THE

INDEPENDENT ART SCHOOL
LECTURER PROFILES

 

(Man the Urban Animal, Haffeners butcher shop, Burnley Lancs. UK)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUSTIN MCKEOWN

Lecturer in Applied Warfare

Personal profile:

Born in N. Ireland in 1979, McKeown has presented work in both national and international contexts. Most recently, he has presented work at Rammer Strasse 4, Rammer Gallery (Berlin, Germany), Crossing Time International, Dartington Gallery (Dartington, UK) and FIX02 5th Belfast Biennial Festival of Performance Art, Catalyst Arts, (Belfast, N. Ireland). He holds an MA Visual Performance (Time Based Art) from Dartington College of Arts and is associate lecturer in Applied Warfare at the Independent Art School. Along with Roddy Hunter and Julie Bacon, he is co-founder of thearchivist.net; a politicised online review examining and continuing discussion generated by contemporary art and related fields of practice. He is also co-founder of HEM, a curatorial body dedicated to cajoling and presenting politically engaged art. Most recently, Justin has founded SPART: the ultimate hybridisation of sport and art and as such the most evolved form of leisure on the planet. SPART is dedicated to the politics of everyday activities.
I propose that an art form exists because it proposes itself as a mode of knowledge. I believe the purpose of art is to make new propositions on how we experience the world. Therefore, as an artist making art, I simultaneously investigate and propose modes of knowledge, thought and being through performative actions. My practice takes the form of contextual enquiry through the mediums of performance, installation, installaction (1), video and drawing. I situate these enquires in both gallery and non-gallery contexts.

The departure point for my arts practice is the question of the relevance of making traditional forms of art given today's social contexts. Specifically, I am concerned with questions of warfare. I propose that warfare must be understood not simply as a practice of our armed forces, but rather as the organising principle forming the basis of western social dynamics. I propose that the dynamics of warfare penetrate into even the most mundane daily activities. I research questions of warfare through the practice of my art.

Aside from making art, other limbs of my practice include curation, discursive writing and, more recently, lecturing. Theoretically I am concerned with formal questions of art composition as well as social questions surrounding the mobilisation of art as a social/political tool. I propose that one can transpose the techniques of artistic production from traditional forms of composition (i.e. painting and sculpture) into time-based processes unfolding in social contexts. Through time-based compositional processes one can materialise aesthetic concerns specific to the social/political context in which the artwork is manifested.

My practice exemplifies these concerns through both humorous and non-humorous works.

 

(1) A hybrid form of installation and performance, which mobilises the actions of the artist as a material within the composition of the installation.