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Phd february session

Saturday 28 february 2026

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Sunday 1 march 2026

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AI x FAsCISM, A TALK BY GEOFF COX

phd TALK + WORKSHOP
Process as method, embracing failure, and the long duration of the making of an artwork by Ang Bartram

For the leap year of 2016 I exhaled on an etching plate every day. 366 breaths layered on the same surface, in the same place, and at roughly the same time. The accumulative breaths charted the process of isolating and capturing those layered singular exhalations onto an etching plate that was resistant to holding breath as image. The action was then reversed through repetitive laborious processes and methods which aimed to explore how to manipulate the making of an image to its extreme. ‘366:366 (finally)’ is the series of prints made from the etched plate to match the number of breaths which scored its image. A creative research project that uses process as method to test traditional ways of making art over a long four-year duration. Failure, and its potential, situated as an undulating possibility for the artwork, and one which was embraced. The artwork has been exhibited in its growing volume since 2017 before reaching its conclusion in December 2020.

The focus of this contextualized talk and workshop is on the artist's durational practice, how research underpins decision making and intent, and how failure and mishap are often by-products of the process when it is a central methodology.

SYLLABUS

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Recording

phd WORKSHOP
AI x Fascism, a talk by Geoff Cox

The title employs a popular and deliberately ambiguous connective ‘x’, at once a substitute for ‘and’, ‘loves’, ‘multiplies’, and a reference to the much-maligned social media platform owned by a big-tech billionaire. It signals the complexities involved when seemingly divergent entities are brought together in this way. By pairing AI and fascism, the talk traces historical connections between aesthetics and politics; from Walter Benjamin’s artwork essay, written amid rising fascism in Europe to alt-right meme cultures of the present. When it comes to AI, we might broadly claim that it reproduces fascist-like tendencies as it concentrates power in centralised infrastructures, is founded on extractive logic, and is owned by powerful elites who believe that access to power is their divine right. But AI isn’t inherently fascist, and can it be imagined differently?

SYLLABUS

bio | site

Recording

TT PGR-led workshop
Demystifying the Viva: A Conversation with Recent Transart / LJMU Graduates

The viva voce can feel like the final mysterious rite of passage in the PhD journey; part conversation, part defense, and wholly transformative. In this informal Q&A, Yvette Chaparro, Jake Tkaczyk, and Erin Wilkerson, recent graduates of the Transart Institute / Liverpool John Moores University PhD program, share their firsthand experiences navigating the viva process.

From preparing your documentation and anticipating examiner questions to managing nerves and embracing feedback, this discussion offers practical insights and reflections from those who’ve just come out the other side.

Whether you’re polishing your portfolio or simply wondering what lies ahead, join us for a candid conversation about the final stages of the PhD process, and bring your own questions to the table.

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