• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Live Art and Spatial Practices

Module description

In this module, you will draw on live art and spatial practices as tools for collaboration, debate, intervention, and the playful re-imagining of space and place. You will work outside the studio and established arts venue, researching and creating new site-based experiences in the city, the natural environment, private spaces and digital worlds. You will encounter, and make connections between, the work of performance practitioners, artists, architects, geographers, urban explorers, digital miscreants, and others. We will reference live art as Lois Keidan, the co-founder of the Live Art Development Agency, does, as ‘a way of thinking about what art is, what it can do, and where and how it can be experienced, rather than a description of an artform or discipline’.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• provide you with opportunities to extend your intellectual and creative abilities through integrated research and practice;
• enable you to identify and probe multiple, potential relationships between artist, spectator and site;
• offer you a lens through which to interrogate and synthesise a range of strategies as a site-based artist, by borrowing models from a wide range of spatial discourses (performance, installation and public art, architecture, archaeology, geography, culture jamming, futurology, etc.) and adopting an 'anti-disciplinary' (Ito) approach to their practical application;
• support you in making creative choices and taking creative risks when making work for contexts beyond the studio and theatre building.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Develop informed, coherent strategies for generating relevant arts practice across a range of spatial contexts.
• 2. Locate one's own site-based practice within the wider fields of contemporary theory and practice, and develop a language to critically reflect upon it.
• 3. Develop an understanding of the logistics of site-based practice, such as Health & Safety (including risk assessments), and contingency planning.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Explore theoretical concerns through practice, and vice versa, and to synthesise findings in practical and written tasks. The ability to interpret research into physical practice and vice versa.
• 5. Relate to others in creative processes; to work with others in small task-orientated groups and to initiate and sustain creative, analytic and interpretative work within strict time limits and basic technical competence.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Express and communicate creative ideas and images; ability to initiate and sustain creative work, both group and solo.
• 7. Balance between self-direction and collaborative work; self-management, collaborative working skills, problem solving, critical analysis and valuing own and others’ ideas and beliefs.
• 8. Develop group cooperation skills, including the ability to give and receive constructive critical feedback and to improve communication skills and analytic abilities in discussions.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that this module will:

• begin by introducing you to relevant contemporary live art and spatial practices, including short student presentations in pairs;
• immerse you in a series of site-based, staff-led sessions as well as self-directed, small-group, practical experiments relating to various f sites (from the urban to the rural, from the private to the digital, from the real to the imagined);
• build on a shared creative 'toolkit' and support you through a period of practical synthesis, during which you will make and share your own piece of site-based work, guided by structured seminars and one-to-one tutorials;
• enable you to develop a creative assessment relating to future-facing spatial practices that takes the form of  an intensive enquiry that seeks to solve a complex design issue.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bleeker, M., Kear, A., Kelleher, J. and Roms, H. eds. (2019), Thinking Through Theatre and Performance, London and New York, Methuen Drama: Bloomsbury.
• Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.
• Gehl, J. (2001) Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, Copenhagen, Arkitektens Forlag: The Danish Architectural Press.
• Heathfield, A. ed. (2004) Live: Art and Performance, London, Tate Publishing.
• Heddon, D. (2007) Autobiography and Performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Heddon, D. and Klein, J. (2012) Histories & Practices of Live Art, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Hill, L. and Paris, H. eds. (2006) Performance and Place, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Kastner, J. ed. (2012) Nature (Documents of Contemporary Art), Massachusetts, MIT Press.
• Landry, C. (2012) The Origins & Futures of the Creative City, Gloucestershire UK, Comedia.
• Lydon, M. and Garcia, A. (2015) Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, Washington DC, Island Press.
• Pearson, M. (2010) Site-Specific Performance, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Schmidt, T. (2019) Agency: A Partial History of Live Art, Bristol, Intellect.
• Thompson, N. and Sholette, G. (2004) The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, Massachusetts, MIT Press.
• Whybrow, N. ed. (2010) Performance and the Contemporary City: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Wilkie, F. (2002) Kinds of Place at Bore Place: Site-Specific Performance and the Rules of Spatial Behaviour, New Theatre Quarterly, 71: 243-260.
• Wrights & Sites (2006) A Mis-Guide To Anywhere, Exeter, Arts Council England/CCEP.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE
• Farquhar, M.: https://www.marciafarquhar.com/ [Accessed 6 March 2024].
• Haque, U.: https://www.haque.co.uk/ [Accessed 6 March 2024].
• Ito, J. (2016) Design and Science: Can design advance science, and can science advance design?, Journal of Design and Science, 1. Available at: https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/designandscience/release/2 [Accessed 15 February 2022].
• Keidan, L. (2015) Live Art: the research lab for mass culture, The Guardian, 22nd October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/oct/22/live-art-the-research-lab-for-mass-culture [Accessed 15 January 2022].
• Live Art Development Agency: https://www.thisisliveart.co.uk [Accessed 15 January 2022].
• Paterson, K, Future Library (2014-2114): https://www.futurelibrary.no/ [Accessed 6 March 2024].

Key words search

Spatial practices, live art, intervention, site, space, place, city, natural environment, autotopology, digital worlds, artist-spectator relationship, performance, walking art, installation, public art, architecture, culture jamming, futurology, charrette, antidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary.