This paper was presented at Open Fields 2010. It's about my movement in and around research spaces. It's composed of segments of things already written. It's about backtracking, returning, and finding traces. What I'm attempting to do, through collage, is weave a connection between my reading and writing practices. It’s also what Lefebvre might call ‘a process of metaphorization’ (1991). "As a reader, I insinuate myself into another person’s text the ruses of pleasure and appropriation. I poach on it, am transported into it, pluralized in it like the internal rumblings of my body. Ruse, metaphor, arrangement, this production is also an ‘invention of memory’" (Certeau 1988, xxi, text modified due to self-insertion).
Two years of postgraduate research, and the spaces I inhabit have broadened, shifted and tangled. I’ll walk you through some of these now, by reproducing a selection of words previously written in notepads, blogs, and research notes.
It’s in escaping my thesis that I find it. I walk away from it. I busy my hands with other things. My body moves away from my desk, the library, the computer. I enter swimming pools, trains, beds, streets, and books that my supervisor says I shouldn’t read. I connect with other people. We fuck, or we talk, or we drink. We make each other comfortable. Or not.
Last year I broke up with a partner of four years, fell out with a supervisor, moved house. This year I learnt how to knit. These things are related.
January 5 (2009)
So I pick up my copy of The Myth of Sisyphus and backtrack a few pages to recall the thread of where I'm up to. I discover these words underlined:
March 24 (2010) 13 months later
Dear Chris,
I’m riding the train to Wagga. I’ve sat in this seat for five hours. I’m happy. I’m reading, thinking, writing, knitting. Busy hands and thoughts. And thoughts of you. Aimee Mann’s Satellite brought me here, made me think to write you, before I realised why. My hands and eyes were knitting wool, together, I’m making a scarf. And a thesis. And memories of you. And then Bjork speaks of her heart, as a ball of yarn, unraveling. Like the ball at my ankles. But my heart is being mended, as my hands do their work. And their work allows a more relaxed pulse of thoughts, questions, wants. These days I return, often, to romantic spaces. I reflect upon touch, and my wanting, breathing body. My porousness. And I know you’d appreciate this. We’d talk of bodies if you were here now, pressed into the chair that holds my papers, and my leg. And you’d listen, too, to The Decemberists. And you’d feel the chords entering your chest. We’re about to stop in Cootamundra. Have you ever been there?
September 28 (2009) 6 months earlier
Supervision and me are incompatible. I make zines. And words. And things. And none of this needs supervision. Well it hasn't so far. And I don't care if it's judged to be no good. If it makes me feel good, then it's good.
November 16 (2009) 2 months later
I'm contemplating my role as the keeper of secrets. Another interview today. I'm excited and exhausted by this, depending upon how I think of ‘the interview’. When it's 'data' (which it is) it's exciting. It's rich. It's the flesh and bone of a thesis. I get pangs of excitement at points of discussion that shimmer, revealing themselves as something important to this thesis. But there's another side where I dig and unravel people's thoughts, words, feelings, and I'm exposed to some raw, fleshy material. And I feel an urge to apply bandage, to touch, to reassure. But I can't. And this makes me uneasy. I guess 'participants' may not want this anyway, and my distance may create a better environment for people to divulge things. But I divulge nothing, just take it all in.
March 2 (2010) 4 months later
Last night I took some self-portraits. When I uploaded the photos I deleted most of them, as is usual. But a few of them I liked. Looking at them gave me the impression of change. As though maybe I'm an adult now.
March 22 (2010) 20 days laterI've had some nice times over the last few days, forgetting the looming PhD cloud. But it always returns and brings feelings of guilt (for not working) and failure (for not being able to do this). It's the abusive partner that I can't shake, because some days, when I look at her, I think 'She's not so bad. We could make this work'. Yesterday I learnt how to knit. Last night (whilst knitting) Jessie and I spoke about playing tennis. In the background, The Smiths. At that moment I considered a life of knitting, playing tennis, and listening to The Smiths. A perfect life.
October 12 (2009) 5 months earlier
The first few laps of the pool were awakening. My arms pushed forward, then down through water, stretching along the length of my body. Pursed lips push air at a metered pace. Unconsciously counting. My legs move up and down in a gentle sway. My head points downward, moving sideways every three strokes, to take in air. My body expands itself beyond itself. Towards the end I'm feeling my shoulders, as though heavy and water-logged. I'm hearing my breath. I'm slowing down, but occasionally finding reserves of energy to push on. And I push on.
July 7 (2009) 3 months earlierWe were together for 4 years. 'Break-up' seems the wrong term to use. We're still friends. It was sad for a day or so, but now it's good. We like being friends. I guess our relationship (which continues despite 'breaking-up') has always been an exercise of transformation. And this is our 'friend' stage.
November 17 (2009) 4 months later
He says he's 'kind of seeing somebody'. Up until this disclosure the air was tense, the conversation stilted, and there was lots of pause in which to eat my strawberry crumble. I asked what he was doing for Xmas. He couldn't tell me. He questioned whether it was worth us meeting like this. I said probably not…
March 23 (2010) 4 months later
He comes to get me, shakes my hand, takes me to His chamber. I’m told I have depression. He did paraphrase it nicely with 'according to your survey results you have severe depression.' Ouch. Really? That's what the survey says anyway, which is what I said. And so here I am in a confessional zone. But I'm still cynical, so it's okay. And I'm not really here, for real, but as a tourist. I've read Foucault, I know how it goes. But regardless, those words caused some sort of ripple sensation. Though on one hand I felt that actually, this is good. 'Severe' is good. Take that director, supervisor, and panel chair! You've been hammering away at a severely depressed individual. How horrible you must be.
I shall meet Him again, in a few weeks time. He will sit before me and write more things behind his manila folder. And I'll wish that He was my supervisor.
March 25 (2010) 2 days later
This morning, in Wagga, I left the house to find the lake. I didn’t bring paper and pen or books because I thought the sun might burn. But I find table and chairs in the shade, and an impulse to write. So I walk back, get pen and paper, return to here. Backtracking, changing my mind, always the same. The PhD is a continual returning. A return to my honours project, a return to the starting point, a return to naming what I want to study, what I want to do.
I come with thesis. It comes with me. I am my thesis, despite what my counselor said. And I think that that’s okay. As long as I can love my thesis. Live with it, utilise it, enjoy it as though my own body. Because it is. And here I am, hunched over a concrete table, overlooking a lake, in Wagga, scratching another ode to thesis. This time last week I wanted to leave her, one foot out the door. A short ‘adios’, like in that film, and a quick, dispassionate exit. A break-up.
The temptation is to start again, to backtrack, but I need to trust the words I’ve got. I need to resist the temptation of a new beginning. Love, in the beginning, is more intense, transforming, splendid. The possibilities abound. Time stops. I’m arrested and fall victim to it. Swept away, until four years later, or two years later, when all that remains of that time, that beginning, are traces. And the comparison between then and now is always destructive. Nostalgia creeps in, strangles. Memory disrupts. Then I leave. Then I find a new space from which to begin again. A cyclic re-invention of my world. A child with a short span of attention (of love). The child needs discipline and a good dose of reality. ‘You can’t always get what you want.’
Maybe it’s not love, but friendship – a healthier metaphor, surely, for those of us not good at love. I’m good at friendship. Ours can be a sustaining, cumulative, ups and downs kind of friendship. Without pressure, or too much emotional theft, I can write my PhD like I write a friend.
July 7 (2009) 8 months earlier
According to Lyotard, narrative knowledge, which involves savoir-faire, knowing how to live, and knowing how to listen, operates beyond scientific knowledge. So scientific arguments for knowledge (in this case, young people's knowledge of sexual health) do not stick. Knowledge, as narrative, is about knowing how to get by in the cultures you exist in. And what better time to question knowledge than whilst ending a 4 year relationship. There's no evidence that this affair cannot last, and no measurable comparison to being in or out of the relationship. But there's a knowing of when to let go. A knowledge outside of certainty. A savoir-faire beyond the notion of risk.
May 5 (2009) 2 months earlier
At Newtown station the sun is shining, I walk the stairs, I put on my broken sunglasses. I walk Enmore Road, a well trodden path. But after 3 days away it feels like a ceremonial walk in which I reconnect to everyday life. It's like that first lap of swimming where you're feeling the water, finding coordination, rehearsing for the next lap.
January 18 (2010) 8 months later
One of my interviewees used the term 'reframe' which I keep thinking about. She was referring to a friend who had sex with another guy, only to be asked to leave immediately afterwards. For the friend, the sex was really enjoyable. But afterwards, in being kicked out of this guy's house, the experience was 're-framed' as something negative. He was left feeling bad/cheap/horrible. A common experience in sex that doesn't quite work. But interestingly, the act of sex itself, the precursor to the bad stuff, also becomes tainted. The experience is summed up, wholly, as negative, despite its earlier pleasures.
Asking people about their sexual experiences involves re-framing. Telling stories to a researcher, to a digital recorder, is a new framework for reflection. As is time. I lose count of the number of times interviewees ask 'does that make sense?'
April 25 (2010) 4 days ago
Does this paper make sense? Do I need to explicitly draw links between this anecdote of re-framing and my everyday practices, including research, but also love, writing, swimming, etc? That constant drift of experience. Research, like sex, love, or writing this paper, can turn sour despite pleasures generated.
May 20 (2009) 11 months earlier
In discussing the spectacle in today’s tutorial, I touched upon criticisms of the privilege of sight, that seeing is knowing and knowledge is obtained through observation. Debord was about 'doing', thrusting the self into the world, experiencing. And I think this is what I respond to. I want more doing, less contemplating. Though I guess there's no hard division between the two, that contemplation is a form of doing. But I guess the goal (my goal) is for more embodied experiences, and accumulating perspectives and understandings through more than just seeing.
Which takes me back to the last time I fucked. Where the collaboration of all my senses enhanced me. I exceeded myself through my body, beyond my body. I was transported through doing and being. There is no active or passive in a space such as this. I was doing sex and being sex. I was spectator and spectacle, but not at the exclusion of other sensory perceptions. I was tasted and I tasted. I was heard and I heard. Felt and felt. Speaking and spoken. I was folded into another whose hands were folded into mine. And the traces of his touch linger on me. In me. These are the moments where I don't need books.
January 13 (2010) 8 months later
‘Live and breathe your PhD’ was the advice my supervisor gave today. It seems like good advice. Our meeting was a wake up call. A necessary shove to get me going. She's mean and brutal, but I like her style. It’s like this is Fame (the TV show), she’s Sherwood, and I’m Leroy. I came here to dance, but her harsh persistence makes me learn to read. To read Foucault. And Foucault brings us together, in that space, despite our differences.
March 25 (2010) 2 months later
The notepad. The rhythm and pattern of words inked onto the page is what I’ve lacked. My hand writes messier than it used to. I’ve lost some of this rhythm. I was once more elegant. But I can sit by the lake, or in sunlight, or on the grass and build these sentences. A leaf falls on the page, connecting me to the trees, dirt, birds, chirping. Sounds overlap. Cars, joggers, and so many birds. And there’s light. There’s good light. And there’s much pausing in which I look around, take it in, and contemplate the next sentence.
Thinking of this morning’s email puts that knot back in my stomach. I should never have opened my inbox. Maybe I’d be working on my intro now if I’d not opened that black, shiny, book; the bringer of bad news. My computer would be well-placed at the bottom of this lake.
April 14 (2010) 2 weeks ago
Leave desk. Make coffee. Put items in the dishwasher. Open itunes and play David Bowie’s Rock’N’Roll Suicide very loudly. Fall into a nice place. Notice a man, downstairs, going through our rubbish bin.
26 March (2010) one month earlierReading Haraway on the train. 250 kilometres from home. Getting there. I’m thinking about anti-foundationalism. The denial of a beginning, a certain history, a pattern, and a now formulated by its previously. The cyborg is not innocent, not born in a garden. There is no genesis. Existence is playful and blasphemous. There’s no birth (or re-birth), only regeneration. It’s a liberation from history. A denial, a challenge, and a divorce from father. Or the proprietary name, the limitation of being someone’s. The denial of God and Mother. Anything is possible.
February 8 (2010) 7 weeks earlier
Last week's swimming was intense. Each time, within the first 6 laps, I had what might be an anxiety attack. It's like something shatters and I'm not really sure where I stand, what I'm doing, or whether I'm capable of situating myself anywhere (in the PhD, but also the world). It's quite terrifying. When it happened on Tuesday I wanted to get out of the pool and run away. I wanted to flee everything. But I kept swimming, and I'm glad I did. It seems a necessary hurdle to jump because afterwards, the swim is calm, soothing, and I regain some sense of control. The madness is warded off, once again. I can continue my Sisyphean journey of swimming laps, writing words, walking streets.
27 November (2009) 3 months earlier. Interview field notes
It was a stupid idea to go to the park. There was lots of pausing for planes passing overhead, and interruption from dogs, and at one point, a dog owner picking up their dog’s shit next to us. Then there was the sun, from which I’m now burnt. Then there were the two occasions in which the recorder, being wedged between two rungs of the park bench, fell from its position and stopped.
Towards the end we’re sitting under a tree, back in the shade, and an unpleasant odour wafts by. It smelt like compost or urine. I felt the urge to wrap things up so I could move away. It transports me to yesterday, on the bus, reading about smell as unmediated experience.
When finished, we stay seated on the grass for what might be an hour. He’s curious about me now, and how I would answer those questions. So I ask him what he wants to know. I answer his questions. I wonder if I should’ve left the recorder on. Would I make good data?
March 26 (2010) 4 months later
My scarf grows longer. And now it changes colour. I cast on my wool purchased in Wagga. Knitting Wagga into my future winter warmth. I did much knitting (and talking) on that chair by the pool. Anna commented upon its growth. She was impressed that I could talk and knit, together. But talking makes it easier to find a rhythm. Words, and hands, together; as though I’m writing.
April 30 (2009) 1 year ago
Working with theory is strange like that. I feel as though I need a decade to swim in what I want to familiarise myself with, engage in, utilise, build upon. But there is no decade. There is no time. There is work and more work. There's relationships and birthdays and sickness. There’s sex with my boss and the ensuing emotional blackmail. And a host of other factors that I must contend with on any given day. And maybe to lock myself away from this will make me unable to write anyway, for I will have nothing to grapple with.
