The Monster Seminar explores questions of art making by focusing on the processes we undertake to “arrive” at final work. What methods do we develop or follow in the studio, and how do these define our artistic work and understanding of art in general? How do we cultivate our process, and what relation does process have to presenting final work? The Seminar draws out these questions in a speculative manner, exploring process as a deeply complex form of “infra-consciousness” – the madness behind every artwork. The Seminar works through a range of theoretical frameworks, from psychoanalytic theories of desire and depression, fantasy and sublimation, love and guilt, to feminist notions of gestation and labor, in order to engage the artwork as a form of monster: the radical uncanny, or the absolute intruder. This allows for questioning the relation between process and presentation, and in what sense art is never fully what we expect. Considering how one may deepen an approach to process, and the “birthing” of the artwork, the seminar maps four key methods, including: The Incomplete, The Thing, The Gift, and The Joke. These are put into play as poetic vocabularies and paths toward collaborating with the monster. The Seminar is organized as four lectures including group discussion and examining particular artistic works.
The Monster Seminar was held at the Art Academy, Bergen, fall semester 2020.