Busy Times

 I am currently working on.

1. Building a climbing wall at Highfields adventure playground.

2. Shadow Play at both Adventure playgrounds working towards an event early April

3. We are our Stories project in Bristol with Jennifer

4. Treescapes project with Kate.

5. Festival of the Mind project with Clare.

6. Potential Calligari project.

7. I am writing a paper on Multi-modality and research-creation.  

I have finished all the projection jobs we had booked in and will finish the climbing wall next week but I haven't had any time to work on my PhD for a month.  When I return to it I am hoping that I will have a focus on preparing something to submit.  It isn't the first time I have hoped for this but it is as I said on here a couple of months ago- crunch time.  I am aiming for the October 3 rd deadline for submission. I am not sure how practical this is but if I kick the can forward again at this point I'm sure I will not be able to get the focus and the time I will need to finish things off.

In the short term though I have enjoyed been busy and doing project work - I've pushed myself past the COVID barrier.  I've justified a lot of this by telling myself I need to earn money as my bursary has ended; there is some truth in this.  After Christmas I did feel worried about my mental health, part of my subjective ecology was starting to vanish up my own anus.  I know I should of stitched it up with fishing line if I was going to actually make a Body without Organs. I am a victim of my own neglect.  I have had four breaks from writing over the past three years, this is the longest and I am hoping the return will be more productive.

Working on the shadow -puppet project has reminded me of the things that happen when you are not doing research.  The fantastic and miriad relations, stories and connections that are always meant too be blown away by the wind.  The edge of the platform, the frame for this work is grown and flows from relationships, the ethics are located and persoanl.  Calling work 'research' seems to be the problem.  I liked creating living knowledge as a concept and I like the Manifesto nature of Kerrys book yet there is still an element of capture. Like the wild animals that roam the countryside an enclosure, however expansive takes something away from what it is to be alive, as Deleuze would say the pure  immanence of a life. 

There is a scene in the fellowship of the ring where the Dwarves have built a giant underground city - Gandalf does not want to go there as they dug too greedily and to  deep and awakened something that should of been left sleeping.  This is the way of a proper PhD study, to dig too deep into the foundations of thought.  It is good for the hastily built dwellings to have their foundations questioned and shored up, it can be good for some of the buildings to fall down and make way for something new.  however like  the Dwarves of Khazad-dum it is important to recognise the dangers that can be unearthed when we dig below the surface. 

Again the fear of banality enters the equation, to return to been measured against a standard I hold in low regard yet the desire remains not to be found wanting.