Art and Design

If you are interested in completing a research degree in the below areas or variations of them, please copy and paste the project directly into the application below.

Title/Area of PhD Research

Supervisors / contacts: Prof John Roberts, Dr. Fran Pheasant-Kelly

The critique of authorship has been central to modern practice in the twentieth century, principally through the artist self-identifying as a technician as opposed to that of a sovereign creator. Yet, if the artist has critiqued the myth of expressive sovereignty, he or she, nevertheless retained his rights as an autonomous and creative producer. Does AI finally destroy both expressive sovereignty and the residual notion of the artist as creative technician altogether? Does AI remove all vestiges of authorship? The research will look at the challenges AI brings to artists’ creative use of technology, at the same questioning the inevitability of AI’s ‘replacement’ theory of human subjectivity and reasoning.

Supervisors / contacts: Prof John Roberts, Dr. Alexei Penzin

Socially engaged art in its extended participatory forms is over thirty years old. How has the institutional and extra-institutional support for this activity changed during this period? How has the drop in public funding and the adoption of modes of audience participation by major museums, shifted the terms of engagement by socially engaged artists/groups? The research will address these issues on a global basis.

Download Application Form

Apply Now

Email your completed application form to: RDSS@wlv.ac.uk.