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Professor Kiff Bamford

Professor

Kiff Bamford is Professor of Art and Philosophy in the Leeds School of Arts. He has published widely on the work of French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard and researches the inter-relationship of contemporary art and theory, performance art and continental philosophy.

Kiff studied for a BA in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art, a PGCE at Huddersfield University, and an MA in Art History and Visual Culture at Goldsmiths’ College, London. He was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship to undertake a PhD at The University of Manchester, co-supervised by Prof David C Lomas (Art History and Visual Studies) and Prof Dee Reynolds (French Studies). The resulting research was published as the monograph Lyotard and the figural in Performance, Art and Writing (Continuum, 2012; Bloomsbury 2013).

Further publications include Jean-François Lyotard: Critical Lives (Reaktion, 2017), the first book to consider Lyotard’s work in the context of his life and times. Published as part of a series of short biographies it includes new research from interviews, archives and lesser known works, taking an interdisciplinary approach to Lyotard’s involvement in philosophy, art, literature, politics, teaching and writing. It was the subject of review articles published in ten international journals, and the book has been translated into Chinese and Turkish.

The hesitation which dominates the tone of the book, an uncertainty with regard to the genre of biography, was echoed in two symposia which Kiff Bamford programmed together with former Leeds Beckett colleague and performance artist, Harold Offeh. Held at the Tetley, Leeds and the ICA, London, the symposia were titled ‘Performance and Uncertainty’ and brought together international artists and writers to question the role of re-performance, to confront collective assumptions about authenticity and the changing role of the artist’s body, through presentations, discussions and performances.

Current PhD Students:

NaoKo TakaHashi – From Text to Sound: Textuality of Spoken Word and Participatory Authorship in Contemporary Art
Simon Ringe – Void: the space between. A practice-based research investigation
Tom Rogers – Without Pictures: Finding Personal Significance in Communities of Practice
Harry Meadley – How can the role of the artist be utilised in the reclamation of civic and public space?
Darren Neave – Trompe-le-nez: Sensorial Re-purposing as Method – A Way of Making Art for a Cluttered Planet?
Dayna Heaviside – How to write without an ending: an investigation into digital practices of écriture feminine
Kate Langrish-Smith – Fashioning Forms: A Dialogue in Sculpting Bodies

PhD and MPhil Completions:

Dr Helen Clarke (2022) In collaboration with The Heritage Consortium – Streetwalker: The Flâneuse and the Electronic Flâneur
Dr Julia McKinlay (2022) In collaboration with Yorkshire Sculpture International – Acid-Soaked Molluscs: a Xenophoric Approach to Practising Sculpture and Print
Dr Vicky Sharples (2021) – Imperceptible Performance in Lieu of the Art Object: a Practice-Led, Environmental, Research Project
Dr Katie Crabtree (2021) Leeds Trinity University / University of Leeds; co-supervised 2017-2020 – Studenthood: A Lyotardian Rewriting of Liberal University Education
Dr Harold Offeh (2020) – Covers: Activating Black Album Covers Through Photography, Video and Live Performance
Aiden Winterburn (MPhil, 2019) – The Film-Essay: a multi-modal form that thinks
Dr Ian Truelove (2018) – Collapsing Skin: Expanding Painting Through New Digital Technologies
Dr Patricia Azevedo (2017) External advisor, Universidade Federale De Minas Gerais, Brazil – Jogos de distancia e proximidade: A construção do espaço dialógico na arte performativa

Current Teaching

BA Fine Art
BA Graphic Design

Research Interests

Supported by a British Academy grant, Kiff edited and introduced the collection Jean-François Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates (Bloomsbury, 2020), which includes many new translations and previously hard to find interviews. Recently published is a translation of Lyotard’s volume Lectures d’enfance, co-edited with Prof Robert Harvey (Stony Brook University, New York) under the title 'Readings In Infancy’ (Bloomsbury, 2023). Also published with Bloomsbury in 2023 is the collected volume Lyotard and Critical Practice, co-edited with Margret Grebowicz (University of Silesia, Katowice). Including the work of thirteen international scholars, writers and artists it aims to debate and demonstrate Lyotard’s continued relevance to the arts and humanities. These contemporary contributions are combined with a selection of shorter works by Lyotard, including two previously untranslated pieces.

Kiff is now working on a second volume of ‘Jean-François Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates’ and embarking on a project researching the proximities, connections and differences between Lyotard and Jacques Derrida.

0113 81 21873
C.A.Bamford@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Broadcasting Place - Arts Building, 302, City Campus

Leeds School of Arts

Ask Me About

Philosophy
Contemporary art
French philosophy
Aesthetics
Performance art
Art
Writing

Selected Outputs

Bamford K (2023) Afterword. In: Bamford K; Harvey R ed. Readings in Infancy. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 193-194.
Bamford K (2022) Uncertain? For Sure. Limping? Certainly: Limp Thoughts on Performance Practice, Kiff Bamford. In: Bamford K; Grebowicz M ed. Lyotard and Critical Practice. London & New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 205-215.
Bamford K; Grebowicz M (2022) Introduction. In: Bamford K; Grebowicz M ed. Lyotard and Critical Practice. London & New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 1-10.
Bamford K (2018) 'Lyotard' entry to Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary and Cultural Theory. In: Di Leo J ed. Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary and Cultural Theory. Bloomsbury,
Bamford K (2017) Give Me a Sign: An anxious Exploration of Performance on Film, Under Lyotard's Shadow. In: Acinemas: Lyotard's Philosophy of Film. Edinburgh University Press, pp. 150-162.
Bamford K (2016) No Place for Complacency: The Resistance of Gesture. In: Gaillard J; Nouvet C; Stoholski M ed. Traversals of Affect: On Jean-François Lyotard. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 99-112.
Bamford K (2014) How can ‘I’ become ‘Je’ and should I even try? Gina Pane’s ‘minor’ action. In: RE: Histoires de quelques expositions et performances originales destinées à servir d'armes nouvelles pour sʼorienter vers une histoire mineure des performances et expositions. Paris: It: Editions,
Bamford K; Bosson O (2014) ‘REC: Une formation du spectateur’. (trans. Jef Caro). In: Pinaroli F ed. RE: Histoires de quelques expositions et performances originales destinées à servir d'armes nouvelles pour sʼorienter vers une histoire mineure des performances et expositions. Paris: It: Editions,
Bamford K (2014) Comment devenir Je et cela en vaut-il la peine? Une action “mineure” de Gina Pane. .
Bamford K (2013) A late performance: Intimate distance (Yingmei Duan). In: Rereading Jean-François Lyotard: Essays on His Later Works. pp. 81-95.
Bamford K (2013) A Late Performance: Intimate Distance (Yingmei Duan). In: Bickis H; Shields R ed. Rereading Jean-Francois Lyotard. Ashgate Publishing, pp. ?-? (250).
Bamford C (2011) ‘Arrive-t-il?’ ‘Is it happening?’: Questions of Duration and the Ephemeral in Acconci, Abramović and Lyotard. In: Hearn M; Hao S ed. Notes on a Return. Artists, Anne Bean ... [Et Al.]. Arts Edition North,

Bamford K (2019) 'Publish or perish!’: the ironic rallying cry of Jean-François Lyotard. In: SLSA 2019 'Experimental Engagements': 33RD ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY FOR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS, 7 November 2019 - 9 November 2019, University of California, Irvine, USA.
Bamford K; Harvey R (2018) 'Get my Drift?' A conversation on Lyotard's Legacy with a consideration of 'J-F Lyotard: Critical Lives' by Kiff Bamford; Robert Harvey (Distinguished Professor, Stony Brook University) and Kiff Bamford (Leeds Beckett University, UK). Harriman Hall, Philosophy Department, Stony Brook University, Long Island, New York.
Bamford K (2018) “‘No phrase is the first.’§184.”. In: Unaccountable Differences: Symposium on Jean-François Lyotard's The Differend, 13 April 2018 - 14 April 2018, Centre for Theoretical Inquiry, University of Indiana, Bloomington IN, USA.
Bamford K (2017) Powerlessness and the Word: Lyotard’s Breathless Hesitation. 17 October 2017.
Bamford K (2017) Symposia Introduction and the performance talk Opening Uncertainty. In: Performance and Uncertainty, 4 March 2017, Institute of Contemporary Art, London.
Bamford K (2017) Performance and Uncertainty. In: Performance and Uncertainty, 4 February 2017 - 4 March 2017, The Tetley, Leeds & ICA, London.
Bamford K (2015) Unwelcome Performativity: Playing with Lyotard (provocation). In: Brewing Performance Symposium, 24 June 2015, Tetley, Leeds.
Bamford K (2015) Lyotard's Lips. Quivering as I go to speak. In: Women, Visibility and Playful Acts 2, 26 February 2015, Leeds Library and Art Gallery.
Bamford, K (2014) Freezing the Flow: Performance Art in the Museum Panel: Sensing Topologies : Embodied Process, Continuous Mutation, and the Figural in Contemporary Media, Dance, and Performance Art. In: SLSA 2014 Society for Literature, Science and the Arts, 9 October 2014 - 12 October 2014, Dallas, Texas.

http://litsciarts.org/slsa14/
Bamford K (2014) 'Give me a sign: an anxious exploration of performance on film, under Lyotard's shadow'. In: Acinemas: Philosophy and Film in the work of Jean-François Lyotard, 7 May 2014 - 8 May 2014, University of Dundee.
Bamford C (2013) 'No place for complacency:the resistance of gesture'. In: International Conference Traversées d'affect/Traversals of Affect…on Jean-François Lyotard, 21 March 2013 - 23 March 2013, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Bamford C (2012) How can ‘I’ become ‘Je’ and should I even try? Gina Pane’s minor action. In: RE: Minor Histories of Exhibitions and Performances, 5 September 2012 - 6 September 2012, Raven Row Gallery, London. and Slade School of Art, UCL, London.
Bamford C (2011) Performing Lyotard. In: Human Sciences Seminar, 17 November 2011, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Bamford C (2011) A Late Performance. In: Rewriting Lyotard: International Conference, 11 February 2011 - 13 February 2011, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

http://www.lyotardproject.org/?page_id=19
Bamford C (2010) The Other as Host: Gina Pane's 'Je'. In: Tansmission: Hospitality, 1 July 2010 - 3 July 2010, Sheffield Hallam University.

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/transmission/transconf.html
Bamford C (2010) Wildly Attentive. Session: Reading to Attention. In: Association Of Art Historians Annual Conference,, 15 April 2010 - 17 May 2010, University of Glasgow.
Bamford C (2008) Finding the Figural in Lyotard and Deleuze. In: Lines of Flight: The Deeuzian Text, English Research Institute (AHRC funded event).
Bamford C (2008) 'Arrive-t-il?' 'Is it happening?': Questions of duration and the ephermeral in Acconci, Abramovic and Lyotard. In: Postgraduate Symposium, Art History and Visual Cultures.

Bamford K (2012) Jean-Francois Lyotard Encyclopedia people profile [Online]

Available from: https://www.litencyc.com/index.php

Bamford K (In press) (In)visible writing in art and performance. Textual Practice

https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2022.2111710
Bamford K (2022) Review of Jean-François Lyotard: Pedagogies of Affect. By Kirsten Locke (2022). New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-022-00263-2
Bamford K (2022) Book Review: 'Craig Staff - Painting, History and Meaning: Sites of Time'. CAA Reviews

https://doi.org/10.3202/caa.reviews.2022.54
Bamford K (2020) The Boundaries of the Book : Material and Immatériaux. Art History

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12540
Bamford K (2014) Working with fragments: A performance art's archive. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 7 (3), pp. 557-567.

https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp.7.3.557_1
Bamford K (2013) Desire, absence and art in Deleuze and Lyotard. Parrhesia: a journal of critical philosophy, (16), pp. 48-60 (12).

http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia16/parrhesia16_bamford.pdf
Bamford K (2013) Better Lyotard than never, I figure (Review of Discourse, Figure by J-F Lyotard). Art History: journal of the Association of Art Historians, 36 (4), pp. 885–888-888.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8365.12045/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Bamford K (2012) Acconci’s Pied-à-terre: Taking the archive for a walk. Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts, 17 (2), pp. 54-61 (8).

https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.671073

Lyotard J-F eds. Bamford K; Harvey R (2023) Readings in Infancy. Bloomsbury Academic.
Bamford K eds. Bamford K; Grebowicz M (2022) Lyotard and Critical Practice. London: Bloomsbury.
Lyotard J-F; Bamford K eds. Bamford K (2020) Jean-Francois Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates. Edited and with Introduction by Kiff Bamford. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Bamford K (2017) Jean-François Lyotard (Critical Lives). London: Reaktion Books.
Bamford K (2017) Jean-François Lyotard - Critical Lives. Reaktion Books.
Bamford K (2012) Lyotard and the 'figural' in Performance, Art and Writing. London & New York: Continuum.