Our second task for Unit 5 is to create a Portfolio of Experimentation. The idea is to push our practice forward, expanding into unfamiliar and untested areas. The focus is on process and experimentation, not the final product. We should set ourselves a series of tasks, challenges and experimental activities, which we then try to complete.
What we will submit is documentation of our experimentation. It will need to tell the story of what we’ve done – weaving a narrative from what may be disparate parts – and most importantly, it will include critical reflection. What we’ve learned. We’ll need to generate insights on what these experiments have done for our practice, as well as reflecting on – and evidencing – the value of experimentation and failure.
We’re being encouraged to look back on the first year of MAIP and to use this as the basis for designing our experiments. To think about the lessons we’ve learned so far; to think about how our practice has been evolving – themes, methods, techniques, approaches, obsessions, values – and how we might want to push it forward; and to push forward our understanding of our practice, how we talk about it and how this reflects our personal value systems.
The learning outcome we’re working towards is around experimentation – how we use a range of methods and tactics to expand our practice to affect change, challenge existing ways of working or discover new things. The assessment criteria is ‘Process’ and we’re looking to build the Anticipatory competency, which is about being able to look forward to multiple futures, to anticipate the consequences of our actions, to deal with risks and challenges.
The portfolio can include:
- Research
- Key readings
- Intentions
- Themes / ideas
- Experiments
- Processs
- Reflections
We may utilise an action research model, for example: Plan → Act → Monitor → Evaluate → Revised plan → Act (repeat ad infinitum).
Looking back
Before I begin thinking about my experiments, I thought I’d review the work I’ve produced to date in MAIP and my blog, to see what themes and issues have emerged that still feel relevant. Here are some things that stood out:
- An interest in the value of art. That I seek to embed my own values in my work, around developing gratitude and reciprocity. A belief that art can help us to see each other as complex, expansive, contradictory human beings – and that this is vital. Perhaps that this is both an intrinsic and an instrumental benefit of art (an interest in this value debate).
- An interest in how we think as a line of difference in the world. Trying to understand how my mind works – how it processes new information and navigates difference. Asking: how can we learn/change? Wondering if we’re always building on what we already know/think or if we can fundamentally change. Question from my first blog: “What is the difference between acquiring knowledge through reading and acquiring knowledge through conversation/interaction? Where does art sit in this?”
- The relationship between our conscious and unconscious minds/actions. This question: how much agency do we have over our conscious and unconscious thought processes? Ideas of personal responsibility. An interest in decision making and individual agency – in the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
- That my practice is about effectve storytelling / communication – complex ideas communicated in a compelling way, weaving narratives from objective facts and subjective experience – a critical approach – storytelling that creates a mental link between the creator and viewer while leaving space for personal interpretation.
- That my medium is the English language. (And graphic design.) That my work is characterised by precision of language and carefully considered design. That I strive for an understanding of context and audience.
- An interest in interviews/conversation as an ethical form of communication where meaning is generated through exchange and responsibility is shared between interviewer and interviewee.
- On the ethical responsibility of art, or how fictional representation carries ethical dilemmas; on the value of fiction. This question: “What is the responsibility of art, particularly art grounded in realism, to accurately reflect life, to avoid scaremongering or spreading misinformation, and to guide society towards a better way of relating to one another?” Is there such a thing as irresponsible or unethical fiction? And how does the impact of a piece of fiction change when it presents as hyperrealistic, as opposed to art that engages with myth-making or fantasy?
- A friction with fiction – a belief that storytelling can gloss over complexity. And a cognitive dissonance: that I love and value fiction from others but that I don’t value the fictions that I’m capable of generating. That I see my own work as rooted in the real world – that the value of my writing is in translating, interpreting, relaying fact and reported experience (on holding a line of distinction between objective vs subjective experience).
Leave a Reply