LOCATING METHODOLOGIES WITH MARC HERBST & MICHELLE TERAN PHD1 + PHD2
The three most valuable/interesting things in this intensive were:
1. The four assigned pre-session readings on place
2. Presentation of creative research projects by several artists who submitted that work for their PhDs...as the thesis/dissertation itself.
3. The small group exercise at end of session
In addition to the assigned readings, during the session among others, Marc and Michelle mentioned these two:
Lynn Margolis- scientist who in the 1960s observed/documented Endosymbiotic Hypothesis for the Origin of Mitochondria and Chloroplasts (scientific empirical observation method)
Catherine Maabou- Philosopher of science who wrote “An Eye at the Edge of Discourse- 28 Feb 2007 (Communication Theory, Vol 17, Issue 1, pp 16-25. Feb 2007)
______
During the small group exercise at the end of the intensive, I was part of Group 3…made up of me, Eric, Nkechi, and Carlos.
~I stated that, throughout the afternoon, re: place and readings for the session, I’ve thinking of Carolee Schneeman’s “Interior Scroll” piece, and of British scholar/sociologist Paul Gilroy, and his “planetary humanism”, and his discussion re: modern racism’s project, which is to create a black body/white mind…inversely, feminists discuss the “male-encased female”. (Barbara Kruger does this within Feminist art... I.e., her “Your Body is a Battleground”)
~Eric discussed a kind of temporality of space…how it is like being or having a dog on a leash
~We had philosophical debates about place and space
~Carlos discussed the humidity in his space and told an Italian joke that lost something in translation.
~My alarm went off 9 min. Prior to completing the task, so I read it aloud and pushed for the group to get to it. I read aloud Marc’s presented problem:
“One question: Research the dimensions, affects, characteristics and qualities of the place or places shared between each other on the zoom screen.
Open, but suggested approaches:
1. Through an epistemological or theoretical frame
2. Through an experimental method
3. Through an ethnographic/auto-ethnographic method
Present:
a. Refined research question
b. Method to answer the question
c. Results
d. If interesting, suggest a form to represent those results”
~Carlos suggested we use an experimental auto-ethnographic method, mixing our prescribed race/ethnic heritage with another.
~I noted that Zoom is a virtual, fiberoptic place is psychological insists upon our reexamination of the former shared understanding of space a geographical/physical place. And what we are looking via our zoom apps include the four of us discussing/talking as “living” portraits within four separate horizontal/landscape formatted rectangles, within one larger framed rectangle on our variously sized computer screens.
~Eric stated that we might create a form, each using our hands make up a corner, that we then hold up to the camera to simulate four “corners” of a uniting square unit.
~We four agreed to use this approach 2. Through an experimental method.
~Then Nkechi refined our research question…“Can we create a square that unites us on the zoom screen?”
~And we four proceeded to discover that our zoom cameras flip our images so that our orientations do not allow us to form a single square with our hands. We directed one another to switch our hand positions, but never were able to create a single, unifying square via zoom.
~We laughed and were amazed at how difficult or impossible this simple activity was.
~I presented these notes to Marc Herbst, and to attending PhD1, PHD2 cohort members. The four of us demonstrated what we experienced. Even with the help of Britta, who realized you can move the rectangles around your screen, again, the camera flips prevented our Group 3 members from being able to create a single unifying zoom square with our hands making. an “L” or 90 degree angles. Nutty right?
