Cathryn Klasto
About Cathryn Klasto
(* ^ ω ^)
I am* a spatial theorist, educator and artistic researcher. Working in the field of Critical Spatial Practice, I have a focus in interiors and processes of interiority. I am particularly interested in the ways in which the design and experience of spatial interiors generate ethical relations across digital and non-digital thresholds.
I predominately work through writing and forms of publishing, often engaging in iterative prototype making as a method of slow artistic research that intentionally evades finality. I define prototyping as theorisation perpetually in progress - meaning that I seek to produce conditions for interaction and responsiveness to further enquiry.
╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ current research
I am currently working on a collection of visual essays which investigate the spatialisation of ethics in artistic research through the popular culture franchise Star Trek. The collection is a transdisciplinary manifestation which aims to use speculative and scientific categories of space to interrogate how ethics is understood, used and valued within artistic research.
I am also working as a co-researcher on the FORMAS funded research project ‘The Fountain: An art-technological-social drama’ (2021-2025) ran by artist Maddie Leach. As a by-product of the project, Mick Wilson, Maddie Leach and myself are currently editing a special issue of Art & the Public Sphere (Intellect) on the Afterlives of Public Art due for publication in 2025.
I have recently co-edited an issue of PARSE Journal on Citations with architect Marie-Louise Richards who is based at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. We spent two years cooperatively exploring the potentiality which exists if we move beyond institutional logics and power structures which dictate who we cite, how we cite, and why we cite. The issue is available open access on the PARSE website.
I currently sit on the Editorial Board of L’Internationale Online, a research and publishing platform connected to Creative Europe funded project Museum of the Commons (2023-2026) ran by L’Internationale, a confederation of cultural organisations and universities across Europe. I also sit on the working group as an editor of PARSE, an international artistic research publishing and conference platform. I also sit on the Editorial Board of ARSNET, a publication platform for spatial design discourse operating at the Department of Architecture at Universitas Indonesia.
(„• ᴗ •„) current teaching
In my role as a senior lecturer in Fine Art I am involved in a multiplicity of educational activity. I currently teach on the MFA Fine Art programme which has a focus on the development of research skills, publicness and the roles of art and the artist in society. I teach on both the practice and contextualisation courses, largely in relation to the theoretical framework of publicness, writing and publishing as a mode of research, methodological development within research design and ethical engagement.
I also currently run two freestanding courses Introduction to Contemporary Art and Health and Writing and Publishing in Contemporary Art which are taught entirely at distance. The first course, as an introductory level transdisciplinary operation, aims to expand definitions and practices of both art and health, considering the cultural, social, political, technological, legal, ecological relations that exist within the field. The second, aims to offer an advanced in-depth investigation into modes of writing and publishing about art and approaches to writing and publishing as art, through practical experimentation, group dynamics and critical analysis.
o(>ω<)o academic background
To be transparent, I do not have a neatly packaged academic trajectory. I have a BA in Art and Architectural History from the University of Warwick (UK), an MA in Gender and Law from SOAS, University of London (UK) and a PhD in Architecture from the University of Sheffield (UK). My PhD research looked at the networked relationship between domestic interiors and urban socio-cultural, legal and economic exterior infrastructures in contemporary Tokyo. Wanting to challenge orientalist narratives produced by European architectural discourse in relation to Japanese aesthetics and use of space, the research centered the lived interior experiences of fourth generation Japanese architects and residents. The Phd produced a 100,000 written thesis available open access, as well as a number of artistic prototypes.
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My central areas of interest, from research, supervisory and pedagogical perspectives, are
( ･ω･)☞ ethics (meta-ethics, ethics as artistic production and dissemination, ethics as methodology, ethics as aesthetics)
( ･ω･)☞ space (interiors, interiorities, thresholds, enclaves, spatial justice, xeno-spatialities, atmospheres)
( ･ω･)☞ networks (technological infrastructures and processes, research organisation, research logics)
( ･ω･)☞ experimental methodologies (compositional, modular)
( ･ω･)☞ citational practices
٩(◕‿◕)۶ *pronouns are she/they, either is fine.
(>ᴗ•) (psst: I am not loyal to discipline. I do not believe ‘experts’ exist.)