Case study: Contemporary Art Summer School 2025

ANA-META-MATERIALISMS

Contemporary art practice reinventing, rethinking and referencing itself

The Contemporary Art 2025 Summer School theme suggests a reimagining of contemporary art practice via processes of redoing, repeating, mutating, self-referencing and rethinking that might give birth to new artistic paradigms.

Living in an era dictated by the virality and mutation of information spread throughout social media, Artificial Intelligence and the internet in general, it has become more urgent than ever to rethink the role of feedback loops in the production of images and modes of thought in contemporary artistic practice. Feedback loops are closed systems indicating the repetition of a sole movement that turns back on itself, to repeat again and again. However, this obsessive turning upon itself, doesn’t happen without a trace or a glitch, always leaving a certain kind of remainder or residue every time it repeats itself, thus returning always reinvented and always different.

We are interested in investigating the fundamental question: “What might be the role of feedback loops in contemporary artistic practice?” How can an artist raise questions relating to contemporary art materialisms, ideas, practices and histories, via processes of repeating, redoing, rethinking and self-referencing [art referencing itself]?

This theme was treated loosely and as a framework within which the course evolved. Students were allowed to respond to this theme in any way they saw fit and to the extent that they felt it contributed to the development of their work.

Course team:

• Despina Zacharopoulou, Visiting Lecturer and Contemporary Art Summer School Short Course Leader, RCA
• Prof Johnny Golding, RCA Senior Tutor Research, School of Arts & Humanities
• John Slyce, RCA Senior Tutor Research, MA Painting, School of Arts & Humanities
• Sarah Staton, RCA Senior Tutor in Sculpture, School of Arts & Humanities
• Tom Lovelace, RCA Visiting Lecturer, MA Photography, School of Arts & Humanities
• Sharon Young, RCA Visiting Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities
• Juliet Jacques, RCA Associate Lecturer, MA Contemporary Art Practice
• Harriet Tinney, RCA Alumna, artist.
• Julia Wolf, RCA PhD Candidate, artist.

Guest speakers:

• Dr. Giorgos Kontis, RCA alumnus, visual artist, lecturer
• Emma Fineman, RCA alumna, multidisciplinary artist
• Eva Vaslamatzi, curator, editor and writer
• Dinos Chatzirafailidis, curator

Check out the Contemporary Art Summer School course page.

Over 50% of participants go on to apply for postgraduate study at the RCA.

Technique: Erasure Animation

The 42 frames of a two-second loop are drawn, captured, and then erased on a single sheet of Mylar.

The loop shows a continuous metamorphosis between a creature and its landscape, until they become inseparable.

In the end, the final drawing remains on the surface as a material archive of the film, carrying the spectral memory of all the previous images.

@alexandra_levasseur

Developed under the CASS 2025 program, these two pieces are an investigation into material mutation and self-reference. Moving away from representational work, I focused on the 'ana-meta' process, repeatedly engaging with the history and application of my materials until the work began to dictate its own form. These pieces act as physical markers of a practice-led research into how value, meaning, and history are placed onto bodies and materials, exploring nature of the making process over traditional aesthetics.

elizabethwaggett.com

In Mourning (2025)

A series of private participatory performances at The Whitaker Museum and a short moving image work that captures the essence of these. The work was inspired by the museum’s collection of Victorian mourning wear.

Photo credit: Darren Nixon

nicoladale.com