Graduate School Staff
Academic staff of the VCA are dedicated practitioners and theorists from all spheres of national and international art forms and represent a wide spectrum of experience, skills, knowledge and expertise. They are recognised internationally and are committed to the pursuit of excellence in the visual and performing arts. Research at the Graduate School critically examines contemporary arts and creates and redefines it through the activities of its practicing artist/researchers.
Associate Dean, Research and Research Training
Dr Barbara Bolt
Senior Lecturer - Faculty of the VCA and Music Graduate School
Phone: +61 3 834968593
Fax: +61 3 93448462
Email: bbolt @ unimelb.edu.au
URL: http://www.barbbolt.com
Barbara Bolt is a senior lecturer in the Graduate School at the Faculty of the VCA and Music. She is a practicing artist who has also written extensively on the visual arts and its relationship to philosophy. Her publications include two monographs Art Beyond Representation: The Performative Power of the Image (I.B.Tauris, 2004) and Heidegger Reframed, part a series on Contemporary Thinkers Reframed (I.B.Tauris, 2009 - in press), and two edited collections - Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, (IBTauris, 2007) with Estelle Barrett (due to be reissued in paperback 2009) and Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007) with Felicity Coleman, Graham Jones and Ashley Woodward. She has also been contracted to publish a book on the “new materialism”, working title Towards a New Materialism Through the Arts, with IBTauris (forthcoming). Her essays have been published in edited books including Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices and Philosophies: Towards New Feminist Understandings (Ashgate, 2001) Penny Florence and Nicola Foster (eds) and Unframed: The Practices and Politics of Women's Painting (I.B.Tauris, 2004) Rosemary Betterton (ed.) and has a chapter in the forthcoming book Deleuze and Contemporary Art (Edinburgh University Press - forthcoming), edited by Stephen Zepke and Simon O’Sullivan. Her publications are to be found in refereed journals such as Hypatia, Womens Philosophical Review, Studies in Material Thinking, Working Papers in Art and Design, Cultural Review and Social Semiotics. As an arts writer, she has also been published in Australian art magazines including Artlink, Eyeline, Craftswest and Real Time. She is on the editorial board of the online journals Creative Approaches to Research (RMIT) and Material Thinking (AUT). She exhibits with the Catherine Asquith Gallery in Melbourne. Website http://www.barbbolt.com/
Barbara Bolt was awarded an Excellence in Teaching award at the University of Melbourne in 2005 in recognition of her adoption of an “innovative combination of visual arts practice and research in the revitalisation of the teaching of visual literacy”. She has taken key findings from her creative arts research and has developed a pedagogical approach to teaching that integrates these understandings into her teaching.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
2002 Ph.D, Murdoch University.
1995 Masters of Arts (Art) with Distinctions, Curtin University.
1991 Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts), Edith Cowan University.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Bolt, B. (2004) 'Art Beyond Representation: The Performative Power of the Image', I.B.Tauris, London. Reviewed in the following:
1. British Journal of Aesthetics Vol 46 No 2 2006: 213-216
2. Australian and New Zealand journal of Art Vol 6 No 1, 2005: 129-133
3. Art Monthly No 188 April 2006: 40-41
4. The Finnish Journal of Audiovisual Culture, Lähikuva 3/2005, pp. 75-85 Special issue on "Image, Movement, Event" eds. Katve-Kaisa Kontturi and Ilona Hongisto.
5. The Finnish Journal of Cultural Studies "Maa, materia, valo. Joitakin australialaisen kulttuurin- ja taiteentutkimuksen erityispiirteitä" (Light, Land, Matter. Notes on Australian Cultural and Art Studies.) Kulttuurintutkimus 1/2007.
6. Double Dialogues, Spring 2005, accessed 21 Feb 2007, http://www.doubledialogues.com/in_stead/in_stead_iss01/raitt.html
Bolt, B. (In press) 'Heidegger Reframed' I.B. Tauris, London.
Art Projects
Bolt, B. (2008) Neon Blue, DVD, BBC World Service and Slade School of Art, UCL.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/theviewfromhere/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/090224_vfh_film_aus.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/090211_theviewfromhere_main.shtml
Bolt, B. (2007) 'All that is solid melts into air', catalogue for the exhibition All that is solid melts into air, Melbourne. (ISBN 978-0-646-47776-3)
Edited Books
Bolt, B and Barrett, E. (eds) (forthcoming) 'Towards a "New Materialism" Through the Arts' to be published by IBTauris.
Barrett, E and Bolt, B. (eds.) (2007) 'Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry', London: IBTauris. Due to be reissued in 2009.
Bolt, B, Coleman, F, Jones, G and Woodward, A. (2007) Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life, Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press.
Chapters in Books
Bolt, B. ‘Unimaginable happenings: material movements in the plane of composition’ in Deleuze and Contemporary Art (Ed) Stephen Zepke and Simon O’Sullivan, Edinburgh University Press - forthcoming)
Bolt, B. (2007)‘The techno sublime: towards a post aesthetic in (Ed) Bolt, B, Coleman, F, Jones, G and Woodward, A. Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life, Cambridge Scholars Press: 44-53
Bolt B. (2007) ‘The magic is in handling’ in Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. Practice as
Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry, London: I.B. Tauris: 27-34.
Bolt, B. (2005) ‘Queer Zine’ In James T. Sears (Ed.), Youth, education, and sexualities: An international encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 685-688
Bolt, B. (2004)‘Painting is not a representational practice’ in Unframed: The
Practices and Politics of Women’s Painting, R. Betterton (ed.), IBTauris, London.
Bolt, B. (2000)‘Working hot: materialising practices’, in Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices and Philosophies: Towards New Feminist Understandings, P. Florence and N. Foster (Eds), Ashgate Press, Aldershot: 315 – 332
Journal Articles
Bolt, B. (2009)‘A Performative Paradigm for the Creative Arts?’, Working Papers in Art and Design 6 (accepted for publication in March/April 2009)
Bolt, B. (2007) ‘Material Thinking and the Agency of Matter’ in Studies in Material Thinking http://www.materialthinking.org/, (ISSN 1177-6234)
Bolt, B. (2006) ‘Materializing pedagogies’, Working Papers in Art and Design 4
http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes/research/papers/wpades/vol4/bbfull.html
Bolt. B. (2006) ‘A non standard deviation: handlability, praxical knowledge and practice-led research’, Speculation and Innovation, Special issue Real Time Arts http://www.speculation2005.qut.edu.au/
Bolt, B. (2006)‘Rhythm and the performative power of the index: lessons from Kathleen Petyarre’s paintings’ in Cultural Studies Review, Vol 12, No 1: 57-64.
Bolt, B. (2004) 'The exegesis and the shock of the new' in Text Special Issue Website Series, Number3 April, Illuminating the Exegesis,
http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/text/speciss/issue3/content.htm
Bolt, B. (2002) ‘The Techno-sublime.’ Refractory Electronic Journal.
http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/journalissues/vol1/vol1.html
Bolt, B. (2001)‘The unremarked representationalist pre-conceptions of art
education in Australia.’ Australian Art Education, vol, 24, No. 1: 18-21.
Bolt, B. (2000)‘Working hot: materialising practices’. In Women’s Philosophical
Review, Special Issue on Aesthetics, No 25: 86-107.
Bolt, B. (2000) ‘Shedding light for the matter’ Hypatia vol.15, no 2 (Spring): 203-
216.
Bolt, B. (1999) Queer zine inter/erupts the endurance of ideas: reviewing Australian
queer and queer media’ Social Semiotics Vol 9, No 2: 285-290.
Bolt, B. (1997) ‘Im/pulsive practices: painting and the logic of sensation' in Social
Semiotics, Vol 7, Issue 3, December 1997:261-268.
ARTISTIC PRACTICE - SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009 Neon, Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne (forthcoming)
2007 All that is solid melts into air, McCulloch Galleries, Melbourne.
2004 Art Beyond Representation, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne.
2002 The Techno-sublime, Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland.
1997 Shedding Light, New Collectables, Fremantle.
1995 Cleavage, The Door Gallery, Fremantle.
1995 Excessive Practice - Portraiture as Performance, Fremantle Arts Centre.
1994 On Reflections, New Collectables Gallery, Fremantle.
1993 Rumplestiltskin, Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle.