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Uncreative Practices: A Cross-Divisional RISD Symposium with Kenneth Goldsmith
Digital + Media Department, Kenneth Goldsmith, Lisa Z. Morgan, Mairead Byrne, Clement Valla, Shona Kitchen, Daniel Peltz, and Graphic Design Department
A couple of years ago Mairéad Byrne and Clement Valla had a Snap! moment when they simultaneously pulled the same assigned text out of their bags for courses they were teaching in different divisions. The courses were Nonpoetry Workshop (Graduate Studies) and Uncreative Design (Graphic Design), respectively. The book was Kenneth Goldsmith's Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (Columbia University Press 2011). Conversations have since built across RISD around Kenneth Goldsmith's ideas of uncreativity, and especially the relevance of process and systems-based generative methodologies—as opposed to notions of inspired and intuitive genius—to current practices in art and design. Accordingly, faculty and students from every RISD division will participate in this discussion with Kenneth Goldsmith, who himself graduated from RISD (BFA Sculpture '84), demonstrating how his ideas might be important for the whole school to consider in the light of the "post-media condition" we are often theorized as occupying at the moment.
Organized by Mairéad Byrne, Shona Kitchen, Lisa Z. Morgan, and Clement Valla.
Supported by the RISD 2050 Fund, RISD Department of Digital + Media, and RISD Department of Graphic Design.