Objects speak volumes

"I Love David" book by Harry Malt video by The Selby from the selby on Vimeo.

Invitation to controversy

I just received the following invitation from Alex Cuncev, who has diligently been creating METHODSPACE, a web resource for researchers which includes ten discussion groups, including ones for narrative research and performative social science.

I was wondering whether you would be interested in posting a controversy topic on a blog or as a part of a discussion group? The site is due to open to the public next week and having interesting topics might help to get more researchers with similar interests involved in discussion. Also a debate generated by you would contribute to raising the site’s academic profile.
Once again thank you for being involved!
Best wishes,
Alex Cuncev

My response follows:

Dear Alex,

Thanks for your invitation to controversy (I think). I am not one to seek controversy, but it does follow me from time to time.

A few questions that I have been pondering lately (arising from encounters, experiences, etc working with PSS):

1. Are we willing to dwell in ‘not knowing’? Really dwell, and not jump to comfortable conclusions (or, heaven forbid, superimpose predetermined theoretical frameworks on all of human existence!)
2. Are we able to accept several truths, even layers of truth? Is our take on 'the truth' more important than community and its needs and responses to us and our efforts?
3. Is it possible to become a more ethical person, rather than more astute at defending our ethics?
4. Are we secure enough in our own abilities to allow ourselves (and our work) to be influenced, even changed, by the thoughts and talents of others outside of our own comfort zone and discipline?
5. If a film, or piece of music or dance or opera is able to move me and profoundly effect me, why shouldn't my research do the same for others? Is this possible? What are we waiting for, then?
6. When was the last time we laughed at ourselves?

Cheers,
kip

To join METHODSPACE click on the link and sign up

From the Street to the Museum

Shepard Fairey, who for years was an artist whose work was seen primarily on streets, now has his first museum retrospective, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Mr. Fairey may be best known for his Obama Hope poster.

Photo: Courtesy of Obey Giant Art

Related: Slideshow

• Article: Can a Rebel Stay a Rebel Without the Claws?
  
• NY Times Topic: Shepard Fairey

The New Hard Times

Create Your Own Video

Interview relatives or friends who remember the Great Depression and ask them how that crisis relates to the current recession.

"Beyond Text: relations of dialogue, parody and contestation"

"Beyond Text: relations of dialogue, parody and contestation" from Kip Jones on Vimeo.

In "Beyond Text: relations of dialogue, parody and contestation", Trevor Hearing and I discuss the making of the video, "Day Dreams, Night Games" and begin to establish our on-going collaboration around concepts such as 'beyond text' and what this means in a visual platform. We are particularly interested in the 'talking head' in documentary filmmaking, how this may be a visual representation of 'text' and how we might move beyond it.

NEAR 125TH STREET

By STEPHANIE DE ROUGE

My photographic adventure in New York was born from a mistake. I came to New York to live permanently two years ago. I was 30 and had spent most of my life in Paris. But I had seen and heard so much about New York that I felt overwhelmed even before setting foot in the city.

As a photographer, I needed a camera to help me meet and understand the city. I bought an old-fashioned manual-winding box camera for $9 and tried it on South Second Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I was living.

I didn’t know what I was doing when I was making those pictures, and I didn’t really think about it until I went into the darkroom and saw the messy but amazing results. All the images overlapped one onto the next, creating weird shapes and complex layers, and revealing more about my new neighborhood than a thousand words.

That was when I understood that this approach, results of which can be viewed at www.stephaniederouge.com, would become my way of communicating with the city.

My first project was to walk up Broadway all the way from Wall Street to the Bronx — a journey of nearly 15 miles that I made over three days — shooting pictures as I walked. Following this one strand of Manhattan, I understood that the city’s unique energy is fed from the many people of varied backgrounds who live here and mix in harmony, all pursuing their own dreams.

The shooting experience was magical, the developing of the film even more. To this day, that camera is still my exclusive tool for photographing New York.

Richard Renaldi "Fall River Boys" interview

Richard Renaldi at Jackson Fine Art from Art Relish on Vimeo.

I discovered the photographs of Richard Renaldi on the Internet while creating a CD-ROM on lifelong learning for the Department for Education and Skills (UK). I invited Richard to include his photographs in our project because his pictures of individuals have a powerful ability to reach the viewer by visually representing the personality in front of the lens. Later, I discovered his Fall River Boys series on his website and was struck by the capacity of this body of black and white photographs to tell a story.

Madama Butterfly at the Met

Cristina Gallardo-Domas as Cio-Cio-San, with her puppet son

in Anthony Minghella's Madama Butterfly, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

Anthony Minghella put together a remarkable team for the Met's production of Madama Butterfly: set designer Michael Levine, costume designer Han Feng, puppeteers from London's Blind Summit Puppet Theatre, and Minghella's wife, choreographer Carolyn Choa. Most of them are newcomers to opera.

Nick Barnes and Mark Down of Blind Summit Puppet Theatre with a Madama Butterfly puppet "understudy." (Real Player only)

BBC iPlayer of Met broadcast

"Day Dreams, Night Games"

Produced by Trevor Hearing and Kip Jones. "Day Dreams, Night Games" documents the Centre for Qualitative Research's biennial conference held in September, 2008 at Bournemouth University.