International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 161
Submission ID: 212
Submission UUID: e5da3927-e3fb-45ad-8b27-d2ee55763a20

Created: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 - 08:58
Completed: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 - 16:41
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:43

Remote IP address: 157.190.40.134
Submitted by: Alan Magee
Language: English

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Given name Alan
Surname Magee
Email alanmagee@gmail.com
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Title Process Art as Methodological Innovation: From University Studios to Digital Practice
Format Project presentation
Main language English
Abstract This article examines Process Art - an artistic movement that emerged from United States university art programs in the 1960s - as a viable methodological framework for contemporary practice-based research. While Process Art is typically understood as a historical movement characterised by its emphasis on making over outcome, this study argues that its pedagogical foundations and core principles position it as a rigorous, autonomous arts-based research methodology. Drawing on the movement's key characteristics - foregrounding labour, valuing process over product, non-skilled execution, and treating the body as both subject and object - the article demonstrates how Process Art methods evolved within educational contexts that prioritised theory-practice integration and systematic inquiry. Through analysis of seminal works by Robert Morris, Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, and contemporary practitioner Elizabeth Price, this research establishes Process Art's capacity to address questions of artistic labour, embodied knowledge, and the visibility of making processes. The article contributes to ongoing discussions about practice-based research methodologies by proposing that Process Art offers an internally generated framework - born within art education rather than borrowed from other disciplines - uniquely suited to investigating the corporeal dimensions of artistic production. This has particular potential for understanding digital sculpture, where computational smoothness threatens to efface indexical traces of the artist's hand.
Link to the Exposition https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/4207787/4207786
Image Alan_Magee_Process_Art.png
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Alan Magee is a practising contemporary artist, lecturer, and postdoctoral researcher who works at the intersection of art, technology, and human experience. Currently, he holds a TU-RISE Postdoctoral Research Fellowship on the inTRUSTED Project at MTU/CCAD, where he is investigating how embodied artistic methodologies can inform trust, ethics, and resilience in digital ecosystems. Previously, he lectured in Fine Art for over a decade at the UAL. Recent exhibitions include: Staying with the Trouble, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin; Connections, Farmleigh Gallery, Luan Gallery, Down Arts Centre, Braid, Ballymena; Footfalls, Britta Rettberg, Munich; Once Upon an Instant, Berlin. He is represented by Castor, London.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research Exhibitions:
• Ode to the soft centre, Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon (2021).
• Among the dregs of daily toil, LAB Gallery, Dublin (2020).
Panel Discussion:
‘The Future of Work’ featuring Dr Dave Beech, Dr Barbara Cueto, Dr Rachel O'Dwyer, Dr. Glenn Loughran & Dr Alan Magee (2020)
Publications:
• Doctoral thesis: Agency, Index & Process: Investigating the role of the artist's body in digital sculpture production (TU Dublin, 2025). Online: Arrow@TU Dublin
Additional information Structure (20 min):

Endangered Knowledge in Digital Practice (3 min)
• Computational smoothness as a threat to embodied knowing
• Digital materialisation - effacing gesture, irregularity, trace
• Why Process Art methodology matters today

Process Art's Historical Emergence (7 min)
• 1960s US university art education transformation
• Artist-as-researcher: autonomy from co-opted methodologies
• Six key characteristics as a methodological framework

Case Studies (6 min)
• Robert Morris's Box with the Sound of Its Own Making: foregrounding labour
• Eva Hesse's serial work: systematic, body-centred procedures
• Elizabeth Price's boulder & sidekick: ongoing doctoral research demonstrating methodology

Summation & Contemporary Relevance (4 min)
• Digital sculpture's effacement challenges
• Process Art as counter-model

Visual documentation throughout, including historical works, Price's ongoing practice, and theoretical frameworks.

10-minute Q&A follows
Spatial and technical requirements No special requirements
Potential risks or ethical concerns No significant risks or ethical concerns
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Create new user Alan Magee