Undergraduate Course: Making Creative Futures (EFIE10003)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Futures are being made as you read this, and they are being made in ways which are increasingly distanced from traditional notions of normalcy. As the ability of the disciplines and methods of academia to understand these emergent futures reduces, creativity and the imagination are becoming ever more important tools for researchers. In this module we will practically experiment with creative social research methods as vital resources for researchers to explore futures-to-come. |
| Course description |
This course aims to equip students with understandings of, and practical experience with, the creative social research methods which they might use in their research projects. The course will be based around approaches used by the Binks Hub team with researchers, postgraduate students, community groups and artists, and be delivered through weekly 'research playspace' sessions. These will merge: micro-lecture presentations on the ways creative methods are used; playful practical experiments with these methods and the artistic practices which underpin them; and positive critical reflection on the ways that students might use them in their own work.
The early weeks of the module will explore students' individual futures curiosities, with the artistic and creative work produced through this process then being co-curated by the students into small group mid-semester exhibition spaces. This co-curational analytic process will be used to identify small groups of students with connected interests who will then work collaboratively through the rest of semester to produce thematic collaborative exhibitions.
Engagement with the academic literature through micro-lectures within the weekly sessions will serve to guide us through our journey, but the main emphasis each week will be on practical engagements with the artistic and creative research methods. None of these will focus on the aesthetic quality of the art produced, so students need no artistic experience or aptitude, and will not be graded on this, but instead on using and thinking about creative and artistic research methods as a way to produce social research knowledge. This will form the basis also of critical reflection within the sessions and assessments.
Overall the module will offer students experience in:
- Exploring the social world, and its futures, through art and creativity.
- Conceptualising, designing, carrying out, and analysing research projects.
- Collaborative working through research-orientated co-curation practices.
- Communicating project experiences and findings through non-traditionally academic means such as exhibition guides, which blend textual, visual and material practices.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 40 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 30,
Formative Assessment Hours 2,
Summative Assessment Hours 3,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
161 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Formative Assessment:
Between weeks four and five students will produce a brief 500 word interpretation panel for one of the creative outputs they have produced, on which feedback will be given.
Summative Assessment:
This course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) 1000 Word Exhibition Guide / Presentation (Group Assessment) (40%)
Working in small groups, students will co-curate mini exhibitions which will be mounted. As a group, students will prepare a brief (1000 word) exhibition guide and give a 5-minute presentation to the wider group. This will form the basis of the assessment.
2) 2500 Word Individual Reflective Piece on Exhibition (Individual) (60%)
The Individual Reflective Piece should include:
a) 500 word exhibition guide text (re-worked from the original if the student wishes).
b) 1000 word reflection on the research methods used to produce the artworks and curate the exhibition, making full and proper reference to the academic literature.
c) 1000 word reflection on how the student might utilise such creative methods in their future or current research projects, again making full and proper reference to the academic literature. |
| Feedback |
Each weekly session will have at least 25% of the time dedicated to critical reflection, mostly carried out in small group settings. During these sessions the course leader and the tutor will circulate and offer feedback, guidance and suggestions.
Following the formative assessment mid-semester, which is designed to be a mini-version of the summative assessments, all students will receive detailed feedback.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the scope and defining features of a complex research problem in order to develop a creative research enquiry.
- Apply knowledge, skills and understanding in identifying, selecting, employing a range of creative research methods with a coherent interdisciplinary methodology.
- Undertake critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of ideas, concepts, information and issues, both independently and collaboratively through curational methods.
- Interpret, use and evaluate different types of data to complete a creative research project.
- Work in ways that show awareness of own and others' roles and responsibilities in a collaborative process.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List:
Essential Reading:
Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles A & Rousell D (2020) 'The Mesh of Playing, Theorizing, and Researching in the Reality of Climate Change: Creating the Co-research Playspace'. In. A Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, K Malone, and E Barratt Hacking (eds.) Research Handbook on Childhoodnature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature Research, Cham: Springer International Publishing. Pp.199-222.
Ingold, T (2013). Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.
Lupton D & Watson A (2022) 'Research-Creations for Speculating About Digitized Automation: Bringing Creative Writing Prompts and Vital Materialism into the Sociology of Futures' in Qualitative Inquiry 28(7): 754-766
Sardar, Z. (2010). Welcome to postnormal times. Futures, 42(5), 435-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2009.11.028
Recommended Reading:
Escobar, Arturo (2007) 'Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise' in Cultural Studies 21(2-3): 179-210.
Green R & Turner J (2024) Alternative Futures: Who Decides? A story of lived experiences told through art, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. DOI: 10.2218/ED.9781836450818
Ingold, Tim (2014) 'That's enough about ethnography!' in Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4(1): 383-395.
Martinez, Francisco (2021) Ethnographic Experiments with Artists, Designers and Boundary Objects: Exhibitions as a research method, London: UCL Press. OA at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/51817
Further Reading:
Hooks, Bell (1995) Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, New York: New Press.
Jungnickel, Kat (2018) 'Making Things to make Sense of Things: DIY as Research and Practice'. In: Jentery Sayers (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, New York: Routledge. Pp. 492-502.
Truman, S. E. & Springgay, S. (2015) 'The primacy of movement in research-creation: New materialist approaches to art research and pedagogy'. In T. Lewis & M. Laverty (Eds.) Art's teachings, teaching's art: Philosophical, critical and educational musings), Springer Netherlands. Pp. 151-162. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
On completion of this course, you should:
1) Have developing skills in creative research and enquiry and the ability to identify and creatively explore and respond to global challenges.
2) Have personal and intellectual autonomy to critically evaluate ideas, evidence and experiences from an open-minded and reasoned perspective.
3) Be able to draw on a range of sources in conceiving, designing and realising creative research projects.
4) Adapt to new situations with sensitivity and integrity.
5) Have additional creative communication skills that can be used to enhance understanding of a topic or context and to engage effectively with others. |
| Keywords | Futures,Creative Methods,Co-curation,Social research |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jimmy Turner
Tel:
Email: jimmy.turner@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Matt Bryant
Tel:
Email: Matt.Bryant@ed.ac.uk |
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