DigiFest Annual Research Conference Arts Research Kaleidoscope (ARK) 2022 – ROMANCING THE STONE: Contemplating Evolving Trends and Impermeable Places in Arts and Design

The Faculty of Arts and Design, City Campus hosts the 2022 edition of its combined Annual Research Conference and Digital Festival. This year, the Faculty collaborates with the South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH) to create a larger hybrid festival both in-person and virtual. This event, themed ROMANCING THE STONE, will be held from 19th to 23rd September 2022.

The relationship between human beings and stone as a medium, metaphor and artefact has a significant and contested history within the arts. Zimbabwean sculptor Lazarus Takawira notes ‘you look for a stone, and find a story to etch onto the stone … After you are done working on a stone, it will begin talking to you, whispering at you.’ But we also use the word in metaphors to signify impermeable ideas and hardened frameworks. We describe ideas and ideologies as set in stone when we feel that they cannot be changed or shifted. However, as Monet observed in relation to the shifting light on the Rouen Cathedral, ‘Everything changes, even stone.’ Critical theorist Homi Bhabha also reminds us that nothing, least of all culture, is changeless. On this premise of change and chance, the 2022 Arts Research Kaleidoscope – a history-subverting, paradigm-contesting, kaleidoscopic spaceship – invites postgraduate students, researchers and creative practitioners from different disciplines to present and explore various apparently stratified frameworks in their fields from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Aim

The aim of DigiFest  Annual Research Conference ARK 2022 is to promote collaborative practices (creativity, innovation and interdisciplinarity) across art, design and technology.

Objectives

  • To showcase and facilitate creative projects that incorporate interdisciplinary skills and digital technologies
  • To interrogate the transformative vision of the future in arts and design fields
  • To demonstrate the economic significance of digital skills and technologies

Activities: Below are the activities lined-up for this year’s event

Contributions were welcomed across all disciplines from DUT students and staff, other institutions and industry.

Plenary Sessions/TalkFest

Guest speakers and panellists (internally and externally) will talk on relevant topics. The programme is comprised of in-person and virtual presentations that will be run concurrently.

Workshop

There is a workshop on PAPERMAKING for interested staff and students in the faculty, as well as DigiFest / Annual Research Conference ARK participants.

Virtual Exhibition

This virtual exhibition will showcase and celebrate creative projects that align with the event theme (ROMANCING THE STONE) on the DigiFest website. Exhibitors include DUT students and staff, other institutions and industry in and outside South Africa.

In-person Exhibition

This in-person exhibition will showcase and celebrate creative projects that align with the event theme (ROMANCING THE STONE) at various locations on and off campus. Exhibitors include DUT students and staff, other institutions and industry in and outside South Africa.

Virtual Exhibitions

Planning Committee

DigiFest Director: Dr Dianna Moodley

SAVAH Coordinator: Ann-Marie Tully

Virtual Coordinator: Jodie Du Plessis

DigiFest Manager: Runette Kruger

In-Person Coordinator: Kehinde Adewumi