In tackling the second unit of the course I am trying to be more systematic. A recurring problem I am finding is knowing when to stop thinking and searching and start closing or clarifying a point so that the answer in the TMA is concise and has some conclusion. I'm aware that I am not alone in this feeling but it is interesting to note that is relates back to defining a boundary in both time and concept and sticking to it.
I am now following advise from the student help pages and starting with the TMA and working backwards. As a video interview noted, this seems somehow against the openness required in embracing new knowledge but it serves its purpose for me now. To sit down to relatively open-ended task to 'learn something' today versus sitting down to recruit information, exercises, explanations that will serve me in answering the TMA is more motivating. I need something to grasp onto in uncertainty.
We need something to grasp onto in uncertainty.
In reading a fascinating article about DNA and grasshoppers and locusts I was reminded that sometimes the simple explanation wins out as its is the simple option.
http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/why-its-time-to-lay-the-selfish-gene-to-rest/ retrieved 9th Dec
Yes I should use Harvard references...its so complex its and obstacle to my progress.
The article stunned me by saying locusts and grasshoppers are not part of the same species they are the same animal that undergoes rapid adaptation in times of food scarcity and in which the DNA manual for life as one of the other has not changed but 'gets read differently'. It goes on to be more complex than this and honestly eight paragraphs later I was quite lost. By my intution says to me, 'yes, this, this is truth because its relatable, complex, poetic'.( I would need much longer to explain the validity of that sentence.) Basically complexity is unpopular as it can inhibit progress and progress is a primary buzzword in the lexicon of modern civilisation.
I am also finding it difficult to identify a system of interest in my work. I noticed reading about the sticky tape drama in the Study Guide that it was manageable. I can relate the that at work. However I felt do I really want to direct a unit of this valuable OU study to a manageable task on a scale with organising a stationary order when there could be world peace to solve. Whilst I openly acknowledge not only can not one person solve world peace, its won't be me as my systemic practice is still so vague and as issues goes I'm not best placed to understand. What is important is when do we feel that alignment that the scale of problems is worth taking on, that we have the power to influence it and that we are motivated to explore it and take action.
A further issue to finding a system of interest is that I conceptualise systems interventions as involving people and find it hard to imagine a system investigation into my technical practice for example.
In thinking about applying the idea of efficiency, and often what we are aiming for in business is efficiency, I find myself in that cold hard goal orientated territory that I tried to avoid by working in the arts. I remember feeling a point was being missed in Parkour being all about efficient movement. I am fine with efficiency when it about being more elegant ( I by that I mean elegant in design and organisation rather than aesthetically pretty) but I'm a bit allergic to it in relation to progress and shortening time.
As a person I am always in a rush and 'out of time'. I am taken out of the moment by the desire to make the most of the moment. I don't like rhetoric about making the most, or milking something. Ethically its seems greedy. Yet I think in this paradigm every day and I lose touch with life. When I slow down life is better
How long does a movement take? Forsythe asked?
How can we create systems that function well, in the way ecosystems function elegantly?
How can we serve a true expression of the nature of each entity?
This is a question for me for choreography. How can we choreograph to reflect life and not put a series of themed activities together in the way cheap design programmes create a 'colourway' and paint a room a series of hues with 'accent' cushions. EUURGH.Formulaic.
When I relate to choreographic processes I recall endlessly the rehearsal days when we may have started with a plan but that a divergence is made at some point when something fresh, interesting or useful arises regardless of when the show needs to be made by. The idea of saying thats your lot, stick the choreography in where it belongs and work on the next bit is unthinkable. It also suggests that there is a system of choreography and whilst there may be methods choreography does not seem to be able to be intervened with or altered in the way you could seem to with an organisation productivity or an institutions meeting procedure ( my current area of interest).
My feeling is that it would be a very interesting more philosophical line of inquiry to use making dance work a systems of interest.
My final thought from recent days was; in organising oneself, in study, in life, productively yet responsively and mindfully am I defining a system of interest by my awareness or by my goals?.
For example I have chosen to work the TMA backward this time and study with a goal. This can seem 'unethical' or limiting. By I choose this because I am aware, I accept and make a choice to define my system of interest in studying as looking for the answers rather than racing through the open pursuit or knowledge section questioning will I run out of time to do the directed part?. As I will be organised by this either directly or discretely either way. The former way it was organising me was via a fear that you shouldn't let it organise you!
and the second is accepting that it does and being in reality.
Final point, in scanning the book I noticed a section on emotion. Feel good I was already thinking about that without prompting during the last post and it may be encorporated. (corp, body another physical root/route).
.....and do you have to be systematic to be systemic?
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