The process:
As I explored my ‘field’, developed approaches through Early Tests and Experiments and The Cairngorms, and made test works, my understanding grew and clarified areas for consideration in the subsequent research. These I further investigated through the praxis processes of Dyffryn (and the Book), About and Coventry, the creation and exhibiting of original artworks and explication of thinking through papers and talks and iterative reflection. The drawing together of all the research for submission, additionally extended and deepened my knowledge of things required in/for the making of spaces of embodied encounter.
The research was not a starting from scratch, but a building on and with, which brought together and entangled the making of artworks, literature, artists work, praxis approaches and this bodymind. Knowledge coalesced through ‘doing/thinking’, iterative cycles of gathering, reflection, discussion, revisiting and reworking. The new knowings resulting from the praxis are made manifest in the new original art works, the development of a unique methodology/approach, and how it is all brought together in this Research Catalogue exposition as thesis. The intention that this research will extend existing thinking on affect theory, affecting elements in sonic-environments and the creation of embodied spaces as fine art installation, and a hope that others can use and develop elements of this work in the future.
The outcomes of this research are an entangled collection of elements[1], ‘ordering’ these is difficult, as on each revisiting/reworking they shift and move. These are not distinct or separate things, they did not occur in delineated or discreet ways, this is all permeable, shifting stuff, so a ‘scaffold’ is needed, but it will not be ‘fixed’ there will be movement within it. In this moment the ‘plan’ will be that I am going to outline the outcomes following the order of the aims, starting with the exploring of affecting dimensions of our quotidian sonic environment through the doing and how this opened links to theory/literature and spoke back to it; followed by an outlining of the emergent embodied methods, and finally, the understanding of the making of spaces with potential of embodied encounter.
[1] I had considered right up to the last moment including a ‘manifesto of sorts’ and some diagrams. These would outline my thinking and ‘layout’ the things that I have built up pictures of needing to ‘have in mind’ as I work. (mentioned at points through the thesis). But through attempted making, I recognised the intrinsic flaw, that the things I hold in mind are not ‘only’ words, they are embodied sensed things, developed situated knowings and gut feelings. The words are surrounded by empty spaces on a page – in my mind they are not, they are more ‘formed’, fuller, linked and shifting things. I realise that the closest I can come to those diagrams would be parts of the RC pages and art works made, and you have those.
Revisiting the aims of the research:
The central concerns of this research were to gain an understanding of the affective dimensions of our/my everyday sonic-environment. Alongside this to develop approaches that would support the making of fine art installation work constructed with gathered (micro)elements of these environments, in ways that hold the potential for events of affecting embodied encounter. Key to this has been developing a praxis methodology that allows for the work with/for affect across all the research, this is centred around ‘this bodymind’ as a site of embodied research. Utilising my ‘affect heuristic’ and continually developing situated knowledge, unquestionably subjective and located within my specific cultural and social experience.
The scope of this investigation, for practical reasons narrow [1]. I have been bodily exploring small areas/spaces, while considering art/ists, theorists and literature particularly concerned with microshocks and event in affect theory, having identified this/these method and field to be key to informing approaches to making and working with and for affect. As affect is a pre-conscious response, gathering research ‘data’ through questionnaires or interview was not applicable, and furthermore, as affect and sound are textually ‘tricky’[2], the outcomes are primarily shared through test works, fine art installations practice and this multimodal collaging on the Research Catalogue. The creation of and reflection on the original sonic-lead fine art installation artworks has informed the development of an understanding of what might be necessary for the construction of spaces for affective encounter and new moments of embodied response, and a recognition that an embodied approach is fundamental to working with/for affect.
[1] The work has for periods been limited by available time, resources and access to sites/places to gather, work and exhibit. The Covid pandemic occurring while the research was in process, limiting access and possibilities. Additionally, due to circumstances outside of my control, I had to suspend my studies and work for over a year.
[2] And as a neurodivergent bodymind, text is additionally slippy and unclear, I have never been able to make it do what I want it to, on re reading text I have worked on, it generally does not do what I thought it did.
Links text:
This chapter starts with a foreword, which briefly outlines some of the practice made around the process of drawing the research together, a single screen iteration of some of this opened as you entered the chapter. This is the only chapter that does not have my recorded ‘voice’ in it, by now I hope that you can hear me as you read, and it seemed apposite to be quieter through these conclusions.
The chapter goes on to include a revisiting of the research aims and an outlining of the process of the work and the putting together of this chapter. This is followed by the larges section, an outlining of outcomes and new knowledges, and ends with a brief review of areas that the research and outcomes may be of interest to and my early thoughts on future directions to extend this work.
Changed perspectives and future directions:
The new knowings developed through the research includes: a methodology that combines and explores the intersections of affect heuristic, crip/neurodivergent, feminist, new materialist, emergent, embodied approaches; a new and unique approach to the creation of artworks as sites of affecting embodied encounter; and an extending of understanding of the affective dimensions of quotidian sonic-environments. These are shared through the original artworks made and this multimodal thesis.
The research will be of interest to, can inform future investigations and be worked with/built upon within:
- Artist/praxis research, as this work informs discussions relating to emergent art practice methodologies, specifically those interested the integration of approaches across research and in embodied methods.
- Theorists of affect, embodied research and new materialism, due to the utilisation of an affect heuristic to work with/for affective encounters, and particularly as the art works are sites of potentials for the sharing of active affect/encounter and the formation of new knowledge.
- Disability studies, because the methodology adds to the canon of thinking around research informed by lived experience, especially as it includes a neuropositive approach which utilises characteristics of ND conditions as ‘tools’ in the research and has been brought together to work ‘with’ a particular ‘bodymind’.
- Occurrent arts, as the works themselves are places of sharing of new knowledges, sites of research and generators of new event.
I am considering how I will further develop this research; to work with spaces for their particular ‘atmospheres’ and considering ‘our’ relationship to ‘environments’ [1] in/through future installation works, extend my use of text and (my) voice in my praxis and construction of art works, Continue to work and explore my affect heuristic embodied approach and look in greater depth at crip/neurodivergent methodologies, what that can bring to research, particular my own and the art praxis field.
[1] Schemarium – in 2023 I was commissioned to make a work and a presentation for project exploring relationships to the city (of Birmingham)
A foreword to Gathering Closer: making of works.
This foreword to the chapter briefly outlines the works made alongside the drawing together of the research, this chapter and the works are titled ‘Gathering Closer’ for two main reasons. Firstly, throughout the period the works cover, I was bringing the research into this form, I was getting all my notes, recorded discussions, elements from papers and talks, my ‘thinking’ through the doing together, trying out and texting ways to put it together with ‘materials’ gathered and from the works/exhibitions made. Secondly, the materials and resulting artworks, were gathered closer to ‘me’, they are from my everyday sonic-environments, gathered in my house, garden and studio.
My initial gathering in this process, was around my making of a new skirt (having made clothes all my life) , the next gathered on the hottest day of the year 19th July 2022 (and on record) in my garden and tested out as a multichannel work . Neither gave me things that I felt I could explore in depth while working on the drawing together of the thesis, so I looked closer. I began to gather sound, film and still images as I was working, my process has always involved handwriting notes, making rough diagrams, mapping out the work to be undertaken and ways to try and bring together my thinking and share it. I already had some diagrams from papers and talks and roughed out RC pages, these began to come together with some of the audio, within the RC exposition as the backgrounds to chapters. (which I am sure by now you have experienced)
In March 2024, as part of a group show ‘habitus’ at The Hive Gallery, Birmingham (link to appendices) I showed a 3 channel/screen testing out of the work. The exhibition was ‘curated’ by the artists involved as a coming together and seeing what the works would do together in the space. The works included ‘paintings’ (in the broadest sense), embroidery, digital constructed works and light boxes. My screens were quite set back and unobtrusive, but it was the sounds that brough the space together. In October/November 2024 I showed a larger scale single screen version of the work (in a staff exhibition at Birmingham School of Art) This is the piece that started playing as you opened this chapter.
The submission includes an exhibition, Gathering Closer, this is briefly outlined at the end of the Introduction chapter, it will be a new work made through the brining together of elements from across the research in a porous sharing of praxis. I will make it utilising my affect heuristic, the ‘plan/scaffolding is to have multiple potential elements to work with in the space, and through my embodied process, position and edit these into a work that in part shares the research while also being a space to bodily encounter it.
Outcomes:
I recognised early in the process that my understanding of the affective dimensions of our everyday sonic environments relied on and was ‘known’ to me through my experiencing of it, linking this situated knowledge to my increasing understanding of affect theory, allowed a drawing into more specific areas. Exploring the intersection of microperceptions/microshocks (from Leibnitz, Massumi et al) and our experience of ‘sounds’ around us and how we make meaning with/through them, led to a comprehending of theses ‘shocks’ as events of affect that may be triggered by ‘stuff’ of a place/space. I developed a notion of ‘microelements’ as something I could ‘look’ for the sonic environments and formed a novel embodied framework for ‘gathering’ the ‘stuff’ of spaces/places.
This developed into an understanding that that our experience of ‘stuff’ of ‘space/places’ is multidimensional and involves atmospheres of many shifting and changing elements and moments of ‘microshock’ which occur in relation to these as triggers of affect. That I could construct/compose my gathered microelements, and atmospheres into pools of active shifting ‘stuff’ which were new moments of affective event within a space[1], which began to happen in The Cairngorms Shee Water test piece and developed through the later art works made and brought about a recognition of the importances of ‘qualities’ in the materials. If these, atmospheres and microelements hold qualities of haecceity and quiddity (thisness/whatness), then these can ‘make’ and reactivate, memory (learned understanding, skills etc.)
All aspects of the research were undertaken through the same approaches, the porosity of the theories, bodies, materials and processes involved has allowed and necessitated this. I developed new knowing through doing/thinking, these ‘tested’, reflected on and developed further through iterative cycles of making art works, sharing, discussion, reading and making associations between elements of the research. This brough into focus the requirement for a heterogeneity of embodied methods, all utilising and developing the situated knowledge of this bodymind.
Through my individual ‘lens’, I have developed a praxis methodology utilising my ‘affect heuristic’ and ‘scaffolds’ for facilitating the ‘work’. Adopting a positive speculative space of ‘not knowing‘ and a neuropositive relationship to ‘myself’, enabled an openness to ‘sensing’ and ‘following my affective nose’ in the process of gathering and the constructing of artworks other ways of sharing such as this ‘thesis’. This additionally supported the development of ‘porosity’ and extimacy in my embodied process, all required as only though bodily experiencing, can the elements for potentially embodied experience be gathered, worked with, brought together and put into ‘play’.
What I have made is for the ‘experiencing’, where some part of what is bodily experienced is ‘common’ to ‘me’ and the ‘audience’, others are ‘individual’. I both ask the viewer, to ‘sit in my seat’, know something of how/what I experienced[2], while also to recognise, be active in and open to, the triggering of (small nondramatic) ‘events’ within an affective atmosphere, through the reactivation of prior experience.
I adopted a speculative and open approach after experimenting early in the research showed this was required for the ‘finding’ of the affecting elements and atmospheres within our quotidian sonic-environments, the ’gathering’ of and working with ‘stuff’ of them. Additionally, this approach was necessary so that I could work with them without abstracting or using them to represent anything other than ‘themselves’ and so explore ‘their’ potential affective dimensions.
Through the research I developed an understanding that the utilisation of a range of permeable, flexible, mutable ‘scaffolds’ supports the holding open of a ‘space’ of investigation, gathering, making of art works (both physically and conceptually) and ‘putting together’ thinking for sharing. Recognising that this bodymind needs ‘scaffolds’ for textual (and other) activity as does ‘stuff’ of sound and affect due to its intrinsic ‘slipperiness’.
Utilising ‘scaffolds’ I gave edges and shape to how I would work, gather and ‘form’ the materials. I have ‘constructed’ these scaffolds to be fluctuating, expandable, shifting things, allowing for elements to move in and out of place and focus. I have used them to ‘hold’ a space enough that I can undertake this as a sensing body with ‘things in mind’ (again another structure). Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘Smooth and Striated’ (2004) informing my approach to scaffolds and recognition of the potential of folding/transforming from ‘structured’ (scaffolded/striated) into smooth space, which ‘is filled by events or haecceities, far more than by formed and perceived things’ (p479) and the utilising of this in the constructing of occurrent installations/works/spaces.
I identified through reflecting on practice and theory, that the gathering would be from a place/space not in transit, and required multiple elements, gathered in different ways (not necessarily concurrently) which allowed for the construction of a ‘picture’. That in creating an expanded ‘space’ I can give the possibility of moving from observing to inhabiting, an environment making ‘time’ with the materials and for them to be ‘felt’ and so engaged with ‘bodily’.
Understanding from my own experiencing and the literature that affect and sound are multifaceted, shifting and active, therefore the spaces I construct need to be ones where ‘stuff’, the atmospheres and microelements, come to the fore, fade, shift and move. And that sound, affect, bodies and spaces are porous and promiscuous, meaning that the ‘spaces’ I make need to be constructed ‘with’ the space they will be in and allowing for the bodies that will interact ‘opening up’ an ‘extended field of view’ that is not singular and static.
I recognised though my revisiting/reworking of materials, reading and considering transmission of affect the importance of some ‘qualities’ in the materials, that haecceities and quiddities, the thisness and whatness of them could hold points of ‘recognising’ and of ‘query/thought’, and that my use of images can also add ‘links’, which ‘scaffold’ an engagement with the works. These felt/sensed and recognised things, trigger ‘activations’ of prior encounter and active meaning making, are themselves embodied responses and experiencing, and prime a body for more.
These all come together with/through the sensing experiencing of this bodymind, in the constructing of my original art works. My experiencing of the spaces, the specificities and differences of the ‘stuff’/microelements I gather and work with, are intrinsic to how we respond to, interacted with, and recognised them. My setting up of ‘pools’ and points to make a space with gaps and is porous and my layering of shifting materials elicits seepage and extamacy between bodies in the recognising and half knowing. These all and together open a permeability between here/there, now/then, ‘this’/other, making the works sites of active shifting and changing ‘sensed’ awareness with potential for affective embodied encounter.