#questions
In process. Exploring ways of untesting is for me about blurring the line between the straightforward and counterproductive. There are always questions we find odd, unrelated or predicative of a standard reply. I started taking questions out of their context and made them overlap. Likewise an unstandardising of questions by rephrasing and altering takes them out of an administered frame.
Being aware of and intentionally operating outside the professional set up I shifted verbal structures to undo a closed or open question, redirected the purpose or phrased them ambiguously. Leaving knowledge tests aside, what is a question’s impact if we don’t know what to reply or are unsure of an answer? Is it a matter of being irritated, of guessing, ignoring or possibly challenging ourselves?
Along this processing I arrived at a set of questions that hover between the straightforward and counterproductive. They will appear on walls, left there to get noticed at some point. As for me, I do not need to obtain the physical outcome; a typed, written or spoken answer from the audience. Rather, I suggest to eye-catch the questions while passing by or pausing to reread and think off what might be a “good” answer if there is any. [chapter on answers to follow]
Tests, tests, tests. From formal assessments for health, care, school etc. and top of the list work, to personality tests to daily life quizzes – we are being constantly assessed and increasingly fascinated to question-testing ourselves. Institutional tests considered as mandatory and frequent quality gates programming us from early on. Their set up is administered and decisions on the test takers are based on scoring of answers.
Nevertheless, at our leisure we increasingly opt for self-reporting of personal information to compare or entertain ourselves or seeking more serious answers for our self-concept. According to social comparison theory (Festinger 1954) we are looking for self-evaluation in comparing ourselves to others. Looking at the test takers their expectation and anxiety levels push for a self-testing in prospect of new personal insight. The drive for reassurance of who we are (or in fact, think we are) forms part of the ongoing test taking agenda.
Also, there is a common underlying anxiety when being confronted with questions related to tests, tentatively negative. Not only is our knowledge or understanding on test; it considerably alludes to the personal and our self-concept.
However, standardised tests gain their power from uniformity including standardised questions and effective answering mechanisms. So to start with, I have been looking into familiar test formats and situations, the nature of questions placed and array of corresponding response patterns. Whether interview, paper based questionnaire or online quiz there is both trust in the professional administered process and doubt of its guarantee.
Comparing the way questions appear across areas I became interested in processing by un-testing and unstandardising.
This blog forms part of “Test taking: every, never, none” –a new project and one-day show where I investigate some aspects of being continuously assessed and the fascination of question-testing ourselves. Mainly, I will be looking at questions, responses and instructions associated with tests. Injecting a layer of humour my considerations and work will manoeuvre between the straightforward and counterproductive, the insignificant and relevant.
The set up for this show starts with VERB – a series of independent site-responsive art projects led by artist Kathryn Miller. Like her project series 12HRS : MEET, CREATE & DISCUSS where I met Kathryn last year, UP ON THE 5TH FLOOR launched at the beginning of 2014 and provides artists a pop-up event space to develop and showcase work. The events are situated within a former office space on the 5th floor of the Co-Operative’s Federation House in central Manchester – the recently launched flagship of Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces scheme.
My first site visit back in May was a packed day of being shown around and familiarising myself with the space to show and navigating up and down floors. In the afternoon I had the chance to pop in to the C-Pages artist crits up at TOAST (6th floor) – an CG Associate and Extra Special People artists exchange between Manchester and Birmingham that explored dialogue and connections through creative activity on site. I also met Mark from Mark Devereux Projects for a stimulating conversation. He runs an artist production-development organisation established to help increase profiles of national and international early-career visual artists concentrated on critical engagement and promotion.
Back UP ON THE 5TH FLOOR. Discussing my interests, initial ideas and plans with Kathryn led towards this new project and show. Over the next weeks this blog will document my line of enquiry.
