My diary (detail)

I just wanted to draw attention to a number of interesting events over the next few months. Please let me know below of other seminars, conferences or talks!

29.10.11  |  Rhythm and Event symposium  |  KCL, London

01.11.11  |  John Mullarkey – Art-Practice-Thought: The Case of Cinema  |  Goldsmiths, London

21.11.11  |  Bruno Latour – Waiting for Gaia  |  Institut Français, London

21.11.11  |  Paul Simpson – Ecologies of Performance  |  School of Geography, Oxford

28.11.11  |  Caren Kaplan – The Visual Culture of Stealth  |  School of Geography, Oxford

29.11.11  |  Lars Spuybroek  - The Sympathy of Things  |  AA, London

06.12.11  |  Ian James – Art – Technics  |  Goldsmiths, London

ongoing  |  Topology project  |  Tate Modern, London

forthcoming  |  François Laruelle – Non-Standard Philosophy  |  TBC

forthcoming  |  The New in Social Research seminar series  |  TBC

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/berlin/negotiations-and-plans/ http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/berlin/negotiations-and-plans/#comments Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:22:52 +0000 Thomas http://www.spacesofexperimentation.net/?p=1162

Inside IfREX

On Monday 19 April I met up with Christina and Eric to continue our discussions about my work and what might be possible while I am in Berlin, and at IfREX. They were both keen to hear how I had found the first week of the semester, realising that it might be quite different to what I was accustomed to. The students, I noted, were quite noisy during the arranged events and would get up, leave, (sometimes) return, make tea, chat even. Christina was quick to reassure me that this was something that her and Eric had become used to and that they understood as the students had so much timetabled. Indeed, this semester they are trying to have fewer things on so the students have more time to do their own work. I also mentioned that I had found the week rather intense, with discussions going on for several hours; it transpires that is rather rare to have so many hours in one week. They were also eager to hear about my time in Montreal and to find out what initial comparisons I could make between here and there. As it had been only a week that the semester had been underway, it was difficult to make any clear connections and I was anxious to not sound as if I understood all there was to know about IfREX (I’m not sure I ever shall). Instead I answered that I had picked up on some resonances but that my hearing might be out, pointing to artists as students, collectives and experimentally-driven spaces. To this end, they were receptive to me organising some sort of dialogue between the various sites I have spent, and will spend, time at – whether in the form of a conference or publication.

On this note, we also talked about how I plan to ‘use’ my field-sites in my work. For example, would I be comparing the labs, judging the labs? Rather than critique the labs, or nominate one as being better than another, I outlined how I would like to draw on these empirical engagements in different ways to explore quite theoretical ideas about experiments, aesthetics and participaction (among others). In a sense, I would be attending to these experimental spaces as I seek to elucidate or assemble a sketch of what an experimental geography, or a geography lab, could be like. Related to my plans for how to incorporate the field in my writing, as if they were somehow separate, was the question of what I could write. There was no need of a contract we decided together but there were matters of circulation (who could access my work) and timing (when my work would be available). It turns out that I am one of the first people to have access to the school and it is important how IfREX is talked about; indeed, what the press writes about the Institute is a intertwined process. For the time being, they are keen to read more of what I have written – I had submitted an essay when applying to the school – and we hope to continue the conversation, or dialogue, over the coming weeks.

Bernauer Strasse U-Bahn, Berlin

I arrived in Berlin at the beginning of April for the first stint of two month-long trips.  I’m staying in a small but nice flat along a quiet street, situated between Mitte (city centre) and Prenzlauer Berg (trendy 19th century apartment buildings). I have a pleasant walk to work and enjoy varying my route, exploring different streets and pathways. My travel pass is valid for a month and so I’ve also been trying to visit some of the tourist sites in my spare time.

The semester started on the week beginnging the 12 April and will run until mid-July. My plan is to stay here for the opening and then return towards the end. Unfortunately, up until just recently I have had trouble getting online which has been frustrating; I had hoped to provide more regular updates on my research but it just hasn’t been possible. The following posts are an attempt at ‘cathcing up’ and sharing some parts of the last few weeks.

Art as Research? Roundtable and discussion

The first session of this year’s Interdisciplinary Dialogues at Concordia took place on Friday and, with the theme ‘What is Research?’ to be addressed in a variety of different ways, opened with ‘Art as Research’.

What Is Research?
Session:  Art as Research
Roundtable and Discussion
November 6, 2009    1:00pm to 3:00pm     LB 659-4

The question “what is research” seems immanent to the pursuit of interdisciplinary studies in society and culture. Doctoral students in the Ph.D. in Humanities program engage with a broad range of subject matter as well as a great variety of methodologies and theoretical orientations.  This year’s Interdisciplinary Dialogues series addresses the question:  how does interdisciplinarity affect our understanding and experience of research?

In the first of a series of sessions, Doctoral Humanities students with a studio component to their doctoral project will reflect on the potentialities and challenges of practice-based research and what “research-creation” means to them.

Panelists:

Emily Rosamond:  “Space-Times of Research-Creation”

Randolph Jordan:  “Audiovisual Ecology in the Cinema”

Devora Neumark:  “Community Art and/as Academic Research”

David Jhave Johnston: “How I Prepared for My Comps by Scanning Books and Compressing Videos”

Joanne Hui:  “The Graphic Novel Travel Collage: Multiple Enrootings in a Physical Articulation”

Discussant:

Dr. Owen Chapman (Concordia, Communication Studies)

Panelists and discussant

The panelists were all very engaging and the topics were varied; the discussion was interesting although heated at times. I heard about frameworks for praxis, ecology and empathy, performative research, digital poetics and Bourriaud’s new book (The Radicant). There seemed to me though to be some kind of disjunct between research-based art practice and art-based research practice… Christoph, who had organised the event, described it as a “collective generation of something” which I thought was very apt!

Animated discussion

WordPress in action

I’ve been busy working away on the blog the last week or so, not only writing posts but also changing the organisation and design.

1. Updates: the categories have been tidied up and now generally correspond to either the location from which the post was written or relates to;  footnotes have been added¹ and text has been reformatted (in terms of alignment and the way hyperlinks operate).

2. Plans: by the time you read this there should be some reviews up on the site and plan to use the blog as a platform for more writing in the future (alongside updates from ‘the field’). I haven’t forgotten about video: watch this space. I’ve also downloaded the WordPress app (hence the picture above) and plan to use it for shorter posts.

3. Comments: so far I have had one comment – please, please feel free to comment. It would be great to know if people are reading anything on here and what they think.

Hope you like the changes, t

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Writing the city: Moleskine Montreal

Somehow this month has flashed past and I haven’t written anything on the blog. Apologies. As ever, life has been busy and I’m currently preparing to go away to Montreal for a few months as part of my fieldwork. The ‘empirical moment’ has been a long time coming and although I’m apprehensive, I’m curious to see how things will unfold.

I promised a lot in one of my last posts and I plan to keep to those. In fact, expect to see a more active blog as the the fieldwork gets underway (such as it is).

As ever, comments are very welcome and it would be nice to think that some people other than me are thinking about some of these issues…

Over and out, t