Dandelion, 2011

It seems an age since I last added something here. Indeed, the last post on this blog was way back in October 2010! Since my trip to Brussels to visit FoAM, things have been pretty hectic…

Anyway, reactivating. What’s that all about? Well, put simply, I’m going to try and post more regularly on here. While the writing has been on pause – at least on here – the blog has still been fairly lively. One of the earlier posts seems to have been picked up by a media class and transformed through a proliferation of their blogs; another post has also been taken up in a discussion elsewhere which I stumbled across. To make sharing more straightforward, I’ve added the ‘sharethis‘ plugin. And on this topic, I wanted to also thank those who have linked my blog to their website – much appreciated. I plan to update my rather small list of links in the coming weeks.

Notes on a draft

Gail Davies has an editorial in the current issue of Geoforum called ‘Where do experiments end?‘ It’s a very interesting paper, exploring the changing nature and scope of experimentation with reference to the Office of Experiments’ (OoE) ‘Dark Places‘ project. Check it out.

Davies, G. (2010) Where do experiments end? Geoforum, 41(5): 667-670

Overflows event, St Hugh's College, Oxford

I recently attended a very interesting informal workshop on doing a relational PhD called ‘Overflows: Flows, Doings, Edges III‘. When I heard about it, I applied immediately:

Finding a forwarded and apologetically cross-posted email nestled in my inbox was a rather nice surprise. Not only a workshop on doing a relational PhD, but the third of its kind! Thinking relationally is a challenge and perhaps one that would encourage and acknowledge a sense of experimentation and openness. It would be both a challenging and rewarding to be part of this gathering. I am very interested in hearing, and talking, about what thinking-doing relationally might facilitate in the way of a doctorate.

…

Some research questions that could be thrown into the ring for debate:

• How to foster conversation and discussion which can be generative? How to find overlaps or zones of similar interest without forcing particular agendas or selectively listening?
• The move to thinking of research materials rather than data has opened up all sorts of avenues for considering what counts as research. But are there still limits to what can be considered valid generated materials?
• Organising fieldwork is far from straightforward and involves all sorts of work which is often excluded from a thesis. Much of this organisation process is ad-hoc, provisional and serendipitous. How then to justify particular fieldwork sites beyond acquiring some sort of access?

I would be delighted to be considered to participate,

Thomas

The event started mid-morning, opening with a welcoming outlining the brief history of these sorts of workshops (the first was in 2007 at King’s College London, the second in 2008 at the Open University). There was then the seemingly obligatory introductions, but this was not as bad as it can be: participants choosing to be brief and on the whole, fairly witty. The first session was a discussion between those who had chose a particular topic, selected from: serendipity, translation/interference (these were combined), performativity and accountability. I opted for ‘Serendipity’ and was pleasantly surprised by how generative it was as a topic, leading to discussions about methods, writing and ethics.

After lunch we gathered as a group to have a round-table discussion, provisionally titled ‘Relationality’. There are such a number of different approaches that could fall under this broad banner but I was taken aback to note that it was almost considered synonymous with actor-network-theory (ANT). I wonder why there were not more students interested in different ways of thinking relationally… So the discussion foregrounded what it means, practically, to do relational research: paying attention to relations, connections, gaps, cuts. One question raised was: if all the morning themes were so similar, then what is that sameness? I didn’t really feel like this was addressed then, and I’m not sure if I have a decent answer for it now. Another question, a two-parter, was levelled at the group I had been involved in: (1) how to open up to serendipity and (2) how to write this? I can’t remember how I responded but now as I write about it, I find myself thinking about how Thrift (2004) suggests we might give a chance to encounters. Put differently, this is not just noting the many serendipitous events and encounters that form our research but actually taking them seriously, and not writing them out of our work.

The third and final session of the workshop was simply called ‘Overflows’ and styled as a flea-market. Participants were invited to bring an overflow along and to share it, and to explore what could be done with it. I moved from table-to-table, commenting and listening (I learnt of John Law’s notion of pin-board experiments, I think I need to look into this). After the wrap-up session, I was left thinking that working out why an overflow does not work could itself be a story. Moreover, how many loose threads are we allowed to leave in a thesis?

After the workshop had ended the keynotes for the launch of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change’s (CRESC) Sixth Annual Conference: The Social Life of Methods. Although I had to try hard not to laugh at the acronym for the conference (SLoM), I was excited at the prospect of hearing John Law’s paper ‘The Double Social Life of Method’ and Katie King’s on ‘Knowledge-weaving’. Law’s argument was that methods are social because they (1) are shaped by the social and (2) help shape the social. In other words, methods are actively engaged in doing the social. I didn’t disagree but was perhaps hoping for something which would go beyond this point. And I wasn’t sure if he was using technique as synonymous to method. Katie King’s talk was dedicated to Susan Leigh Star and her term ‘methodological weaving’. Perhaps most interesting, were her comments on the ‘transcontextual’ and on writing with strings, knots and colours, rather than pen, paper and graphemes.

References

]]> http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/oxford/overflows/feed/ 0 http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/oxford/journal-list/ http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/oxford/journal-list/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:05:07 +0000 Thomas http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/?p=1760

Bookmarks

Format: A – Z

Type: Journals

Number: 50

Notes: Add suggestions in the comments below

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Actual/Virtual

Angelaki

Area

Art & Research

ArtForum

Body & Society

Collapse

Configurations

Critical Inquiry

Cultural geographies

Cultural Politics

Deleuze Studies

Drain

Economy & Society

E-Flux

Emotion, Space and Society

Environment and Planning A

Environment and Planning D: Society and space

European Journal of Social Theory

Fibreculture

Frieze

Geoforum

Geography Compass

Inflexions

M/C

Multitudes

New Geographies

Notre Dame Reviews

Paragraph

Parallax

Parrhesia

Performance Research

Pli

Progress in Human Geography

Radical Philosophy

Social & Cultural geography

Space and Culture

Speculations

Subjectivity

SubStance

The Senses and Society

The Year’s Work in Critical & Cultural Theory

Theory & Event

Theory, Culture & Society

Third Text

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Transversal

Triple Canopy

Writing on Writing

306090

Howard Hodgkin - Time and Place, Modern Art Oxford (23 June - 05 September 2010)

I went to have a look at Howard Hogkin’s exhibition last week-end and came away unsure of how to respond to (or judge?) the work. I liked some of the paintings, in particular Yellow Sky (2009-2010), and I thought some of the colours used were amazing. Yet I clung to the exhibition guide for help, not only when identifying the pieces but also for telling me a bit about the artist and his techniques.

A sentence grabs my attention:

“The resulting body of work is emphatically about the here and now; a dialogue between the artist and the world of sensations, through the medium of paint.”¹

I am reminded of Luminous Green and presencing, living the here-and-now. I look for the memories and emotions that – I look down again – are evoked “through a distinctive use of colour and brushstroke”. I look at one painting and think about what I’ve just read regarding it. I move to the next painting and find I have been reading the text for the wrong painting. Somehow, it still works for me. I move on, slightly perturbed.

I smile when I read that the newest work was completed after the catalogue went to press, and wonder if this was done on purpose. A move against being catalogued, against being understood, against being written about. The exhibition guide is no longer my guide, offering excuses: “it is different from anything else in the room and in the show, and points to the possibility of another phase in Hodgkin’s work”. I look again. It is rather different.

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Tarfala Research Station, Sweden

On the same day that I found out that the AHRC Beyond Text proposal was unsuccessful, I received an email letting me know that my college newsletter was out. Nothing special, ordinarily. But this edition contains a short essay I wrote almost two years ago, as a sort of ‘thank you’ to the college for supporting my MSc dissertation fieldwork. The text, The Arctic Circle: Icy Traces, is a précis of my dissertation. I’m not sure who will read it, nor if they’ll find it of any interest but I’m pleased it’s finally out. You can read the whole newsletter here, or download my text here.

There is another short paper in publication (A human geographer vists Tarfala Research Station) from my time in Sweden, which will be part of the research station’s annual report. I’ll be sure to link to it when it’s available.

Failure is cool (?)

A story that begins with the end; a tale of failure. Well, maybe not.

—

Dear James,

I would like to think that we could organise something too. I’m not sure about a conference, but perhaps a set of workshops, with a few keynotes. What do you think? Did you have particular geographers in mind? Making sure it doesn’t clash with the AAG is key, I agree.

I will find out the details for hosting it at Oxford with the departmental administrator and get back to you about that. Perhaps we’ll see each other at the RGS-IBG conference in early September?

Best,

Thomas

Dear Thomas,

I think we could organise a conference without a budget. Just have to be two days in a row rather than a gap inbetween the sessions. Most people will put everything on expenses from their own university. Just need to get some decent Geographers to speak at the event and make sure it doesn’t clash with the AAG. What do you reckon? I know I could give it a go in Exeter but it might be nicer and easier for people to go to Oxford.

James

Dear James,

Thanks for your email – not heard back yet but keeping my fingers crossed! I’m not quite sure when we are due to hear back but I will let you know as soon I know anything…

Actually, hold on, just visited the website and found this page, which wasn’t there the last time I checked. It’s a shame but we don’t seem to be listed. It seems to have been announced in early June (see here).

Hope your trip to Berlin was fun/rewarding and that your PhD is going well. Perhaps we can think about doing something in place of the hitch-hiking, or re-think how we might do it without a budget?

Best,

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Just wondering if you’ve heard anything back from ‘Beyond Text’ about the funding application?

Regards

James

IMPROV GEOG: HITCH-HIKING AS FIELDWORK

[...]

3.6 Describe the aims and objectives of the initiative, including goals for both the organisers and participants and how these reflect the aims and objectives of the Beyond Text Programme.

This student-led initiative is an attempt to develop fieldwork training for doctoral students which incorporates performance, improvisation and experimentation. Open to postgraduate researchers from across the arts and humanities, the proposal provides an opportunity to reconsider how we can think, generate, and present fieldwork materials during a series of events, what we are calling a distributed event.

The event will be channelled through the technique of hitch-hiking as a point of departure for the exploration of improvisation, performance and experimentation in fieldwork. The initiative is not a valorisation of hitch-hiking per se, but rather a means to grapple with the contingencies of fieldwork and to open up encounters with publics. This initiative will enable doctoral students to make distinctive contributions to a conceptual and empirical study and hopes to stimulate further research which takes method seriously and encourages collaboration. With a group of around 20 students (plus the organisers), this project affords the opportunity for debate and discussion amongst students, but is not merely inward-looking. By actively moving ourselves beyond the academic community through a set of fieldwork events, this work is at once collaborative and open-ended. This openness is a key aspect of the project and by working with those we encounter, may in turn generate all sorts of materials, approaches and questions. Establishing a community of enthusiastic researchers who are interested in method will provide the chance for further collaboration between doctoral researchers, as well as continuing activities beyond the remit of this particular proposal.

The opening session will be composed of a set of talks followed by break-out sessions; this will provide a platform for research. The second session will look to techniques more directly, with a scheduled fieldwork event over the course of a weekend. There will be a third, and final, session which will be concerned with presenting or animating the fieldwork done and how it might be translated or transformed into new materials, through a set of performances which are not restrictive. This session will actively seek to connect with a variety of audiences during the course of the day.

The organisers will support and ensure the smooth running of what will be a completely new initiative, and rather than teaching, will look to facilitate discussion and exploration of experimental fieldwork. Part of this project will involve turning to everyday practices, such as hitch-hiking, as means to think through these issues. Participants will be expected to think critically about questions of fieldwork, and how it is entangled with themes including improvisation, enabling constraints and the politics of performance. Further, how might this distributed event disrupt the notion of academic conferences or what counts as fieldwork? In these ways, this project clearly fits within the thematic strand ‘Performance, Improvisation and Embodied Knowledge’, as it seeks to question acts of resistance and subversion, data and evidence, method and engagement, through hitch-hiking.

This project, therefore, is keenly aware of Beyond Text’s ethos:  it proposes to engage in research involving processes and practices that are not limited to those associated with the written word and seeks to actively connect with those both within and beyond academia.

It caught my attention...

Really excited about tomorrow’s event in Zurich even though I can’t be there. Brian Massumi and Erin Manning will be talking about Generating the Impossible as part of the Inventions series (a series of double lectures actualising post-structuralist theories):

Abstract

“Invention is neither inductive nor deductive. It is transductive, corresponding to the discovery of the dimensions according to which a problematic can be defined. . It is the taking charge of a system of virtualities by the system of actuality. . No determinism presides over it. . It is the advent of possibilities.”
– Gilbert Simondon

According to Gilbert Simondon, invention is problematizing, rather than resolving. It does not realize possibility: possibility is precisely what emerges through invention. This means that there is no linear causal path as a means to it. What precedes its own means and its own possibility is impossible, until it happens. What could be more problematic? Simondon nevertheless underlines the rigourously technical nature of invention. Our talk will discuss a series of collective experimentations undertaken at the SenseLab in Montreal over the past seven years which attempt to put a concept of invention similar to Simondon’s to the test toward the production of new forms of collaborative activity at the boundary between conceptual research and artistic creation. What techniques of relation foster the inventive emergence of collective possibilities? What economies of activity are involved? What are the politics of aesthetic activity guided by a problematic practice of invention in Simondon’s sense?

Many important figures have been invited as part of this series and I recommend having a look at the concept paper.

Hertford College, Oxford

Earlier on in the month, I received a reminder email asking me to renew my hosting arrangement for this website. It was only then that I realised that it had been a year since I set up and started this blog! I have found it really quite useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, it serves as a record of my research and how the process is developing. It is not quite my research diary but as a friend put it, a form of public note-taking. Secondly, it is a space for me to engage with different kinds of topics as well as experiment styles of writing. Thirdly, it has allowed for a sharing of my work with both those who may search for me online and/or stumble on my site after searching for a certain collection of key words. Unfortunately, this sharing has been rather hampered by on-going problems connecting to other sites through the use of trackbacks and pingbacks (apologies for the recent ‘test’ posts). I have asked for help from both those on the wordpress fora and my internet host but have had no luck as yet.

There are a set of posts which are in draft form at the moment but that I shall try to finish off during the course of this week. Here’s hoping! As ever, please feel free to leave comments or get in touch with me directly,

t

Brussels: fieldsite / collaboration?

I spoke with Maja Kuzmanovic last Friday over Skype, following several emails over the past few months, about the possibility of spending time with f0.am in Brussels. When I was in Montreal in the Autumn, Sha Xin Wei mentioned the group, and Maja, to me as they had worked together on a project. The fo.am website looks amazing and is really interesting; I’m intrigued by their committment to

growing inclusive, resilient and abundant worlds.¹

Although we did not speak for very long, I was able to explain my research interests, provide a flavour of my work and hear a little about their research group. Maja explained that they had had experience of ethnographers and anthropologists spending time with the lab; many of them had gone on to became actively involved in the group. When we tried to deal with practicalities, dates were problematic. Whilst f0.am are planning a workshop (or gathering) at the end of July, I was told it would not make sense for me to arrive beforehand unless it was for a few weeks. I would be very welcome to do so, and be involved in the organisation of the gathering, but shall be in Berlin at that time. Therefore, Maja suggested that I apply to present at the gathering; although if selected, I would be a participant and not a collaborator with f0.am. There would then be the chance to meet at a later date; perhaps in September as the lab will be very quiet after the July gathering. I’ve sent over a short bio as requested and am keeping my fingers crossed to be involved in some way. Here’s hoping!

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