Group – DX5

Ever since its creation in 2004, the dx5 digital & graphic art_research group has specialised in contemporary expanded field graphics. During the first years, and under the perhaps very generic title of “Applications of new technologies to engraving and printing for artistic purposes”, but driven by the multidisciplinary idea of today’s graphic artwork, our research focused on the search for and the contribution of novel instruments and strategies in this field. This was done by adapting and optimising contemporary industrial machinery systems and processes (such as photopolymers, lasers, milling machines or plotters) that enable definition of new environments, resolution of inconsistencies inherited from previous practices, and delving into what multiple artwork means in this third millennium.

The incorporation of new pre- and post-doctorate researchers and teaching cum research staff in recent years has given rise to more research lines and projects, as well as ventures into new fields within the contemporary graphics universe. They cover different topics such as complexity and sustainability in contemporary art and design, redefinition and evolution of the artist’s book as a medium, support and creative idea within an increasingly digital environment, or the intertwining of comic and animation with other artistic manifestations of our time.

We are interested in what is happening at the knowledge frontier. The expanded field of the different disciplines that open new routes to reach new territories.

Research lines

During the past fifteen years, a triple approach —theoretical-conceptual, artistic-practical and scientific-technical— has

articulated and defined all our projects and research lines around contemporary graphics.

Art in the expanded field. Contemporary multiple art.

Theoretical-conceptual line

• Conceptual and philosophical discussion on the multiple art in the 21st century. Complexity and sustainability. Expanded field graphic arts.

• Consuming multiple art. A sociological approach.

• The concept of seriation and new technologies.

• The intangible matrix. The idea of authorship in the 21st century. Networks.

• Macrocosm and microcosm. Relational systems.

• Strategies and approaches towards a conscious design.

• Expanded field painting. Transformations, apertures and ruptures in the painting practices of the 21st century.

• Building up identity: gender, clichés and archetypes.

Scientific-technical line

• New technologies applied to contemporary art.

• Design, development and modification of software and hardware for artistic purposes.

• Sustainable systems applied to contemporary multiple art.

• Non-toxic printmaking and plate engraving processes. Laser technology applied to contemporary art graphics. From carbon printing to light engraving, Electricity and image generation.

• Interactive graphics for a new digital print. Augmented reality.

• Interactions between painting, digital technology and new media.

Artistic-practical line

• The space of Contemporary graphic Art: theory and praxis of digital graphic art.

•The imprint of the immaterial. Relationship between the visible and the invisible.

• The space of the series: seriation and the print. Repetition and transformation. Negotiating practical and formal issues of the edition. The expanded edition.

• The space of the book: the artist’s book understood as an art project to convey thought.

• Hyperbook. The mutant page. The sensitive page. Stories and rhizomatic images.

• The comics space: transdisciplinary comics studies.

• The space of design: artwork production and research at the edge. Modernity and its bounderies: interrelations between art, design, and fashion. Conscious design for the 21st century. Interventions in graphic and editorial design.

• Transdisciplinary Textile Studies.

• Conscious design for the 21st century. Interventions in graphic and editorial design.

• The installation space: the multiple that occupies the space.

• The space of painting: breaking with the conventions that sustain the category of painting.

• Exhibition spaces and models: the rise of curatorial discourse and its influence on the artistic languages of the 21st century.

• Identity: non-regulatory identities.