discrete works exude the quiet assurance of recognising their place in the mix." (p.17)
Uploaded courtesy of the artist and blank projects.
Research Interests:
A short essay on South African art collective Gugulective, commissioned for Entry Points: The Vera List Center Field Guide on Art and Social Justice No. 1, edited by Carin Kuoni and Chelsea Haines (2015), 228pp, 153 illus. ISBN:... more
A short essay on South African art collective Gugulective, commissioned for Entry Points: The Vera List Center Field Guide on Art and Social Justice No. 1, edited by Carin Kuoni and Chelsea Haines (2015), 228pp, 153 illus. ISBN: 978-0-8223-6200-5
From the publisher's profile on https://www.dukeupress.edu/entry-points: "This book captures some of the most significant worldwide examples of art and social justice and introduces an interested audience of artists, policy makers, scholars, and writers to new ways of thinking about how justice is defined, advanced, and practiced through the arts. In so doing, it assembles some of the latest scholarship in this field while refining our vocabulary for speaking about social justice, social engagement, community enhancement, empowerment, and even art itself."
From the publisher's profile on https://www.dukeupress.edu/entry-points: "This book captures some of the most significant worldwide examples of art and social justice and introduces an interested audience of artists, policy makers, scholars, and writers to new ways of thinking about how justice is defined, advanced, and practiced through the arts. In so doing, it assembles some of the latest scholarship in this field while refining our vocabulary for speaking about social justice, social engagement, community enhancement, empowerment, and even art itself."
Research Interests:
This chapter, part of a four-volume revisionist anthology of South African art, takes a critical look at the evidence and impact of various cultural ‘turns’ on visual art produced in South Africa during and after the watershed political... more
This chapter, part of a four-volume revisionist anthology of South African art, takes a critical look at the evidence and impact of various cultural ‘turns’ on visual art produced in South Africa during and after the watershed political turn of 1990-1994, to address aspects of experimentalism in South African visual art post-1990. I argue that it is the (often) anti-institutional and poorly documented performance, art and music of the post-1960s period provides the basis for understanding our sense of the contemporary, which necessarily incorporates our particular iterations of the experimental, radical or conceptual, and offers real critical potential to move away from the ‘anxiety of influence’. Discourses concerning contemporary (South) African contemporary art are predominantly developed in international contexts, lacking a dynamic perspective of local art histories within global art histories. Selected examples reflect and critique the context in which they were produced, in particularly perspicacious ways, foregrounding work that is ‘messy’, risky, contingent and intellectually engaged.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
An interview with South African artist Robert Hodgins, excerpted from Julia Charlton and Anthea Buys (eds). A Lasting Impression: The Robert Hodgins Print Archive.
Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, 2012
Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, 2012
Research Interests:
An interview with Kemang Wa Lehulere, extracted from his exhibition publication 'Some Deleted Scenes Too' ed. Sophie Perryer. Stevenson Johannesburg, 2012: 37-56 (13 illustrations)
Research Interests:
Catalogue essay for William Scarbrough's 2008 exhibition 'Stitches' (Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town), marking the 10-year anniversary of a curatorial relationship that began with the inclusion of Scarbrough's 'Suicide' (1993) on Smith's... more
Catalogue essay for William Scarbrough's 2008 exhibition 'Stitches' (Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town), marking the 10-year anniversary of a curatorial relationship that began with the inclusion of Scarbrough's 'Suicide' (1993) on Smith's first curatorial project, 'Histories of the Present' (1998, Wits Theatre, Johannesburg).
Research Interests:
A short essay originally published in Dan Halter's 2006 exhibition publication 'Take Me To Your Leader' (Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town) and republished by Whatiftheworld, Cape Town in 2012 and 2015. The original artist book was... more
A short essay originally published in Dan Halter's 2006 exhibition publication 'Take Me To Your Leader' (Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town) and republished by Whatiftheworld, Cape Town in 2012 and 2015.
The original artist book was published as a democratic multiple, and is held in the Smithsonian Library collection:
http://library.si.edu/exhibition/artists-books-and-africa/take-me-your-leader-full
The original artist book was published as a democratic multiple, and is held in the Smithsonian Library collection:
http://library.si.edu/exhibition/artists-books-and-africa/take-me-your-leader-full
Research Interests:
During a career spanning almost thirty years, Barend de Wet has operated with stunning agility in the interface between contemporary art, material culture and social networks. He is everywhere and nowhere at once, constantly testing... more
During a career spanning almost thirty years, Barend de Wet has operated with stunning agility in the interface
between contemporary art, material culture and social networks. He is everywhere and nowhere at once, constantly
testing relationships and perceptions, and epitomizing Damien Hirst’s opinion that artists are always ‘on their way to
work’. A consummate aesthete, his oeuvre has encompassed traditional media, craft skills and fanatical hobbyism,
as well as productive collaborations. His signifying system calls attention to a canny, applied awareness of the New
Realist and Conceptual traditions, as well as post-conceptual forms; a sustained interest in what is known, not
unproblematically within the South African context, as ‘transitional’ art; the conventions of aesthetic formalism;
artisanship versus practical naïveté; and the legacy of Duchampian mischief. Sidelined by the contemporary art
historical canon, his influence on contemporary practice is pervasive, and innate to many positions in current art.
He is a trickster; obdurate, contradictory, wilful and generous in equal measure. Throughout his career, De Wet has consistently opened up spaces of possibility for future creative action in a context of production with very specific, local conditions. This book is a critical survey of de Wet's multivalent presence and praxis.
between contemporary art, material culture and social networks. He is everywhere and nowhere at once, constantly
testing relationships and perceptions, and epitomizing Damien Hirst’s opinion that artists are always ‘on their way to
work’. A consummate aesthete, his oeuvre has encompassed traditional media, craft skills and fanatical hobbyism,
as well as productive collaborations. His signifying system calls attention to a canny, applied awareness of the New
Realist and Conceptual traditions, as well as post-conceptual forms; a sustained interest in what is known, not
unproblematically within the South African context, as ‘transitional’ art; the conventions of aesthetic formalism;
artisanship versus practical naïveté; and the legacy of Duchampian mischief. Sidelined by the contemporary art
historical canon, his influence on contemporary practice is pervasive, and innate to many positions in current art.
He is a trickster; obdurate, contradictory, wilful and generous in equal measure. Throughout his career, De Wet has consistently opened up spaces of possibility for future creative action in a context of production with very specific, local conditions. This book is a critical survey of de Wet's multivalent presence and praxis.
Research Interests:
Table of Contents, colophon and Editor's Note from monograph on Sam Nhlengethwa. Publication features essays and contributions from Nadine Gordimer, Alexandra Dodd, David Koloane, Johnny Mekoa, Robert Hodgins, Tim Modise and John Stremlau.
Research Interests:
Penny Siopis is one of South Africa's most significant and influential artists. With a practice spanning painting, installation and screen-based media, her deeply embodied work reflects on history, violence, fear and humanity in... more
Penny Siopis is one of South Africa's most significant and influential artists. With a practice spanning painting, installation and screen-based media, her deeply embodied work reflects on history, violence, fear and humanity in startling, rich and arresting ways. An intensely visual thinker, Siopis's work represents the complex entanglements of modern humanity, with an incisive eye continually seeking and making connections between the intimate and the ideological.
With contributions by Colin Richards, Griselda Pollock, Brenda Atkinson, Jennifer Law, Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall.
With contributions by Colin Richards, Griselda Pollock, Brenda Atkinson, Jennifer Law, Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall.
Research Interests:
Catalogue essay for Terry Kurgan's 'Skip: Present Company Included' (2003)
Research Interests:
On this episode, we are pleased to hear from visual and forensic artist Kathryn Smith, who is also a Trans Doe Task Force volunteer. We won’t do much interrupting because Kathryn has some really amazing insights and experiences, and we... more
On this episode, we are pleased to hear from visual and forensic artist Kathryn Smith, who is also a Trans Doe Task Force volunteer. We won’t do much interrupting because Kathryn has some really amazing insights and experiences, and we want you to get to hear as much as possible. We will also hear briefly from Cairenn Binder, who is a DNA Doe Project volunteer and nurse who advised artist Kim Parkhurst in the creation of the most recent image of Pillar Point Doe.
Research Interests:
“Elegy” is a postmortem portrait of South African Black Consciousness activist Stephen Bantu Biko (1946-1977) by Paul Stopforth (b. Johannesburg, 1945). It is executed in graphite powder painstakingly polished into layers of Cobra floor... more
“Elegy” is a postmortem portrait of South African Black Consciousness activist Stephen Bantu Biko (1946-1977) by Paul Stopforth (b. Johannesburg, 1945). It is executed in graphite powder painstakingly polished into layers of Cobra floor wax from which countless hair-fine excisions then excavate the figure from its ground.
Measuring 149 x 240 cm – near life-size – it hovers between drawing, photography, sculpture and painting, demonstrating kinship with all these media and yet claiming a singular materiality.
Measuring 149 x 240 cm – near life-size – it hovers between drawing, photography, sculpture and painting, demonstrating kinship with all these media and yet claiming a singular materiality.
This project interrogates what kind of desire(s) archival material relating to traumatic historical events can embody for us contemporarily. I want to ask what the implications of these desire(s) are for how we understand and negotiate... more
This project interrogates what kind of desire(s) archival material relating to traumatic historical events can embody for us contemporarily. I want to ask what the implications of these desire(s) are for how we understand and negotiate citizenship in the present. Its object of enquiry is the albums of “known and suspected activists” produced by the apartheid-era Security Branch. They allow us to consider the role of desire in the archive, but also how that desire might be shifted. In concert, they allow us to consider methods employed within the archive and methods that might usefully intervene in them. Various artistic works and the practical iterations of this project serve as vital touchstones in developing these arguments. Lacanian psychoanalysis and Piercian semiotics are key to understanding desire in relation to signification and indexicality in particular. By elucidating the differences between facial images and facial biometrics, I want to ask what the facial photograph gains from its inclusion in biometric systems. I will advance the idea that digital Facial Averaging, based on the facial photograph, is useful in interventions into archives of facial imagery: on the one hand, for how it makes it possible to fulfil the desire for the images to be conducive to public consideration without revealing personal information of those imaged in the archive; on the other hand, how it allows us to think desire in relation to ethics. Here Facial Averaging as a method can usefully be interpreted through both Lacanian psychoanalysis and Levinasian ethics. I furthermore want to propose that the interface can lend itself to the work of critical historiography by way of its capacity for semiotic and discursive intervention, and in this instance particularly, give concrete form to a desire for the post-apartheid.
Embedded videos playable on Adobe Acrobat Reader and requires additional installation of Adobe Flash Player.
Embedded videos playable on Adobe Acrobat Reader and requires additional installation of Adobe Flash Player.
Research Interests:
The following thesis focuses on the life stories of five migrant women of the same age, coming from different contexts and backgrounds, who all lived in Stellenbosch, South Africa during 2014 and 2015. The thesis frames a... more
The following thesis focuses on the life stories of five migrant women
of the same age, coming from different contexts and backgrounds,
who all lived in Stellenbosch, South Africa during 2014 and 2015.
The thesis frames a practice-led study focusing on forms of representation
in two simultaneous modalities: photography as in portraiture,
cityscape and landscape; and narrative as in biography, life
story. This work aims to find alternative ways to represent migrant
subjectivities by means of photography and narrative, also exploring
notions of space, place, memory, and agency. Theoretically, the study
entails a critical and exploratory approach to the notion of ‘entanglement’
as conceptualised by post-colonial cultural theorists Sarah
Nuttall and Achille Mbembe, and the critical reflection on migrant
representation by Edward Said. This is achieved firstly through
specific anthropological and cultural studies addressing migration;
secondly, through selected examples from the South African printed
media; and thirdly, through the analysis of specific photo-based
artworks which address subjective experiences of migrancy by means
of recorded narratives and photographic documentation. The practical
research is understood as the guide to the theoretical thesis; both
are thus themselves entangled, which extends the theoretical content
into the form of the research presentation.
of the same age, coming from different contexts and backgrounds,
who all lived in Stellenbosch, South Africa during 2014 and 2015.
The thesis frames a practice-led study focusing on forms of representation
in two simultaneous modalities: photography as in portraiture,
cityscape and landscape; and narrative as in biography, life
story. This work aims to find alternative ways to represent migrant
subjectivities by means of photography and narrative, also exploring
notions of space, place, memory, and agency. Theoretically, the study
entails a critical and exploratory approach to the notion of ‘entanglement’
as conceptualised by post-colonial cultural theorists Sarah
Nuttall and Achille Mbembe, and the critical reflection on migrant
representation by Edward Said. This is achieved firstly through
specific anthropological and cultural studies addressing migration;
secondly, through selected examples from the South African printed
media; and thirdly, through the analysis of specific photo-based
artworks which address subjective experiences of migrancy by means
of recorded narratives and photographic documentation. The practical
research is understood as the guide to the theoretical thesis; both
are thus themselves entangled, which extends the theoretical content
into the form of the research presentation.
We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them... more
We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers’ cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area w...
Research Interests:
Laws of the Face is a multi-modal, participant-observer study of forensic cultures of human identification which pursues practical and theoretical objectives as complementary, focusing on methods of post-mortem facial depiction as... more
Laws of the Face is a multi-modal, participant-observer study of forensic cultures of human identification which pursues practical and theoretical objectives as complementary, focusing on methods of post-mortem facial depiction as forensic objects whose socio-cultural affordances have been overlooked. Recognising Forensic Art’s epistemological precarity within forensic science and ontological ambiguity as art, the cultural in/visibilities of the dead are considered through theories of faciality, photography and necropolitics, and the operational work of post-mortem forensic depictions is resituated with reference to the counter-forensic (Keenan, 2014a; Sekula, 2014), forensis (Weizman, 2014) and Humanitarian Forensic Action (Cordner and Tidball-Binz, 2017), with the work of citizen/netizen allies suggesting new ways to extend the forum of relational citizenship and forensic care (M’Charek and Casartelli, 2019). An operational study undertaken in a medico-legal facility in Cape Town ...
Research Interests: Sociology, Forensic Science, Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, Necropolitics, and 13 moreSTS (Anthropology), Visual Arts, Art and Design, Pracademics, Forensic Illustration and Medical Art, Human Identification (Forensic Anthropology), RA, Depiction, N, Forensic Art, HV, Forensic Humanitarian Action, and NB
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This inteNiew was conducted on the occasion of one of the most extensive group exhibitions of South African art seen in this country. Emergence presented highlights of the last twenty-five years of local art production. The works were... more
This inteNiew was conducted on the occasion of one of the most extensive group exhibitions of South African art seen in this country. Emergence presented highlights of the last twenty-five years of local art production. The works were strategically and rigorously selected by Julia Char/ton and Fiona RankinSmith, of the University of the Witwatersrand Galleries, in consultation with Marion Arnold•
Research Interests:
Many chapters of Chemical Bodies illustrate how the history of the use of chemical agents as methods of control and coercion has been intimately tied to the rendering of harm as (in)visible. While suffering has been foregrounded to make... more
Many chapters of Chemical Bodies illustrate how the history of the use of chemical agents as methods of control and coercion has been intimately tied to the rendering of harm as (in)visible. While suffering has been foregrounded to make the case for brutality and exceptionality on some occasions, on other occasions, suffering has been downplayed, denied or backgrounded to make the case for benevolence and normality. This suggests the need for caution about what is and is not included in any accounts of chemical agents. Another source for caution is the way the development and use of chemical agents is often undertaken in conditions of secrecy. As a result, scholars, journalists, activists and others investigating such capabilities often take their task as one of exposing hidden truths or unappreciated events. The promise of revealing or unmasking offers a fetching allure for investigators and audiences alike: an invitation to become complicit in a shared but still exclusive understa...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Kathryn Smith's Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs is a series of twelve prints comprising photographs and handwritten text, wherein she records her ‘pilgrimage’ to the former homes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen.... more
Kathryn Smith's Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs is a series of twelve prints comprising photographs and handwritten text, wherein she records her ‘pilgrimage’ to the former homes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen. As such, it utilises photographic and autographic traces to ‘track’ the elusive traces left by Nilsen. Given the lapse of two decades between Nilsen's arrest and Smith's visit, the traces of Nilsen's ‘wrongs’ seem all but erased by the banal fagade of suburban living which has continued on, regardless. In taking this as a starting point, the following article considers the motif of absence that characterises Smith's work as intrinsic to traces per se. This is not just because traces gravitate towards erasure though time and forgetting, but also because traces mark both the former presence and the current absence of whatever caused them. With recourse to a variety of theories, including Peirce's semiotics, Barthes's meditations...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract This paper describes the 3D facial depiction of a 2700-year-old mummy, Ta-Kush, stewarded by Maidstone Museum, UK, informed by new scientific and visual analysis which demanded a complete re-evaluation of her biography and... more
Abstract This paper describes the 3D facial depiction of a 2700-year-old mummy, Ta-Kush, stewarded by Maidstone Museum, UK, informed by new scientific and visual analysis which demanded a complete re-evaluation of her biography and presentation. The digital haptic reconstruction and visualisation workflow used to reconstruct her facial morphology is described, in the context of the multimodal and participatory approach taken by the museum in the complete redesign of the galleries in which the mummy is displayed. Informed by contemporary approaches to working with human remains in heritage spaces, we suggest that our virtual modelling methodology finds a logical conclusion in the presentation of the depiction both as a touch-object as well as a digital animation, and that this ‘digital unshelving’ enables the further rehumanization of Ta-Kush. Finally, we present and reflect upon visitor feedback, which suggests that audiences respond well to interpretive material in museums that utilizes cutting-edge, multimedia technologies.
Research Interests:
Abstract Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed... more
Abstract Conversations surrounding end of life and death can be difficult or taboo for some, meaning that matters of organ and body donation are not widely discussed. To Donate or Not to Donate? That is the Question! is a comic developed to raise awareness and challenge common misconceptions about donation by encouraging the publics to engage in informed discussions about the different options available. This case study proposes graphic medicine as an alternative method of presenting donation information to a public audience, and illustrates how the comic medium can communicate body donation information in an accessible and engaging way.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This poster presents how innovative scientific and curatorial approaches have figured in attempts to 'rehumanise' two ancient Egyptian individuals for display at Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, whilst encouraging... more
This poster presents how innovative scientific and curatorial approaches have figured in attempts to 'rehumanise' two ancient Egyptian individuals for display at Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, whilst encouraging critical interrogation of how knowledge is constructed and disseminated at the interface of art and science. Responsible and respectful stewardship of human remains held in museum collections (particularly archaeological and ‘natural history’ institutions) has demanded close attention in recent years, particularly in the context of repatriation claims. But what of human remains for which there is little or no demand for repatriation, and which lend themselves to highly aesthetic treatment, as in the case with Ancient Egyptian material culture, including mummies? Conventions of trading, collecting and displaying such material undoubtedly contributes to their conceptual transformation from ‘human subject’ to ‘museum object’, crafting a critical distance between the body as individual, and cultural commodity. Seeking to reverse this distinction, we focus on the process of producing facial depictions of two ancient Egyptian individuals who have been closely associated with the history of Johns Hopkins University since the early twentieth century. Carried out by LJMU’s Face Lab in close consultation with an interdisciplinary team at Johns Hopkins, the depictions were based on CT scan data, with 3D craniofacial reconstructions produced in Geomagic Freeform, and finally presented as 2D images textured in Adobe Photoshop. The depictions contributed to an extensive multimodal and conservation-driven study of these two individuals and their associated objects, the results of which include a reassessment of biological sex for one individual as well as a probable name, which now replaces the previous catalogue reference to the collector-patron who gifted her remains to the museum. Reflecting on how curatorial decisions shape the visitor experience present an opportunity to critically assess the presentation of craniofacial reconstructions in museums. Specifically, we consider the presumptions of ‘non-invasive’ scientific technology and digital imaging, asking what might be at stake, for exhibition makers and visitors alike, in projecting contemporary ideas, including cognitive biases, onto past people?