Category Archives: Humanities and Social Sciences

Arts Week 2017: The contemporary: an exhibition

This post was contributed by Hafsa AlKhudairi, a student on Birkbeck’s MA Contemporary Literature and Culture

The exhibition featured multiple pieces that could be defined as both art pieces and theses.

My contemporary: student videos

During the autumn of 2016, the students of the MA Contemporary Literature and Culture were asked to create a short video that expresses their experience of the contemporary. Magdalena Sałata’s response, called “Reading (The Contemporary)”, literally shows the books that created her contemporary reading experience. My response, called “Fandom in The Contemporary” shows all the different ways people express their love to shows, books, movies, and comics. Annapurna Barry’s submission is the experience of an audience watching Rachel Maclean’s ‘Wot U 🙂 About’, expressing an enjoyment and an interaction with subversive and modern art. Nourhan Souk’s “Week 11” explores Peter Boxall’s statement in Twenty-First-Century Fiction: A Critical introduction (2013): “When we look backwards out of a speeding car, the place we are occupying at any given time is a simple, lateral blur, which resolves itself into a picture only when we have left it behind, as it fades into the distance” (1-2). Finally, Samatha Bifolco’s contribution is both an observation about how the hairdressing industry has become creative and innovative using the stylings of the common street factions and turning it into a trend for the masses, commenting on humanity’s affinity to remix trends.

Remote action and reaction

Using a virtual reality headset and an iPhone, war becomes an entertainment and a game, yet this technology is used to train military personnel before they are shipped. For the bystander, it is just an interesting experience into a new type of gaming or a new way of exploring life. However, the exhibit highlights this new technology use in the military, bringing forth criticism towards remote warfare that desensitizes military personnel from the tragedy of war and the loss of human life, but at the same time helps save those who train in a safe environment before being thrust into war.

The expansion of narrative in the digital age by Hope Dinsey

Hope Dinsey breaks down their topic into print media’s reaction to digital, digital media and new fiction formats, fandom and changes to the narrative environment. This exhibit relates the changes in narration to the existence of the internet, for it created a more varied approach. The exhibit demonstrates how print media responded by becoming more creative and innovative in their physical books. Moreover, there was a rise of digital literature after the internet such as interactive fiction and hypertext fiction, presented with an original story by Dinsey. Lastly, the global existence of fan culture became accessible and was perpetuated by the reorientation of the canon in a creative and mostly inclusive manner.

Ghosts of the future: ruination and (re)creation by Daniel Pateman

Daniel Pateman created a multimedia exhibit that shows a video that shows the ruins of a past life and re-created scenes that could have happened in these sites of ruination. It shows the contemporary’s obsession with scenes of the past as a means of exploration of the futility of life and the speed in which things can change from prosperity to devastation. It’s also a reflection of not just physical dissolution, but a mental one too because of the desolate political landscape. However, the exhibit didn’t focus solely on the video; it was accompanied with images and poetry that explores the idea of ruination as well as display different stages of ruination, bring the theme to life.

It’s a Fairy Tale! by Aefifa Razzaq

The current political climate is filled with stories about the American government and children are listening to these stories. As a teacher, Aefifa Razzaq, felt compelled to confront the topic and explain how despite the overarching belief that we have become completely progressive and united, Donald Trump was still elected president with his racist, bigoted, and misogynistic opinions. What was created out of that was a bunch of students expressing their opinions on how influential he is in terms of his aptitude in swaying people’s opinion towards his view. The outcome was a book filled with quotes from past presidents stylized by one of Razzaq’s students.

Arts Week 2017: A look into “the everyday life of digital humanities”

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As universities are transformed by the constant presence of digital technology, there is a need to look at how this modifies higher education practices. Lesley Gourlay, from the UCL Institute of Higher Education, has studied the phenomenon of the “digital university” from a post-human perspective and, on Monday 15 May, presented some insights from her work. Her talk was followed by a panel discussion featuring Grace Halden (Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck) and Tim Markham (Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck) who gave their own perspectives on the topic.

Theory: the post-human perspective on digital pedagogy

How should we go about studying digitalized pedagogical practices? Instead of unthinkingly placing the human at the centre of these technologies, Lesley’s post-human theoretical background challenges such naturalized perspectives. Lesley uses the work of Katherine Hayles (2012) to move towards a notion of extended mind, where the clear binaries between user and device are undermined. Lesley’s talk could in fact be given as an example of this extension of the human, and the movement towards the post-human. While Lesley was an engaging speaker, her talk was also made possible thanks to a presentation that included audio-visual elements from her research. The presentation functioned as an extension of her self, giving new context and meaning to the words she uttered.

Observing theory in pedagogic practice

The status quo of materiality within universities has changed. Lesley posits that the way to understand these changes is by rendering unseen practices visible and watching them unfold. Lesley’s research looks into what students actually do when engaged in independent study, revealing materiality as a dynamic process. Multimodal journaling records the ways in which students negotiate the boundaries between print and digital. This negotiation is personal but depends heavily on the settings, which are far from neutral. In the same way, materiality is not neutral to students. Some express a preference for markers, pens, and paper: they need the physical experience. Others prefer digital and go to great lengths (microwaving a book to separate the pages and digitalize them!) to obtain the material in the format they feel best suits their learning.

Through her research, Lesley brings Latour’s theory of the agentive importance of artefacts to life. Objects are mediators: they change the meanings they’re meant to carry. Recognizing this is necessary for studying the effect of digital objects in contemporary academic practice. Lesley’s presentation, in sum, sought to undermine certain binaries such as user/device as well as the ideal of neutral channels and stable human authorship and agency.

Multiple perspectives on technology’s multiple impacts

After Lesley’s presentation, Grace and Tim offered their own views on the impact of digital technology in academia. Grace adopted a practitioner’s perspective, as she questioned whether a traditional written essay continued to be the ideal assessment in an age that, as Lesley had described, was deeply multi-modal. Meanwhile, Tim discussed notions of education and identity, arguing that seemingly banal technologies such as departmental e-mail were constitutive of the community’s identity, and needed to be part of any understanding of technology’s impact. A rich discussion also took place during the Q&A segment, with topics ranging from the paperless office to the role of Wikipedia in research.

Today, it seems positions on the effect of digital technology in education often fall into either excessive pessimism or excessive optimism. The other speakers at this event shed light on what Lesley termed the “messy in-betweenness”, where richer insights can be found. In terms of the magnitude of impact, too, there is a need to get at this middle space. It is disingenuous to think digital text is only another neutral form of communication. On the other hand, it is unwarranted to predict a total transformation of learning practices where bookshops and lecture rooms disappear, and everything happens through MOOCs. Ultimately, this event illustrated the myriad ways in which the impact of digital technology on learning may be understood: ‘digital’ encompasses so many different technologies and practices that it does not make sense to talk about impact in sweeping terms in the first place.

Valentina Salvatierra is a writer and reader currently living in London. She is interested in literary theory, comparative literature, and speculative fiction.

Arts Week 2017: Andy Smith dematerialising theatre

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An Oak Tree

Evening. The room is white and hung with a lighting rig, the lights are not switched on. There is wine and jaffa cakes coming to room temperature at the back. The performances of Andy Smith are often performed in a space very similar to this. Daragh Carville has just introduced Andy Smith to a room of students, performers and academics.

Andy Smith

Find simple questions, if you just let them hang in the air a little bit/

The entrance of a late arrival interrupts the thought. Andy Smith, who is not a professional actor, has been told that he does not do theatre. Whatever others may say about what it is that Andy Smith does, or indeed does not do, he is completely clear.

Andy Smith I’m the first audience.

Andy Smith is the ultimate collaborator-facilitator. Whether that is as part of his ongoing work with Tim Crouch or in his own productions, which he hesitatingly refers to as solo work, Andy Smith makes it clear that the audience is very much an active element in his process.

Andy Smith

I can think of millions of examples of theatre where things are taken away. Can anybody give me an example of a theatre that hasn’t got an audience?

The audience remains silent.

Andy Smith

It is inside the audience where the dilemma or the ideas happen. You are what is making this.

It is this logic that informed the dematerialised theatre.

Andy Smith

I’m aesthetically interested in doing more with less.

The act of being present with one another is enough to make theatre.

Andy Smith

I step away up here to make more space for you there. Inviting the audience and making a suggestion about something. Theatre happens inside an audience.

Andy Smith finds that the acknowledgement that theatre is occurring demands recognising, using and manipulating traditions and forms in order to make it real, tangible. Storytelling is central to all of Andy Smith’s work.

Andy Smith

It’s not a very fashionable thing to say but I’m ok with that.

Andy Smith makes the presentation into a piece of theatre. To demonstrate this he brings up a willing volunteer (the writer of this piece) to perform a dialogue that accompanies the artwork ‘An Oak Tree’, the piece that inspired the play ‘An Oak Tree’. In giving his definition of his vision of theatre, dematerialised, an academic forum would be the best form.

Blackout

Jonathan Parr is studying jointly at Birkbeck and RADA on the Text and Performance MA

Arts Week 2017: Speaking in Brogues

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This post was contributed by Hafsa Al-Khudairi, a student on Birkbeck’s MA Contemporary Literature and Culture

Marina Warner opens the event with the definition of a brogue. It is a type of shoe that her father gave her mother, which is popular in England and a symbol of the start of their life in the country. The other meaning is a rustic accent that accompanies rural areas. Though Warner specifically emphasized that it should not be a pejorative word, but an expression of beauty and strength. Brogues at university level is the language people interact with and use to create an environment of integration.

Social Constructions and Burdens in Language:

Maria Aristodemou, who is interested in law, psychoanalysis and society, starts by exploring how alienating language can be for both foreigners and for the native speaker. Humans animals are limited by their use of language to express their desires for not all their wants can be expressed in this manner and they have no other means to do so. This makes all humans immigrants in the house language as even the native speaker has to learn from childhood how to use the language, so they are “doomed” by their restrictions. However, language is also built through a socially-constructed idea of identity that holds the historical and societal desires and expectations.

Language is about Sharing:

Mattia Gallotti, who is working on a project called The Human Mind, where he explores the differences between people of different disciplines, explores the idea that language is about sharing. Specifically sharing minds because it is what philosophers think discussions produce. Sharing minds is most effective when it is produced from sharing stories. There is a power in sharing because it produces difference and power. The more people exchange stories through language, the more they can change the world they live in and empower themselves and others. For him, this helps people create their own sense of self, including identity and culture, wherever they go, producing the feeling of a collective ‘we’.

Photography is a Bridge between Two Languages:

Rut Blees Luxemburg, who is a photographer, used her creative photographs to explore the idea of bridging the gap between the English and the German language. She explored themes of connecting marginality with water, the divine, culture, and poetic meanings. Water is related to how she remembers rivers that can connect places and transfer languages beyond the confines of the arbitrary lines that separate countries. Hence, Brogues is a reference to the ground and the soil, which is an attachment to a nation, but it is a sense of home through language, beyond the actual boundaries of the actual home.

The event ended with a Q&A about identity, the term ‘we’, personality, and strangers in a strange land, and their intersection with language. Identity was clarified as an unappeasable fantasy, but identification is real. Then, how many people associate ‘we’ with negative connotations, however, it does have positive communitive connotations as well. The conversation turned towards personalities and strangers. It was concluded that knowing multiple languages helps create patterns of personalities based on a person’s association with the language. Also, the romance of being a stranger is a privilege for the difference in language capabilities and accents helps categorize people into other beings and it can be detrimental to the sense of belonging. Still knowing different languages can help people communicate and sense a feeling of comradery when people find someone who understands them beyond grammar and syntax.