(The announcement for "Pool slides and springboards" at Public Colloqium 1, PhD in Artistic Research, May 2017)
So far, my journey is recursive.
It has nothing or only very little to do with tourism, tourist zones and seasons. It deals with the journey, the research itself, and with the fields in between. Or behind, and around, the research.
I wanted to explore one aspect of the notion but as soon as I started the other few appeared. In order to understand each of them, while addressing them, they sent me back to the others, sometimes all of them to all the others, at the same time, opening new ones, that were unforeseenable before. Impossible combinatorics, it turns into never ending digression that ends up in some sort of a loop, that drives itself.
So, I am moving between feeling lost and feeling good about that feeling as I am not really lost but in the middle of an exciting process.
I imagine sets that intersect, where the intersection zone becomes a road sign for a path to follow. I imagine parallel lines or time-lines, separate processes that started at different times, and I am observing them, waiting for them to meet, to become simultaneous, to interfere, to also guide me further. I am over-alerted to notice these concurrences, to note them down as significant new boundaries that will help me focus, to understand their relation to my initial set of questions, to narrow that list down, and to start that parallel more literal journey soon.
There, tourism, tourist zones and seasons, will serve rather as a sample, whereas what I explore is and will be the process of exploring these subjects and its inherent elements, tools and methods.The processes take time, and during our public colloquium my plan is to freeze the current state of it, to present it through a talk or some alternative format that will involve the visitors, in order to bring more clarity to both sides and push investigation further and wider. I want to show and discuss in transparent manner the moment of ambiguity, uncertainty, not-knowing or ‘feeling lost’ as the indivisible part of the process of learning that we find ourselves in being at the same time its main driving force. With no aim to show any kind of touchable results, solutions, answers, or final (art?)works, I see my presentation as a guide through a seemingly chaotic map of notes, quotes, references, thoughts and ideas. This transport from personal working space to public area and the attempt to translate the intuitive and intimate to reasonable and common, I see as a chance for reflection and collecting insights relevant for future moves.
(Transcript of the introduction to the presentation at Public Colloquium 1, PhD in Artistic Research, May 2017)
Hello everybody,
When I started preparing this presentation, I had an option to do it in a very traditional way, to come to you today and tell you in a descriptive manner, how my previous three, no three, seven months, were. To tell you about my initial set of questions, doubts, the process, conclusions if there were any, and new questions that appeared on the way. And that would be quite a safe way to do it, but i decided to give it to myself as a challenge and to try to translate all of these in a certain format that can stand for all the aspects that I discovered as relevant during my first phase of research. I constructed the text that I will read to you. This is something that I usually don't do but I do it deliberately today because I know that reading in public aloud makes those who listen to the one who is reading wander around from the story they are trying to follow. So, while you try to follow what is hidden in the text I will be reading, I suspect you will start digressing in your own different paths. This is something I wanted to encourage and therefore these empty papers and pencils are given to invite you to write down your notes – whatever comes to your mind, any kind of association you have, questions, whatever crosses your mind while you are listening and following the story, I would like to know about and I would like to talk about and use it as a base for our discussion later, possibly, and I would be happy if you decided to share it with me so that I can use it for my future investigation. I find this situation very relevant, not as a podium to tell you how I am but also to get something from you. So, I will now go here, and start reading.