Interuniversity graduate seminar
“New Perspectives for Comics Studies”
“Comics as Practice-Based Research.
Word and Image as Cross Hairs”
a talk by Sébastien Conard (KASK)
Thursday 23rd February 2017 at 11 AM
LUCA School of Arts, campus Sint-Lukas Brussel, room A2.01
(Paleizenstraat 70, 1030 Brussels)
In this lecture Sébastien Conard will provide three ‘modulations’ of the first part of the lecture title as a way of uttering a number of remarks concerning ‘research in the arts’ and the case of comic making within that frame. At first, he will focus on the idea of ‘comics as research’, asking himself and the audience what can possibly be meant with ‘research’. Secondly, the notion of the ‘practice-based’ side will briefly be taken into account. Thirdly, the seemingly odd idea of having comics (or the very making of it) at the core of a serious research will be turned into a reshuffling of the original title: ‘comics as research-based practice’. Finally, now provided with a number of remarks, reflections and a minimal questioning of the common division between ‘practice’, ‘theory’ and ‘research’, the audience will be more precisely informed on Conard’s PhD research, focusing on word and image interferences.
Sébastien Conard studied History (UGent) and Cultural Sciences (VUB) while developing an ‘autodidactic’ practice related to comics, cartoons, graphic novels and more broadly, the interactions of the visual and the verbal. He contributed to comic zines such as Plots and published three graphic novels: The Lonely Look (Bries, 2009), Guy Goggle takes a break (Imprimitiv, 2010) and Het Kind (Imprimitiv, 2015). In his PhD research in the arts (LUCA, 2010-2016), he focused on word, image and narrativity within the field of the graphic novel and within the historical avant-gardes (mainly dada and surrealism). Amongst other things this research resulted in the publication of Grid/Lamer (Imprimitiv, 2013), Lama China (Croxhapox, 2015) and the recent ‘trilogy’, consisting of Lamaree, Degré Zéro and Hoe was de toekomst vandaag? (het balanseer, 2016). Sébastien Conard teaches at KASK Ghent School of Arts and is one of the founding members of Imprimitiv, an artistic collective/redaction.
An event organized by Pascal Lefèvre and Eva Cardon
