Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MRes 2 years full-time
MRes Art is made up of three specialist pathways: Theory and Philosophy; Moving Image; and Exhibition Studies. MRes Art uses research and writing to develop modes of questioning, speculative thinking and critical evaluation. Drawing upon a wealth of scholarly expertise from the staff team, visiting lecturers and practitioners, the course considers the relationship of contemporary art research to wider aesthetic, cultural and socio-political issues.
There are opportunities for students on each pathway to come together for shared taught components both on campus and on-line. You will also be encouraged to develop student-led activities. In the past, our students have collaborated on research events and publications, as well as the Tate Exchange programme at Tate Modern.
The Theory and Philosophy pathway is for artists and writers who want to study philosophy and art from a contemporary perspective. You will investigate how radical innovations in philosophy today can facilitate not just an understanding of art, but also how they can shape developments in contemporary culture and art practice.
This pathway has a uniquely informed dynamic of teaching and group dialogue. This is assisted by the staff team’s research practice which is engaged in the areas of both art and philosophy. The theories that the curriculum draws upon are at the forefront of thinking today. These include continental philosophy, the Marxist intellectual tradition and phenomenology. You will also study relevant theories for the plurality of art today within its socio-political context. These include theories of aesthetics, psychoanalysis, gender, race, linguistics, performance, affect, neuroscience, cybernetics, the algorithmic condition and the Anthropocene.
MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy responds to the radical transformation that thinking has undergone in recent years. As a consequence of this, approaches to writing theory have also changed, by adopting more fluid, less didactic models of practice. The purpose of this pathway is to enhance your thinking, writing and, if relevant, art practice in light of ongoing transformations in philosophy, theory and knowledge.
We are committed to developing ethical art practices. To achieve this, we are working to embed UAL's Principles for Climate, Social and Racial Justice into the course.
The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:
AP(E)L – Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning
Exceptionally applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:
Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.
For fees and funding information, please see website
Our Postgraduate Art Programme offers valuable opportunities to build transferable professional knowledge and skills. The exchange of perspectives with others through shared units, reading groups and debates helps establish stimulating and productive networks.
The focus on proposing and developing a major independent programme of study is supported by a shared professional practice lecture series featuring guest speakers plus opportunities to attend symposia and critique work in progress across subject areas. The Postgraduate Art Programme has wide-ranging links with professional organisations, collections and galleries in London and beyond, and includes opportunities for interaction and networking according to your personal career direction.
MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy gives you an advanced knowledge of research methods and familiarises you with the important features, issues and problems of philosophical aesthetics. You'll gain skills in close textual analysis, comprehension, reconstruction and interpretation of philosophical arguments, while building expertise in critical analysis and reflection. The location of the MRes within our postgraduate environment enhances your ability to relate philosophical analysis to art and cultural practices. In addition to further MPhil or PhD research, we envisage a range of professional futures for MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy graduates in academic institutions, the arts, and publishing.
Recent MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy alumni activity demonstrates the breadth of student activity within the subject:
Unit 1: Innovations: Art, Writing, Philosophy
Responding to the question posed by the title of their 1991 book What Is Philosophy? Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari declare that "Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts." By this, the authors infer that philosophy not only invents new ideas, theories and forms of cognition but, equally, that it opens up new realms of perception and subjective experience. The teaching on the pathway, as well as the writing and research it supports, takes up the consequent challenge of these innovations for art and cultural and social discourses. It affirms the innovations created by philosophical thought and its difference from traditional, categorial assumptions of knowledge.
Unit 1 will enable you to absorb and understand the seminal advances and speculative thinking developed by philosophy. It conceptually maps the legacies of continental philosophy for thinking, writing and art today. This opens up new possibilities for thinking and writing, as well as advances ways by which to interpret and contribute to developments in art, culture and the social today.
Unit 2: Methodologies and Methods I
Unit 2 is an opportunity for all the students in the MRes Art course to study together. The unit has two distinct components: methodologies and methods. Methodologies aims to make you aware of a range of methodological approaches that have shaped debates in your field of study. These include, but are not limited to, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial and decolonial studies. Methods aims to equip you with essential research skills.
Unit 3: Methodologies and Methods II
Following on from Unit 2, this unit deepens your understanding of specific artistic and discursive methods. You will examine how they operate in specific texts, debates and events by relating them to the pathways’ respective subject areas. Seminars and workshops are integral to the unit, in which methods of research and writing are collectively tested.
Unit 4: Individual Research Project
Unit 4 has two parts. Part one continues the seminar series in Unit 1 concerned with philosophical innovations and their relevance for thinking and writing. Additionally, you will also focus on developing your research project proposal. This involves reading and viewing, the formulation of appropriate research questions and methods. You will also produce a literature review.
In part two, you will lead presentations about your research. You will discuss progress, challenges and findings and issues of form, audience and dissemination. At the end of Unit 4 you will be assessed through presentation of your realised research project in the agreed forms.
Important note concerning academic progression through your course:
If you are required to retake a unit you will need to cease further study on the course until you have passed the unit concerned. Once you have successfully passed this unit, you will be able to proceed onto the next unit. Retaking a unit might require you to take time out of study, which could affect other things such as student loans or the visa status for international students.
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