Dr. Francis Halsall

MA; PhD

Lecturer; (Co) Director: Masters Programs: Art in the Contemporary World [www.acw.ie]

My research is a practice that involves thinking, writing, talking, teaching and organizing public events. This practice is situated between three main areas in which I have published extensively: (1) The history, theory and practice of modern and contemporary art (2) Philosophical aesthetics (3) the cultural reception of Systems Theories (such as Cybernetics). I am currently completing two book projects: (1) Niklas Luhmann’s Aesthetics: which thoroughly interrogates Niklas Luhmann’s systems theoretical account of social systems within the specific context of art practice and philosophical aesthetics (2) Systems Aesthetics: which looks at the cultural reception of ideas of system in relation to aesthetics and modernism. Recent publications include the book Contemporary Art, Systems and the Aesthetics of Dispersion (Routledge, 2023) and the articles: ‘Actor-Network Aesthetics: The Conceptual Rhymes of Bruno Latour and Contemporary Art’, in Muecke & Felski, (eds.) Latour and the Humanities (Duke University Press, 2022) [book version of an edition of New Literary History] Art as Systems Irritants: Liam Gillick’s Use of Systems’ in Gosse and Stott (eds), Nervous Systems: Art, Systems, and Politics since the 1960s (Duke University Press, 2021) For more publication details visit: https://ncad.academia.edu/FrancisHalsall

Areas of Expertise

History and Theory of Modern and Contemporary Art

Modernism as an artistic and philosophical problem

Historiography and philosophical aesthetics:  the history of art history, the conceptual foundations of the discipline and critical revisions to the discipline. The relations between art history and philosophy (with a particular focus on philosophical aesthetics)

The cultural reception of Systems Theories (such as Cybernetics) with particular emphasis on the systems-theoretical approach of Niklas Luhmann

 Areas of Competence

Phenomenology; Network Aesthetics; Photography: History and Theory; New Media: History and Theory; Museums and Galleries: History and Theory; Gender and Aesthetics