Course Description
MRes Art is made up of three specialist pathways: Theory and Philosophy; Moving Image; and Exhibition Studies. MRes Art uses research and writing to develop modes of questioning, speculative thinking and critical evaluation. Drawing upon a wealth of scholarly expertise from the staff team, visiting lecturers and practitioners, the course considers the relationship of contemporary art research to wider aesthetic, cultural and socio-political issues.
There are opportunities for students on each pathway to come together for shared taught components. You will also be encouraged to develop student-led activities. In the past, our students have collaborated on research events and publications, as well as the Degree Show and the Tate Exchange programme at Tate Modern.
The Theory and Philosophy pathway is for artists and writers who want to study philosophy and art from a contemporary perspective. You will investigate how radical innovations in philosophy today can facilitate not just an understanding of art, but also how they can shape developments in contemporary culture and art practice.
This pathway has a uniquely informed dynamic of teaching and group dialogue. This is assisted by the staff team’s research practice which is engaged in the areas of both art and philosophy. The theories that the curriculum draws upon are at the forefront of thinking today. These include continental philosophy, the Marxist intellectual tradition and phenomenology. You will also study relevant theories for the plurality of art today within its socio-political context. These include theories of aesthetics, psychoanalysis, gender, race, linguistics, performance, affect, neuroscience, cybernetics, the algorithmic condition and the Anthropocene.
MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy responds to the radical transformation that thinking has undergone in recent years. As a consequence of this, approaches to writing theory have also changed, by adopting more fluid, less didactic models of practice. The purpose of this pathway is to enhance your thinking, writing and, if relevant, art practice in light of ongoing transformations in philosophy, theory and knowledge.
Course Content
MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy is dedicated to creative and flexible ways in which its ideas can merge with your own interests. Alongside an intensive program of seminars which deepen your knowledge, the pathway also supports your own developing lines of enquiry and research, especially towards the end of the first year and throughout the second year of the course.
The curriculum will advance your research abilities and knowledge in both theoretical and art-related fields. Enabling an understanding of key issues and debates informing art discourse and practice today, the curriculum incorporates a wide range of practices – writing, publishing, group discussions, tutorials, gallery visits and public symposia – as integral to your studies.
Unit 1: Innovations: Art, Writing, Philosophy
Responding to the question posed by the title of their 1991 book What Is Philosophy? Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari declare that "Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts." By this, the authors infer that philosophy not only invents new ideas, theories and forms of cognition but, equally, that it opens up new realms of perception and subjective experience. The teaching on the pathway, as well as the writing and research it supports, takes up the consequent challenge of these innovations for art and cultural and social discourses. It affirms the innovations created by philosophical thought and its difference from traditional, categorial assumptions of knowledge.
Unit 1 will enable you to absorb and understand the seminal advances and speculative thinking developed by philosophy. It conceptually maps the legacies of continental philosophy for thinking, writing and art today. This opens up new possibilities for thinking and writing, as well as advances ways by which to interpret and contribute to developments in art, culture and the social today.
Unit 2: Methodologies and Methods I
Unit 2 is an opportunity for all the students in the MRes Art course to study together. The unit has two distinct components: methodologies and methods. Methodologies aims to make you aware of a range of methodological approaches that have shaped debates in your field of study. These include, but are not limited to, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial and decolonial studies. Methods aims to equip you with essential research skills.
Unit 3: Methodologies and Methods II
Following on from Unit 2, this unit deepens your understanding of specific artistic and discursive methods. You will examine how they operate in specific texts, debates and events by relating them to the pathways’ respective subject areas. Seminars and workshops are integral to the unit, in which methods of research and writing are collectively tested.
Unit 4: Individual Research Project
Unit 4 has two parts. Part one continues the seminar series in Unit 1 concerned with philosophical innovations and their relevance for thinking and writing. Additionally, you will also focus on developing your research project proposal. This involves reading and viewing, the formulation of appropriate research questions and methods. You will also produce a literature review.
In part two, you will lead presentations about your research. You will discuss progress, challenges and findings and issues of form, audience and dissemination. At the end of Unit 4 you will be assessed through presentation of your realised research project in the agreed forms.
Entry Requirements
The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:
- An honours degree
- Or an equivalent EU/international qualification.
AP(E)L – Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning
Exceptionally applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:
- Related academic or work experience
- The quality of the personal statement
- A strong academic or other professional reference
Or a combination of these factors.
Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.
English language requirements
IELTS level 7.0 or above, with at least 6.0 in reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Assessment Methods
- Research and preparatory work
- Project proposal document
- Essays
- Documentation of work
- Verbal and visual presentations
- Participation in activities and debate
- Realised project work (normally written outputs)
Additional Information
Course dates
Autumn term
Monday 16 September 2019 – Friday 6 December 2019
Spring term
Monday 6 January 2020 – Friday 13 March 2020
Summer term
Tuesday 14 April 2020 – Friday 19 June 2020
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MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy
University of the Arts London
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MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy
University of the Arts London