Recording Print: Collaboration and Social Exchange in DCA Print Studio 1999 - Present

我的研究考察了邓迪当代艺术(DCA)版画工作室的环境和实践，考虑到合作和参与在版画概念发展中所起的作用。使用参与和观察工作室项目的方法，并分析其档案，我将问一问，社会语言方法是否可以说明印刷的合作性质。尽管DCA的艺术家，特别是那些刚接触印刷的艺术家经常说，印刷合作对他们的实践的发展是多么有价值，但印刷作品的概念和技术发展往往是短暂的和没有文件记录的。几个世纪以来，印刷品一直在考虑语言和传播，但构成印刷品脚手架的对话、过程和微妙的生产语言往往仍然是一个谜，隐藏在工作室的大门后面。版画在熟练的工艺、设计、艺术和图形处理之间的不固定定位，意味着它不自在地坐在书面的历史记录中，讲述非中介和内在的意义。它是一种中间和过渡的实践，是协作创造的实践：它既是行动又是文档。版画创作，特别是在社会和参与性方面，在当代艺术实践和理论的关键讨论中往往被省略。合作印刷实践具有一种语言结构，不仅在符号和索引关系系统的材料开发中，而且在社会意义上。印刷厂环境中可观察到的社会语言现象包括实验性对话、知识、技术、行为和仪式的转让，以及共同开发习语来传达概念。这项研究将突出印刷品的语言，并提出问题：印刷品的语言方面与其社会生活、物质性、表演性或实践性有多大程度的交叉？当代艺术中的“社会转向”或“人类学转向”，使得作品在很大程度上没有经过审查，也没有文献记载。我的研究通过使用与印刷有关的社会和语言视角，并将礼物交换和互惠的人类学思想应用于合作印刷的实践，解决了这种忽视。我认为印刷是一种慷慨的、社会的和民主的做法。我的研究将考虑人类学方法能反映出这些创造性的接触，我问--它能解释那些太常被忽视的作品吗？将我的研究放在DCA的工作室环境中，使用选定的印刷合作的案例研究，我将把艺术和设计史和文化研究的方法与人类学和人种学的方法相结合，开发一种特定地点的方法。利用参与者观察、访谈、技术记录、我自己对这些交流的档案以及更广泛的DCA档案，我将强调DCA创造性计划中这一基本上看不见的部分的关键重要性。该项目对印刷理论辩论作出了重大贡献，并有助于解决更广泛的批评话语中对印刷实践的遗漏。与DCA的伙伴关系不仅将增进对印刷工作室工作环境的了解，而且还将加深对印刷与更广泛的参与动态之间的关系的了解。这是一个探索这种创作环境对无数艺术家更广泛的实践产生的重大影响的机会。这一成果将更好地说明这种设施的价值，不仅对DCA项目中的艺术家，而且对整个苏格兰和其他地区的艺术家来说，为将印刷品纳入和理解艺术历史叙事做出重大贡献。

My research examines Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) Print Studio environment and practice, considering the role that collaboration and participation play in the conceptual development of prints. Using methods of participation in and observation of the studio's projects, and analysing its archives, I will ask whether a socio-linguistic approach may illuminate the collaborative nature of print. Although artists at DCA, particularly those new to print, often voice how valuable print collaborations are to the development of their practice, the conceptual and technical development of printed works is often ephemeral and undocumented. Print has evolved over centuries with language and dissemination in mind, yet the dialogues, processes and subtle language of production that form the scaffolding of print often remain a mystery, hidden behind studio doors. Print's unfixed positioning between skilled craft, design, art and graphic processes, means it sits uneasily in written historical accounts of unmediated and inherent meaning. It is a practice of intermediates and transitions, of collaborative creation: it is both action and documentation. Printmaking, particularly in its social and participatory aspects, has often been omitted from key discussions in contemporary art practice and theory. Collaborative print practice has a linguistic structure, not only in the material development of a system of signs and indexical relationships, but also in a social sense. Observable socio-linguistic phenomena in the print studio environment include experimental dialogue, transfers of knowledge, techniques, behaviours and rituals, and the co-development of idioms to convey concepts. This research will highlight the language of print and ask: to what extent does the linguistic aspect of print intersect with its social life, its materiality and its performativity or practice? The 'social' or 'anthropological turn' in contemporary art has left production largely unexamined and undocumented. My research addresses this neglect by using social and linguistic perspectives in relation to print, and applying anthropological ideas of gift exchange and reciprocity to the practice of collaborative printing. I contend that print is a generous, social and democratic practice. My research will consider what an anthropological approach can reflect of these creative encounters, asking - can it illuminate the production that has too oft been neglected? Situating my research within DCA's studio environment, using case studies of selected print collaborations, I will blend methods from art and design history and cultural studies with anthropological and ethnographic approaches, developing a site-specific methodology. Using participant observation, interviews, technical records, my own archives of these exchanges and wider DCA archives, I will highlight the critical importance of this largely unseen strand of DCA's creative programme. This project makes a significant contribution to the theoretical debates on print and helps address the omission of print practice from wider critical discourse. The partnership with DCA will enhance understanding not only of the Print Studio's work environment, but also of the relationship between print and participatory dynamics more generally. This is an opportunity to explore the significant impact this creative environment has had on the wider practice of numerous artists. This output will better illustrate the value of such facilities not just to artists in DCA's programme, but across Scotland and beyond, making a significant contribution to the inclusion and understanding of print in art historical narratives.