Changing Space: A Practice-Led Enquiry into Representations of the Urban

Abstract

Changing Space: A Practice-Led Enquiry into Representations of the Urban is an investigation into the evolution of the western metropolis using analogue and digital printmaking processes as analytical tools to mimic the formation and processes of the contemporary urban. As printed ephemera has been an integral part of the surface and life of the city, I aim to reflect their affinity through mixed-media print processes. My contribution to knowledge includes original approaches, visual strategies and formats to create new print-based representations of post-industrial urban space. My printmaking methods revealed parallel actions, techniques, and material qualities that reference aspects of the post-industrial city such as structure/dematerialisation, complexity, simultaneity, and the transition from the physical to the virtual. New tools, experimental techniques and hybrid methods have been developed through research investigations that break from traditional printmaking processes. A focus on structure, surface and space, led to the development of an abstract visual language. Layering processes revealed artefact patterns which this research identified as 'emergent complexities', a key component of my visual language. Theories of abstraction and metaphor of the metropolis are discussed as methodologies for depicting urban phenomena through experimental visual representations of both imaginary and real post-industrial cities. Show more