User:Aitantv/Thesis

Reading List

• 'Persian Literature and Judeo-Persian Culture: Collected Writings of Sorour S. Soroudi'
• 'The Folktales of Jews from Iran' by Sorour Soroudi
• GOT IT // Annemarie Mol, Eating in Theory (Duke University Press, 2021), 125.
• N/A - Grace Dillo, Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (2012)
• N/A - Louise Erdrich’s novel Future Home of the Living God (2017) - sci-fi
• N/A -Corvus (2015) by Harold Johnson - sci-fi
• N/A -Larissa Lai’s latest novel, The Tiger Flu (2018) - post-hardware future, where plant seeds become technologies and the world has shifted entirely to wetware, cell culture, and herbology.
• N/A - Alondra Nelson’s 2002 Social Text issue on Afrofuturism - coinage of the term afrofuturism
• N/A -Marianne Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 2012)
• N/A -Jonathan Lethem (2007) 'The Ecstasy of Influence' Harpers Essay
• Walter Benjamin "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction"
• GOT IT - Georges Perec (1974) "Attempt at an Inventory of the Liqiud and Solid Foodstuffs Ingurgitated by Me in the Course of the Year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Four"
• GOT IT - Azoulay, A.A, (2019) Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism, Verso Books, London

Assesment recommendations:

• GOT - James Tiptree Jnr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon – concept of intermediary/hidden identity)
• DONE - Eve Tuck and C. Ree, A Glossary of Haunting (2013) (essay on horror films and colonialism)
• N/A - Dylan Robinson, Hungry Listening: Resonant theory for Indigenous Sound Studies
• David Bernstein, ‘Judaeo-futurism’
• N/A - Sci-fi publisher Tor’s world sci-fi anthologies

Watch List

• Food Inc. (anti-corporate food industry film)
• Thirst (2009) dir. Park Chan-Wook (Old Boy, Handmaiden, etc.)
• Tsai Ming Liang (where no ones DLGs to camera)
• Host, Parasite
• Eraserhead, dinner scene
• Festen
• Bela Tarr - film about banquet with homeless - https://www.eyefilm.nl/nl/programma/bela-tarr/125976
• Mika Rottenberg - food re-production
• Valie Export - internal performance
• Hito Steyerl - Fucking .mov file (invisibility)
• Yusron Fuadi, Skull
• Wanuri Kahiu, Pumzi
• Nelson Makengo, Theatre Urbain
• Pere Portabella 'El Sopar' (1974) - collective discussion, political action/activism, people meeting, preparing dinner, and eating
• Uncle Boonmee - haunting dinner party - Apichatpong
• Flux Gourmet, Peter Strickland
• Chris Marker, Sans soleil (using the VO as a way of creating another layer of character)

Meeting 01 - 25.05.22

• "The presentation of a text as a body of written work" / "a report on your research and practice"
• can flow to narrative flourishes
• balancing free jazz with analysis
• creating your own discourse, use the language of your discourse
• I: Aracde Project by Walter Banjamin, Uncreative Writing by Kennith Goldsmith
• Why not use time as a spatial procedure? The space of the text can represent time, and the text can be a pre-recorded narrated experience
• Therems: first person perspective; subjectivity; live action narration; slippage shapeshifting; remediation; body memory

Natasha Tutorials 02 - 24.11.22

• go into these personal areas
• use the thesis as a place
• 11th Dec - cooking interview - the host cooks - technical choices why did you go that route? - go deep with 3/4 interviewees / refine strategies - the subject could interview you too, spin the gaze - self-interview - both wearing body cams -
• SURVEILLANCE (Architecture, Body, Society) - Visibility, Hypervisibility - Who gets to walk around unnoticed?
• British Asian - Barnoo Kapil - 'the vertical interogation of strangers' - devised
• Mofrodat
• Analysing own work - best way to go deeper into the practice - connecting it to a wider context - the particular as a vehicle for the universal - Chris Kraus, autofiction - why does this theme come up? what techniques were used?
• 'The Years'
• Former theses - Filiona 'Indigenous Gaze' 2020
• bring the problems in the project - the uneases about claiming - the thesis can help with this unease -
• Plan for the First Chapter - outline the entire structure of the thesis / close reading of three works / just has to be a section / what to push against /
• send draft chapter

Natasha Tutorials 03 - 08.12.22

• Yael Davids - performance artist - potential interviewee
• morning of 21st send what you can
• close reading of relevant works 1000 words
• bare in mind other political genres of sci fi -
• share research strategies
• drawing on a wide range of media - ensure that it doesnt lose focus

Natasha Tutorials 04 - 21.12.22

GENERAL NOTES

• if diaspora, food and identity are themes, explain why. and if science fiction is the medium. why? why science fiction?
• more explicit explanation of framework
• it works when you take responsibility - speak from the position of I - Avoid dictating universal essay mode
• dont be afraid to acknowlegde the idiosyncracy of the project. explore your imaginative film langauge (not sci-fi); this fabulous language. How can I use and expand on this language for the essay film? The indiviudal can't help but be expressed in the work.
• the core content/knowledge of the thesis and project are already there - your relationship with diaspora/food/identity and your film language. The process is one of expanding this core, as opposed to finding more references and different lines of inquiry. Things that interest you (concepts, films, scripts) can then feed into this core of personal material.

STRUCTURE

1. 1 previous work - analysing explaing your language
2. 2 key themes (food diaspora identity) in response to this idiosyncratic language
3. 3 dogme - the practical principles that will guide the project, and the inspiration for these principles. draw out technical elements from previous films that could feed into the dogme
4. 4 close reading of existing shooting material, test footage,

READING LIST

• theory relating Derrida 'Of Hospitality'(interview, Algerian Jewish);
• Jewish fables;
• Isaac Bashevis Singer, short fiction stories;
• Isaac Babel (plays, film scripts)
• tutors are excited by the project and by what has already been filmed. Have faith in the practical choices and outcomes of the project.

Natasha Tutorials 05 - 13.01.23

• how are you going to expand the thesis with the notes youve made
• puzzle - collage - montage
• inventory of different elements - interviews timecodes, scripts excerpts, notes on reading, process journal minutae details, fantastical fiction, youtube clips
• to-do: let's see some process journal

Natasha Tutorials 06 - 26.01.23

• camera - good cinematic hybrid -
• using mixed media approach - also connects the three chapters thematically and content wise
• use Hungry Host as a core conceptual framework - keep bringing it back to these different themes
• intro - consider the 'hungry host' in a more concrete way - setting out for the reader the key to this experimental, exploratory process - lock it to the 'I'
• Parasitism - geneorosity of the host country; 'something for nothing',
• don't feel the need to blend everything so it's homogenous
• re-read: Carrier bag of Fiction (food, appetite, storytelling)
• food writing is good
• keep the journal stuff more journal - if it becomes too essayistic bring it out of the
• cooking and eating as labour / reproductive labour (feminism 70s) house
• keep track of the
• next step: introduction + contents page: fill it up some more

Paired reading tutorial - 09.02.23

form

• give the reader a compass in the intro to help navigate the experimental form of the text - consider adding thesis form section to main intro.
• well built-up nothing is missing
• vivid, visual, tangible examples
• somewhat heavy subject matter
• cite Digital Tarkovsky as an inspiration
• you're developing a compound eye - like an insect
• the 'hungry dogme' may not be necessary and perhaps is too thick and strict for the style

labour

• the "emotional balance sheet" could be carried through in later sections - the catharsis of the work being appreciated
• and what about feeding off the work of others? what does it give you to experience art?

the thesis question

• Q. How can I produce an experimental analysis of the key themes conjoined through the coinage 'hungry host'? The thesis as an answer to that

speak often in economic terms

• "reproductive labour" - an important concept to reference - the unpaid labour (e.g. domestic tasks) that grease the wheels of capitalism. Also a link to artistic labour - is it reproductive in generating entertainment and amusement for hungry spectators who have disposable income?

film references:

• the african desperate
• tampopo
• earwig
• the consequences (novel) Nina Weiers

Natasha tutorial - first draft thesis - 23.02.23

• titles - consider Hungry Host style
• zooming in/out - is working really well with first-person perspective
• intro - add a bit about how thesis relates to project, and the use of interview as a methodology
• conclusion - shapeshifting / hiding / revealing - being on the periphery or margins of your own story - finish with a journal entry, or simply leave it at the end of diaspora
• diaspora - Yael Batana - Israeli artist - sci-fi, hospitality
• Lottringer - publisher/academic - through translation introduced french post-structuralist text - semiotext - hidden child during the war - mother lived in Paris during occupation

Tutorials - 06.03.23 - PbP V06 (2023)

Sabine tutorial

• Choice of hoodie has certain connotations
• more contextual
• fine balance
• some sort of gesture of re-enactment could help connect the head scarfs - emphasise the visual embodiment of my ancestry
• opening anecdote - chewing - emphasis is on "the four years old" not on the "chewing chewing chewing" - need to place emphasis on the chewing
• mode of address - is their a difference between "the voice of god" and the "performative setup"? - there's a claim for everything topp be true - do you slip from the status of the voice -
• VO - is an alienating register - all the same intent and same time -
• the appropriation is concealed
• playing with the volume of the obscruity/appropriation -
• feeding off this cultural ancestry / its interesting to put this process in a "self-ironic" light / anti self-righteous, commodification of one's otherness,
• between search for authenticity/heritage but as a neoliberal subject - absorbing a social justice rhetoric into a fine art practice - capitalising on Otherness in the context of identity politics
• there's a liberating aspect
• the question of whether it is interesting is how much do you allow us to go along with those acknowledgements
• you get there when your voice has variation - what ifs - having this conversation
• you dont have to choose between authenticity/performativity - but be intentional with which register is being used.

Rosella tutorial - 06.03.23

• the subterrain is somewhat apocalyptic - self-isolating - hermit
• something going on the surface
• they are somehow not a part of civilisation - hiding - dystopian projected in the future
• question over the ambiguity
• flesh out the connections
• is this a visual poem or prose? do you need to flesh it out
• the language being used
• can we have a version with full explaination - you can always pull back to keep the poetic register
• bring it back to the basics - what do you want to tell?

Project Mentor

• I think you're better than cooking
• interested in the digital images - and the brutal naming of these people
• too much is being hidden - "crypto Jews" - hidden Jews in Amsterdam
• food - don't have the TOP shots
• play with the pre-conceptions you're aware of e.g. the mughal decoration of the data centre
• data - centre - treat it with the same gravity/majesty as the mosque
• data center - crypto Jews - cyber security - crypto trading - surveillance - omnipresent - all-seeing - underground

Steve Group Seminar Exhibition Text - 01.06.23

THESIS NOTES

• be careful when making it seem too curated
• acknowledge the overlap & celebrate the different

THEMES

• geography
• memories

What promise does your work make? (one sentence max) An auto-ethnographic enquiry into the Crytpo Jews of Mashhad, Judeo-Persians that were forced to practice in secret. To keep the dichotomy in the frame, victime/benefactor, host/parasite.

What question does it ask? (one sentence max) How does migrating to a different geographic context alter individual social status? When does a guest become a parasite?

SYNOPSIS The Crypto Jews of Mashhad were Judeo-Persians that were forced to practice in secret. Marginalised in Persian society, some migrated to Jerusalem, Palestine. Eventually, they came to enjoy a majority status as Jews - the guest became the host. The filmmaker integrates this inherited history and identity – victim/benefactor, host/parasite.

Genre: Documentary, Auto-Ethnography, Sci-Fi

THESIS EXCERPT Host/guest, insider/outsider - these dialectics are in me. I have been othering my Self, smoothing over inconsistencies. These oppositions are not mutually exclusive. I acknowledge the competing elements that compose my being. Before doing this research, ‘becoming’ was my method: becoming either host/parasite, insider/outsider, native/foreigner; playing a singular role. These are guises, characters, or masks that separate pieces of my identity into disparate performative entities. Instead, I propose one body, one being - me, I, self - which contains these contradictory elements. I am native/foreigner, imperialist/alien, host/parasite. I am hungry and full.

FIRST READER RESPONSE Overall, your essay is a very honest and extremely interesting response to both the conditions of diaspora and of finding oneself with the need to make expressive work addressing those experiences that might or might not find an “economic use” at a later stage. But I think through the development of your essay it becomes clear that the worth of such work is not only in its future exchange value but is rather work to become more integrated as a person (Using integration in a Jungian sense)

The diverse meanings of the word “integration” – the long popular application of the word to the politics of diaspora/immigration and the Jungian idea of a personal work to fully acknowledge the disparity and accept the conflicts of the ‘characters’ that act within you might form useful poles in the language you use in your essay.