[Commlist] Wild Research Symposium

*Journal of Media Practice and Education and The Revelator Wall of Death 
Symposium on Wild Research*

*A free one-day symposium which seeks to open a conversation on how 
academics and artists might reject the straitjackets increasingly 
imposed on their way of working through a discussion of what we have 
termed ‘Wild Research’. *

*Where: The Revelator Wall of Death, Glasgow*

*When:  Friday 13 September 2024.*

*Call for Proposals*

In recent years, academics have faced increased demands for their work 
to be measurably useful, for society, and for the university itself. The 
image of the solitary scholar burrowing away on their own idiosyncratic 
concerns has been replaced by that of the pragmatic scholar, working 
tirelessly to produce outputs which can be measured by their 
income-generating capacity through scoring well in research assessment 
exercises, or through identifiable social engagement. This process has 
been accompanied by a move to further regulate academic research, in 
form and in content, by an encouragement to work with favoured 
institutions, or on state-supported research priorities, which 
increasingly focus on industry and have short-term goals hard-wired into 
them.

At the same time, art schools, institutions which were developed to 
train artists, have been increasingly professionalised, forced to 
operate within the metricised logics of the neoliberal university, and 
artists increasingly work in conditions marked by significant budgetary 
cuts and limited curatorial horizons.

This symposium seeks to explore how academics and artists might 
negotiate these dominant but limited methods of working, methods which 
close down, rather than open up, possibilities for the production of new 
knowledge in its broadest sense, by demanding a right to be wild.

The ‘wild’ in this ‘wild research’ can accommodate multiple, perhaps 
contradictory, perspectives and practices but could include

  * Research which is unfunded
  * Research which deliberately operates outwith of the regulatory
    frameworks of higher education and/or cultural/industrial sectors
  * Research which knows not what it is doing
  * Research which seeks to decolonise the academy in form
  * Research which is indisciplinary
  * Research which demands the right to opacity
  * Research which rejects the Scramble for Impact
  * Research which refuses to worship at the high altar of the written word
  * Research which moves to its own beat
  * Research which is confident of its own interior logic
  * Research which theorises how we might understand ‘wild’ or ‘wildness’

We are keen to disturb the binary between academic and artistic 
research; as such we invite academics and artists to submitproposals for 
short papers, presentations, practices, performances, exhibitions, 
workshops, panels, both conventional and unconventional, which respond 
to the symposium’s themes. While the journal has a focus on media 
practice, we welcome proposals across artistic research in all its wild 
and varied forms.

This is the start of the conversation and future events on Wild Research 
will follow.

  A special issue of /Media Practice and Education/ will be devoted to 
Wild Research.

*All events will take place at The Revelator Wall of Death*

*What is The Revelator?***

Wild things are impossible to predict, and cannot be hijacked by 
professionalisation, monetisation or careerism. Created by artist 
Stephen Skrynka, The Revelator is wild in every sense. A wooden, 
handcrafted circular structure, it is a community-built, and 
fully-functioning, Wall of Death. (Motorcycles are ridden vertically on 
the 5metre high circular wall with an awestruck audience perched at the 
top) Currently located in a former shipyard on The Clyde, it is also a 
unique nomadic Theatre-in-the-Round and art space. Combining heritage, 
identity and story it offers a reconnection and sense of communal pride 
through making.  It is completely made from traditional wooden joints, 
no nails, and took over 14,000 hours to build. It is wild because it 
lives and grows unfettered from institutions in its own natural 
environment and responds to it in a fertile and unhindered manner. It 
was built by volunteers without permission and completely unfunded by 
corporate bodies, the wood was paid for from small local donations. It 
is also nomadic so it can be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere, thus 
broadcasting the seeds of wildness wherever it may take root.

*Where is The Revelator?*

739 South St, Glasgow G14 0BX

Follow The Revelator on Instagram @the-revelator-clydebuilt 
[@stephenskrynka]

*Please submit your proposal to the organisers at 
**(arts-wild /at/ glasgow.ac.uk)* <mailto:(arts-wild /at/ glasgow.ac.uk)>**

*Your proposal should utilise one of the following forms and include a 
50-word biography. Please include planned duration: conventional papers 
are limited to ten minutes.*

300-word outline

2-minute audio-or AV submission

Up to 10 images

*Key dates*

Deadline for proposals: midnight (Glasgow Time) on 17 May

Notification: 30 June

Symposium: Friday 13 September (exact times to follow but circa 10am-6pm)

*Symposium Committee*

Kirsten Adkins (University of Glasgow)

Bob Anderson (University of Glasgow)

Núria Araüna Baró (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

David Archibald (JMPE/University of Glasgow)

Ronan Breslin (Glasgow School of Art)

Jill Daniels (JMPE/University of East London)

Johnny Rodger (Glasgow School of Art)

Leah Sinforiani (Glasgow School of Art)

Stephen Skrynka (The Revelator)

*Supported by University of Glasgow School of Culture and Creative Arts 
and Glasgow School of Art*

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