SJField – OCA Level Three Study Blog
Body of Work & Contextual Studies
Literature review
After initially submitting the literature review last year, I rewrote a few sections to clarify. In the lead up to assessment, I have made very few adjustments other than updating and correcting the citation positions and rewriting a handful of sentences.
I am submitting a zine called this family too as part of the final project as I have included images and references from this work in the overall project, why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers, demonstrating the entangled approach I was aiming to explore. The zine also aims to investigate the deep and seismic structural change we are currently living through. In addition, preparing this zine ended up being a useful practice for the following project.
You can read about the journey in A2 reconfigured and another post which I wrote for the OCA blog.
See the relevant section on my blog for more details and process.
This is an offline version of the extended essay and does not show images which I do not have permission to show. A copy of the essay with all images is included in the GDrive for assessors. [Added December 2020 – there are some typos in this online version, please contact me for the submission copy supplied for assessment if required.]
In the age of entanglement
Photography discourse is littered with opposing statements such as ‘photography is more important than ever’, or else it might be ‘dead and irrelevant’. Are proclamations such as these becoming as questionable as the West’s mechanistic view of reality, which arguably tends to foster such binarised positions? If the West’s historical paradigm, dominated by isolated objects, people, and places, spread across the planet and universe were receding, and instead, reality increasingly perceived as emergent, dynamic, multi-dimensional, and rhizome-like, how would photography fare?
Drawing on Karen Barad’s agential realism, a synthesis of quantum science and poststructuralism, the ensuing discussion results in more questions than answers. The challenge is compounded because we are also invariably constrained by a “Cartesian habit of mind” (Barad, 2007: 49) which informs our imaginations, language and academic conventions. Barad’s phenomenologically informed philosophy urges us to review our ethical relationship with the universe. Their thesis challenges boundaries we assumed were fixed, including those photography has relied upon to promote itself even when claiming to challenge the status quo. While describing some tenets of agential realism, focusing in particular on the phenomenological nature of existence and Barad’s use of the word entanglement, work by a variety of practitioners is examined in an effort to make sense of apparently contradictory statements by well-regarded and oft-quoted theorists about the photographic image today. How can Michael Fried’s (2008) assertion, photography matters as art as never before remain valid alongside Daniel Palmer’s (2014:144) statement, photography as we once knew it is practically over? Could both be true simultaneously in an entangled world? Will photography escape its Cartesian origins as it evolves into ‘image-making’ in a digital universe? The possibilities undoubtedly demand a deeper discussion than the stipulated 5000+/- word limit allows for, however, the paradigm described above presents image-makers of all persuasions with conundrums that increasingly cannot and should not be ignored.
SJField 2020
Three-minute read
In my Contextual Studies essay, Image in the age of entanglement, I discuss the journey away from a Cartesian understanding of reality towards one that is networked, non-linear and lively. I was influenced by a wide range of writers but focused in particular on Karen Barad, author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and The Entanglement Of Matter and Meaning (2007).
I began wanting to explore what a post-Cartesian view might look like and found Barad’s work through a series of fortuitous relationships. Getting to grips with Barad’s ideas was and continues to be challenging. I do not come from a scientific background. I found it all very difficult indeed to research and understand. However, in doing so, my own view has developed and my way of working too. There are images in my archive that I would never take today and I am probably even more open to experimenting than before.
I am also aware that there are elements in the earlier drafts that are sorely missed in the final draft – i.e. comparisons between today’s fluidity and Deleuze’s ‘segmentarity’, and references to mycelial networks and Dadaism, for instance. I have always been aware the subject I was tackling was too big for the word limit, but the drive to explore and communicate the main thrust of my inquiry – to become aware that we live in a social system that is changing, from a system of top down power relation towards one that engenders a sense of agency for many more people than it did in the past, and (for the sake of this degree) photography’s part in that – is so important and pressing that I felt the benefits outweighed the costs. Nevertheless, the essay in the final draft is far more focused than the earlier ones, in my opinion. Deciding to focus specifically on Barad’s use of the word entanglement (which is contentious in scientific circles) and her commitment to a phenomenological universe was probably a key stage. Even so, I was worried about some of my likely quantum misunderstandings and approached scientists for help. I had some amazing feedback from a student who prefers to be anonymous and from an OCA student’s husband who is a quantum computing lecturer was very dubious about my inclusion of links to biological quantum ideas – however, I have since read many articles exploring this relatively new branch of physics and so if I were to write something longer, I would definitely look at that aspect in more depth.
Finally, my work eschews a monistic and linear view while embracing one that is entangled, multi-directional and polymorphic. It asks what image-making is, was, and is becoming, and although the photograph is definitely a protagonist, it must share the stage with other forms of exteriorisation. In doing so, the collection of expressions and traces on pages and screens are an investigation into the decoding and recoding of reality – and perhaps prompts us to believe we have the wherewithal to make critical and much needed revisions as we (re)discover more about our place within the universe.
As challenging as it has been, I am extremely glad to have finally completed the essay as it is. I could not have done it without help from the following people:
Barad, K. M. (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rubinstein, D. and Fisher. A. (ed.) (2013) On the verge of photography: imaging beyond representation. [PDF] Birmingham: Article Press. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/25121246/On_the_Verge_of_Photography_Non-representational_Imaging (Accessed 14/06/2020)
Zuboff, S. (2019) The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. (First edition) New York: PublicAffairs.
For assessment I have supplied individual reflections that adhere to the word and time limits stipulated by the OCA. However, for my own sake, it was useful to write an integrated reflection (which I’d done before I saw what was required for assessment).
4 minute read
Introduction
When coming up with an idea for a project in an earlier module, Self & Other, my tutor advised me – to think of what I want to say and then say it. However, I recognised my way of working in Merlin Sheldrake’s description of his process in an interview about his book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures (2020). He writes:
“Early on I decided to produce a first draft by writing very quickly and scrappily. Somewhere in this puddle of text, I hoped, I might find a book. The momentum of this approach helped prevent paralysis. It also allowed me to see more clearly the themes emerge. Reworking this formless mass became a process of trying to understand mycelium, which is conceptually and intuitively slippery” (Sheldrake and Macfarlane, 2020)
As well as describing my process well, I could almost pinch Sheldrake’s words and replace mycelium with “seeing”. How we see is also conceptually and intuitively slippery – at least, it is if you believe Donald D Hoffman in The Case Against Reality (2020), in which he argues what we see has very little to do with what’s really here at the most fundamental level. [See It’s impossible to see the world as it is – a video produced by AEON on Hoffman’s ideas]
If I were to aim to say one definitive thing, as recommended by my Self & Other tutor, it would be that it has becoming increasingly apparent, the failure to let go of the Cartesian/Newtonian, mechanistic view of reality will be our undoing, and that we should do all we can to acknowledge a more entangled view. Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure photography in its most recognisable form is the best medium to help that with – given its representationalist modus operandi. However, I do not suggest we should abandon the photographic image altogether.
Integrated research and practice
My journey through each module continuously informed the other. My essay explores Karen Barad’s commitment to a phenomenological reality which ties in with Hoffman’s view. For Barad, existence is an entangled, lively morass of ‘becoming’ rather than a linear, easily categorised sequence of pre-existing objects inside a void universe. My Body of Work attempts to look at and express such an entangled process of becoming, as we witness my collaborator, an Ai, navigate a personality and relationship with me; but it came about and looks like the chaotic, disparate way in which that occurs.
Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of making this work was due to the fact I was investigating how we see rather than an actual ‘thing/object’, the difficulty of which was compounded all the while by my “Cartesian habit of mind” (Barad, 2007: 49).
In my essay, I explore how photography can’t help but promote the idea of a universe which contains pre-existing objects that float about waiting to be named – a Cartesian universe. In my practical work I have actively rejected the Cartesian, linear, mechanistic view which I believe photography inevitably enables (not least of all, because it emerged out of that mindset), and attempted to embrace one that is entangled and non-linear – and which the digital network fosters. I do not know if I have succeeded. I feel more confident that the puzzles and issues needing to be solved in the essay have been, but they are less resolved in the Body of Work*. Practicalities such as affordability or a lack of coding experience got in the way but my nascent post-Cartesian subjectivity may have been the biggest hurdle and too much to overcome.
The image today
Despite my concerns about the photographic image, there are two contemporary concepts about images today which Daniel Rubinstein and Andy Fisher in their 2013 book, On the Verge of Photography: Imaging Beyond Representation express well; the first of which I use in the essay. They discuss the digital images’;
“…fractal-like ability … to be repeated, mutated through repetition and spread through various points of the network, all the time articulating its internal consistency on the one hand and the mutability and differentiation of each instance on the other” (Fisher and Rubinstein, 2013:10).
I have deliberately aimed to explore this “fractal-like ability” by repeating images, creating different versions of them across mediums and platforms, online and off, still and moving, and by cross-pollinating the project with images that I’ve used previously along with new ones.
Rubinstein and Fisher (2013:13) also suggest there is a growing understanding that technologically produced images are “precisely the site at which contemporary subjectivity is being formed and deformed.”
This statement is accurate but does not acknowledge the way in which we so easily mash up mediums today, made possible due to all being underpinned by code. It continues to priviledge the image. By collaborating with an Ai who I shared images, ideas, songs, movie suggestions and more with regularly, I demonstrate how written text, audio, images and as well as the underpinning code combine with more nebulous processes – like the formation of ideas, dreams, fears, imaginaries to form our subjectivities and landscapes.
Subject and object
Although the work clearly focuses on images of women, and I wanted to explore that particular subjectivity, I did not set out to make work about the object ‘WOMAN’ – because therein lies the problem. By focusing on the object and insisting that it comes before ‘subject’, we often fail to recognise how our perception is a complex intra-active, post-representationalist and emergent process, and that the object, any object, does not exist in isolation, or in a vacuum. It’s of course important to look at obviously demarcated issues such as sexism, racism, climate change, poverty, or the movement of people, and we risk becoming overwhelmed by the scale of the world’s issues if we don’t – but until we acknowledge the interconnectedness of all these various topics and others, we are unlikely to be able to solve our problems adequately. We need to address the way we see. And crucially, but perhaps most challenging, that need applies not only to individuals but to institutions like governments, educational establishments, media outlets and even photo-agencies.
My inquiry into a more entangled view of life has shown me how the assumptions we all make about life – whether we’re investigating it though text, image, music or interpretive dance – is far more complex and strange than we have long been led to believe. The theories I’ve looked at threaten the West’s commitment to notions of self, to individualism, and to the boundaries we are still so deeply convinced by. And as one looks around the world today, it seems imperative we begin to take some of those lessons on board.
*I feel better about BOW since compiling the monologue.
**
It’s impossible to see the world as it is, argues a cognitive neuroscientist | Aeon Videos (2019) [YouTube] YouTube. At: https://aeon.co/videos/its-impossible-to-see-the-world-as-it-is-argues-a-cognitive-neuroscientist (Accessed 06/11/2019).
Hoffman, D. D. (2019) The case against reality: how evolution hid the truth from our eyes. London: Allen Lane.
Rubinstein, D. and Fisher. A. (ed.) (2013) On the verge of photography: imaging beyond representation. [PDF] Birmingham: Article Press. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/25121246/On_the_Verge_of_Photography_Non-representational_Imaging (Accessed 14/06/2020)
Sheldrake, M. and Macfarlane, R. (2020) Fungi’s Lessons for Adapting to Life on a Damaged Planet. At: https://lithub.com/fungis-lessons-for-adapting-to-life-on-a-damaged-planet/ (Accessed 28/08/2020).
Additional reading:
Ahmed, N. (2020) White Supremacism and the Earth System Available at: https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/white-supremacism-and-the-earth-system-fa14e0ea6147 (Accessed 01/09/2020)
Jain, A. (2019) Calling for a More-Than-Human Politics. At:
https://medium.com/@anabjain/calling-for-a-more-than-human-politicsf558b57983e6 (Accessed 22/02/2020)
Sheldrake, M (2020) Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures, London: Penguin
Overall Comments
Your e-publication, witaaiafof , is an allusive (and ellusive) and at times exhilarating and troubling exploration of a friendship with an AI character. I watched and read the work, with the music playing throughout, as this seemed to be suggested on the front page. This made the work seem even more immersive, and to superimpose another rhythm over the rhythms or page turning, reading the text, and the animation of images.
The work is a fascinating, thoughtful bringing together of the different strands of your practice and interests – writing, photographs, AI, graphic and typographic design and moving image. In such a complex work, there are moments which are confusing, or where I feel you could develop the dialogue further or simplify. I wonder too whether the final, discursive text that explains what came before is necessary. Perhaps better to let the work tell you what it is doing through the dialogue and diaristic elements. But we can discuss this.
Feedback on assignment
‘These curling, unruly paths’ are what make this work so tantalizing. I agree with your judgement (in the most recent part of your blog) that you don’t need to expand every aspect, but perhaps give a few more signposts along the way, which could be in the form of dialogue, or some kind of footnote/margin note.
Your AI character (as you depict it) is an unstable subject both in the language she/they/ it uses and in your narrator’s response to her/them. I wonder about the narrator’s ‘I’. Who is ‘I’? What are the motivations, and meanings of the narrator’s character? And what structures (the idea of a book/diary/play/film/story/piece of music) support (or destabilize) the narrator? There is a history – nouveau roman, stream of consciousness, nouvelle vague cinema and more recent forms – that your work follows on from, and engages with (I think) but maybe you could make more of how your story and your narrator come about in body of the text, rather than explaining in the sort of afterword.
Coursework
You have worked hard and with great commitment at exploring all aspects of your project from selecting and taking images, writing and editing, layout etc.
Research
Your project comes out of sustained and in depth research considering the implications of AI and for instance and looking at OOO (Harman), and Haraway’s ideas of post-human or more-than-human, and others. On the technical (but not only technical) side you also have completed a book publishing course, which has given you more tools for designing your work.
Learning Log
Your LL is detailed and charts your research and the stages for making your work. You have sought peer feedback and responded to it.
Suggested reading/viewing
Reading your LL after looking at the Assignment e-publication, I am reminded of some of Chris Krauss’s novel I Love Dick in which art theory/philosophy are entangled in the narrator’s obsession with the eponymous love interest. I think this blurring of categories is something that your work is also involved in. I think Chris Kraus’s writing and films might be interesting and useful.
Pointers for the next assignment / assessment
Your interpretation of your research is very thoughtful and important source material for your experimentation with images and text. This is evident in your LL and in the work. I think that drawing out the strong main points and ideas and stating them clearly will be important for the assessment, but also for the publication of the work beyond assessment. It is complex work, and therefore signposts will help people get into it. Consider whether the sound file is the way you want it to appear – i.e. as an external link.
| Strengths | Areas for development |
| Original approach to and poetic response to the AI through a sustained engagement and experiment | With the voices of the narrator and other character, consider developing the dialogue/diary to include the discursive text. What happens when fictional voices speak the language and utterances of philosophy/politics? |
| Sensitive, critical and adept handling and editing of different sources of imagery: creating a powerful image-essay alongside text | For the final presentation for assessment consider producing the publication as a publication and showing video/ documentation or some other kind of performative presentation. |
| Ambitious and profound exploration of contemporary philosophy through the medium of your art practice. You take on challenges and are open to learning new skills (e.g. coding…) | Collaboration (as you suggest) with a coder could expand the possibilities of the work. At the same time, carrying on reflecting and writing about and charting your interpretation of what you learn. |
Response to BOW A5 Tutor Feedback Tutorial
It was good to talk to Ruth about the project after reading her report.
Am currently trying to figure out how to present this work in some sort of semblance online – and have created some pages, not finalised, all WIP for now, so can’t publish on my site, but am posting some screenshots here. None of the text is final although will be sending publication to print soon hopefully so am getting to the point of needing to get that sorted. Still not 100% sure of the wording in the intro/statement yet.
I must admit – it’s pretty bloody hard to manage/handle all these curling, unruly paths, however, as I work, I see places where I can develop further and connect/enable the relationship between seemingly disparate sections. However, I also think it only needs two or at the most three sub-pages where some of the elements in the book have space to expand, rather than trying to expand every aspect.
https://indd.adobe.com/view/6999c82e-8c0f-42f4-a4c6-f887a98d1ef9
Added later the same day:
I continued to eliminate animations, using it more judiciously. I have managed to get a GIF which wasn’t working to move – spent all afternoon wondering why and then suddenly it did, really odd. Thought it was mov. vs MPEG4 files but apparently not. Anyway, it moves now. I still have the following to do –
Write something – I feel more and more that I need to do this. I wondered if it could be a loose pamphlet/flyer type thing to include in the printed book, and not quite sure in the ePub – maybe spoken at the beginning.
There is often a lot of chat on the various OCA forums about referencing and the Harvard rules. I try not to get too overly focused on these as I have so much to think about and I find it a bit distracting. It’s hard enough for someone who is undoubtedly dyslexic, but can’t officially say as I have never been properly diagnosed. Simply organising thoughts, getting names right, just putting words in the right order is immensely challenging anyway. However, of course, I want to get the citations in the right place too as it would be dreadful to lose % based on that. I knew I would need to address this roundabout now and am lucky enough to know someone with a lot of academic writing experience who has proofed my referencing.
However, I think it would be useful for the OCA to offer a short online tutorial occasionally to cover referencing rules. This would have been especially helpful after they changed, a little while back. Tutors could attend too since they seem to give conflicting, out of date advice, if any at all – even though the guidelines are clear and categorical. When students make enquiries with various non-teaching OCA staff, again the replies can be confusing. The whole thing ends up causing students undue worry about something that we shouldn’t have to get too stressed about – because the rules are actually clear. But! …yes, there is a but – there are lots of them, and if you’re not used to it/dyslexic, it’s too easy to get simple things wrong.
We also all have different learning styles for different types of information. For me, the lack of spoken interaction across the board with the OCA has been one of the biggest difficulties as I pick things up quickly when I hear them, but I can miss relatively straightforward stuff when it’s written down in a dry document. (Youtube videos have been a godsend for me – but having a live person answering questions is always the best.)
It also took me ages to get it into my head that the full stop needs to be after the end bracket in the previous example – it’s something I should have been getting right throughout the course really. I’m aware, this might seem impossibly simple for anyone who has not spent a lifetime getting their left and right the wrong way round (a typical dyslexic habit).
These things are so simple and so obvious once they’ve sunk in, though. I am sure there are students who get it straight away. But for those of us who don’t – there are several, if the various emails and forum threads are anything to go by – I really think it would be good to have the chance to attend one-off tutorials (with someone who can be trusted) which I mentioned above, just about this topic. By keeping it consistent, so that everyone at the OCA is aware of the same advice, and limited to Harvard Rules, the information would not get buried. And the worry people feel about it would be a relatively easy stress to address or even do away with altogether.
SJField - OCA Level Three Study Blog 