I have started the new year. I've persuaded Kate to start the process of writing an ESRI book called undisciplined. The idea came from the fact that we seem to struggle choosing a prefix for work that flows across disciplines be it inter, extra, cross, between or multi. In the bath I just decided that the problem wasn't the prefix or the difference between a hyphen and a backslash the problem was with the word discipline as it suggests something with edges and stringent rules to follow.
In the ESRI book we would all write chapters that generated a field of ideas an actual Deleuzian active assemblage within a plane of immanence. As I still feel an outsider my gut tells me that this would be a good thing to do especially as could recognise the moment which we are clearly living in. I liked this idea as I think it might give everyone a slightly tilted or slant genre to work within and if done well it could be the kind of book I would find helpful in making sense of things without having to go back to Kant.
I finished my piece of writing about research creation on Friday. I went through Massumi and Mannings 19 proposition for research creation one by one. In the book Thought in the Act the propositions emerge from thoughts and experiences from actual projects. I find it refreshing to see these complex ideas pulled through the dirt of the world. Most of them do not come up smelling of roses but without this worlding they would just feel like random abstract statements. It took me a while to write this document and I'm hoping it's a move forward. Two good things happened firstly I stopped doing performative writing to make it look and read like a PhD, or what I thought a PhD should read like. Secondly although I don't think its sloppy writing I think I allowed myself more words to say things. I will spend tomorrow on the document and check it makes sense and is referenced properly. My feeling is if an interested person were to read it closely they would learn something real about research creation which was the point of writing it.
I also spent some time on a book chapter I'm writing with Kate. I think we have got somewhere interesting but at the moment it feels like an impasse, like Brexit negotiations where the writing needs some kind of backstop in the Irish sea. It will be interesting to see what grows out of this work. I can feel a strong link to my literature review where I somehow square the circle of all the reading I've being doing. Talking of which I'm not getting on very well with anti-Oedipus, only managing about 5 pages a day, I may need to give up for a bit and murder my father and sleep with my mother instead.
We decorated the front room and hung some new pictures. Kim asked me if we had any string. I wasn't sure what she needed and asked her what kind of string she wanted. She said 'normal string' to which I said I have some waxed jute twine that might work. I am not sure if Kim thought I was taking the piss although she does know her string and twines possibly as well as anyone.
I told this story to Tim in the cemetery about the idea that there is a standard or a normal in terms of thought or string. The assumption that there is normal string isn't the same as thinking there is a normal person, neuro and bodily typical or a normal way to think though it does make a point. Asking for a ball of normal string isn't like asking that an applicant for a job should be normal. In research though there does seem to be an idea that there are practices and processes that are normal and these are constructed with a scientific worldview that aspires for the acceptance of a singular truth. I am worried that in this time of Covid we will look for the normal string of science to tie up the threadbare ends of our lives. It's useful, it solves so many problems, most of the time we don't have time to consider the merits of less popular strings. The hemp, the double braided twines, the cotton imported from India. As they say in mouse hunt 'a world without string is chaos'. I have rambled about string for long enough - here is the art we hung with it
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