The essay as educational tool
In the conclusion of my master thesis I asked myself the question: “How could the idea of essayistic science in relation to Artistic Research be formulated? I described a theoretical relation between the essay and Artistic Research, but how could it be formulated as an actual workable method?” To continue my research and search for a answer I applied to the Master Education in Arts at the Piet Zwart Institute. My aim was to find a practical form for my mainly theoretical research. This is my way to answer the question: So what? Because what good is theory if you can’t practice it?
So why is this a relevant question? The essay has historically been under-theorized, which is a shame considering its unique position between the scientific and the artistic. The theorization of the relatively new field Artistic Research is still in full development, questions and opposite opinions fuel the debate. The field of Artistic Research could be the perfect place where artistic practice and theoretical research can come closer together, and maybe where the essay can reach its full potential. As of now I havent seen any theorists nor brattice-based projects that are methodologically based on the essay form. Therefore it is a relevant subject to investigate if and how the essay can be used as a tool for Artistic Research on all levels of education. This two-year practice-based research is an attempt to investigate this question.
In this writing I will make the first steps towards a workable educational method for the essay. I will do so in a informal and critically reflective manner. What am I investigating and what do I want to achieve? What words am I using and how should I theoretically frame the practice?
Before I start, I’d like to take a critical look at the words used in my concluding question in June of this year. Perhaps “essayisic science” is a bit double, the essay is both scientific as artistic. So perhaps I need to search for a different word. The word method is also polluted, Adorno describes the essay as “methodically unmethodically”. This poetic and paradoxical description is perhaps the most correct —as a meta-method— but both the word meta as the word method bare a heavy connotation and are perhaps to unclear for practical use. I started to use the word approach instead. Procedure or modus would be to systemic and rigid to describe the essay. And “sprit” — as Claire d'Obaldia describes in the title of het book “The essayistic spirit” — it is to esoteric, it implies a character without body, without form. Approach is more neutral and implies a gesture and movement. It can refer to the action of attempting to come closer to the object at hand. But where is the physical or practical element? Now I think that perhaps tool is an even better way to describe the essay in an educational context. A tool can be used to mediate the subject and object, it stands in-between the subject and the object. The words used shouldn't be just a metaphor, but also a literal and coherent description.
As a metaphor in this text, I use the process of working toward a visual publication from Café Chercher for the magazine Simulacrum.
Café Chercher (http://cafechercher.org) is a monthly event that I co-initiated and organize. It is a platform to present unfinished projects that typically exist in-between the realms of art and science and have a transdiciplinary character. Currently we have a team of three first year Artistic Research UvA students and two external people helping and cooperating. It is a flat organization structure and we work with freely dividable tasks. We are just starting our third season at VOX-POP creative space of the University of Amsterdam (http://www.voxpop.uva.nl).
We were asked by the magazine Simulacrum to make an contribute with artistic publication. How do you make a visual contribution of an event that revolves around unfinished works and idea’s? We decided on the form of performative collage and a process of influence, between the individual and the collective, between the objectives of the event and the form of the collage. The collage is made from the the documentation of the first event, the photographer (Fernanda Roman) was inspired by the flyer and my clipping of that event. We made a collective collaging at the second event, in turn I used the photo’s in a performative presentation of the oral history in the class Reading, Writing, Research at the Piet Zwart Institute. You’ll find the illustration on the side. In this writing I used this oral history as a metaphor, and I made the relating sentences bold.
Café Chercher (http://cafechercher.org) is a monthly event that I co-initiated and organize. It is a platform to present unfinished projects that typically exist in-between the realms of art and science and have a transdiciplinary character. Currently we have a team of three first year Artistic Research UvA students and two external people helping and cooperating. It is a flat organization structure and we work with freely dividable tasks. We are just starting our third season at VOX-POP creative space of the University of Amsterdam (http://www.voxpop.uva.nl).
