T h e E n a c t i n g S p a c e
This exposition should be viewed in relation to Chapter 3, The Enacting Space (please refer to Chapter 3 of the PDF below). As a visual script, the exposition unfolds some of the processes and practices of mapping alternative art schools and pedagogical spaces. A selection of enacting processes constellates around each of the embodied protagonists. A short introductory text presents the three protagonist roles of Vigilant Observer, Articulate Detective and Evaluative Contributor.
Title: Alternative to What? Exploring Alternative Art Schools Through Spatiality, Participation and Performative Tools
Elle Reynolds
You can find the exegesis on
the Nottingham Trent University Repository
G L O S S A R Y
/ɪˈnæktɪŋ/Enacting
Actively engaging with, participating and intervening in the activities, conversations, and spatial expressions that occur within an art pedagogic space.
The Vigilant Observer (Guest) is the invited participant, yet also the interloper, the outsider, actively trespassing, flexible and adaptive. An interventionist participatory mode is deployed, one that operates through critique, exploring how space is conceived, predicated, and adapted. Adjusting to any given situation, the Vigilant Observer inhabits structures and platforms and enters into the conditions of the educational space. Occupying the places of student, researcher, practitioner, educationist, expert, and novice, individually and simultaneously. Initially activating a broad eye, taking in the whole to determine what a sharpened viewpoint will settle on and whether another protagonist role can be introduced. In emulating the conditions, applying devices and the languages of any given situation, the Vigilant Observer can then operate as an occasional playful disrupter, questioning the languages and practices of participatory artistic education and instruction.
The Vigilant Observer guides the other two protagonists by assessing the conditions for enacting and the typology within the five spatialities. Within the volume of the alternative art schools, the Vigilant Observer establishes a relationship to the space, conceiving the codes, social constructions and interactions.
Here in the F-Space.
‘Viewing lens, desk, wall tape, cross marker, description of the space, enter from the left, projection screen, radiator on a wall, health and safety, maximum room numbers, WLAN access point, whiteness, registers, strategies, spike marker, flip chart, fluorescent tube lighting, flip chart pad, A-sizes, blue chairs, red chairs, chairs, suspended ceiling, acoustic tiles, cosmic white, anti-slip, aggregates, a single yellow round head map pin, speakers on wall brackets, ten exemplary building elements: woodchip wallpaper from the Bauhaus 1919, …, I am not a performer, yet I perform.’
De : Vigilant Observer <V.Observer@alt.alt.uk>
Envoyé : lundi 23 mai 2022 09:14
À : Articulate Detective <articulate.detective@possible.alt.uk
Object : Re: regarder de près
Projector
Laptop
Chairs
Table
Black Fabric 2mx1m
Piece of Charcoal
Chalk
Articulate Detective
Chalkboard
Vinyl Texts
Feedback Cards
Graphite Pencils
A Lecture in Reverse includes the ubiquitous PowerPoint, along with props and feedback cards that expose approaches to researching institutional boundaries and the edges of the alternative art school.
A Deliberate Malfunction
Within most lectures that have incorporated some digital element, I have observed the occasional technical issue, whether this be connecting the display to the laptop, lack of sound, incorrect slide focus, etc. I worked into a Lecture in Reverse a deliberate malfunction with the computer screen ratio that the tech-savvy in the audience assisted with resolving. This allowed space for others to put up the vinyl lettering, draw the charcoal questions, and fill in the feedback cards. In effect, the entire lecture audience became participants engaged in assisting the Articulate Detective. At one presentation, I was asked, 'When are you going to start', replying 'But we have already started'.
Participation is a persistent practice and a collective form of inquiry for the Articulate Detective (Host). As an artistic researcher, the Articulate Detective is building the field of research through the creation of speculative and participatory moments. The Articulate Detective is the host, moderator, facilitator, and examiner of spaces. The Articulate Detective directs the conditions, having first determined the conceptual infrastructure and systems (the medium). The Articulate Detective establishes what the systems allow and is responsive to the participants. This adaptive position encourages any outcomes to be multiform.
The Articulate Detective encourages participatory interaction to engage in discoveries together. The Articulate Detective gives us an academic reading list, directions, time slots, schedules, and references to the institutional space, in doing so the Articulate Detective draws attention to the context of art education, and how institutional space is perceived and understood. By enacting pedagogies, and replicating modes of togetherness within the institution the Articulate Detective highlights our collusion with institutional systems, setting up a somewhat overbearing and pesky situation. The Articulate Detective shows up the fundamental participatory framework and expectations and distinctions of the participant, the group and the role of the artist educator within the five spatialities. This immersive placement brings about critical exchanges and identifies strategies for adapting the alternative through self-efficacy. The Articulate Detective is working within recognisable conventional systems yet can direct and perform a critique of art education through these systems, notably the crit, the seminar and the lecture.
The F-Space tools of Lecture in Reverse and Feedback Cards are presented here as expanded demonstration workshops and performances.
Lecture in Reverse
Scripted Frictive Narrative
Start
The AD hands out Feedback Cards.
Slide 1: Any questions?
Slide 2: Thank you
Slide 3: So, there we have it
Slide 4: Partner institutions
Slide 5: References
Slide 6: Where can we ask the questions?
Slide 7: What are the questions that should be asked?
Slide 8: What are the conversations we should be having?
Slide 9: Please sign the register
Slide 10: Welcome
End
Ever present, yet not always obvious to others, the Evaluative Contributor (Static) brings the physically embodied gaze and stages the surfaces and spaces of enacting. Applying a primary tool of ‘wording’, that is written and spoken text, the Evaluative Contributor holds two significant positions. Firstly, recording significant enacting moments established by the Articulate Detective through text works of slowness and idleness in the Scholé sound and text poems. Text works appear as name badges, prompts and scores on triangular prisms, and quote/unquote, as materials to generate ideas and discussion points. Secondly, through the forms of Choreographic and Silent Questions, the Evaluative Contributor works inside existing infrastructures to construct artistic and pedagogical spaces, through commentary, intervention and limited disclosure. In this sense, covert research is taking place and a different power dynamic enters, one that is somewhat different from that of the Articulate Detective. Where the Articulate Detective creates ephemeral moments with the spaces, with props, texts, and objects and sometimes improvises in reaction to the audience/participant's responses, the Evaluative Contributor creates performances that are more enduring and measured. In the slower gentler mode of the Choreographic or Silent Questions the Evaluative Contributor is more exposed, is more exposed to trespassing, having to hold the space and simultaneously navigate whatever systems may be present.
The D-Space, L-Space and V-Space tools of Choreographic Questions and Silent Questions, together with the BBZ Scholé Poems are presented here as scores for artistic research.
G L O S S A R Y
\dɪˈzaɪə laɪnz\ Desire Line(s)
An indication of movement, a directed journeying across, through, but not around. The urge of those wishing to move with intention. Off-piste.
ˌ\daɪəɡrəˈmætɪk ˈkrɒsɪŋ\ Diagrammatic Crossing
This refers to the use of diagrams or visual representations, that are layered or meet in other ways at intersections or interactions, to create new readings.
\ daɪˈæɡᵊnᵊl ˈpræktɪsɪz\ Diagonal Practices (D\P)
A method of agnostic intention and critique with an underlying premise of care. Implemented as research gestures.
\diː speɪs\ D-Space
The space of disruption.
\ fæb əˈleɪt / fæb əˈleɪʃᵊn \ Fabulate/Fabulation
Engaging in the inventive creation of speculative future narratives represents a constructive approach, as subtle shifts in thought can usher in transformative possibilities, particularly in collaborative art pedagogical research with individuals beyond the immediate field.
\ɛf speɪs\ F-Space
The fivefold multidimensional, interconnected space.
\frɪk tɪv\ Frictive
Variation of Friction. The application of interventions, interruptions, rifts, and disruptions (rather than resistance or conflict).
\genoɡræm\ Genogram
A time-based mapping process that begins a possible genealogy of TOMA and other alternative art schools. The significance of the Genogram is that it offers both a horizontal and vertical reading.
\ɛl speɪs\ L-Space
The borrowed spaces that we could operate ‘within’.
\ɛn speɪs\ N-Space
The normative, recognisable, institutional space.
\ ˈshəʊləʊ pəʊɪm\ Scholé Poem
A free verse poem that serves as a reflective account, elucidating activities and events instigated by the three protagonist roles within one of the five spatialities.
\ ˈsaɪlənt ˈkwɛsʧənz\ Silent Questions
Provocations, prompts or queries written on sun yellow paper.
\ˈsmʌɡᵊlɪŋ\ Smuggling
The ability to bring into the institutional space alternative art pedagogies and approaches without the institution knowing. Applied by the three protagonist roles.
See: Harney, S. and Moten, F., 2013. The undercommons: fugitive planning and black study. London: MINOR COMPOSITIONS.
\θriː prəʊˈtæɡənɪst rəʊlz\ Three Protagonist Roles
Three distinctions characters that offer a triocular lens from which to view, intervene and disrupt art education spaces and pedagogical practices.
\treɪn krɪˈt \ Train Crit
The train journey contributes to a distinct, unpredictable and dynamic environment for staging and critiquing art work.
\viː speɪs \ V-Space
The virtual, digital and online spaces that alternative art schools choose to work in.
T h e E n a c t i n g S p a c e with BBZ
Each of the three protagonist roles established a distinctive process of performative research and recorded their experience. The Evaluative Contributor spent time with BBZ through interviews and invited discussions, which permitted close looking and direct and directed observation of the Alternative Graduate shows orchestrated by BBZ from 2018 and 2019. This included visits to their offices in Greenwich Peninsula, London, in 2019.
