It is a bit difficult to know what wt write now as I feel a little in limbo. I had my annual review last week and a spot check of the ethical process both shone a light on the world in the middle of a pandemic. I keep talking to sad people about the apparent smallness of the things we have had to give up on given the scale of everything else that is happening and that at times we just need to accept that some things are difficult to deal with even if they don't kill you.
My annual review went well but it took a bit out of me thinking what was actually happening and not just muddling through although even muddling through seems an achievement given the chaos of the last 4 months.
My ethical review went quite well to I hope. I was honest and open and I was reminded about how serious the process was and how seriously I took it at the time and take it now. I also think it got me thinking about the problems of getting informed consent at the playground and presenting the platform as a territory where we can explore loose parts play together has evolved as a very clear idea that will help define an space for research and also allow for some focused research activity with young people when covid lock-down has lifted.
I feel like I need a bit of a break - perhaps a long weekend to switch off - I have just been writing about building the platform as a way to get some thoughts down - here is a paragraph to act as a marker for when I'm looking back here. The last 3 entries on this blog were deliberately erratic as they were written in a slightly erratic period - I think things will settle down soon.
Friday 17th
The playground opened to a limited number
of children this afternoon. I worked out
I hadn’t left enough room for the tree to move and it was making a terrible
noise in wind – metal against bark. For
a moment the metaphor and the reality glowed with an abstract intensity heightened
by the obscurity of its origin. I had
made something that was rigid and fixed in concrete foundations marry with
something that was flexible, full of fibre and sap. I have watched tree bows move in the wind and
instructed by Ruskin in the elements of
drawing, attempted to capture in pencil the spaces between the bows rather than
the things themselves. I know enough of
trees to have not made this error of measurement. The noise amplified by the diaphragm of the
tin roof created an ugly screeching condensed into my ears. The obvious cause of the discord took a
while to recognize – I wonder if this is axiomatic – the clear and open cause
of something that remained unsure but present. I had given the static branch a
good 40 mm of clearance to allow for growth but not movement. In the moment of realizing my mistake, when I
un-ironically twigged what was going on I noticed a moment’s lag in the real
thing happening and its potential for entering into the space of writing. For an instance the actual thing was a thing
with meaning that was what I can only describe as pre-metaphor; a gasp, a
scream, a groan. Two materials and
thoughts animated by the wind causing a discord, meaning held in a moment
before entering a system of signs, all that it needs is the refrain and the
breeze on the face that preempts it enunciation. A non-human scream of two things forced to
work together where the closeness is painful and destructive to both things.
No comments:
Post a Comment