Laura Gonzalez

Athenaeum Research Fellow

Biography

Portrait of Laura by Alan Dimmick.

Expertise and key outputs 
Laura Gonzalez is an artist and writer. Her recent practice encompasses film, dance, photography and text, and her work has been exhibited and published in the UK, Spain and Portugal. She has spoken at numerous conferences and events, including the Museum for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the Medical Museum in Copenhagen, College Arts Association and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. When she is not following Freud, Lacan and Marx’s footsteps with her camera, she runs psychoanalytic seminars at various UK and European institutions. 

Her most recent project, completed in 2016, investigated psychoanalytic approaches to making and understanding objects of seduction, including an examination of parallels between artistic and analytic practices, a study of Manolo Blahnik’s shoes as objects of desire, a disturbing encounter with Marcel Duchamp’s last work, and the creation of a psychoanalytically inspired Discourse of the Artefact, a framework enabling the circulation of questions and answers through a relational approach to artworks. She has written on the seductive qualities of Philippe Stack’s Juicy Salif. She is the author of an edited collection on madness to which she contributed a work on hysteria. She has performed with various dance companies, including Michael Clark. Her current research explores knowledge and the body of the hysteric through text, dance performance and video. She has just written a book on seduction and art, published by Cambridge Scholars in July 2016. She has curated a show on maternal art at Lindner project space in Berlin, which travelled to London in June 2015. She is faculty and advisor for an international MFA and PhD low residency programme at Transart Institute, and co-director of @TheGlasgowJam, a Contact Improvisation organisation dedicated to providing multidisciplinary jams to the community. 

Supervision interests 
Laura is interested in supervising research degree projects focusing on: 

• Breath and voice;
• Eastern cosmologies and philosophies;
• Psychoanalytic approaches to art, especially Freudian and Lacanian;
• Hysteria in art and performance;
• Dance and art;
• One-to-one, durational, intimate performance;
• Performance for the camera;
• Gaze in visual work;
• Reflexive and self-reflexive methodologies;
• Innovative forms of writing. 


Current and completed PhD supervision 
Laura currently supervises the following research degree students: 

  • Sonia Allori, Aspects of specialised training for Deaf performers at RCS, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Joint Supervisor)
  • Deborah NorrisCathy Marston–A Female Author of Narrative Ballet, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Joint Supervisor)
  • Paul Michael HenryWith your feet deep in the Earth: fostering experiences of interdependent selfhood through embodied performance practices, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of Glasgow (as Principal Supervisor)
  • Josh Armstrong, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Principal Supervisor)
  • Stephanie Lamprea, The Re-Materialized Voice: A performance study of the contemporary classical voice through extended techniques, multi-disciplinary performance, and vocal composition and improvisation via various eco-materialist perspectives, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as joint DPerf Supervisor)
  • Dawn Schultz, Materialization of a Choreographic Process through an Interdisciplinary Approach, PhD (Liverpool John Moores University and Transart Institute, 2021)

She has successfully completed the supervision of: 

  • Myria ChristophiniAnimating Peace: A Practice-Led Inquiry into the potential of Animation to act as a tool for peace-building, The Glasgow School of Art (as Co-supervisor) 
  • Cara BroadleyOutlining the Gap: visualising design research methods, The Glasgow School of Art  (as Primary Supervisor) 
  • Mitch MillerThe mytho-geographical line, the time map and the tactical drawing: A Practice-led inquiry into the Dialectogram, The Glasgow School of Art (as Primary Supervisor) 
  • Emma BalkindEstovers: Practice based research on the concept of the commons within contemporary art, The Glasgow School of Art (as Co-supervisor)
  • Christopher Danowski, The Medium and the Message: Afro-Cuban Trance and Western Theatrical Performance, Transart Institute (as Primary Supervisor)
  • Inês Bento Coelho, Choreography within a Visual Arts Process. Devising Performative Installations through Choreographic Approaches, The Glasgow School of Art (as External Supervisor)
  • Margaret HartCollage in the Posthuman Era: Gender and Becoming, Transart Institute and Plymouth University (as Director of Studies)
  • Flavia Domingues D'Avila, Syncretic theatre and its use in devising, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (as Principal Supervisor) 

 

Education

  • PhD, Sheffield Hallam University

    Make me yours: the psychodynamics of seduction through works of art.

    Oct 2005 - 1 Dec 2010
  • Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design, University of the Arts, London, UK.

    Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Art, Design and Communication

    2005 - 2004
  • Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design, University of the Arts, London, UK.

    Supervising Research Degrees in Art, Design and Communication (SEDA accredited)

    2002 - 2003
  • MA, Wimbledon School of Art

    Master of Fine Art: Drawing

    2000 - 2001
  • BA, Universidad del País Vasco

    Licenciada en Bellas Artes

    1995 - 2000

Supervisor for

Beyond the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland...