RSA Projects Room
Free entry
The research project Poetry Beyond Text, based at the Universities of Dundee and Kent, looked at 'hybrid' poetic works, which combine text and image in diverse ways. These works include concrete and visual poetry, artists' books, digital poetry, text film and poetry combined with photography, as well as other 'cross-over' works more difficult to categorise.
A team of seven researchers, from literary studies, psychology and fine art, investigated both readers' responses and the creative processes of artists and poets. This exhibition shows some of the new creative work commissioned, and some of the findings of our research. We asked, for example, how we read and interpret works which are both textual and visual. What determines whether each element enriches the other? What sort of cognitive processes and interpretative strategies are involved? Data was collected using both the empirical techniques of psychology and the reflective processes typical of the humanities. Volunteers, whom we regarded as co-researchers, helped us over a period of two years with experiments, interviews and analyses.
Finally, we asked how new works of art and poetry, whether collaborations between an artist and a poet, or the creation of an individual, can address the modes of perception and interpretation that underlie the creative process in such mixed visual-poetic forms.
Mary Modeen, Curator
Research team:
Andrew Michael Roberts, Modern Literature (project leader)
Martin Fischer, Psychology
Mary Modeen, Fine Art Lisa Otty, Literature
Anna Katharine Schaffner, Comparative Literature
Ulrich Weger, Psychology Kim Knowles, Literature and Film
For more information about this project visit: http://www.poetrybeyondtext.org
