[-empyre-] Practice in Research & odd methods, rude mechanics

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all

enjoyable posts, merci beaucoup !
I liked reading Anne-Sarah and Cecile, and then wondered about the theme of this month;
then again, Anne-Sarah wrote some very intriguing comments on what she calls 'being and not being' (an academic, an artist?) -  echoing the comments in the first week about Phdartists. 
this is a peculiar question, i am sure many will agree [?], and the discussion, at the beginning, promised to have Shakespearean dimensions
which I never expected it to have in the first place. But i am distracted. 

But when it comes to reading about "defenses"  – I began to smile, and then again, not sure whether anyone will agree, there is not much
to smile about here, in this topic-landscape. Reading too much, not reading enough?  practicing art (inside). what inside?
what outside; defending academia? 

Methodologies?   How to defend art? tell me about your methodology to defend your artworks. And why would you bother?

Questions about why you would bother (career choice, tenure, teaching, committee meetings, reflection?). I am puzzled.

Research processes. "Is it a bit pejorative in english  too?" yes.    Synthetical efforts. yes. 

I found an interview today in a magazine called Bomb, it is with a group of theatre artists based in Austin, Texas, and I thought you might enjoy
it:

>>
We felt a need to contextualize our work for our audience. While it is not particularly experimental—to us it is very accessible—people tend to approach it as if they were not going to understand it and, therefore, they don’t. (laughter).
We felt the need to contest this notion. So Shawn came up with this idea to have a spaghetti dinner once a month;
Making Dionysus in 69 was completely different from our other processes. Well, none of them are alike, actually. We don’t really have a method, a process (unfortunately, I say quietly to myself sometimes). We would like to have one, but we can’t agree or figure out what it should be. We gather up in a room and hope. Or maybe we do have a process, but it’s innate and automatic and invisible. We don’t see it as a process but as just living, going along, minding our own business.
<<
(Rude Mechanicals, http://bombsite.com/articles/6922)


I think it would be good to have more spaghetti dinners, wouldn't you agree?


Defense?  Enhanced interrogation techniques? 

And would Kathryn Bigelow need to defend Zero Dark Thirty? how would you (or Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, for that matter)?  or defend Stifters Dinge?  or Lexia to Perplexia (Digital Rhetoric and Poetics: Signifying Strategies in Electronic Literature)?  or, say, the fabulous video,  'Shadow Sites II' (Jananne Al-Ani), shown at the recent exhibition "Light from the Middle East" at the V&A in London?  
I am not sure how to defend these works.




best wishes for the New Year

Johannes Birringer
Houston, Texas
www.aliennationcompany.com