Research Statment

Skype Chat 4.3: A Philosophical Interlude

Alexis

 
Tomorrow is the deadline for the Research Statement submission which probably explains why there were fewer of us online today. This meant that we had a more free wheeling discussion taking a philosophical direction towards the end.

We also talked about the blog curation process. How it can help to highlight repeating patterns, continuous thread of thought, and the provenance of apparently spontaneous ideas.

But first we were asked a few questions regarding the structure of the course in relation the Research Statement. The main benefits I have experienced have been, the ample time frame allowing flexibility to develop, change and mature ideas.

Although it has affected the time available for making, it has broadened my horizons within a focused beam of 4000 words. A limited number that has meant I have had to pare away to get to the core of an idea; this core bearing many buds for future thoughts: an exercise in prioritising ideas.

It also helped to focus the aims and objectives of the project proposal and given me a framework for formulating a new artist’s statement. The RS can also be adapted to essay form for publication and is a starting point for further academic studies should I wish to pursue such a direction.

The statement also moved my centre of interest squarely onto my practice rather than focusing on hobby horses and peripheral concerns, which is my tendency. These are still embedded in the RS but in the background and not as principle notions.

Jonathan said: “Alexis – yes the essence of the content can easily be restructured to other contexts, for example if you were applying for funding and needed to write a section of ‘rationale’ you might use a couple of paragraphs from the research paper?”

Another thing pointed out is that 4000 words equates roughly to a 20 minute talk which is a standard time allocation in conferences.

Writing a research paper is possibly the most ‘critical’ way of developing conceptual and abstract skills than might be useful in the future helping to: formulate and articulate and argue ideas.

The philosophical discussion centred on the existential idea of purpose.

A PDF of the whole dialogue can be read here.

Tutorial 5: 04 October 2019. Gareth Polmeer

Alexis

Research Statement Tutorial

Earlier today, I was able to get feedback from Gareth regarding the RS. We had a very interesting conversation around some of the subject areas touched on in the paper.

I am happy that the paper has focus and am grateful to Gareth for the suggestions he made in the last tutorial, namely William Latham’s Mutator. The paper works better than the original drafts, in that it avoids many of the former complexities which were hard to resolve within the word count of the paper while still keeping some original elements.

One of the things I have to add is a line or two to say that some ideas presented are subject to current debate. This goes particularly for the first paragraph in Part 2 which deals with, yes you’ve guessed it, aesthetics. No single area of art causes more debate than aesthetics, or perhaps be more interesting. And that is perhaps why the Research Statement proposes a way of mitigating subjectivity when discussing more than one artistic practice at a time.

This does not mean I have found a universal and infallible modus operandi. It is more of a gateway to further discussion and debate, perhaps future research. In fact, there are many potential papers nested in the RS. All these side branches or spurs to other areas, can only be hinted at in a four thousand word paper. So this is another thing I should mention in the paper, the potential areas to be investigated. Areas such as the idea of whether AI can make art, final causality and autonomy of action.

I have one hundred and sixty four words left. This should be enough for any corrections and additions. One thing I was glad of was that I do not need any further citations. They just take up on the word count. This makes life so much easier. There is just one I could add in paragraph 1 of Part 2 where I could explain where the idea is coming from: the part that mentions not requiring teleological control. This paragraph is debatable which in the context a short paper can be moved through. These are things many books have been written on.

The first paragraph of Part 2 could go in many directions, and I am aware of this. The paper tests ideas and does not sit on its own. Gareth mentioned Paul Crowther who has written on the phenomenological theory of art, Phenomenology of Visual Arts which would be interesting to read in the future.

I have been concerned with the way the paper transitions from life simulation to looking at art practice as a life process, whether I have been clear enough. Gareth mentioned the Hegelian idea of Geist and in Hegel’s terms art practice is a form of sublation, in which something evolves and changes, and parts are negated to become something else.

Look at Heraclitus in the context of  process philosophy which predates and counters the Aristotelian and Platonic ideas of being, the four causes and the realm of the ideal.

All the ideas touched on are a rich field to take forward but most importantly they are never far from practice based work.

Research Statement: Draft for Tutorial and Editing

Alexis

 
Today was the due date to hand in a draft of the RS for the second tutorial with Gareth. The paper has gone through numerous transformations and bears little resemblance to what I started out with. I started with something, although interesting, that did not have much bearing on contemporary art or my practice. It was more a case of extending one of my numerous hobby horses. 

It has not been easy to shed so many interesting ideas but the exercise has clarified a great many others. I have managed to talk about contemporary concerns, touched on the future and most importantly made a deeply relevant contribution to my project proposal and practice in general.

Subject matter and content are complete but I still have a number of things to do, namely:

  • Finalise the title;
  • finish correlating the abstract with the body’s content;
  • make sure introduction covers all the points needed;
  • tidy text for grammar, syntax, make sure it makes sense, and tighten up the text;
  • ensure points are sequential so that the narrative flows coherently;
  • add anything that helps clarity;
  • reflect on the conclusion;
  • elaborate and complete the diagrams from the sketches;
  • complete citations and bibliography.

 

Mythopoiea and Metamorphosis

Alexis

 

Emperor and Four Ways of Being Inspired

 

Mythopoeia is the act of making myths. Today it takes its meaning from the title of a poem from J. R. R. Tolkien in his book the Tree and Leaf. His work takes from many strands and weaves them into his epic sagas, something I can relate to. The word today takes its contemporary meaning from his work as a genre of fiction that merges archetypes with traditional mythological themes.

My proposal is the beginnings of a myth expressed in primarily visual and sonic form. As I hinted in What is the Character of a Myth, I am not looking to create character and plot based narratives like the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. These are tightly composed works. My idea is more open in interpretation and focuses on mechanisms. 

It has taken a term to get to the point where I have finally found the overarching theme of the project proposal. With hindsight, I was heading this way all along but things are rarely that obvious when attempting to elaborate something new, that is cohesive, within a complex ecology of ideas. In the group session earlier this week, Jonathan introduced the idea of mixing, merging, hybridising, editing, scripting and scoring. This is pretty well what I have been doing as well as filtering, curating, and amplifying disparate ideas which somehow held together in my mind. 

In the post What is the Character of a Myth I looked at myth, not as characterisation but process. This led me to focus on underlying processes which are applicable to a variety of narratives. What underlies all creation myths and cosmogonies is change. This change can be gradual or catastrophic. For example, punctuated evolution proposes long periods of relative stasis in species evolution punctuated by brief periods of radical change, as opposed to the gradual changes that occur in classical Darwinism. Equally, the Garden of Eden in Genesis is a story of catastrophic change, with the expulsion of Adam and Eve and the disappearance of Eden things change radically after which things slow down, gradually moving towards a society, in which Jehovah destroys the world in a cataclysmic flood in readiness for a new beginning. 

There may be little in common between these two timelines, but one thing is shared by both, change. It is fundamental in all cosmogonies whether scientific or faith-based. And what is the nature of this change? Metamorphosis. This may be a transformation of form, relationship, organisation or, as in many myths, from the divine to the mortal after which we enter into the territory of folklore.

Metamorphosis can be intra-organismal within a single lifetime, as in the case of the frog or the butterfly or over longer periods of time in the evolution of species. Metamorphosis can be the process of making a mortal eternal, as in Ovid’s Metamorphoses or whole belief systems can undergo fundamental change, as described by Robert Graves’ The White Goddess. History shows us how metamorphoses within societies, revolution, war, disease, commerce, technology, and everyday politics, leading to radical changes in the way people live. Metamorphosis is the essence of existence, process.

What I find interesting is that metamorphosis is a concept that applies to so many of the ideas that interest me and is at the core of artistic transformations: taking matter or concept and altering its properties to give rise to something new: from the metamorphosis of clay into fired stone to that of manipulated sound, to the evolution of ideas. I can see this as a rich seam beginning to be uncovered for mining when it comes to the Research Statement. 

And what is the relevance to the contemporary world? We live in a world undergoing great change at all levels of society and in the very fabric of our environment. This time of great change now called the Anthropocene, has profound implications for us all and more so for future generations. Expressing them in ways that connect with origins and their past transformations gives continuity to our world and meaning to the future, reminding us of what is at stake.

 

Breakthrough from the Simplest Source

Alexis

 

Today I started working on another branch of my project using old sound files I have recorded over the years. This proved rather frustrating and the results were disappointing. I took a walk with Janet where we discussed this temporary impasse. The problem seems to come down to using pre-existing files for new work. It is like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, to use an overused metaphor. But why should this be? Perhaps it is because the old files were created in different contexts and with end points in mind that do not correspond with my current aims. These two reasons seem true enough. However, I also felt that what I was doing was tiresome, jaded. It emerges that simply put, the sound files are not fresh. They have to be recorded or made in process, why? Because that way I am close to the source, in its own environment, sensible to its meaning, affected by what I see, hear, smell, feel and touch. 

I recorded a sample from a simple domestic source and low and behold, I was able to work effortlessly, manipulate the sound waves, and create with the utmost simplicity something that I can work with. The result is something I can build on; create an archive of sounds with which to compose. There is also another important principle at work here that is relevant to the project. From simple, everyday phenomena, readily at hand, an entire world can be created without sophisticated processes. Myths are created not just from the unusual and spectacular but from the everyday, humble things that surround us. So this is what I will be working on over the next few days amongst other things: build a narrative in sound that runs parallel with the more tactile and visual processes. Whether the two modalities come together is still an open question. This I suspect will be the direction of the Research Statement assignment later next year: the relationship between sound and sculpture.