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January 17, 2006
The National Grid, finishing, and having a plan...
Going to see Lisa today. Actually talking to her about contributing to The National Grid project. Talking to her earlier I mentioned that last week, because Jonty had been here, I didn't really do much on my Masters research and was working on The National Grid instead. I keep saying/thinking that this project should be part of my Masters although whenever I'm confronted with it I treat it as 'something else'. So I've been sitting here quickly trying to think about how I could talk about it in relation to my research? The obvious answer is that maybe I wouldn't have ever embarked on this kind of project if I hadn't been engaged in 'Design' in the way that this research project has caused me to be.
I'm trying tie things together, and I quite like the idea that perhaps things 'happened' that were directly related but that I didn't notice. I've been wondering if the series of postersóthat I know I haven't really explained here yet!óbut that I'm keen to do, could maybe be used to map these different permutations in my research... helping me frame some kind of semi-cohesive outcome?
My research has always tended towards divergent tangents... could I map these through the development of myself as different characters? Who would all play a role in the final 'narrative' (chapter?) of this research project?
Posted by Luke Wood at January 17, 2006 06:57 AM
Comments
I agree completely with you about the development of yourself as different characters. It seems obvious to me that you have been experimenting with different ìhatsî. Think of yourself as a novel writer to sew it all together.
Ok, I guess I need to explain. It seems to me, research as practitioners can become a completely schizophrenic process. Because in your research you have been at the same time the object and the subject of your research.
At first I found quite fun that to compensate you came up with ìothersî you could then reflect upon like the ìmad scientistî for the poster project.
I guess for all the projects you have created an îotherî closer or further from you as a researcher. The researcher, who would become in the end a kind of omniscient narrator, has been there all along wondering ìwhy is it I do that? How does it relate to my research/ practice? Etc..î, itís probably the guy in the notebooks. So in the end it is your omniscient narratorís job to bring it all together and tell us why his characters do what they do. I also think you could try and use the monster classification from the manifesto (Iím sure quite a few projects would fit in there). Anyway, it seems to me the string that links it all is already there, just tell the storyÖ or go for a post-modern de-structured novel :-) .
Posted by: E at January 20, 2006 07:48 AM
Hi Em, glad to see you're back. I like that idea about some characters being closer or further away from me as a 'researcher'... obviously a lot of my anxiety here has come from my feeling that I can't quite locate that person. I'm beginning to see that I'm kind of stuck between two different pedagogies too... my old undergraduate education, that I thought I'd left behind but was, I see now, wrong! And my current post-grad situation, which in many ways is diametrically opposed to my previous experience.
Anyway, I'd really appreciate your feedback while I continue into this... gonna try and start work on the next couple of posters this week. Although Jonty's coming down from New Haven to have another go at The National Grid, so I'll get sidetracked again with that for a bit.
Posted by: Luke at January 23, 2006 03:39 PM