Professor Stephen Scrivener
Biography
Professor Stephen Scrivener studied Fine Art at undergraduate and master levels, the latter at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where he began to use the computer as a means of art production. Subsequent to the Slade, Scrivener completed his PhD in a computer science department and, thereafter, worked as a lecturer and researcher in various university computer science departments. Up to 1992, his research focused on the design and development of interactive systems for artists and designers and on how such systems are used. During this period he undertook many funded design-focused research projects (supported by grants in excess of £2 million) almost all of which involved academic, commercial and industrial collaboration. Scrivener moved back into an art and design department in 1992, and since then his research has focused on the theory and practice of what is often called practice-based research. During his research career, he has completed funded research projects; produced over 175 research outcomes; supervised more than 30 research degree students to completion and examined over 40. Scrivener has participated in the research context in a range of functions; he is the founding editor of the Inter- national Journal of Co-Design, published by Taylor and Francis, and is an elected fellow of the Design Research Society.
Current research
My primary research is concerned with the theory and practice of practice-based research, which has been reported in a series of journal papers and book chapters. My thinking on this topic progresses from the proposition that the activities of art, design, etc., already contain the activity of research, understood as that function that expands each field’s potential and relevance. I have now begun to produce artworks as a means of complementing what has been a theoretical inquiry.
Selected outputs and achievements
Selected publications
- 2010 ‘Transformational Practice: On the Place of Material Novelty in Artistic Change,’ in: The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge.
- 2010 ‘Triangulating Artworlds: Gallery, New Media and Academy,’ in: Art Practice in a Digital Culture, Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
- 2010 ‘The Roles of Art and Design Process and Object in Research’, in: Reflections and Connections: on the Relationship Between Creative Production and Academic Research, Helsinki: University of Art and Design, Helsinki [e-book].
- 2009 ‘Connections: a Personal History of Computer Art Making From 1971 to 1981’, in: White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960–80, Massachusetts, USA; London: MIT Press.
- 2007 ‘Visual Art Practice Reconsidered: Transformational Practice and the Academy’, in: The Art of Research, Helsinki: Helsinki University of Art and Design.
Selected exhibitions
- 2011 Csepel Works, Labor Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.
Selected key positions
- 2011 International Expert, Research Assessment Exercise, Romania.
- 2010 Invited to review practice-based research grant proposals for the Austrian Research Council.
- 2009 Invited to review practice-based research grant proposals for the Danish Research Council.
- 2009 Panel B Chair, AHRC.
- 2009 Member, the Research Committee, Kunsthogskolen: Bergen National Academy of the Arts.
Selected acquistions
- 2011 Eighteen computer-generated drawings, V&A, London.
