“Using PowerPoint, Artists Ask How Performative Presentations Shape Our Thinking,” Art in America (February 5, 2020)

“Using PowerPoint, Artists Ask How Performative Presentations Shape Our Thinking,” Art in America (February 5, 2020)
Undergraduate seminar-studio
Silicon Valley loves its âtools.â Tech critic Moira Weigel notes the frequency with which tech chiefs use the term, and she proposes that its popularity is largely attributable to its politics â or the lack thereof; tool talk, she says, encodes âa rejection of politics in favor of tinkering.â But humans have been using tools, to various political ends, for thousands of years. In this hybrid undergraduate seminar/studio we examine a range of tools, the work they allow us to do, they ways they script particular modes of labor and enact particular power relationships, and what they make possible in the world. After building up a critical vocabulary (of tools, gizmos, and gadgets), weâll tackle a number of case studies â from anvils, erasers, and sewing needles to algorithms and surveillance technologies. In our Monday sessions weâll study the weekâs case through critical and historical studies from anthropology, archaeology, media studies, science and technology studies, and related fields; and in our Wednesday sessions weâll explore that toolâs creative applications, either by studying the work of artists and creative practitioners, or by engaging in hands-on labs. Each student will develop a research-based âcritical manualâ for a tool of their choice.
I chose six interesting things for In Wild Air, a weekly newsletter out of Australia (September 18, 2017).
The sixth and final post in an epic, six-part series of lectures from my intro to graduate studies lecture course, which Iâm posting online in the hope that others will find them useful. [Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, Part 3 Here, Part 4 Here, Part 5 Here; the lectures are unedited — hence, you might be a bit confused by a few inexplicable notes and slides about administrative issues]. We started off by describing the premise of the class; then discussed how students could find their own position within the program and the field; then helped students map that field, appreciate its breadth and the various intellectual and create traditions it draws from; then talked about practical methods for maintaining oneâs orientation within the field and within oneâs own work; then discussed the various forms oneâs scholarship can take, ranging from traditional academic writing to more experimental writing forms, to âmultimodalâ scholarship and theoretically informed, research-based media production. Finally, we talk about the tools and methods we have access to to help us execute research projects in various forms.
6:00: Fabiola Berdiel re: GPIAâs International Field Programs
6:15: Peter Asaro, Principal Faculty Member, Media Studies
Readings for This Week:
[SLIDE 2] Agenda
[SLIDE 4] We have to consider: What are the TOOLS â both technological and methodological â that I need to do that work?
In creating our âshopping listâ of tools, we need to think back on all the different scales at which weâve worked throughout the semester.
[SLIDE 5] Work from both ends: Selection of ends and means, allegiance with particular methods and epistemologies, should mutually inform one another!
METHODOLOGY VS. METHODS
[SLIDE 6]
Whatâs out there to know? (Ontology) ==> What and how can we know about it? (Epistemology) ==> How can we go about acquiring knowledge? (Methodology) ==> What procedures can we use to acquire it? (Methods) ==> Sources (Which data can we collect?) (Hay 2002, p. 64)
[SLIDE 7] Epistemologies: Objectivism | Subjectivism | Constructivism
You neednât align yourself with one or the other â in fact, we could argue that this list is far from sufficient â What is âsignificant for graduate students to know about epistemology is that [CLICK] people claim different theories of what gets to count as knowledge and / that these differences have implications for inquiryâŚ. [Crotty] differentiates among them by defining the ways in which [CLICK] each epistemology conceptualizes the relation between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge.â (Gunzenhauser & Gerst-Pepin 332-3)
[SLIDE 8] âEpistemological diversity may lead to fragmentation, frustration, and confusion for graduate students, but appreciation for epistemological diversity greatly facilitates an understanding of why various forms of research seem so different from each other.â (Gunzenhauser & Gerstl-Pepin 333)
[SLIDE 9] Theoretical Perspectives
[SLIDE 10] Stated in âBackwardâ Direction â from Method to Theoretical Perspective: âInevitably, we bring a number of assumptions to our chosen methodology. We need, as best we can, to state what those assumptions are⌠How, then, do we take account of these assumptions and justify them? By expounding our theoretical perspective, that is, our view of the human world and social life within that world, wherein such assumptions are grounded.â (Crotty 7)
[SLIDE 11] Methodology: âWhat is called for here is not only a description of the methodology but also an account of the rationale it provides for the choice of methods and the particular forms in which the methods are employed.â (Crotty 7)
How many of you have taken a full-semester qualitative methods course? Quantitative?
EXAMPLES
[SLIDE 12] constructionism (knowledge constructed by learner, rather than merely transmitted) ==> symbolic interactionism (human interaction mediated by use of symbols) ==> ethnography (a âconstellationâ of methods â participant observation, interviews, etc., used to describe a people) => participant observation
âEthnographyâŚis a methodology. It is one of many particular research designs that guide a researcher in choosing methods and shape the use of the methods chosen. Symbolic interactionism…is a theoretical perspective that informs a range of methodologies, including some forms of ethnography. As a theoretical perspective, it is an approach to understanding and explaining society and the human world, and grounds a set of assumptions that symbolic interactionist researchers typically bring to their methodology of choice. Constructionism is an epistemology embodied in many theoretical perspectives, including symbolic interactionismâŚ. An epistemologyâŚis a way of understanding and explaining how we know what we know. What all this suggests is that symbolic interactionism, ethnography and constructionism need to be related to one another rather than merely set side by side as comparable.â (Crotty 3)
objectivism (belief that reality is mind-dependent) ==> positivism => survey research Ă statistical analysis
Students often donât recognize methodological implications of making positivist claims!
âEngaging with the epistemology of objectivism, for instance, enables students to understand the grounding of positivism,⌠important for students to understand that the use of probability statistics rests on the theory of falsification, the goal of which is not to prove a hypothesis but rather to reject the null hypothesis, with the logical implication that results may be correct, not that they are correct.â (Gunzenhauser & Gerstl-Pepin 333)
[SLIDE 13] Constructivism: âSignificant for students to understand what it may mean to claim that âknowledge is socially constructedâ⌠For example, [CLICK] constructionist researchers vary in how they consider the role of culture in the construction of meaning, and these variations oftenâŚlead to distinct methodological differences, with those interested in how meaning is constructed in social settings more often selecting [CLICK] ethnography, and those more interested in how individuals construct meaning (without the context of a setting or in multiple settings) more exclusively relying upon an [CLICK] open-ended interview design.â (Gunzenhauser & Gerstl-Pepin 334)
[SLIDE 14] LOOK MORE CLOSELY AT METHODS
Probably a good deal of redundancy â and even contradiction â in the texts you read (or skimmed!) for today. Thatâs because there are no good, comprehensive texts that address the diversity of methods that a praxis-based media studies addresses.
As we discovered on Day 2, Media Studies draws on a variety of fields, and thus a variety of methodological approaches â [SLIDE 15 + 16] Fletcherâs âProcedureâ Charts
[SLIDE 17] CRITICAL APPROACHES
[SLIDE 18] SPSS
From Lesson (Jensen): Distinctions of Qualitative Research
[SLIDE 21] Gray & Malins: Different ways of conceiving of âpracticeâ
Practice: disadvantage: âopen to criticisms of indulgence and over-subjectivity if not placed securely within the formal framework, and if lacking in methodological transparencyâ (105)
[SLIDE 22] Scrivener: What distinguishes âcreative projectâ from âpraxis-based researchâ or âmultimodal scholarshipâ â i.e., when âusing videoâ or âfield recordingsâ arenât just production techniques, but actually research methods?
Frayling/Scrivenerâs 3 Modes of Practice-Based Research:
Various ways of conceiving relationship btw theory and practice!!
[SLIDE 31] Gray & Malins speak of Leonardoâs âthinkingâ through sketches, his âappropriate use of mediaâ (94) â Choice of method reflects material consciousness
[SLIDE 32] Artists & Designers can benefit from applying more traditional qualitative (and even quantitative) research methods â but must also develop new methods that take advantage of âcurrent cultural contexts and technologiesâ (96), revamp/adapt existing methods for new uses (101)
[SLIDE 33] Using Media as Research Tools
[SLIDE 34] Tools as âknowledge objectifiedâ â tools as an embodiment of, or shaper of, consciousness
[SLIDE 35] Without thinking critically about the relationship between our chosen tools â cameras, recorders, software, etc. â and our methodologies and epistemologies, we might as well equate writing with âpushing pencil.â
[SLIDE 36] âThe enlightened way to use a machine is to judge its powers, fashion its uses, in light of our own limits rather than the machineâs potential. We should not compete against the machineâŚ. Against the claim of perfection we can assert our own individualityâ (Sennett 105).
[SLIDE 37] Recall what we said last week about the goals of Multimodal Scholarship: ââŚnot only to seek to understand and interrogate the cultural and social impact of new technologies, but to be engaged in driving the creation of new technologies, methodologies, and information systems, as well as in their dĂŠtournement (turnabout, derailment), reinvention, repurposing, via research questions grounded in the Arts and Humanities: questions of meaning, interpretation, history, subjectivity, and cultureâ (6)
No need to work with âoff-the-shelfâ methods!
[SLIDE 38] Weâve moved through todayâs class from the macro- to the hyper-micro â right down to the thoughtful choice of specific models of equipment that suit your methodological purpose
[SLIDE 39] Why bother studying methodology? Why not âjust sit down and work out for ourselves how we go about it?
In the end, that is precisely what we have to do. Yet a study of how other people have gone about the task of human inquiry serves us well and is surely indispensable. Attending to recognized research designs and their various theoretical underpinnings exercises a formative influence upon us. It awakens us to ways of research we would never otherwise have conceived of. It makes us much more aware of what is possible in research. [SLIDE 40] Even so, it is by no means a matter of plucking a methodology off the shelf. We acquaint ourselves with the various methodologies. We evaluate their presuppositions. We weight their strengths and weaknesses. Having done all that and more besides, we still have to forge a methodology that will meet our particular purposes in this research. One of the established methodologies may suit the task that confronts us. Or perhaps none of them do and we find ourselves drawing on several methodologies, molding them into a way of proceeding that achieves the outcomes we look to. Perhaps we need to be more inventive still and create a methodology that in many respects is quite new.â (Crotty 14)
âIn light of this epistemological and theoretical diversity, which expands with the proliferation of theory and method, graduate students have multiple options for positioning their own work. Students need facility with theoretical perspectives to engage prior research, synthesize it for their own understanding, and create methodological plans that serve their own projects.â (Gunzenhauser & Gerstl-Pepin 336)
Yet just as we aim not to fetishize our tools, we aim not to fetishize method
[SLIDE 41] âThe end of all method is to seem to have no method.â
        Just as we are against âgee-wizardry,â we have to resist âmethodolatryâ
[SLIDE 42] Mary Dalyâs (philosopher/theologian) Websterâs First Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language:
Methodolatry (n): common form of academic idolatry; glorification of the god Method; boxing knowledge into prefabricated fields, thereby hiding threads of connectedness, hindering New Discoveries, preventing the raising of New Questions, erasing ideas that do not fit into Respectable Categories of Questions and Answers (Daly 1987).
Sandra Bicknell, a researcher in museum studies, espouses methodological “pluralism”:
I have a feeling that there is a lot of this (methodolatry) about. There have been a number of attempts to categorize…methodology. This âboxingâ of methods is, in my view, isolationist. It suggests either/or scenarios.
[SLIDE 43] I use multiple methods to give greater rigor, reliability and depth to the work I do. Each element is designed both to test and to complement the findings of other elements. The different methods add layers of information but also provide a means of identifying inconsistencies and weaknesses. (Sarah Bicknell, âHere to Help: Evaluation and Effectivenessâ In Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Ed., Museum, Media, Message (Museum Meanings) (Routledge, 1999): 283-4).
So, in short: you needn’t be a methodological purist. The challenge is to find a complementary combination of methods — all appropriate for your research problem or project — that, together, provide for greater “rigor, reliability, and depth.”
[SLIDE 44] Clip from Course Guide re: when to take methods courses
[SLIDES 45-52]: Media Studies Methods
[SLIDES 53-54] Other Programsâ Methods Courses
REMEMBER WHAT WEâVE DONE THUS FAR
RECALL FROM FIRST LECTUREâŚ
Found an inspiring article published in 2003 by a group of graduate students; it appeared in Pedagogy, a journal distributed by Duke University Press â echoed requests from our OWN studentsâŚ
[SLIDE 58] NEED TO SURVEY THE FIELD BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO OPERATE WITHIN IT. AND THE STANDARD MEANS BY WHICH YOU PROCESS THAT SURVEY IS THE LITERATURE REVIEW / MEDIAGRAPHY
Youâve been building up to this â with Abstracts, which you then gather into an Annotated Bibliography â [SLIDE 59] The Literature Review is essentially a âprocessingâ of all the material you will have reviewed for the previous assignments. Youâre processing it for a purpose: to get a sense of what exists in your area of interest, to know whatâs already been done and what you can build upon.
Lit Review essentially âsets the stageâ for the work that you plan to do
[SLIDE 60] Serves Multiple Functions:
[SLIDE 61] Assignment on Ning
[SLIDE 62] REVIEW LIT REVIEW GUIDE (In Assignments section on NING)
Guest speakers have been asked to address the following:
[SLIDE 66]
[SLIDE 67] Must READ in order to be prepared to ask questions!
Should attend to all, even if theyâre not within your immediate realm of interest