Overview
In this group of notes I have made an effort to describe and reflect upon some of the methods and methodologies I have taken into use in this project. Especially four different methodologies have informed this work. I have called these: ‘Transrealism’, ‘Tempor(e)ality’, ‘Meanderer’ and ‘Atmosphere’.
Transrealism
I reflect upon the use of transrealist fiction writing to create a certain way of engaging with a political reality in my work, but allowing for this reality to transform and open up onto new narratives and ways of engagement. I argue that the form of intimacy that is related to trasrealist fiction, stating that one should write from what one knows, does not need to have an autobiographical dimension, but can take off from a known condition - a feeling or sensation of something, that something perhaps enormously foreign to me, but the feeling or atmosphere it introduces very familiar indeed. I describe transrealism as a form of ‘letting a scene play out’ and from here pursue it to a point where it may lead to unexpected storylines; in the development of a narrative film work or in a critical reflection process. The way that transrealism moves beyond reality in an unrehearsed manner, also allows me to think of this methodology to create a certain openness in the final results, giving leave for an audience to co-narrate, make up own conclusions or ask new questions. This invitation to a visitor is linked to Henk Borgdorffs ideas of artistic research as a paradoxical invitation. Finally I argue that transrealism allows for a certain way of treating research as a fluid material, existing in the strange membrane between fiction and reality, and in this raising questions about truth regimes, knowledge hierarchies, ethics and the role of artistic research.
Meanderer
I reflect upon the position of the Meanderer, not only as a strategy but also as a methodology. I describe how moving through the topology of my project has favoured a certain meandering, a wandering about, a taken the long road, as a direct reflection of how I work in my artistic practice but also as a way to stay clear of certain fixed positions and rather focus on the situation. Setting off from Robert Porter’s notions on how meandering reflects the politics of everyday life, I propose meandering as an artistic methodology allowing for a way of exploring the movement between positions, between languages. Here I bring in Aslaug Nyrnes’ notions on artistic research as lighting from the side. From these ideas on meandering movement I give an account of how the methodology of the Meanderer plays out in my work with large film productions that inherently exists in planned and rigid structures offering little space for meandering about.
Tempor(e)ality
I reflect upon the term Tempor(e)ality, that I have developed to serve as a way of describing my artistic practice in relation to a specific field. Here I describe working with temporality as both medium and material. I highlight how, even if I may work primarily with moving images, I consider my artistic practice as a time based one. I move on to unpack this relation to the temporal as not only existing as a format, but really an ongoing organic relation to a surrounding reality informed by temporal devices, understandings and processes - phenomenologically as well as socio-politically. This forms a tempor(e)ality, that not only exists as something parallel to my temporal art practice but rather something that the practice becomes entangled with. This allows for a thinking of the field that I artistically work in as a political space, that exists within and potentially shift tempor(e)alities.
Atmosphere
I reflect upon the spaces that form from the meandering and transrealist approach to tempor(e)ality, as atmospheric spaces. I go on to reflect upon how one can work artistically (and reflectively) with the notion of an atmosphere. Using Kathleen Stewart’s text ‘Atmospheric Attunements’ (2010), I try to make the case that when we examine something we need to see beyond the thing or the happening and find ways to stay attuned to the movements of said things or transformations occurring around said happenings. The qualities that form atmospheres. This atmospheric attunement is really what is required to work with the methodologies of the meanderer and the transrealist in an honest relation to the format of tempor(e)ality. Finally, bringing in Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, whom warns us about uncritically accepting certain atmospheres, I propose that one way of working with the atmosphere, without merely inhaling it without critical reflection, could be to make the very practical production of the seductive shaping of atmosphere - especially in the filmic realm - become visible and hence disturb the initial allure of an atmosphere and unravel the political complexities of the atmospheric.
