For Wellesley Binding, senior lecturer in Visual Arts at EIT Hawke’s Bay’s IDEAschool, a philosophical approach to art is an important part of the creative process. Wellesley adopts a different approach in the way he investigates the ontology of the studio setting. German philosopher Martin Heidegger called the artwork “the thing plus” and what interests Wellesley is the “plus”.

“It is not looking at things like the meaning of art or any of those larger issues, but the actuality of the engagement with materials and the studio itself as a phenomenological machine,” says Wellesley.

He hopes to encourage the audience to think of art practice in a different way.

 

Nigel Roberts (MFA) is the programme co-ordinator for EIT’s Bachelor of Creative Practice. His current research focus is on premonition, and how the approach of myth and faith to the phenomenon differs from the approach of logic and reason. The key for Nigel is finding a way to take ideas and concepts and express them visually using sound and vision. He role-plays most of the different scenarios himself, but occasionally will use other people.

His starting point is having a story to guide him and for him this is his interpretation. It is then a case of taking that interpretation and capturing it on film.

“If you take déjà vu, it is trying to evoke the idea of a situation where that could happen. So, something that happens, possibly from multiple angles and times and trying to evoke that connection to something that is believed in by faith – or something believed in by reason,” says Nigel.

The research guides the narrative. Whatever he finds, creates the whole story.