RESEARCH
ed whittaker
My current research examines bio-political space in terms of an architecture of the provisional and monumental. I explore the imposition of strategic space both in the contemporary environment and in the territorial relation between space and power. This has required me to engage in research models, some of which are outside of direct artistic practice, and involve study of political history and continental philosophy developed out of the work of Michel Foucault. I have become very interested in the militarisation of space and the role played in that by photography.
Political
Housing: Bethnal Green
London.
Colour Photograph,
18"x26" 2002
Political
Housing: Cite G. Leclerq
Hirson, France,
Colour
Photograph, 18"x26"2005
The methods I have employed are 'empirical' photography - visiting and photographing sites, including architectural sites, and the presentation of research in papers delivered at conferences and symposia. I am currently working on two series; 'Les Cimitieres Allemands de la Grande Guerre' and Contingent Architecture, photographs of various architectural typologies occurring in the post indusrial landscape. Both projects are long-term and both are subtended by interdisciplinary research methodologies that situate my approach within a context of contemporary critical theory.
German Cemetery, Wervicq-Sud,
Belgium, 2000.
Imperial War
Museum London
Recent exhibitions and publications
- 2007 - Nonsite to Celebration Park, Essays on Art and the Politics of Space, Whittaker, E., Landrum. A.eds., Bath Spa University, Exposure Books.
- 2007 - 'Habitus and Exception in Dan Graham's Alteration Project', delivered at the symposium Nonsite to Celebration Park at Bath Spa University (and as published above)
- 2005 - Spatial Practices; From Heterotopia to the Camera of Reason, Foucault's Photography of Architecture. Photoforum. Kent Institutue of Art and Design
- 2004 - Open Secret. Imperial War Museum London
- 2004 - Architecture into Philosophy; From Panopticon to Heterotopia; Foucault and the Photography of Architecture. Congress CATH. University of Leeds
- 2002 - Les Cimitieres de la Grande Guerre Musee Historial, PeronneSomme, France
- Lead Researcher for Critical Topology of Landscape
Nonsite to Celebration Park, Essays on Art and the Politics of Space (2007), Whittaker, E., Landrum. A.eds., BathSpa University, Exposure Books. ISBN 978-1-905200-72-6