Lottie Child MA

Self-initiated MA studies began September 2003 as a means of co-producing the Uo as a self-institution.The work addresses the city as a playground for experimental research into interdisciplinary methodologies and network building. It doesn’t automatically look to interface with an art context but aims to exist in between and on the edges of art, architecture, activism and education.
This MA course uses the University of Openness as a framework, Initiated in 2002 the UO has been described as a self institution and experiment in constructing and dismantling structures in which to relate, share, learn and construct meaning socially and a support structure from which to research into autonomous modes of organisation.

The Following quote by Carlos Castoriadis has been referenced: “I have defined the object of politics as follows: Create the institutions which, by being internalized by individuals, most facilitate their accession to their individual autonomy and their effective participation in all forms of explicit power existing in society” 1
Central to the UO’s functioning are the imaginations of its users and the Wiki which is an editable website that anyone can contribute to or change. People are invited to start a faculty or use the UO framework in any way they wish. We have faculties of cartography, collaborative research, Unix and many more. Much of Lottie Child’s MA connects to the faculty of Physical Education; it’s a useful framework for taking an interdisciplinary approach and considering the connections between body and mind.
Lottie Child’s MA at the UO as a way of considering what and how she wants to learn, reflecting critically on and intersecting with traditional higher education institutions. This MA at the UO began with creating a network of mentors and approaching work as active research in a series of modules.
Some of these are:
• Guerrilla Gardening-an investigation into the politics of urban green spaces, through attempting to nurture parsnips and turnips in the parks, gardens and squares of London WC1.
• Urban Street Training-is a video and/or training session, for adults who have forgotten how to play, lead by 8 year old Callum. He demonstrates how to get fit and have fun on the street by interacting with architectural features.
• Urban Climbing-is not commuting not consuming and not conventional leisure. It’s an activity that becomes part of the way you see and think about the city as you move through it both on a Littoral level; you begin to see hand holds and judge weather a ledge is likely to take your weight and ideologically it demonstrates and creates a sense that deviation from limited prescribed behaviour has multiple, positive possibilities.
• Schemas-experiments with co learning and interdisciplinarity identifying the patterns, which we think, move, draw and learn in and using them as a teaching methodology.
• I regularly talk about my work and take people climbing please see the following webpage for details of climbs.
http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/ClimbingClubReports∞
• Collaborative research project into the use of audio as a mapping tool with researchers from the design department at Goldsmith's and teenagers from Soouth Camden Community School at the British Library. Project page here
http://uo.twenteenthcentury.com/index.php/LondonaLifeInMaps?action=edit∞


Mentors include:
Fabian Tompsett -Radical Hostorian
Armin Medosch - Researcher and Lecturer, Goldsmiths
Callum Dublin - Seven year old boy with high kineasthetic intelligence
Kate Rich - International artists, co-founder of the Bureau of Inverse Technology
Alana jelineck - Artist and Lecturer
Greer Marshall - Early years development expert
Isabelle Courtney-Guy -Dance and Yoga teacher
Michael Dean - Artist
Scarlett Ravenscroft -Artist
Melanie Child - My Mum
Giuseppe Mascoli - a founder of the slow food movement
Simon McBurney - actor, theatre director
Rebbecca Sinker - Researcher
Stewart Home - writer

Footnote
1. In an email to the university of Openess mailing list from Armin Medosch
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