Reading, Writing & Research Methods
Reading, Writing, and Research Methodologies 2015-16
Handbook description: "The Reading, Writing, and Research Methodologies Seminar is tailored towards (further) developing research methods within the first year of this master. By establishing a solid foundation of research skills, it will eventually prepare students for their Graduate research in the second year. Through reading core theoretical texts, they will establish a common vocabulary and set of references to work from. They will learn the practice of classic ‘essayistic methodologies’, including close reading, annotation, description and notation, students learn to survey a body of literature, filter what is relevant to their research and create comparative pieces of analysis. The seminar helps students to establish methodical drafting processes for their texts, where they can develop ideas further and structure their use of notes and references. The course takes as axiomatic that the perceived division between ‘practice’ and ‘theory’ is essentially an illusion."
Curriculum:
The seminar over the two trimesters will involve:
(a.) Identifying the object of your research: description and analysis of your work
(b.) Contextualizing your work through description and reflection on contemporary and historical practices.
(c.) Identify research material key to your practice.
(d.) Synopsis and annotation of key texts
(e.) Writing machines: creating methods for group and individual writing.
Throughout, there will be an emphasis on working collectively, whether in a larger discussion group or in smaller reading and writing groups.
Outcome:
The specific outcome for the RW&RM seminar of 2015-2016 will be a 1500 word text which reflects on your own method and situates your work in relation to a broader artistic and cultural context. The various texts produced within the RW&RM seminar will serve as source material for your text on method. In common with all modules on the course RW&RM serves to support the other elements of the course (Self-directed Research, Issues in Art & Theory, Practice-Group Critiques &c.). Therefore, the text on method will inform your Self-Evaluation at the end of the third trimester and provide the basis for your Graduate Project Proposal that you will produce in the fourth trimester.
Basic style sheet
Titles and works = italics
Essays = Title in Caps
Notation = Harvard System (writer, page number) = (Smith, 26)
URL = make link
TRIMESTER ONE
1-10-15
WhoWhatWhy # 1
Eo Jess Adam Nicholas Dan T Tor Erika Angelica Ash's WhatHowWhy
Oct 29
Exquisite corpse 29-10-15:
Monumental tooth
licking fluffy milkshake
and tacky tears
Icy black hole
Whistles pink monument
Swirly shark
Whipped the sticky sunset
And keys of well being
Pock-marked cock
Drinking juicy molecule
And Rushton’s Steve
Mortified star
Painted chalky roads and sad sex
Ungrateful speaker yells
Weeping many chairs
Flea-bitten shoe twisting gravel
Gleaming Australian accent
Explicit sock folding softly and vegan omelette
Sweet computer set
Flowery gravel
and my lovers
destroyed
follow twinkle cold and colourful trap
Depressed toothpicks descend
Soft shyness
Laundry line
Frequent bell
Slow
Pleasingly bumblebee and axolotl
29-10-15 = Random questions to works of art
upload questions and to, and answers from, your work here
Tor - question to thing in box
Jess - Tell me about your dance/ the trouble I had
29-10-15 = What am I doing and what do I want?
What am I doing and what do I want?
12-11-15
Morning:
Recap
Notetaking
Uncreative writing
Afternoon
Writing machines
26-11-15
AM:
Subjects:
Material Metaphors (from Hayles'Wriiting Machines)
Ong now and then
Method: note taking
Late AM and afternoon: writing machines
Viktor's pseudo gothic title generator
Outcome of the machines here:
10-12-2015
Work in context
We will write notes together on this pad:
http://piratepad.net/246s5BWyKv
28-1-16
At the N C.A.C
10:00 = Steve outlines the project=
What is the N C.A.C and what are we doing there? The curator's brief
11:00 = into groups of two
11:00 = prepare interview 1
11:10 = conduct interview 1 (20 minutes max)
11:20 = prepare interview 2
11:30 = conduct interview 2 (20 minutes max)
12:00= transcribe your interview
LUNCH
14:00 = edit your partner's text
UPLOAD TEXT HERE>
16:00 review in group
11-2-2016
Active & Passive
10:00 Discuss the difference between a passive and active voice.
11:00
Reading: Politics and the English Language (1948) by George Orwell.
It's an old text, but today we will use Orwell as a writing machine
Orwell writes:
" A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?" (p.3)
Orwell later proposes the following rules:
"1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous." (p.5)
From 12:00
Experiment:
(a) Edit the text that was produced last week excluding the passive voice. or: you will edit the text you wrote last week using the active voice. A short workshop will take place which utilizes a very passive text produced by Steve. or: together we will edit a text to read in an active voice.
(b) apply the above constraints to the interview text you made during the last session (you can also apply to other texts, of course).
(c) option: you can choose to swap texts