Transfer report Draft VIII
In this report, I will describe my findings to date,
the methods and methodologies that I have developed, and my intentions in
relation to using and building on these in the
future. I will not go into detail about the contextual elements of my project
on the basis that the draft chapter that I will submit is focused on this
subject.
My research involves
facilitating social sculpture encounters in which a group of participants (who
may belong to one or more of a range of age groups) create the piece using
props and me as materials. I make video and audio recordings of the encounters,
and after the experience I use participants’ as part of the work where it is
appropriate to do so. When I oversee a social sculpture encounter, I begin by summarizing the nature of my practice-based
research to the participants and explain the process that the encounters follow.
I then request their ideas on how we might use a particular material during the
encounter. As this discussion progresses, I progressively make fewer
suggestions of my own, and I let the participants negotiate and decide upon what
to do. Using their interests in my work as an anchor, I talk to the
participants about themes such as social sculpture and participatory art. After
the encounter has finished, I edited the recorded material. The discussions
form the soundtrack to the piece, and I also analyse the content of the audio within
a framework of reflective practice and in relation to the research questions of
my thesis.[TC1]
When I began to formulate my research project,
my main areas of inquiry were metamorphosis, life changes and transformations
through time, and translocations and mobility. However, as I began to conduct
the social sculpture encounters described above, my focus progressively shifted
to transgenerational interactions, emotions and memory. I now use the term “transgeneration”
to describe the collision between transformation and generation and to convey
the complexity, plurality and transformations of subjectivities during the
interactions that take place during the social sculpture encounters.
As I have developed my research project, my social
sculpture practice has slowly developed philosophical dimensions. I understand social
sculpture to be the materialization and/or embodiment of philosophy, as well as
the language of it. I came to this realization while editing the material
collected during the social sculpture encounters, because during this process I
found that philosophical questions and archetypes emerged. For example, through
my work, I am able to see how every group of people has its own tragedy. During
the social sculpture experiences, poiesis comes to the surface in different
ways. Different groups of participants relate to each other differently, and
the relationship between participants, objects, materials and the environment
varies as well. When participants become overly analytical and look for
intellectual associations in a dialectical frame of negotiation, the social
sculpture in fact reaches its conclusion because the core of the encounter, the
experiencing of literal associations, loses its energy. At this point, the
experience turns into a cliché, and its tragedy—the essence of the piece—fades away. As my research project has developed, I have started to make use of
reflective practice to consider how in some instances the poesis of a piece ended
or turned into Comedy due to the appearance of reason and the participants’
needs to intellectualize or rationalize their actions. In making my reflections
on these issues a key element of the thesis, I have begun to transfer into my
practice Nietzsche’s ideas from The Birth of Tragedy and the principles
of Socratic dialectics. Moreover, the nonstructural mode in which I facilitate
experiences and reflect on them draws on post-human ideas and is a nomadic and
noncentral way of working that diverges from the Platonic idea of mimicking a
divine original. In the encounters, there is no plot, plan or identity but only
energy, actions and reactions that take place between people from different age
groups, random objects, and other elements that are naturally placed in an
environment that could be based on (though is not limited to) animals, plants,
or the weather.
Since I began the PhD, the combination of devising
and overseeing social sculpture encounters and engaging in reflective practice
that incorporates the philosophical and conceptual elements described above has
yielded several categories of findings that are relevant to my research
project.
First, the performance of my
social sculpture encounters has evolved. I began to
conduct the performances outside of the studio space. I started by engaging
with built spaces. Furthermore, I have moved away from producing objects to
producing actions and giving my former objects a new dialogic meaning. Eighteen
months ago, I started exploring transformations.. I explored possibilities by
producing actions that were recorded on video. After a process of recording the
sound separately, I added it to the video. Once the two elements were together,
the work became a video production, in which the two elements transformed each
other.
In
that body of work, I performed my actions in different environments that
conditioned the relationships featured in the piece. For example, I interacted with
the public (as in “Action #1”), and I performed both inside my studio (as I did
for “Colchonero, memory #1” and “El Juego, la Materia y el Ego”) and outside of
it (as in “Embodying Space”).
At the same time, I also conducted the fieldwork workshops with a group
of artists from different disciplines. The particularity of this workshop was
that we did not know each other or one another’s works or practice.
During the fieldwork workshop, each artist presented
over the space of a few minutes a work in progress or a finished work without
saying anything about it. After all the presentations, each artist received feedback
on the feelings, comments and reactions elicited by the artwork.
During these workshops, I recorded what the
other artists said about my performance videos, and after each workshop I added
the recordings to the video of the action that I presented. I was focused on
the liminal echo between the visual and the voices whose words came from their
own projection that my action activated on them. My action then became the
canvas for their own issues, thoughts, culture, experinces and vocabulary.
I have also gained
various insights related to participatory art. Having worked on actions alone
and used recordings of people’s comments on my performances, I started looking
for groups of people to work with, and the first individuals to become involved
in my artistic practice were a group from North Beach Senior Center and a group
of teens from Miami Beach High. During my exploration at the senior centre (November
2015), I explored relational aesthetics. I created a playful environment in
which I surrendered control of the action and obeyed their control, decisions
and proposals. In other words, I became material for them. I “provoked” them by
bringing in a material and asking them what to do with it. Another tool of
provocation was the camera sitting on a tripod; the seniors knew that they
would be filmed, but to my surprise they liked it and they took control of the
filming as well. I made audio recordings of their comments after the action,
and these are part of the video.
My approach to and
understanding of the materials that I use in my pieces have also evolved.
Initially, I used materials to produce a piece, and over time I started to use few
materials as props for the action. The latest stage of my evolution in this
area is to understand materials as more-than-human participants (S. Pope) and
at the same time conceive of myself as material. In so doing, I give control of
the action to the participants as the encounter takes place. In my work,
materials play several roles. During encounters, they are an active participant
because they interact with human participants and cause different energies to
develop. During editing, I take the material into consideration through
reflective practice. After editing I have objects, a video with sound and still
photographs. The combining of video and sound creates an object, and the
methods required for making this object draw on both the main technical strands
of my background: video work and photographs on the one hand and sound on the
other. I understand sound as a 3D piece. During the sound editing, I create
form and space with the audio and look for different textures.
My evolving understanding of
materials has led to a change in how I label my artistic practice. I now
describe my practice by using Joseph Beuys’s term “social sculpture” because it
is a material-driven approach, as opposed to “relational aesthetics,” a concept
that has no object and involves much less in the way of materials because it is
focused purely on the social. Based on this shift in terminology, I aim to
create a more appropriate lexicon to use in my work.
The nature of control
during the artistic encounters that form the basis of my PhD project has also
evolved. During the encounters, my role does not involve control. In contrast,
once I begin to edit and reflect the recordings, my role becomes exclusively
one of control. I explore the relationship between these uncontrolled and
controlled aspects through the action and the piece’s participants, whether
they are people, materials or the environment.
The previously
mentioned incorporation of philosophical dimensions in my process of reflecting
on my artistic practice has also been a key development over the course of the
PhD. I view all the transformations of myself and my practice as the
metamorphosis of the human that Nietzsche discusses. My work has raised questions
and statements to which I find the responses from posthuman philosophy such as the
ideas of Nietzsche, Deleuze, Guattari and Braidotti.
My use of reflective
practice has also developed. I use this method to interrogate my practice and
to articulate my findings. I am developing my own scheme for my research-based
practice, which involves the following steps: 1) self-reflection during the encounter
(social sculpture); 2) reflection and dialogue with participants after the
encounter; 3) self-reflection during the editing process; 4) planning of the
next encounter.
One key focus of
my reflections is the differences between working with groups of teens and
groups of seniors. While the seniors struggle to understand contemporary art,
performance and the interdisciplinary approach as art, they are very
spontaneous and free during the encounters and the postencounter reflections.
In contrast, the teens are very knowledgeable and interested in performance and
social sculpture. Even if they have never heard of the concept of social
sculpture before, they naturally and intuitively grasp the idea. However, they
struggle with participating spontaneously and without prejudices, and there are
big difference in their performances between when I work with them and when I
leave them to work on their own. They also struggle to give comments relating
to their experiences after the action.
The methodology used in my research until now
was based on Nietzsche’s triangulation. Nietzsche proposes the use of diverse
approaches in order to increase knowledge, which echoes the
often-interdisciplinary nature of practice-based research. The form of triangulation
that I deploy in my methodology incorporates the following three angles: philosophy
(theory, dialogic), social sculpture (socially engaged art; SEA), and pedagogy.
I use pedagogy not as an independent discipline but rather as an element of philosophy
and SEA. More than being the third element of the triangulation, pedagogy will
transform the triangulation methodology into something that is more akin to
circulation in its dynamics. Rather than using pedagogy as a separate element
in my research, I will use it in an auxiliary role to allow the philosophy and social
sculpture elements of the methodology to reciprocally inform one another.
Therefore pedagogy is the transmission element that transforms the
triangulation into a circulation methodology. For this reason, throughout the
thesis I will speak of “transpedagogy” rather than of “pedagogy.”
In One
Thousand Plateau, Deleuze and Guattari use the notion of circulation. They
explain the work of the philosopher as a work of creative process, the material
being the concepts that they create. They wrote this book using a structure
that they refer to as a “rhizome,” a metaphor that is also supposed to indicate
the way in which the work should be read. They also state that their work could
be read in any order as it has been created as an assemblage of concepts that
circulates with no specific order. I will analyse how my process of making social
sculpture is a process of making philosophy. In my work, performance becomes the
process of communicating concepts or philosophy.
My interest in transpedagogical issues is to
articulate the transformation that Nietzsche speaks of in his theory of
triangulation, which includes the use of diverse approaches and measuring the
data from different perspectives and through an interdisciplinary approach. Joseph
Beuys claimed that his greatest work of art was to be a teacher (Artforum,
1969), and he explored this through his experimental pedagogy. Similarly,
Claire Bishop in her book Artificial Hells has written a chapter
dedicated to pedagogic projects. She explains the similarities and differences
between artists-teachers and viewers-students, and she emphasizes the processes
as methods of art. The processes in my social sculpture explorations are, in
fact, the departing point of my practice-based research. During the social
sculpture experiences, those relationships and their dynamics are the focus of
my reflection. Because I have a teaching background, the role of “teacher”
comes out naturally. Even though I would not say that my work is an educational
experiment, there are didactic elements present in the way in which I relate to
the participants. I am presently reflecting on these issues and will work undertake
a deeper analysis of them in the thesis.
Recently, I have been
reflecting on the impossibility of one of my main premises, namely the idea of
“giving myself up” during the social sculpture encounters. Throughout the RDC1,
I expressed this idea as an objective, and my practice was also grounded in it.
I have now concluded that it is not possible to give oneself up. Rather, what
is possible is to go to the edge of doing so (for example, as Yoko Ono did on
her “Cut” piece). This conclusion does not invalidate my RDC1 discussion but
rather prompts me to focus on the boundary between the possible and the
impossible, which also brings in utopianism as a frame of work. I currently
doubt that it is possible for me to truly give myself up, but nonetheless I
will keep trying, and I will analyse my attempts to do so. During and after
RDC2, instead of focusing my analysis on “giving myself up” I will focus on,
explore and map out the boundary between possible and impossible as I attempt
to give myself up and where this attempt leads me next. In his article Utopian Prospect of Henry Lefebvre, Nathaniel
Coleman posits that “demanding
the impossible may always end in failure but doing so is the first step toward
other possibilities nevertheless”. The projection to those new process namely
Utopianism will also be explored.
Other questions that were
raised after RDC1 were: How can I make social sculpture without interacting
with people? Can I achieve the “social” element of a piece by myself? Can I
raise awareness of the “social” by making a nonparticipatory piece? What
happens to the “social” element of social sculpture when there is no human participant?
These questions have parallels with John Cage’s “4:33” and the implications of
removing sound from his composition. These questions in turn raise further,
more practical queries: How can I create social sculpture that raises social
questions without interaction with human participants? What happens if I remove
the human participants in a participatory piece? Are there any examples of this
potential type of social sculpture with no people present that already exist (do
Facebook and other social media platforms correspond to this definition, for
example)?
Aside from exploring the
reflections described above, I also have several other objectives that I intend
to pursue in relation to my artistic practice. I aim to explore ways to disseminate my findings not only in the art world, but
also in educational, academic, institutional and noninstitutional environments,
including alternative spaces such as the senior centres. On a spatial level, I
intend to keep exploring different environments, with a view to working more
closely in nature or open urban spaces. Finally, I hope to interview and work
with other artists with similar interests, and I would like to start a social
sculpture platform that offers a space for interested participants to share
their findings.
In terms of ethical issues related to the
project, I present myself as an artist who is conducting research in which I
look for groups of people to undertake simple actions using just a few
materials and me. I always explain that during each event there will be a
camera and that I will also be making voice recordings. The group is invited to
participate, and I request their ideas on how we might use a particular
material. After that explanation, I offer fewer of my own proposals and let
them take over the decisions and negotiations on what to do and/or how to play.
After the sessions, we share our understanding of what we engaged with and how
we engaged with it. I make recordings of the discussions, and later on, during
editing of the material, I use these recordings as the soundtrack for the piece
and analyse them for my research writings. Participants are asked to ensure
that the choice that they make during the social sculpture process does not
have the potential to cause harm either to themselves or to others. Participants are always informed verbally in
a group conversation about my research and my approach in constructing social
sculpture pieces. The level of conversation is adapted to the group age. For
example, children are approached differently than are seniors. Participants are
given a consent form to sign; it explains their rights to withdraw, the timing
to do so, and their right to be anonymous if necessary in either the video
documentation or the written part of the research (in the case of children
their parents will be provided with the consent form). The consent form also contains
information about the project. On the consent form, participants are informed
that they can withdraw at any time but they have to give 30 days’ notice. They
have 90 days from the performance date to withdraw their images and recordings.
If they decide to do so, the parts in which that specific person appears either
(visually or in voice) will be securely destroyed.
In conducting this research project, my aim is
to develop a new methodology, which I call circulation. This methodology departs
from Nietzsche’s triangulation. The three angles of philosophy-dialogic, social
sculpture practice and didactics will compose the dynamics of the circulation
methodology. I also hope to develop a more specific lexicon to be used in articulating
my practice. Finally, I hope to be able to develop my own reflective practice
procedure and use it to document social sculpture in written and video formats.
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