Showing papers in "Journal of Writing in Creative Practice in 2011"

Revealing the elusive obvious: making sense of creative practice through reflection and writing out

Abstract: This article draws on the idea of the elusive obvious as a useful way of examining how creative arts practitioners can make sense of their practice through expressive writing. Defining the elusive obvious as that ethereal aspect of creative arts practice that is often palpable to the practitioner but equally hard to pin down within the creative process, the article argues that expressive writing enables the creative practitioner to engage with their practice in insightful ways that integrate theoretical insights and help to reveal the elusive obvious, which in turn gives life to what is being explored. It examines ways in which expressive writing could be used to facilitate practitioners' experience of their creative practice and facilitate a better appreciation of the interconnectedness of practice (doing) and theory (critical reflection and analysis) in the creative arts. The article draws on discussions on practice as research to highlight the distinction between 'writing out' and 'writing up'; where 'writing out' calls attention to the idea of 'searching' within the creative process, while 'writing up' is firmly located in the recording and documentation phase of that practice. It argues that it is within this process of 'writing out' - of searching - that the elusive obvious can be revealed. The article also illustrates how reflective practice/writing can be understood through drama. It examines how reflective practice/writing can often lead to 'eureka' moments when, by personalizing their practice within the creative working environment, practitioners suddenly discover the elusive obvious. Through the ideas explored in this article, we invite a consideration of how expressive writing can act as a vehicle through which meaning could be found. This article argues, therefore, that expressive writing is not an end in itself, but is exploratory and transient in nature, and a rich terrain for the elusive obvious to be revealed.

…ha perdut la veu: Some reflections on the composition of e-literature as a minor literature

Abstract: This article is an extended version of a paper I gave at Kingston University as an invited speaker at the 'From Page to Screen to Augmented Reality' Conference in July 2010. The paper begins from a discussion of a digital text work of my own, entitled …ha perdut la veu. This is a bilingual text work in English and Catalan, and was first shown at the E-poetry conference at the University of Barcelona, May 2009. The text is drawn partly from the translation into Catalan of one of my early children’s novels, La Freda ha perdut la veu. (Alfreda Abbot's Lost Voice OUP), hence the title of the piece. The English text is taken from a translation of Deleuze and Guattari’s Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature. Translation is being used here for its explanatory force in relation to both digital text and performance writing. The paper has two objectives. The first is to give a clear example of the way in which practice and theory, or rather practice-as-research, can exist as a symbiotic relationship – each benefiting and illuminating the other. The second is to propose and map out an area of potential further research into the discursive positioning of electronic literature/digital writing within Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minorisation as articulated by Jean-Jacques Lecercle in his book, Deleuze and Style. The conference itself was organised by Dr Maria Mencia and the keynote was given by Jay David Bolter, Wesley Chair of New Media and a professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author among other things of Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, a highly influential critical text of electronic literature.

Practice, theory and reflection: an examination of writing in performance training and research

Abstract: This article focuses on my own practice and experience of teaching in the performing arts to examine how reflection could be used as a tool for facilitating learning in a way that does not construct practice and theory as distinct or opposing binaries. In it I argue that the superficial nature of the boundary between practice and theory often traps creative and performing arts students in a mindset that militates against critical and analytic writing as they struggle to make connections between their studio practice and wider theoretical contexts. Consequently, the article draws primarily on Maziar Raein's argument for a 'cohesive framework for knowledge' that recognizes the inter-relatedness of theory and practice in knowledge formation to argue that practice and theory operate along a continuum of knowledge. The article equally considers Paul Kleiman's argument about the centrality of the creative process in bridging the perceived gap between practice and theory within the creative and performing arts. Finally, I discuss the use of 'reflective breaks' in my teaching on the performing arts programme at Swansea Metropolitan University as a way of deconstructing the artificial boundaries between practice and theory.

From the page to the screen to augmented reality: new modes of language-driven technology-mediated research

Abstract: On 12 July 2010 a group of artists, poets, writers, researchers and academics met up at Kingston University for a roundtable discussion convened by myself, Maria Mencia. Sitting around the tabl were Professor Jay David Bolter, director of the Wesley New Media Center and Wesley Chair of New Media at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr Serge Bouchardon (University of Technology of Compiegne, FR); Dr Scott Rettberg (Digital Cuture – UiB); Dr Maria Engberg (Blekinge Technical Institute, SWE); Talan Memmott (Blekinge Technical Institute, SWE); Dr Zuzana Husarova (Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia); Dr Laura Borras Castanyer (University of Barcelona SP); Kate Pullinger (De Montfort University, UK); Jorg Piringer (Independent, Austria); Dr Alexandra Saemmer (Paris 8-FR); Dr Thiresia Spilioti (Kingston University, UK); Dr Korina Giaxoglou (Kingston University, UK); Jerome Fletcher (University College Falmouth, UK); Prof. Martin Rieser (Institute of Creative Technologies and The Faculty of Art and Design at De Montfort, UK); Fiona Curran (Kingston University, UK); Judith Watts (Kingston University, UK) and Dr Maria Mencia (Kingston University, UK). There are a number of reasons why I wanted to organize this event. First, I wanted to use this workshop as a preliminary meeting in order to develop a ‘language-driven technology-mediated’ collaborative research practice, inviting scholars, writers, theoreticians and creative practitioners from Kingston University and other European universities to discuss the relevance of new technologies in the creation of language-mediated practice, viewing language in a very broad way using different modes: image-sound-text. Second, although most of the work presented at the roundtable is part of the curriculum at various universities, the mainstream literary institutions and traditional social sciences departments at universities are still not aware of the work produced in electronic literary and artistic practices. Thus, I thought this could offer an opportunity to gather together and to initiate a dialogue between writers, theoreticians and creative practitioners coming from a more print-based background, but who might also be considering the use of new technologies in their research practice, as well as international researchers who have migrated from more traditional print-based research practices to multimedial and interdisciplinary research methods that make use of computers, networks and mobile technologies. This would help to identify areas of overlap between different research practices, such as traditional humanities, practice-led new media research projects, and multimedial and interdisciplinary research methods, which make use of computers, mobile technologies and networks platforms. (M.Mencia)