The visible traces of the past in the present provide the essential material from which the video, Logical Aesthetics, constructs new cultural narratives in which to rethink the relationship

between ourselves and the material conditions of our existence. Logical Aesthetics is a result of a deconstructive and constructive process which gatescherrywolmark has attempted to engage in performatively, by exploring the possibilities of multiple authorship and to subvert the binary divisions between authorship and ownership, research processes and finished work. Using images from gatescherrywomark archives, the video draws on the relationship between the original artists (Jean Cherry, Eleanor Gates-Stuart & Jenny Wolmark) and multiple agencies that changed the work significantly and as a consequence, created an open-ended and hybridised narrative.

The inclusion of practice as a valid research activity within the academic community coincides with a significant cultural shift in which the dominance of the word in western culture has been challenged by the growing influence of visuality. As Nicholas Mirzoeff puts it, ‘the world-as-a-text has been replaced by the world-as-a-picture’. (Mirzoeff, 1999: 7) Interestingly, one of the consequences of the establishment of the academic credentials of art and design is that it has been become clear that no world-picture can be either purely visual or purely linguistic. As a result, a broader understanding of the way in which creativity contributes to knowledge has begun to emerge. At the same time, it has become increasingly relevant to think about research itself as a cultural practice, rather than as an autonomous field of academic endeavour validated by the award of a research degree. The argument put forward in this paper is that there is a need to find an appropriate model for thinking about research as a cultural practice that is generated by, and through, the intersection with other cultural practices. …. (read on)