Jujube/thesis-index

Proposal

Final: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17f8B3_IX4SmDIgM4GAb3n6-JAGGVsB6zSEMUwA72DLw/edit#

Older drafts: jujube/thesis-drafts

Feedback on Proposal (27/11 skype with Natasha)

In my case, the aim of the proposal is to turn it into an introduction (for the delivery in mid-December). Introduction is an invitation that intrigues the readers. It can (probably should) be consistent with the personal tone. It sets the scope, the questions I want to answer, and the rationale of the methodology chosen. (I have no trouble doing these in an academic essay. So the challenge of writing right now is to do so personally, openly, critically.)

"Obliqueness can serve purpose in poetry." But probably not here.

Find a personal way to phrase the statement.

Documentation of Practice =>> Notes from Production. In my head there is a hierarchy of questions. There is the overarching questions (the lukewarm ones whose specificity I have not voiced!) and there are the more concrete questions that I raise for myself before/during the shoot — questioning the way I create an image, how I refine it, how I introduce, construct and convey meaning, how I test them. These are the trial-and-error for me.

There is some crossover between Notes from Production and Critical Reflection <- Does this become a way of flattening the vertical hierarchy of the questions/way of inquiring? Do I previledge one sort of questions over another? Something to be said about how devising methods in film shoots and answering the concrete questions is satisfying! Perhaps that's what research is!

- The chronology of my practice: writing precedes filmmaking - complexity of the dialogue of these two

- I write to think through

- Image (stills from the film and others) as structure for the thesis: re-examine the photo book index idea?

- Memoir: set a place and time for the reader| Read some more experimental memoir

- Unpack ideas (no need to cut things out rn)

- When you talk about Mulvey, also talk about the films you see (include ALL the materials - do not previledge one over the other)

- Does the text from architecture/geography come back? (Maybe, maybe not, it's part of the scope...write to find out!)

- Criticality is not necessarily academic speak. Read Hito Steryl again.

Natasha asks the questions about scope. "All my inquiries are based on the voice/drive from within," I said. Our discussion turns out to be a way for me to soften, to let go of certain ideas, to get to the essence of what my practice is. A life thesis. Right now, I observe, the questions I put in the proposal seem "lukewarm" — I should talk about empathy v. catharsis. I should ask myself what are the questions I dare not ask.

Statement

I have been in search of form, just like I have been in search of home. My practice, once armored with sureness and didacticism, has shed its skin. I look into this new bareness. I see its core. There — weathered, softened, illuminated — the longing to tell stories.

Stories of love, loss and redemption, says the host of the podcast Modern Love. I wonder how many of us stumble across the wasteland of correctness waiting to be moved, understood, waiting for a smile and to smile ourselves. Waiting, wanting. I want to tell stories of the heart: how it aches, weeps, heals, hopes, with its sentience, its sorrow, its wounded kisses. I want to tell them as deeply and sincerely as I can, with as much humility and compassion as I uphold. I have written with images. I have spoken without words.

I have become a filmmaker.

Texts

jujube/thesis-memoir

jujube/thesis-practice

jujube/thesis-critical-reflection

Keywords

Memoir

memory-image, exile, diaspora, loss

Practice

grief, self-understanding, longing, loneliness, care, ritual

Reflection

narrativity of image, affect evoked by memory, aesthetics as bond (between the self and others)

References

jujube/thesis-references