Its time for the clocks to leap forward so I have just been in the cellar preparing the old sundial. I've started to swap them over every six months again as we have moved and our new house is closer to Abbeyfield park. I have decided that this is going to be my last blog post on MYPHD the accidentally clever title, it has to end somewhere. I spoke to Kate about it and she seemed to think it was a good idea, a transition from function to meaning or data to evidence or at the very least a publishing, the creation of an object with edges. This seems appropriate.
This drawing of the line of completion is very significant in that the whole of my PhD inquiry has evolved into an exploration of territory. This is close to the original concept of residency as method in that it expands on what a residency can be within its interactions with the world. At points I have thought of residency as assemblage but this pins it too closely to the Deleuzian flag pole. I need a more practical and empirical set of concepts to produce something relevant. The idea of territory has been present from the start and this Blog has afforded a line of flight across the assemblage of residency. The shift in thinking over the three years is a movement towards understanding process and flow better in relation to arts practice. It is a making sense of things that were on the edges of thought, not really moving them centrally but allowing them to fizz. Like Berocca tablet bubbling in the glass to help with the hangover sometime effervescence is the only thing that affords a cure, however temporary.
I had a text exchange with Kate who is keen to get me done and dusted she is been very helpful. She says
Start writing an introduction that explains
1) why did you want to do this thesis
2) who are you
3) what the playground means and
4) the problem in hand- how residency as method is both a proposition and a question.
These all seem like big questions and I am tempted to start to answer them here but as this is my last post I am required to sign off and open a new folder on my desktop called the final push and create a new word document. I am a reluctant academic and will attempt to finish what I have started.