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I had an extremely useful and relatively long tutorial with a new CS tutor after my previous tutor resigned from the OCA. As is usual with me, I submitted knowing there was still much to do but I reach a point where it’s helpful to get it the work off my hands and receive constructive, meaningful feedback even though I know things are still quite murky.

I have read significantly more since finishing the draft I handed in and am continuing to do so, refining and zoning in on the one hand, but also delving further into such a rich and fantastically difficult/confusing vein of knowledge on the other – that I am still in a thinking place.

I think I mentioned elsewhere that Matt advised me to write my plan/research question (A3) then return to A2 to strip out the unnecessary stuff and focus more on the key topic, not that I know yet what that is, but I am getting a clearer idea. For a while, I thought it was performativity which I have been busy investigating and how that relates to representation and ultimately photography/moving image. I still think that is the case but I keep thinking about boundaries and the collapse of them – also representation,  – a lot of the creative writing I am doing over on Sketchbook is tackling the issues I’m thinking about but in a more instinctive way than one might do so academically. I think that is a better way of working for me. I write, then read what I have and out of that I begin to see what my concerns are.

As far as performativity goes, it seems to have two paths leading to it (Lloyd, 2015) – one theatrical and the other sociological (Austin). One is about acting – playing the role of being a person in the scheme of things, and one is about reaching potential or expectations (or not) i.e. this hoover is not performing as well as advertised; to be a female non-subject one must live up to certain expectations – the  performativity of being a ‘girl’ / ‘women’ = e.g. taking care of one’s looks/physique, acquiescing (don’t be too bolshy or difficult  – that is underperforming  – think Kate in The Taming of the Shrew), having a certain a maternal aura, kind, gentle, quiet when necessary etc. Some women perform ‘well’ (like a hoover – they match up to requirements) others, myself included, ‘fail’ to. I think that is the very basic difference between the two versions of performativity and that needs to go into my Lit Review. Then there is theatricality – dismissed by the modernists and many more besides (Fried, 2008/1967) – especially nowadays when it’s de rigueur to be slapdash or else anti-commodified, or to give the impression of being so even when not.

I need to figure out how to tie (or if I must) this in with photography being ‘boring’ (Elkins, 2011 – and many more, including me.) Incidentally, I don’t necessarily dislike any of those anti -things, and really like them at times. However, I have noticed I can be far more ‘mundane and every day -ish in my writing than I can be in my photography.

I have yet to really get anywhere near to grips with Barad’s use of performativity at the quantum level but I have just ordered her Meeting the Universe Half Way, and I think there will be plenty of direct passages that can help me with my research there.

I am also wondering if I should have a glossary – is that allowed? There are some tricky words that I don’t want to spend too long explaining  – or waste too many words explaining unless it is necessary – I need to find out if this is considered acceptable or not.

Here is the feedback which I wrote up following the tutorial. A2 CS Feedback Form