21 Apr Blindbox Chatbox
Ellis and Bochner (2000) define as “…an autobiographical genre of writing that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural”. I hope to start receiving the rest of the eyecards through the post. I can read their surfaces, and draw them into practice. Allow them prompt, disrupt and add another layer into my consciousness and affect output. The chatbox records another version of the art session, it evidences ‘intra-action’ (Barad, 2007).
Understanding my own experience is a stage of the research process that later allows me to interpret my participants experiences and represent them through writing and artworks. When I perform the cards they have the potential to transform from 2D, the flat to the physical onto another surface and the cycle repeats. Systems, cycles – rules, games lurking in my practice, ready to play.
As pointed out by Kyratzis and Green (1997, Pg17 ):…’narrative research entails a double narrative process, one that includes the narratives generated by those participating in the research, and one that represents the voice of the researcher as narrator of those narratives.’ Multiple perspective matter. It represents my work with others.
All my participatory community project work moved to Zoom so I harvest any words/dialogue available from the chat boxes. I start treating the words like material. I am not sure what I will do with them yet but all that will become apparent as we work together.
For Karen Barad (2007), ‘phenomena or objects do not precede their interaction, rather, ‘objects’ emerge through particular ‘intra-actions‘.’
The difference between interaction and ‘Intra-action’ is important to me. I plan the interaction, the workshop, materials and I drive that bus. But the point of ‘Intra-action’ is unknown, it is dependent on that moment of engagement with participants where something reveals itself in the collision of all things. ‘Intra-action understands agency as not an inherent property of an individual or human to be exercised, but as a dynamism of forces’ (Barad, 2007 Pg141)
Experimentation is vital as we don’t have immediate responses, this unknowing is full of potential. It enlivens. The eyecards bring multiple perspectives to the blindbox. From fieldwork and back into the studio, another cycle turns.
Chatbox is a living document and will harvest words from the digital field until May 4th.
References
BARAD, K. M. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. 2nd Ed. USA Durham & London, Duke University Press [PDF]
https://spaces.oca.ac.uk/susanfarrelly/2021/01/17/future-fieldwork-this-is-tomorrow/(opens in a new tab) This blog post explores the origins of this project from my Fieldwork.
Holman Jones, S., Adams, T & Ellis, C. (2016) Handbook of Autoethnography. 2nd Ed. USA, Routledge.
Jointly constructed narratives in classrooms: Co-construction of friendship and community through language
By Amy Kyratzis Judith Green
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0742051X96000492