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

[Christina Spiesel]

Dear All,

I am a visual artist who teaches Visual Persuasion to law students, most 
of them on the verge of graduating and going out into the world of 
practice. I have been doing this for fourteen years but am one of those 
shadowy adjuncts and am not blessed with a PhD or other terminal 
degree.  On the face of it, what I teach is the opposite of what I 
practice as an artist -- my students are learning to make "messages" 
with some control to targeted audiences  within a professional practice. 
My art on the other hand can be directed just at me as its first 
audience (thinking Wollheim here) and I do not wish it to be 
illustrative of a verbally defined concept. So I find my teaching helps 
to keep the edges clear. I would ask all, though, what being makers of 
art contributes to  teaching?  Are you a different pedagogue because of 
the studio (broadly defined)? There is a big difference between 
preparing students for careers in the arts and preparing lawyers to be 
visually literate rhetors, I know. Nevertheless I am convinced that 
being an artist has everything to do with how I teach and how I do 
academic research.

Long before I joined academia I discovered that I was better with words 
(reading and writing) in the morning and better with pictures (making 
them) in the afternoon and have long exploited my biorhythms to support 
my tasks. When my semester gets busy I work in different media -- ones 
that can be done in bursts -- rather than painting that requires long 
sessions. Slowly this necessity has added up to a way of being a painter 
that I never could have imagine before and that I am finding 
terrifically interesting in itself. And then comes the frustration at 
limitations of time -- the same pain.  Thank you for this very 
interesting conversation!

All best,

Christina





On 1/18/2013 12:53 AM, Johannes Birringer wrote:
> 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
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