Repositioning my standpoint...



Current thought process February 2012

Im currently going through a difficult stage of repositioning, that is, Im not sure what my research is about, or where it is going for that matter?? i guess what has really confirmed this is the research and scholarly conference (Harrogate 23rd February 2012) I attended and also contributed to. I produced a film which I am still in the process of uploading onto YouTube (too long!!) shall put onto blog once edited down. In the forum I talked about (very abstractly) my research, if I think back to Bournmouth conference I proberly said more than 1 sentence (yes Im being hard on myself, but quite rightly so..) the feedback was more positive, I guess my research brought on a discussion?? key points made were Performance, process, apparatus, representation and interpretation. 

Ive been currently reading 'Visualising Research. A guide to the Research Process in Art and Design' Carol Gray and Julian Malins (Ashgate ebook) the book is great I have to say, interesting, however what it has made me realise is my standpoint, that is, it poses the following suggestions;

1. 'what?' - the identification of a 'hunch' or tentative research proposition, leading eventually to a defined and viable research question

2. 'why?' - the need for your research in relation to the wider context, in order to test out the value of your proposition, locate your research position, and explore a range of research strategies

3. 'how?' - the impotance of developing an appropriate methodology and specific methods for gathering and generating information relevant to your research question, and evaluating, analysing and interpreting research evidence

Methodology is key here in helping me understand the process itself, but equally so is the lit review, however I have lost focus and need to pull in the reigns, maybe its a case of writing a contextual review on what I read so far to see not the connections (as I know they are there...as illustrated above) but to understand the gaps where knowledge can be identified and help focus RQ and I guess confirm that Im not reinventing the wheel...is this right...in the book it is called 'mapping the terrain'. I plan to discuss with SE Thursday 1st march, Im hoping we can come up with something to move  the research forward..signing off 



Help... ive hit a brick wall!!



Current thought process 2012




Im not doing well at the moment??? Ive lost confidence in my thinking, which means that Im not doing alot, don't get me wrong I think about my research all the time, hence the above planning. Im just not working on SE module (which is getting me down) not the module, but, how to apply myself...I feel I am not conquering anything and I suppose Ive lost my way??. What has confirmed this misery is the Research/Scholarly conference held last Thursday at The Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate. In the afternoon I facilitated and contributed to a forum in which researchers were given the opportunity to talk for 2 to10 minutes about their work and use peers to gain feedback, or better still gain a critcal friend. I recorded the forum, which I am still in the process of uploading onto Youtube (to long on both accounts of trying!). I shall put on blog once edited right down. Listening back I sound still nearly 2 years down the line and what I have also compared myself to Bournemouth last summer 2011, still very much abstract...I guess looking back on Bournmouth I can say more than 1 sentence (yes Im being hard on myself, but quite rightly so...this isn't good) I suppose the only good thing that came out of it was the response...questions rasied were 'Im I thinking about the process or the performance'? 'is media, that is, apparatus my concern'; 'thinking about the process, without any understanding of representation, students have no concept of what they are looking at?'  and so on...

from Barthes to Hockney

The Intimate Toilet, Watteau 1715

Over the weekend I decided to read for no reason at all Roland Barthes Camera Lucida. Barthes final book the first part discusses the 'Punctum' i.e.focuses on a particularly detail in a picture, the stadium i.e. liking, having a interest in a picture and stigmatum i.e. time the second part contemplates a photograph of his late mother as a child and reflections on photography.
I then decided to read again Susan Sontags writings on 'On photography' that is her piece on Diane Arbus (one of my favourite photograpers) p13 Arbus said 'i always thought of of photograhy as a naughty thing to do -that was on of my favourite things about it'...sontag states that there needs to be a distant between photographer and subject...'the camera doesn't rape, or even posses, though it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exloit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate-all sexual activities that, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with detachment'...this is important as it relates back to previous posting where I have discussed the apparatus theory (Hilary Lloyd) Jean Baudry..the whole idea of 'interpassivity' of delegation to that object Robert Pfaller and Warhols 'Sleep' where (Koch 1991 p40) 'we gaze at so voyeuristically, bound to the unchanging clock of the camera's mechanical eye'.

The last book I looked at over the weekend was Hockneys 'thats the way I see it'..there is a chapter I wish to refer to here, Chapter 3 'Seeing the new' p102 is of interest and what I have used as a good example when exlaining to students hockneys key hole theory...in the Watteau painting illustrated above The Intimate Toliet you are seen as the voyeur, that is we view the scence from the outside. The picasso painting, Femme we are inside the the picture, we reach over and are able to view all sides of the figure, this connects to arbus's statement of feeling perverse. For Warhol distance was imporatant..the lovers (p 43) are close up on the screen, but the audience sit at a distance, all the while the noise of the projector is chattering away behind, that is, the delegated apparatus, reminding (p39) the audience's participation is never allowed to fall into another slot of that other temporal existence???  



Picasso Femme couchee 1932

Finally I was on the verge of giving up on sunday (12th Feb) writing in journal proved difficult, questioning myself why was I reading all this stuff..'how' does it connect to current research, importantly does it contribute to new knowledge..actually do I care (enjoying it anyway!) is it neccesary to be so fixed and settled?? Hockney discusses the 'how' and 'what' and that 'how' oftern effects 'what' we see...ok how do I see current practice developing, rather than what..umm

I began reading mcniff and white Action Research yesterday afternoon..just a couple of pages, what caught my interest and what I lay awake think about last night was 'onotological' persectives (the theory of being) from a researchers perspective of 'how' they see themselves and on others and the environment...on the other side is to consider social science where observations are made from the outside looking in...Ive always thought of myself as that person who sees the world as a seperate thing that Im not actually part of it???, so is this how I see my reasearch in the same way as I see the cinema screen, television, the lens...I shall leave it there to think again.. 

and 2 weeks later..!

Figure 1. Radian Map Learning Plan 2012

im back...I blame time as always! so whats new?? had an interesting online session with SE today..he discussed with some useful points regarding reflective practice..which as a result of that session I produced an updated radiant map (see fig 1)
file:///F:/HARD%20DRIVE%20FOLDER/Learning%20plan%202012.html Ive proberly lgone over board with this, but I need to see as a whole where I am now...alot has changed since last RM 2011..which thinking about I shall add in now...having problems uploading?? will have to try later.
Quite simply what Ive covered here is current teaching practice which has grown in a big way having now taken on the role as curriculum leader. Skills to develop stay the same, except I have added in time based media...need to do more in this area, that is film (there is a teaching and learning conference coming up shortly 23rd feb) I am putting on a research forum which requires those in receipt of research to present their work (abstract) for 2 minutes (I will use here speed dating as a metaphor to describe this forum in simply language, but of course not to those taking part!!) anyway the plan is to get consent from individuals and film the 45 minute session (I am also taking part) I think overall this will be good to gain evidence for RP... back up plan if I can't film will be to bring along a dictaphone I shall also do some drawings.
Ok referring back to RM I have put in an updated reading list, these are papers and books on photography, film, apparatus i.e. the lens, narrative and communication studies etc..I shall come back to some reading later...Ive made some notes on current development I dont think there is anything else I wish to add...proffessional / personal outcomes stay the same...that is, I want to write and publish papers, work more in the area of research and cut down on teaching (I really dislike the idea of being old and still teaching whatever with a crooked mouth and glazed over eyes because I was to vain to wear glasses..ha ha)

Figure 1. Reflective practice model

Seen on the left here (fig 1) SE explained to us a typical reflective cycle...this is what I plan to do next, that is, to establish as I quote from todays recording SE states;...'this is about identifying whats changing in your perception and why this is happening, and acting on new situation'...he continues...'in terms of evidence you are collecting for de0935, you could ask yourself...how does it support the development of my awareness' ??
I hope to have this in place for next posting...
ok this week I read a chapter on the 'Ways of Remembering' by John Berger, it is a selected essay published in a book called Camerawork, what I interesting was that Berger argues that in (p40) 'real life (the routines of everyday experiences) meaning is discovered in what connects, for it cannot connect without development'...'to interpret a picture is to lend it to past and future, to put it into a narrative'. 'The narrative form in which photography can employ is memory, a field in which different times coexist because memory as an aspect of unconscious life, does not conform to a linear conception of time in which, eg. the modern suspence story is constructed'. He states that before photography (if we did not look at it from a technical point of view i.e. painting, engravings drawings etc..) there was only memory. the photograph is a footprint that leaves a trace of that particular event, the camera like the eye records appearences through the mediation of light, however, the camera unlike the eye, fixes the set of appearences, where as the appearneces recorded by the eye are constantly changing.

Recorded time and space is a question of process in which lies a narrative, new meaning taken from the process of telling/showing..this playing out becomes a shared act...?? the performer takes on the role of the interactive object of visual representation and plesure, the viewer however takes on the role as the interpassive client, he/she is independent on the process being performed, and will only take from it what is required to understand and form new meaning???