Dr Dean Kenning

Kingston School of Art
Department of Fine Art
School of Arts

Research Fellow

[email protected]

ORCID

About

I am an artist and writer. I was born in Hounslow, where I did a Foundation in Art & Design at the local college. I went on to study Fine Art at Goldsmiths College and completed a PhD at the London Consortium in 2008, developing a critical theory of 'idiocy' in art.

I make motor and sensor based kinetic sculptures, seeking to generate pathos, humour, nervous attention and a feeling of life ('vitalist kinetics'). I also have a wide-ranging diagramming practice ('exploratory diagrams'), a research method traversing artistic form, theory and pedagogy. My video and performance-based works adopt a satirical and parodic approach to social and cultural material.

I was winner of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Prize 2020-21, making robotic 'crawlers' for the touring exhibition ‘Evolutionary Love'. Other recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Matt's Gallery (2019), Beaconsfield (2019) and Piper Keys (2018). I have shown works internationally at group exhibitions and events including Guest, Ghost, Host: Machine, Serpentine Marathon (2017); and EXO EMO, Greene Naftali (2017). Collaborative projects include the Diagram Research Group at Flat Time House (2020), the Capital Drawing Group at Bergen Assembly (2019) and Diagram Research Use & Generation Group (DRUGG) at the ICA (2015). I co-curated Poor Things with Emma Hart at Fruitmarket (2023), a sculpture show about social class. I'm represented by Division of Labour.

I have published articles on diagram theory and practice, artistic pedagogy, ‘idiot art', and the politics of the art world and art education in journals including Third Text, Arts, and the Journal of Visual Art Practice. Drawing Analogies: Diagrams in Art, Theory + Practice by DRG will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025

I supervise practice-based doctoral students at the Contemporary Art Research Centre and have overseen a number of successful PhD completions as first supervisor.

Qualifications

PhD: 'The Political Nature of Art Today', London Consortium/Birkbeck College, 2008
MA: Literature, Culture and Thought, Queen Mary, University of London, 2001
BA: Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, 1997
Foundation in Art & Design, Hounslow College, 1991

Domains

My research activity consists of art practice, practical pedagogy and art theoretical writing.

The art is produced through hands-on material and process-based experimentation, and in the spirit of DIY problem solving. It often engages directly with political, philosophical and scientific ideas and theories, for example in the areas of cybernetics, biosemiotics, political philosophy and Marxist economics.

My kinetic and animatronic sculptures and sound works are focussed not on technology for its own sake but on an experiential ‘vital aesthetics' of movement, particularly nervous or compulsive movement which is instinctively suggestive of 'life'. Pathos and alertness are introduced to moving objects through abject materiality and the non-slick manual nature of construction; through 'liveness' and non-predictability with regard to e.g. speeds and movement (floppy, juddering); and through the ways visitors trigger effects in non-obvious ways via sensors. If the possibility for emergence is one motivation for this – the allowance for contingencies to effect the way the work looks or sounds at any moment, then another motivation is to counter 'seriousness' and the gallery's authority through humour and B-movie special effects.

I have used the term 'exploratory diagramming' to describe a transdisciplinary method of abductive and figural-gestural thinking-through-drawing – as evident in artworks such as Metallurgy of the Subject; Making Sense, and images and animations for Capital Drawing Group (see Teaching for pedagogical use). I have written on ‘diagrammatology', drawing particularly on the theories of Peirce, Chatelet and Deleuze.

As First Supervisor I have overseen five successful PhD completions (all with no amendments): Rachel Cattle, Bill Leslie, Maryam Tafakory, John Hughes and Lucy Coggle.

I am interested in supervising practice-based doctoral candidates in the areas of kinetic/robotic and sensor based sculpture, art education, biosemiotics/cybernetics/emergence-informed practice, art and politics (political economy and class), AI and diagramming/diagrammatology.

Specialisms

Contemporary Art
Kinetic Sculpture
Diagrammatics
Art Education
Politics of Art

Scholarly affiliations

Diagram Research Group
Ways of (Machine) Seeing

Publications

Deleuze’s living diagram pt. 1: from structural to intensive relations (the biological idea)

Kenning, Dean (2025). In: Burrows, David, Cussans, John, Kenning, Dean, Yacoob, Mary, (eds.), London, U.K.: pp 108-130 [Published]

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Deleuze’s living diagram pt. 2: from structural to nervous analogy (Francis Bacon)

Kenning, Dean (2025). In: Burrows, David, Cussans, John, Kenning, Dean, Yacoob, Mary, (eds.), London, U.K.: pp 133-152 [Published]

View this book section

Diagramming theory: diagrammatic drawing as a method of close reading across disciplines

Kenning, Dean (2025). In: Luís Almeida, Paulo, Bismarck, Mário, Catarina Silva, Maria, Alegria, Pedro, (eds.), Porto, Portugal: pp 161-174 [Published]

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Foreword

Kenning, Dean (2020). In: Sharp, Andy, (eds.) pp 9-15 [Published]

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The Zone

Kenning, Dean (2018). In: Duman, Alberto, Hancox, Dan, James, Malcolm, Minton, Anna, (eds.), London, U.K.: pp 413-420 [Published]

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Dr Dean Kenning is a Research Fellow in The School of Fine Art at Kingston University. He is also a writer and an artist, most recently writing about art education. We interviewed him at the Royal Festival Hall, London.

Kenning, Dean (2016). In: Allen, Jo, Rowles, Sarah, (eds.), London, U.K.: pp 221-232 [Published]

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Learning in art and design education

Addison, Nicholas, Burgess, Lesley, Kinsella, Victoria and Kenning, Dean (2015). In: Addison, Nicholas, Burgess, Lesley, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K.: pp 21-70 [Published]

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Thinking through art: the social body mind map

Kenning, Dean (2015). In: Addison, Nicholas, Burgess, Lesley, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K.: [Published]

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Circling the borders

Kenning, Dean (2010). In: Sassi, Andrea, (eds.), Reggio Emilia, Italy: pp 28-40 [Published]

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WORK

Cooper, Andrew, Kenning, Dean and Russell, John (2025) [Published]

Dr Dean Kenning

About

Qualifications

Domains

Teaching and learning

Research

Publications

Articles

Books

Book Sections/Chapters

Conference Items

Creative Works

Other

Gallery of work

The Origin of Life (detail)

Renaissance Man

The Origin of Life

Untitled (Rubber Plant)

Evolutionary Love

Evolutionary Love

Evolutionary Love

Jackson 5 Flowchart

Diagram for Walter Benjamin

Social Body Mind Meta-Map

Metallurgy of the Subject

Making Sense

Videos of my work

The Origin of Life, Beaconsfield Gallery 2019

Evolutionary Love, Standpoint Gallery 2021

Meltdown Economics

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