The matter changed. As I considered the earlier solid form (expanding casting foam) It had held its shape and talked of fluidity and visually referenced custard which had been previously named as a material metaphor for learning (by student group). The uncontained and unmanageble substance in this object then referenced the shape and form of the earlier object. The materails are yo yoing beackwards and forwards. I was interested in the matter shifting and the relationship between the unmanageable and the certain. I am continuing to think about learning as the movement between states. The certainty when we know that becomes the anchor and new thought, theory, technique, potentially the unmanageable and the uncontained. We try to discover the grasp.
I am saying learning but really it is the relationship between learning and understanding. This knowledge of matter, how it is understood and how we can be contained by the material experience is preoccupying when reading new materialist positions. Where is the matter of new materialism, how do we access it? We are it, everything is it but at times it feels absent. Materialism is messy, should be messy by its very presence. Containing and containment in teaching practices. Providing the anchor points and the buoys whilst in the middle of the sea. Between sea and sand ‘littoral’ I am not simply trying to illustrate these positions but equally they have been inherent in all the objects we have made. Stops and starts, grasps or purchases. It seems necessary to physically breakdown this known process. The latest partnered grasps are one manifestation of the meeting points of grip and slip. I see GR - IP – SL – IP as opposite ends of a pedagogical process. I suppose linked to my interest in the prepositional and the ‘before the after –after the before’. I have been reading about the middle and the moment between what I am calling slip and grip. It is interesting as Deleuze talks of the ‘greatest velocity’ being in the middle (1979, 95). In Massumi’ s ‘Thought in the Act’, the grasping is referred to as ‘a holding together that is felt’ (p33) ‘What happens in the middle is that the either – or is held fast together in passing contrast.’ This is the position that the objects I have made (now and historically) inhabit. Where the join enables both a disjuncture and a melody. I see this tiny axis point as the site where we can pivot and re- see, re – think. Occupying the known and the unknown and forming a grasp on new knowledge. The slipping away of control that we can often feel within a learning environment where we cling to particles, moments that we have knowledge and experience of. grasping...I always enjoyed the expression of 'grasping it' 'i think I have grasped it'. That hold on knowledge that we can have and possibly retain. This retaining I see as digesting meaning, and how with objects the meaning can be unpalatable, sour, dry or equally like fast food quick and forgotten. The pace of the object is important in its reading and its digestion to enable learning encounters rather than a fleeting experience. Re configuring stuff so that while we recognise and anchor ourselves we are then likely to be destabilized by the unknown in the known. I have learnt that there always needs to be a hook, where we (participant/learner) can tether ourselves to when the process of new information that may challenge or corrupt our known s is in proximity. The - NESS- of the object or material and the -NESS - of the subject material need to be determined before they are unraveled. What is revealed in the unravelling and what comes into being? The ‘becoming’ is interesting and through reading there is so much movement around actually being in something, that the language becomes visually evocative. ‘being – in the event, the events on your surface, thoughts within the act, states of event. ………They are all interruptions or ruptures, aren’t they? (Atkinson 2011. p14) 'The ordinary can turn on you'. Kathleen Stewart (2007) Ordinary Affects. 'We learn in order to add to, extend, or change the structure of our expectations, that is, our meaning perspectives and schemes: learning to change these structures of meaning is fundamentally tranformative. Mezirow (1991) Meaning perspectives. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning.
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Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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