Flux Without Pause

I had a mini epiphany yesterday in the barbers when while waiting for my haircut I was re-reading a chapter from the book critical pedagogy and race and the chapter “Postcolonial literature and the curricular imagination: Wilson Harris and the pedagogical implications of the carnivalesque.”

I was interested in a paragraph by Hommi Bhabha where he defines his use of the word “hybridity”

hybridity: (i) the process of bringing together multiple things to make something new, and (ii) the product of that process. Underlying these two elements is the fundamental role of power in the context of hybridity: these processes seem to be concerned with and mechanisms of challenging power, and the product(s) may represent a new form(s) of power.

I was also flicking back to chapter in the book “questions of third cinema” where it talks about Stuart Hall’s need for articulation when I when to the beginning of the chapter I noticed who for the first time who wrote the essay Hommi Bhabha. When I searched for more information about him online I saw his ideas about the third space.

The third space, that space where oppressed and oppressor are able to come together, free (maybe only momentarily) of oppression itself, embodied in their particularity.

The Third Space acts as an ambiguous area that develops when two or more individuals/cultures interact. It “challenges our sense of the historical identity of culture as a homogenizing, unifying force, authenticated by the originary past, kept alive in the national tradition of the People”.

This reminded me of an interview about temporary autonomous zone where the interviewer mentioned the common theme of the meeting of two people creates a third place which was followed by the quote by Michel Serres “whenever there are two…. Hermes arrives”. The trickster has been an important part of my project 5am as highlighted in an earlier post which documents my encounter with a yogi. My unexpected meeting with the yogi created a space which gave me a new perspective of my surroundings.

The trickster’s who’s milieu lies within the “hybridity of the boundaries” can be best described in the joker’s monolog in the dark knight and the Joseph Campbell description. The “hybridity of the boundaries” is an area for chaos. old forms are broken up into the potentiality of something new.

As I thought about this my ears zoomed into the conversation with the barber and his client talking about a news item about people jumping of the Orwell Bridge. The barber from a South American background said why would someone want to kill themselves as there is some much to live for in this world. The client from a European background then mentioned about it is a mental condition about even if you are seen as successful in material terms you can still be depressed. As I was listening to this I was reading how “the third place” is related to

“In community building, the third place (or third space) is the social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace.”

Free or inexpensive

Highly accessible

Involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there

Welcoming and comfortable

Both new friends and old should be found there.

I then realized that I was in a third place setting the Barbers listening to a hybridity of conversation.

Reflecting back on my invisible man videos I see now they were the act to open a door for “The Third Space” to cause chaos, opinion and whoever enters and leaves that space will come out of it altered for their next experience.

A hybrid genre of this kind say something about contemporary social problems, social contradictions: its politics are in its articulations, events articulation of inarticulate states of being- it has no quick solutions and may well have no immediate solutions at all. It offers challenge rather than solution in the first instance, and allow its audiences themselves to interpret its new spaces with relevant meanings of their own. It does not arrive delivering its meaning already fully-formed- rather it enables new meanings to be created and projected in dialogic encounters. -Robert J. C. Young

Power has to learn to tremble – Henry Giroux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7cUiERYeEE#t=4371…

Agent of Chaos – The dark knight

To explore why how this incident occurred I will use the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu theories of cultural capital and field theory.

Glossary of terms

Habitus – “A structuring structure, which organizes practices and the perception of practices. eg people

Doxa

“Universe of tacit presuppositions that organize action within the field” e.g university guidelines

Cultural capital –

For Bourdieu, cultural capital which is part of the habitus acts as a social relation within a social system of knowledge that confers power and status.

Displaying cultural capital can lead to benefits, such as gaining status or acceptance, therefore this can also transfer into social capital

Displaying cultural capital can bring rewards or incur costs, depending on the cultural/social situation.

http://youtu.be/FlWf6ejbBGw?t=13m22s

Symbolic capital – can be referred to as the resources available to an individual on the basis of honour, prestige or recognition, and serves as value that one holds within a culture- a well respected artist

The meeting of various habitus produces a social capital

So when applying those terms to the fourth video in no to £650 the social capital of my university environment was changed when the artist abused her position as someone with symbolic capital and the acceptances of the audience went against the doxa of the university guidelines.

My cultural capital came from being born in Birmingham and lived in living in London for many years so I know the artist would not of make those types of comments in those areas, so what does that say about Suffolk? If UCS want’s to attract people from different backgrounds they have got to provide a structure of diversity and equality

In a lecture talk professor Angela Davis talks about how word diversity is missed as an visible term more than a term of content which becomes a difference that doesn’t make a difference.

Angela Davis: How Does Change Happen?

http://youtu.be/Pc6RHtEbiOA?t=44m5s

My experience of the past few weeks has shown me that my diversity left unattended is a purely visible and nothing else.

When understanding Pierre Bourdieu theories of cultraul/social capital and field theory they reminded me of the theories that I was looking at for in the themes of walking before the Hambling incident took place like the Binomial which is the space of action between two forces coming towards each other. This term is used to describe the action scenes in a movie.

The theory of Jean Luc Godard of being the train going between the stations instead of being the station waiting for the train captures my 5am project by having a centre during the unsettling times of my surroundings the centre is still secure enough to understand the flux of change and to take action when needed.

When being in a state of alienation my project handled my the experince of understanding of in order to change mindsets old frameworks needed to be deconstructed and by doing that the social captial for the next students would be enchanced.

Pierre Bourdieu field theory explains my decision to use my studio space as an assessment for my final work. The biggest casualty of having this experience was that it derailed my ideas for my degree show plus over the 2 months because of the tension with the group my space was a very awkward place to being in almost like a scene of a crime where ideas have been killed. So I will be using police styled tape off my space, three strips will be used to capture the three boundaries that I have had to face in understanding my surroundings which are:

*The artist comments

*The reaction to the comments

*The failure of my environment to take this matter seriously

Pierre Bourdieu – An introduction

No to £650 consists of four vignettes that focuses on different types of invisibility.

1st vignette was created in 2012 inspired by the Ralph Ellison book ‘invisible man’

* 2nd vignette created after days attending the Maggie Hambling talk

The 3rd vignette was created after being asked to take down the video

This video captures the point of exploring the realms of censorship by video capturing the you tube ‘video does not exist anymore’ screen. Something that was once there and now has vanished creates mystery curiosity and intrigue with its traces still contains clues via the description boxes and possible comments of people who had seen the video. The silent fuzz of the screen captured the state of flux of my surroundings. My past ideas had been sent into the void by my experience and my forced work was being denied a voice to shout.

During this period I was still in a state of alienation further increased by people upset that video had been posted in the first place wanting to put this issue to bed without it being explored to its fullest. It was also a period where I was planning to make a video

The interesting was that I am making this work to make people who was in that room aware of their surroundings but the people who are upset with this video think it has been created to purely show that Hambling is racist and that were not responsible for their role in that conversation. So for me this was the angle that I’m finding more interesting by the day so the challenge was to make another video focusing on the crowd’s reaction.

The fourth vignette focused visually on everyone’s participation in the room where the event took place. In this video I was visible and the speakers and audience was invisible. The idea of making this video was capture how I felt without having the need to use the audio. To capture the feeling of laughter I used a laugher sign in the style of the TV studio recordings for a sitcom when people are told when and where to laugh when the sign lights up. To capture my reaction to the audio I used the three screen technique which I was planning to use for my walking videos

Feb post

For my last uni installation my aim is to look at using 3 screens to describe a narrative.

multiscreen can

*Open up the space of a screen

*Give incite into internal thoughts

* Can make the breaking the forth wall effect more dramatic

* Can give the viewer multiple views within one view

The visuals were created around the audio of the talk when the Hambling quote “slaves would be handy I wouldn’t mind a few and the following laughter place I wanted the camera to zoom into my ear to show the power and the effect that words bring.

The four separate vignettes were put together when I was contacted to take part in a debate about racism by the company the red room. They wanted to show some art work some I sent them all the films that I had created over the past month. It was during this time when I decided to create a petition that the funds from the Hambling painting should not be used because of the ethical weight of the frameworks over that time period. When I found out that there was going to be an debate about this issue 6 weeks after the original incident took place under the title of “are there any limits to free speech” then I felt that it needed outside voices to show how serious this matter was to my uni surroundings. In the petition I created a video calling it “No to £650”

April

Around the same time I found out that the exploding cinema, a coalition of film/video makers developing new modes of exhibition for underground media from DIY screenings, had chosen a film I had submitted months earlier for their April event at the Peckham. I told them about my situation at uni and asked them if I could show the no to £650 video instead and the agreed. it was fitting that this film was being shown at exploding cinema as they are self-funded and one of the reasons why they are is because they do not want to be compromised.

No to £650 -Project 5am

“I went from being an artist who makes things, to being an artist who makes things happen.” – Jeremy Deller.

“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something which is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?”

― Michel Foucault

“Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience”. – Paul Robeson

The last posts have come from the result of a 9 week period understanding and challenging an incident that took place on the 3rd of March.

I haven’t posted since the beginning of March because my work that I had been talking about in my previous posts had been derailed by weight of carrying this experience. My work had now turned into protest art not intended for a degree show but to question why a modern day cultural setting could respond to the comments said. The initial video that I had created inspired by the book invisible man was the beginning of a narrative where each response produced another question.

I have been continuing to re-valuate my thoughts on the whole matter over the past 2 months, from the sense of alienation to the actual comments and response made on the day, to the lack of support within the framework of my close surrounds, to the strength that I have found via the text of writers like Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux and Pierre Bourdieu whose words have given me a way to articulate and have shown me a clearer and larger incite of why like incidents like this occur and how ‘the strength of weak ties’ in power of social media can attempt to provide actions of a civic value. The most positive aspect has been seeing how some of my peers have started to question their own interdependence of the surroundings they are in via dialogue with fellow colleagues, friends or partners, which can only be a good thing because ‘awareness of other’ is key in the role of incidents like this not taking place in the future.

TAFTtalk – Henry Giroux

Richard Lister
Provost and Chief Executive
University Campus Suffolk
Waterfront Building
Neptune Quay
Ipswich, IP4 1QJ
02 May 2014

Dear Richard

Having met with one your students, Jason Haye, on 1 May 2014, I felt it important to write this
open letter to you on behalf of the Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality.

It is very disheartening to hear views such as those attributed to Maggi Hambling CBE at the
University Campus Suffolk event on March 24 2014.

Given her renown as an artist, she will have an enhanced influence over young people, and for
her to take such a cavalier and indifferent attitude to one of history’s great crimes, the legacies
of which remain with us today, is extremely disappointing. Equally concerning was the reaction
of the event attendees and the apparent lack of challenge to her views.

ISCRE is proud of the heartfelt yet creative response to the matter by Jason, who was present
and adversely affected by what was said; and hopes very much that his point of view will be
considered by those concerned. We are however, concerned that the UCS has been slow to
address his concerns following the incident and are anxious to know that you take the matter
seriously.

The Equality Act 2010 requires the University to actively investigate incidents of alleged
racism. It is important for people, especially those in positions of influence, to realise that
prejudice can have severe negative consequences for the people who experience it. Evidence
shows that individuals suffer from loss of confidence and their sense of worth and their ability
to perform at work or in their studies can be undermined. Prejudice locks people out of social
and economic opportunities, entrenching disadvantage and works against the goal of building
a fair, inclusive community.

We hope your decision will ensure that effective mechanisms are put in place to ensure that in
future concerns are addressed and students and staff do not feel powerless to challenge.

Kind regards

Phanuel Mutumburi
Business and Operations Director

http://www.iscre.org.uk/open-letter-to-the-univers…