Introduction to Dr Graham Lister, Senior Lecturer. (Glasgow School of Art).

This introductory lecture was provided to the group following the appointment of Dr Graham Lister, to the academic tutors of the University of Huddersfield, School of art design and architecture.

Dr Lister described his practice as "the interlinking of theory and practice", as it makes so much more sense in the pursuit of academic exploration to latch onto a theory in order to work that theory and your own practice. The idea as practice as research, and research through practice are an intertwined dialogue which is often used in contemporary art thinking. A key influencer to Dr Lister in theoretical philosophy is the work of Michel de Cherteau, and particularly the book "the practice of every day", translated and edited into English. Another key influence is the work of Tim Ingold, and his book "a brief history of lines". These two books are key sources of both ideas and influence with ideas and theories of space, and how it makes a difference to our everyday lives.

Tim Ingold, through his own research practice, is about tracing lines in space in order to connect points together. The work is developing a series of connected elements. And in his own words "telling the story of the journey as I draw, I make a narrative…"

In the case of Michel de Cherteau, he starts his book with "their story begins on ground level, with footsteps…"

Dr Lister's interest is in making, tracing a line. In fact his doctorate was called "Making / tracing a line". For this project Dr Lister was awarded funding and chose to make a tracing of the line of the route 66, from Michigan to Santa Monica in the United States. He created various in situ oil sketches of the scenes that he came across on his daily journey, documenting his experience at the same time.
Back in the studio in Glasgow, he then travelled the same route, the same line, but this time by using the Google Street view application online, during 2012.

Whilst he documented the progression, this wasn't about the lines or the views that he came across, but actually about the lines that crossed. The intersections of the spaces of junctions were of interest to him. These are kind of non--place. These are in a sense the liminal. They are like airports or Travelodge Hotel rooms! They are purely functional, but essential to act out in order for us to complete our own individual everyday lives.
What happens when we visualise these places?

An example of another artist exploring this might be Trevor Young; baggage claim (2007) of a very unusual "24-hour ATM", (2009).

Dr Lister has investigated the city of Glasgow as spaces of "non-places". For this work he was commissioned by the Glasgow City Council to demonstrate interconnections and intersection points within the city. The lines of thread interconnect each of these non-places, and an exhibition was presented within the city as a result of this work.

We "flit" between intersecting points in the virtual ground level, for example Facebook. Another book example might be Manuel Castell's "The Rise of the Network Society".
Or another book by Nicholas Borriade "The Alter-modern".

Dr Lister discussed that the word essay (something that were all deeply involved with at the moment), is actually a word taken from the French meaning "to try"

An artistic practice is a "machine for thinking"it is once been said.

Some of the key influences artistically that Dr Lister has is the work of Franz Ackerman.
For example "Evasion VIII, (1997).

Evasion XIII - Tropical 5 Star, © Franz Ackermann, Photo: Jens Ziehe

Or perhaps "Spate Ankunft" (2014) by Franz Ackerman.

Franz Ackermann, „Späte Ankunft“, 2014, © Franz Ackermann, Photo: Jens Ziehe

He calls these works "mental maps" and it connects various fragments of his thinking.

Copyright - Simon Ling (2013).  Please do not copy any of the above images.
For Research purposes only!

And also Simon Ling, -  Unitled, (2013) - Fragments.

Summary & conclusions;

• It occurred to me that Dr Lister's work was very much about the influence of hypertext, invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which is the enabler of virtual linking. I wondered if he had looked at the idea of "swarm theory" and some of the work of John Gage who was the inventor of the Java language and I recall some very interesting seminars that I was lucky to witness, even though they were virtual broadcasts from San Francisco, during my time at Sun Microsystems.
• How can a theory influence practice? 
• How can these theories form a basis for practice?
• Make a dialogue between theory and practice which is evident in your own work?