Michael Eden
University of the Arts London, Accedemic Support, Faculty Member
- Michael Eden is a visual artist, researcher and writer exploring relationships between monstrosity, subjectivity and ... moreMichael Eden is a visual artist, researcher and writer exploring relationships between monstrosity, subjectivity and landscape representation. Eden’s art practice is focused on semi abstract figurative and landscape painting, but also incorporates ceramic sculpture and constructions. Eden employs theories and representations of eeriness and flux as critiques of returning fascistic right-wing ideologies, identified in overt political discourse and implicit in much popular culture. Eden obtained his PhD from Middlesex University where his project ranged across various disciplines: contemporary art criticism and its relationship to histories of modernism, medieval literature, theories of landscape and space, notions of national myth making, and monster studies: bringing these together through the lens of art practice. Key exemplars informing his critique are the influential and progressive medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (circa 1370) and the problematic modernism of Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Eden contributes to academic journals writing about art practice, film, monstrosity, and approaches to arts learning; and he has engaged in polemics and rhetoric in less formal journalistic output. Eden is a fellow of The Digswell Arts Trust and a former editor of the arts and culture publication Trebuchet Magazine.edit
Physical and mental suffering: mutilation, searing pain and trauma can be given context and even made to work for our best interests; we have a long history of bloody myths and fairy tales and a modern history of updating these in the... more
Physical and mental suffering: mutilation, searing pain and trauma can be given context and even made to work for our best interests; we have a long history of bloody myths and fairy tales and a modern history of updating these in the premier medium of time, film. No matter how great the external impact on the body, so long as we survive it’s the mind that suffers and the mind that remains malleable to change and redemption, if we can face the true obstacles those we give force to with our own mental activity.
Research Interests:
The rest of the world may have to seriously consider how the rise in Chinese power will affect our lives. Western hegemony is waning, and its stewardship of world culture is a mixed bag: freedom and equality are stained with slavery and... more
The rest of the world may have to seriously consider how the rise in Chinese power will affect our lives. Western hegemony is waning, and its stewardship of world culture is a mixed bag: freedom and equality are stained with slavery and exploitation; democracy and free votes are mixed with apathy and corruption. This is not to say that any other nation or state would do better, or that other epochs have been all light and purity, but the West may struggle to convince the peoples of the world of its values and, by extension, the rationale for keeping its place as the globe’s defining culture. Western culture needs to live up to its own ideals. Part of that will mean convincing the world that these ideals are worthwhile now the era of force is over. The values of individual freedom, free speech and free access to information are key in the development of an educated people with agency; moreover they are inventive drivers within a flourishing civil society. But how certain are we that ...
Research Interests:
Prefixes are the preferred way to end an era, alter of post? In 2009 at the Tate the concepts of ‘Alter-modern’ and ‘relational aesthetics’ were deployed to announce the end of postmodernity.
Research Interests: Journalism, Art, Postmodernism, Postmodernity, Fine Art, and 3 morePrefix, Alter modernity, and Trebuchet
Synthetic bodies, identity, authenticity and purpose. The phenomenon of synthetic people in popular culture and the recent popularity of such figures is explored in relation to one of its historical contexts
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Can such a flawed race create anything but accelerated evil? Examining free will, AI technology, and addictive stimulus. Includes correspondence with professor Bjorn Stenger.
Research Interests:
Native's Hoxton gallery show draws attention to the modern debt/ housing crisis, but less typically, suggests solutions. A review of the Construct The Future, show at the Hoxton Arches which explores the modern housing crisis.
Research Interests:
Examining the unpredictable and disruptive possibilities contained within new technologies. Includes correspondence with professor Bjorn Stenger and author and technology philosopher Tom Chatfield.
Research Interests:
Wealth does not denote moral worth, so why does it make politicians popular? This essay explores and critiques the concept of the self-made man.
Research Interests:
The Eclipse of Dignity part 4 Pearlclutching and professional outrage led us here, it's time to speak plainly.
Research Interests:
The Eclipse of Dignity part 1: Does history, art or philosophy offer any survival tips for the incoming US presidency
Research Interests:
Another enlightenment is needed to break the deadlock. Can we have another renaissance? why not, Neo-Modernism only needs its own Michelangelo to fuel a return to modernism's core values.
Research Interests:
Original title:-The Unification of Europe: Why The European Legacy Is Worth Fighting For, Three part essay in support of remaining within the European Union.
Research Interests:
Is the sun setting on postmodernism or rising again like groundhog day? Meta Modernity is a contender to topple the stultifying epoch that is postmodernism or is it?
Research Interests:
Michael Eden explains why the appointment of curator Juliette Desorgues is an exciting one for the Mostyn Gallery and by extension British art.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The business superman is better than you? Examining Ayn Rand's construction of that most pertinent of myths.
Research Interests:
Personal and societal transformation is channelled directly through the body of the artist in the ritualistic works of Bert Gilbert. Gilbert’s interdisciplinary works include performance, costume, photography, fetishistic objects and 2D... more
Personal and societal transformation is channelled directly through the body of the artist in the ritualistic works of Bert Gilbert. Gilbert’s interdisciplinary works include performance, costume, photography, fetishistic objects and 2D works. Not afraid to broach sexuality and obsession, she has gained a reputation for pushing the audience to confront underlying desires and taboo. Bert is London’s mistress of
Research Interests: Art, Contemporary Art, Surrealism, Alchemy, Taboo, and 5 moreFine Art, Soul, Psyche, Panopticon, and Preformance Art
This article explores the screen adaptations of the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and includes original commentary from director David Lowery (The Green Knight 2021) and the artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins who worked on images... more
This article explores the screen adaptations of the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and includes original commentary from director David Lowery (The Green Knight 2021) and the artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins who worked on images for a translation by Simon Armitage.
Research Interests:
This review explores art practice as an antidote, or counter force to stupefying and potentially depressing visual forces that like art act on us primarily through our ocular sense. These forces are accounted for here under the catch all... more
This review explores art practice as an antidote, or counter force to stupefying and potentially depressing visual forces that like art act on us primarily through our ocular sense. These forces are accounted for here under the catch all weak-glamour, their sources are varied and multifarious: advertising, branding, social media and normative hegemonic patterns therein that are also found in popular film, fashion and television.
Research Interests:
This article attempts to first speculate and then demonstrate how Dada methods can be used by creative practitioners or writers in general within an academic essay. In particular, the inclusion of randomness and chance is examined in the... more
This article attempts to first speculate and then demonstrate how Dada methods can be used by creative practitioners or writers in general within an academic essay. In particular, the inclusion of randomness and chance is examined in the writing process with a view to foreground materiality in writing development and execution. Methods to make use of chance and to randomize text are outlined and the distinction between randomness and chance is clearly drawn. Antecedents to Dada and to the cut-up techniques that form the focus of the method outlined here are examined and offer context for the development of an embodied and empowered approach to challenges encountered around academic writing. Furthermore, contemporary scholarship that reflects on writing in higher education is drawn on to highlight the article’s primary purpose; that being to offer a background, explanation and useful methodology for the inclusion of randomness and chance which addresses the institutional demands enco...
Research Interests:
Re-humanising monsters and othering heroes. Exposition and critique of Joker(2019). Why have so many critics condemned a clear masterpiece; could it be that there class sensibilities have been hurt?
Research Interests:
The Eclipse of Dignity part 4: Pearlclutching and professional outrage led us here, it's time to speak plainly.
Research Interests:
The rest of the world may have to seriously consider how the rise in Chinese power will affect our lives. Western hegemony is waning, and its stewardship of world culture is a mixed bag: freedom and equality are stained with slavery and... more
The rest of the world may have to seriously consider how the rise in Chinese power will affect our lives. Western hegemony is waning, and its stewardship of world culture is a mixed bag: freedom and equality are stained with slavery and exploitation; democracy and free votes are mixed with apathy and corruption. This is not to say that any other nation or state would do better, or that other epochs have been all light and purity, but the West may struggle to convince the peoples of the world of its values and, by extension, the rationale for keeping its place as the globe’s defining culture. Western culture needs to live up to its own ideals. Part of that will mean convincing the world that these ideals are worthwhile now the era of force is over. The values of individual freedom, free speech and free access to information are key in the development of an educated people with agency; moreover they are inventive drivers within a flourishing civil society. But how certain are we that they are the natural results of technological progress?
Research Interests:
Physical and mental suffering: mutilation, searing pain and trauma can be given context and even made to work for our best interests; we have a long history of bloody myths and fairy tales and a modern history of updating these in the... more
Physical and mental suffering: mutilation, searing pain and trauma can be given context and even made to work for our best interests; we have a long history of bloody myths and fairy tales and a modern history of updating these in the premier medium of time, film. No matter how great the external impact on the body, so long as we survive it’s the mind that suffers and the mind that remains malleable to change and redemption, if we can face the true obstacles those we give force to with our own mental activity.
Research Interests:
Art not only helps to elucidate but to form thought: this essay explores the practice of Klinger and the forming of concepts of fetish and the unconscious.
Research Interests:
Personal and societal transformation is channeled directly through the body of the artist in the ritualistic works of Bert Gilbert. Gilbert’s interdisciplinary works include performance, costume, photography, fetishistic objects and 2D... more
Personal and societal transformation is channeled directly through the body of the artist in the ritualistic works of Bert Gilbert. Gilbert’s interdisciplinary works include performance, costume, photography, fetishistic objects and 2D works. Not afraid to broach sexuality and obsession, she has gained a reputation for pushing the audience to confront underlying desires and taboo.
Research Interests:
Possessions, suffering, charity. A trinity to stultify a population and assuage the morality of the comfortable pragmatists.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Prune Nourry started working on ‘Terracotta Daughters’ in 2012, the statues she created in conjunction with craftspeople have become both installations and performance pieces that stand for great inequalities in China.
Research Interests: Art and Terracotta
We should all be concerned about the normalisation of torture. Exploration and critique of the ways torture is normalised by popular culture.
Research Interests:
Afflicted by crisis art mutates, transforms and reacts. Exploration and critique of postmodernity.
Research Interests:
There is much debate about what epoch we are currently in, have we moved from postmodernism to some other overarching force? Probably not!
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
What can a former soviet state's public sculpture teach us about kitsch?
Research Interests:
It's not the end of postmodernism, as we know it! & I feel flat. Does postmodernity gradually traumatise the population, and is this happening in such a way that our senses cant quite grasp it?
Research Interests:
Prefixes are the preferred way to end an era, alter of post? In 2009 at the Tate the concepts of ‘Alter-modern’ and ‘relational aesthetics’ were deployed to announce the end of postmodernity.
Research Interests:
Can we safely dismiss Freudian psychoanalysis with the lancet of irony? Or does the attempt fail? Gavin Turk at the Freud Museum.
Research Interests:
Paintings that demand attention and need completion by the viewers eye. Exposition and critique of the work of contemporary artist Damien Meade.
Research Interests:
From catastrophe comes creativity - sail into the vortex. Part 5 of a 6 part series attempting to counterintuitively appropriate Wyndham Lewis for a progressive agenda.
Research Interests: Art and Rock blasting
Lewis looked upon his contemporaries with a measure of scorn, but at least attempted to engage them positively. Part 4 of a 6 part series attempting to counterintuitively appropriate Wyndham Lewis for a progressive agenda.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Professor Malcolm Quinn shares his thoughts on psychoanalytic approaches in art and design. See, https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/15072/1/index.html
Research Interests:
Malcolm Quinn expounds on the implications and applications of psychoanalysis and art (Interview). See https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/15073/
Research Interests: Sociology and Creativity
The acceleration of technology beyond the layman's ken makes us little more than blissfully ignorant slaves - should we not be noble savages instead?
Research Interests:
150 years after his birth, the influence of H. G. Wells on contemporary art is still being felt.
Research Interests:
With power comes responsibility, as Wyndam Lewis (and spiderman) knew well. Art is power, not voyeurism. An essay which critically explores masculinity through the activities of three famous creatives; counterintuitively Lewis is used to... more
With power comes responsibility, as Wyndam Lewis (and spiderman) knew well. Art is power, not voyeurism. An essay which critically explores masculinity through the activities of three famous creatives; counterintuitively Lewis is used to expose flaws in the 'neo-liberal' positions.
Research Interests:
Vorticism's urge to cut away the fat of modern life remains valid today. Part 6 of a 6 part series attempting to counterintuitively appropriate Wyndham Lewis for a progressive agenda.
Research Interests:
The term ‘decolonising’ has begun to be used in higher education institutions and it expresses in part a desire for a wider range of voices to be included in curriculums. This is a good thing. The term though is problematic: assumptions... more
The term ‘decolonising’ has begun to be used in higher education institutions and it expresses in part a desire for a wider range of voices to be included in curriculums. This is a good thing. The term though is problematic: assumptions about what the so-called ‘colonial attitude’ is which needs deactivating is difficult to fully pin down.