Susannah's PP...

Here is a link to Susannah Thompson's power point for the drawing lecture she did for Glasgow school of art's first year students, in which a few of my posters feature... (I'm aware that the previous sentence is poorly structured...)

Group crit...

Two men stood on a chair for the duration of a tutorial.

words may/will follow...

Chair on tins... just a thought.

    

What is the work?

The work is live
The work is doing something
The work is active
The work is performative
The work is standing
The work is balancing
The work is absurd
The work is failing
The work is setting up a situation
The work is temporary
The work is a set of instructions
The work is participatory
The work is participation
The work is variable
The work is repeatable
The work is discourse
The work is anecdotal
The work is formal
The work is difficult
The work is critical
The work is criticising
The work is a question
The work is making decisions
The work is documented
The work is theoretical
The work is a period of time
The work is a task
The work is directed
The work is experienced
The work is relational
The work is political
The work is challenged
The work is unpredicted
The work is unrehearsed
The work is unknown at the outset
The work is knowing good from bad
The work is attempting to deviate from the norm
The work is obvious
The work is economically viable
The work is logical
The work is reproducible
The work is true
The work is learning
The work is ongoing
The work is something

Opinions...

I was listening to Robin Ince and Josie Long's Utter Shambles podcast on the way into school this morning, (episode 5: Al Murray), and Ince used a quote by Harlan Ellison which I just wanted to note down as it is a much more eloquently stated version of a point I've been arguing since the start of the first year...


"You are not entitled to your opinion, you are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant." 

Failing to stand on an upturned brick... (images)

Triads...

I attended Neil's workshop today, it started with a talk about his Shift/Work project at ESW this summer, which was interesting but, given that I was involved to some extent already, not entirely new to me... Once Neil had talked about the project we then moved on to an exercise in triad tutorials, the subject of the third Shift/Work workshop, originally lead by Sarah Tripp, who I believe is going to follow up on todays workshop later in the semester. 


A triad tutorial consists of a speaker, (the person who is receiving the tutorial), a listener, (the person giving the tutorial), and a witness/observer. The speaker starts by speaking, naturally, about a given subject for a predetermined amount of time, In our case 10 minutes. During this time the listener listens and is free to make notes while the observer watches the two, making notes about the whole interaction. Once the 10 minutes are up it is then the listeners turn to speak, also for 10 minutes, also uninterrupted. The listener feeds back to the speaker who now listens, again while the observer does his/her best to be objective. Once the second 10 minutes is up the observer reads back his observations to both the speaker and the listener. This process is then repeated twice more, rotating the role of the participants each time.


The experience was both interesting and useful and I always welcome different approaches to crits... anything that might help... If nothing else it is reassuring to be part of a course that is looking to examine it's own modes of assessment and criticality... several people commented that it was difficult or unusual to talk uninterrupted for so long. Also that even though everybody talked for an equal amount of time, that it didn't feel as if anyone had conversed. These things are new and challenging and for those reasons, among others, I look forward to more.