A vine branches wildly...

This year in CLMOOC (Connected Learning MOOC) I have been tagging along with the doodling in July and August.

What I like about it is the low stress challenge of regularly creating some sort of artistic image which is shared with others in the community.

In past editions I have taken time to explore digital image manipulation applications or digital drawing/painting applications.

This year I started concentrating on finding the limits of what I could draw with my fingers on an iPhone and then playing digitally with resulting output.

Generally speaking such "creations" are very fast. A few seconds or a few minutes of scribbling on a screen and then I share.

Speed in a sense was of essence...

Then I got fed up with the facility of it all.

If, actually drawing on a small screen with a finger isn't that easy - it's fiddly, it's quick to get effect.

I got fed up of fiddling and then swiping and clicking.

If "connected", it felt like I was disconnected from the world around.

Is that what being in jail feels...I wonder.

Are we being fiddled for effect?

Quick sale...long retraction...

Clearing out the cellar

We were clearing out the cellar.

I came across an old artist's box which was falling to bits and covered with dust. I repaired it's warped veneer, sharpened a couple of ancient pencils, tried to soften up the paint brushes, inspected the pastels, looked wistfully at the child's watercolor set and sat down in the garden to draw a vine.

That vine attracted me on a number of levels: its form, its colour, its texture, its history, its rootedness.

A vine branches wildly.

I got taken up in the intricacy of the vine's winding, I found myself drawing and redrawing its elipses, eyeing up its angles, and got altogether wound up in how the vine had grown.

It doesn't look much of a drawing but I spent a fair old time in communion with that familiar yet unfamiliar plant.

I could have photographed it in an instant and ignored it.



I would have had no relationship with it to talk about.

I realise what I have been missing in recent times.

I had serious longterm relationships with trees, rocks and mountains.

I would lose myself exploring their textures with my fingers.

We had history.

That beaten up artist's box...

I would lose myself for hours drawing on scraps of paper, smudging the charcoal, the pastels, the pencil shading.

Art, I feel, is an intimate relationship with one's surroundings, with one's fellow beings.

Finally it's only when one really loses oneself a good while that one may find oneself.

I came back and redrew the shape of the trunk (does one say trunk for a vine?) out of pleasure for its form.

I came back and started a close study of its offshoots, its cracks, its cut and tutored branches.

After a few minutes the heat of the sun forced me to seek shade.

Sun-lounger, feeling the heat...

I turned my attention to a turquoise cushion and orange towel on a sun lounger.

It was the colour which got me, the colour and the light, then the cushioning.

The child's watercolour set was set awash with wet brush.

I rediscovered the care one must take with the flow of water, gravity, pigment intensity.

I rediscovered the joy of scribble, shade, smudge, time, taking time.

Whilst the digital gives me rapid effect, the old artist's box brings me affect.

I feel my breath, a little breeze behind me and I pause for thought.

Touched by vines, cushions, sun on my back, my daughter sitting over there on a sofa, I am given time to contemplate....

From clicks to contemplation.

Pretty Vacant.

I  have been fringelurking #dlrn15 twitter streams and Vconnecting sessions.

I wasn't able to access the live streams, not sure what I missed.






I listen to people introduce themselves:

I'm a learning designer/consultant.
I'm a doctoral student.
I'm a post doctoral student.
I'm a hyper post doctoral fellow. etc

I'm not a doctoral anything, I'm just curious.

I feel, at times, like a gate-crasher.

I am not marginal. I am me.


Being me, I am marginal.

I remember when I was invited by a flatmate to a Jewish society evening in Manchester.

The others kept assuming that I was Jewish.

I wasn't from Stanmore, Golders Green, I wasn't Jewish. 

Why was I there?

They were confused.

I felt sorry for them, it wasn't their fault, it was mine.

Inclusion was impossible.

I suppose that I might have converted...

There are moments when I have the distinct impression that I inhabit a different planet.

I went to my friend's thesis defence last week.

He was talking about teaching classes of 80 students in Cameroon to speak French.

He had to pay out of his own pocket for his students to have access to the computer lab so that he could do his research in order to present his thesis.

The French/Swiss jury's refined questioning was possible only as a result of their privileged contexts.

As I said to a friend sitting next to me:

"If you are starving you don't concern yourself with how you want your steak cooked." 

We stood up to hear the jury's verdict.

He had made it, he was pronounced doctor.

There were tears in his eyes.

I felt like I was in church.

I never felt comfortable in church.

I don't care about robes and hymn books.
 

There are moments when I have the distinct impression that I inhabit a different planet.

It is not just an impression.

Enrobed learning.

If I embarked in research, it was to help me change things.

It helped us change things.

It gave us sufficient recognition/seriousness/validation/permission to give us the space to change things.

Somebody said "education is broken".

Was education ever not broken?

Two hoots..

Many of the teachers around me do not care two hoots for change.

Many of the researchers around me do not care two hoots for change.

Many of students around me do not care two hoots for change.

They appear pretty vacant.

Pretty Vacant

There's no point in asking, you'll get no reply
Oh just remember I don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
You'll always find us out to lunch

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
A vacant

Don't ask us to attend 'cos we're not all there
Oh don't pretend 'cos I don't care
I don't believe illusions 'cos too much is real
So stop you're cheap comment 'cos we know what we feel

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant ah
But now and we don't care

There's no point in asking you'll get no reply
Oh just remember a don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
You'll always find me out to lunch
We're out on lunch

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty ah
But now and we don't care

We're pretty
A pretty vacant
We're pretty
A pretty vacant
We're pretty
A pretty vacant
We're pretty
A pretty vacant

And we don't care

Lyrics. Sex Pistols.

I listened to people talk about the weather, enjoying dinner, agency and stuff.

I wondered why I was listening.

I wondered if  my time wouldn't be better spent talking with kids around me...

They, at least, might benefit from my care.

Book-keeping.

He leant over to the box to pick up another one.

So engrossed was he in his task, that he hardly registered the cold of the early morning.

He picked up the paperback.



He turned it around in his fingers, squinting for its title in the pale street-light.

Where should he cataglogue this book?

• Should it be classified in fiction or non-fiction?

• Should it be classified by size?

• Should it be classified by binding?

• Should it be classified by author?

• Should it be classified under 'T' for 'The'?

• Should it be classified under 'B' for 'Book' and the 'T' for 'The' ignored?

The growing list of questions felt ever more menacing.

The passing time, measured with each breath,  was wearing him down.

Where should he put the book?
Where should he put the book?

As his anxiety reached an unbearable level, he felt himself making another unsatisfactory choice.

No it woudn't stay in the 'T''s.

No that wouldn't be the right choice.

He resolved himself to another provisional placement.

He would come back to the question later.

He would find another one which would be easier to catalogue.

He looked over at the heap of books in the box.

He looked down at the neat lines of books on the grass.

Birds were beginning to wake to the first glimmers of dawn.

He had had no time to think about getting dressed; clothes in the circumstances had seemed to him superfluous.

He had gathered together his most precious belongings.

These were the only things which were of comfort to him.

He was there....sat, hunched over on the ground, quite naked, only a few feet from the railings.

There he was....

He was a castaway, washed up, one night on a traffic island.

He could only focus on the essentials now.

He reached over for another book.

The rest would have to wait.[1]

.

Image credits

The Library at Krotona, 2014

The Current Sea

http://thecurrentseala.tumblr.com/post/85128418799/the-library-at-krotona-the-current-sea-2014


Footnotes


[1]. This post arose on reading: I. Gilchrist "The Master and his Emissary" which I quote here:

"The systematic categorising process of the left hemisphere can sometimes begin to have a life of its own..."

"'Punding' (a form of stereotypy [2]) - the mechanical and repetitive assembling and disassembling of machines, collecting and categorising of inanimate objects, such as torches, TV's, stones, boxes, and so on."

[2] Stereotypy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypy

In animals.

Stereotypies also occur in non-human animals. It is considered an abnormal behavior and is sometimes seen in captive animals, particularly those held in small enclosures with little opportunity to engage in more normal behaviors. These behaviors may be maladaptive, involving self-injury or reduced reproductive success, and in laboratory animals can confound behavioral research.^[15] Examples of stereotypical behaviors include pacing, rocking, swimming in circles, excessive sleeping, self-mutilation (including feather picking and excessive grooming), and mouthing cage bars. Stereotypies are seen in many species, including primates, birds, and carnivores. Up to 40% of elephants in zoos display stereotypical behaviors.^[16] Stereotypies are well known in stabled horses, usually developing as a result of being confined, particularly with insufficient exercise. They are colloquially called stable vices. They present a management issue, not only leading to facility damage from chewing, kicking, and repetitive motion, but also lead to health consequences for the animal if not addressed.^[17]

Stereotypical behaviors are thought to be caused ultimately by artificial environments that do not allow animals to satisfy their normal behavioral needs. Rather than refer to the behavior as abnormal, it has been suggested that it be described as "behavior indicative of an abnormal environment."^[18] Stereotypies are correlated with altered behavioral response selection in the basal ganglia.^[15] As stereotypies are frequently viewed as a sign of psychological distress in animals, there is also an animal welfare issue involved."

This reminds me of an earlier post concerning sensory deprivation:

Zootopia?