jeannetteangel

social practice – dialogical art production – civic engagement

jeannetteangel — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:07:25 +0000

more words and really what I am trying to do is define what it is that I am already doing, haven’t really begun, circling around like a hungry animal. The garden project can be framed as social practice, environmental education, civic engagement – but it is still a school permaculture garden and more about being a place based activity. What I am interested in pushing is the dialogical potential of the place based activity. How can the place and the activity create a space for an exchange of information? How does that exchange of information in the garden contribute to ways of knowing? How do conversations about garden ways of knowing describe a relationship with everyday nature? How can that experience be beneficial in reevaluating an ethical relationship with the everyday environment? Is the garden a social laboratory? Can it be used as an effective way of communicating about climate change on a local level? Do issues of mitigation and adaptation emerge in garden practice? Is the garden a relevant context for citizens to dialogue about climate change problems and solutions? What is gained by locating conversations on climate change in a placed based activity? Does garden activity allow for a relationship with the land that is reciprocal? What is meant by garden?

Social Practice in Academic Institutions

jeannetteangel — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:55:36 +0000

Attempt at a definition – what is my discipline…

I need to write down my discipline for class and I cannot figure out how to define what it is that I am doing in academia…oh dear. So for lack or for gain, I will say that I am in the discipline of social practice. It is not a discipline. Trust me to want to find something that I haven’t really started doing yet, that doesn’t really exist in academia but that looks like a variety of things that can/do happen in institutions. I want to network, make art with communities, find ways of having conversations in a performance context, possibly performatively, create new knowledge through rigourous record keeping and analysis, call it a theory, earn a degree and call it a career. To that end, within the context of the course work and research I am doing this term, I am looking up methods. In art practices, social change, communication for climate change, performative methodologies, qualitative research and interdisciplinary practices in sustainability.

Social Practices – online…

Social Practices Art Network – US

Improvisation, Community and Social Practices – CA (Guelph)

Mammalian Diving Reflexes/Centre for Social Innovation

The Social Practice – UK

Social Practice Blog – US

Where do I work? That might help define my discipline. I work in an art lab, the Centre for Art and Technology. Right now I am in the hunting and gathering stage. Most things I read define interdisciplinary studies as a bridge, something that is between disciplines. So then I am on that bridge. I am not at on end of the bridge looking to cross over or exchange with the other side, I am moving across the bridge with a variety of perspective,s moving toward…but my position and path are just not that linear. How about transdisciplinary?

I looked up transdisciplinary and found an interesting website, although I don’t know why it was part of the search results:

http://learningforsustainability.net

The author is an action researcher in New Zealand and other than the vaguely motivational quality of the website, his information on collaborative processes and networking seems to be quite comprehensive.

My meanderings then led me to the Transdisciplinary Charter – which I don’t recommend. It is kind of unfortunate that the term was so thoroughly colonized so long ago. In 1994…While I agree with some of the overarching ideas – between, across and beyond disciplines – I am not so keen on aligning myself with a “new rationality.”

http://basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr/ciret/english/charten.htm

Back to social practice…my garden project, lowering my carbon footprint and ways of knowing…

Nesting

jeannetteangel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:02:43 +0000

Wrapping children, surrounding them in a nest of native speakers

cold snow days – walking

jeannetteangel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:01:28 +0000

It was very cold today and as I walked to my office I remembered the sound of crunchy snow at sub -15 C temperatures. It is loud, sharp and crisp. I walked, bundled up against the cold, big boots, long underwear, scarf across my face. The feeling of being wrapped in layers reminded me of the days in Wpg. when I would walk across the Osborne St bridge, even in a blizzard, to get to a 9:30 am dance class. I would get into the studio, strip off the layers, down to a leotard and tights and luxuriate in the extremes of lack of mobility during the outside walking to the full mobility of a warmed up dancing body. The memory is in my body and today, when I reached my office, I changed into a pair of sweats, pulled out my yoga mat and stretched for 15 minutes. It felt good and familiar, a distant memory of days and days of physical challenges so different from the mental challenges I engage in these days. I stopped doing yoga after a few minutes because I had work to do on the computer. Tonight, I am longing for the physical again. Here I am, at the computer…This is embodied knowledge, a way of knowing the weather, the experience of cold, through my memory of the winter dance.

Egocentricity meets ethnocentricity

jeannetteangel — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:38:32 +0000

Tagging instead of folders. I am unlearning. And this a metaphor for disciplinary categories – mutable categories , multiple cross referencing, collections instead of fixed folders. Where do things.belong? They can belong simultaneously in many places – how does this co-exist with being from the place you are in?

resurfacing images objects movements ideas emotions

jeannetteangel — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:48:10 +0000

moving on a diagonal in space; loss; longing; birthing; relationships between bodies – without words; flocking; flying; feet landing on water; holding and releasing; listening – a visual image of someone listening – intently; a boat of the water with a person wearing train of fabric floating out 30 ft behind; animals at a drinking hole; relationship performer seeing/touching/smelling/tasting the audience; scrolls – as a performance space; willow sticks; gardens as a performance space, performance activity; wearing the city as a costume; walking down a city street, on the bus in Stuart Park on pointe; roots, weeds, lichen, moss, a wad of bubblegum stuck in my mouth, texting and public performance, body extensions, boat parts – human body parts, an airplane staircase, a 20$ bag of potatoes, losing senses of smell, sight, hearing, taste – touch…; planting a living wall; scarcity of food, excess – rot

The list is random, mainly image based as I am linking thoughts to a time/space based moment. What do these random things have to do with my research project? Some of it has nothing to do with it, others are related to performance ideas I have but not to methods of working in community. I cannot bring my preconceived images/ideas to a workshop setting if I am trying to generate content collaboratively. I suppose I can acknowledge that this list is part of my subconscious repertoire and will probably become part of the suggestions I will put forward in a collaborative situation. But I am still confused about what/how I am working. What is the project – how is it generated? What are the components? What am I developing in this class? A toolbox of performance methods for working in community? An image bank of climate change metaphors? A list of locations for performance activities? A series of relationships that I need to initiate and nurture in the city in order to start this work?

redirecting energy and engagement

jeannetteangel — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:45:37 +0000

at the end of my first class I blurted out the idea that i had to figure out what to do with my habit of pushing sexual content into communication, sometimes to make it visible and sometimes as a means of stirring the pot. It was a weird moment to raise the issue, as if I was trying to remind myself as well as other people that I am a sexual being, despite the fact that the focus of my work is climate change. (what kind of climate am I talking about…) But really I think my concern was how to redirect and focus my edge. I do like to question conventions and actually – power relations. Often I bring up the body as a way of re-inserting feelings, sensations, bodily functions into a discussion. Maybe it is a way of embodying grounded theory. That is an interesting connection. How can I work that kind of awareness into facilitation without it becoming either inappropriate (depending on the community) or too distracting. There is something potent in this habit. What is it?

Darren O’Donnell – Social Acupuncture and civic engagement

jeannetteangel — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:36:32 +0000

Power – it is not a word I like to think about because it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to deal with power relations because it makes me feel alternately lacking or privileged – neither of which I want to look at…Of course I am about to open and eat a can of worms. Against the do-gooder, feel-gooder relational art there is the idea of forced learning…poetic climate adaptation and mitigation scenarios that force the issue of change.

Communication for climate change

jeannetteangel — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:55:37 +0000

I am finally realizing the importance of using the word “communication” instead of “art” when talking about the project. When I start describing what I am doing in terms of “art” people check out, stop listening, make assumptions…when I say that I am working on communication and climate change, people are actually willing to listen and once I start describing the texting project, the link between agency and imagination, lowering your carbon footprint and so on…they start contributing to the conversation.

Things that have been reflected back to me: texting is a really effective and useful tool for reaching and communicating with youth. It gives them a way of responding without the pressure of being the one with their hand in the air. Many young people are more comfortable saying what they think through their phones. Would they be interested in projecting their texts as a live feed in a performance context? What technology would be needed to do that? Could a dialogue happen on screen? How would we keep the level of the conversation up and relevant? Communications technology and live performance are potentially an effective means of developing meaningful, thought-provoking and creative spaces for new ways of shifting public consciousness.haha – that is so 1960s. I love it. I sound like the intermedia artists from Schneemann’s era – trying to change the world. But there it is. I DO want to change the world. And I do want to reach people, engage them, activate the space between thinking and doing. Keep it in the body but work with the tools of our current culture.

Other thoughts: Funding…get creative about partnerships and working with people from agencies outside of the academic world. HEALTH and the environment. If I could figure out ways of pitching this idea as a health concern – mental health? Also- there is money available from sources where the application procedures are not nearly so onerous as the academic/government funding, Private sector, businesses focusing on technology and alternative energy etc.

I need to develop my own relationships with people in agencies or organizations outside of academia so that I can become an expert on communication for climate change in Canada. That way I can develop more visibility and create a model for working with communities on issues. Use my PHD as a means of learning to work across disciplines but also outside of the institution so that when I am done I have already created a space for myself in the world of communication for climate change. Talking to LL about her organization and work – she is doing the same kind of partnership building. The difference is that as an artist, I want to maintain the poetic exchange and offer creative insight within those partnerships….Not just in terms of the structure of how people can work together on issues but also in terms of content.

Questions for my research: What is the model I want to develop? How can I frame this as new knowledge in the field of communication for climate change?

Artist Statements and Project Descriptions

jeannetteangel — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:06:23 +0000

There is something about artist statements that I don’t like anymore. It feels undigested, too personal and it directs my experience as a viewer in ways that interfere rather than compliment the moment.