‘Exploring the potential of re-activating models, through art practice’

Models are utilised across an array of practices as tools of representation that make the inaccessible or absent, tangible. Often speculative in their function, and sometimes regarded as nostalgic, scale models are particularly entwined with the imagining of possible pasts and futures. This research responds to an ongoing fascination with scale models evident in visual cultures, from enthusiast making practices to advertising and art. In the current climate of uncertainty and in the context of ‘Lost Futures’ (Fisher, 2014) this research asks what possibilities the scale model might hold for us now. What affordances could arise from a model ‘reactivated’ (Stoppani, 2014) beyond its original purpose? Art practice is used to appraise how models and the social contexts of their production activate space and time. By articulating the possibilities and limitations of models, the research tests the scope of art practice as a re-activator of models. Two inter-connected strands of practice led research form the core of this thesis. Firstly, a body of experimental work responds to archive material and primary encounters with models. Secondly, art practice-led field work takes place in the Sheffield Model Railway Enthusiasts Club, and in Christiania, an autonomous community in Denmark, two outwardly contrasting communities each engaged in the production of models. These works are contextualised with existing discourses relating to time and utopias. Contributing to the field of artistic research, this project makes the claim that emergent and exploratory art practices share attributes of modelling / model-making. Research into specific communities offers unique insights drawn from the intention and process of art making, suggesting a position for art practice-led research as contributing to the fields of Human Geography and Anthropology. Perhaps unlike other forms of research, artistic inquiry is active and reflexive, responding to the field rather than merely observing. An intra-active form of research which works with and responds to the complex network of exchanges arising from relationships between material, space, people and things, this research also contributes to urban planning, where re-activating models can provide a form of critical reflection.