Post-tutorial (you all know I love my 'posts'!)

So - had my tutorial with Geraint yesterday. Although it wasn't overly helpful in terms of my practical work (there been a distinct lack of my own practical work and all at the moment) talking to someone really helped me to pin point what it is that I am concerned with.

I have been skirting around issues of documentation, technology and embodiment all term.  I really think that what I'm concerned with is liveness and how time presents itself. I'm really interested in the temporality that is inherent in live performance, as well as its ephemeral nature. I think that I have been suspicious of media and technology because I see them not only as artificial but I haven't understood how they relate to the documentation of time and how that impacts on the body. They are kind of removed from how I see time, they are not happening in the here and now, they are presented in a medium that can be fixed and therefore doctored, this automatically makes me trust the content less (especially because I am the kind of person that will trust a visceral experience above anything else)

 Now I am beginning to see how examining the nature of media and technology in relation to time and the body can be investigated performatively...yeah, that's it really - I'm happy about that! Still learning how to use certain technologies but am beginning to plan a series of experiments for next term when we have more time!

*Yey*

My Potential Focus for the Year

I'm still trying to decided what I should be focusing on this year. Every time I think that I've taken a step forward I stop and question myself...it's driving me up the wall, so I have decided that I am going to make a plan and sick to it.

I have been torn between wanting to look at the effects of media and technology on live performance and the body, and looking at the female body in relation to sex and feminist theory. Now I am beginning to see that the two are actually (or can be) linked. The main link being that I can situate my body within both and both affect how I make and contextualise my work.

Feminist theory has turned out to be a real passion of mine but I hate talking about it because I find it hard to articulate how I view or use it, however, if I am thinking of working more on feminist theory I guess I should work that out! I find materialist feminist theory is how I understand things, it allows me to be able to decode the construction of performances and look at systems at work in popular culture.

The main problem that I have with feminist theory is that I think a lot of it is outdated. I don't feel like we have really moved away from the 'second sighting of women' when we really should have done. I still like the tenets of the theory and find them useful, but find how they are applied in many cases infuriating. I would really like to be able to take the tenets of material feminist theory and turn it into something more androgynous...if possible!?! 

I have been worried that if I move down this route then my theory will take over again. After looking at the handbook I realised that my research has to be reflected in my practical work and now feel a bit restricted. I don't know how to make work that isn't reflected or overtly informed by theory, especially when i have such a passion for it, but don't want my practical work to be as dry as it was.

Maybe I would be better off on the research route rather than the professional practice route? I have been thinking that maybe I am a theorist not a practitioner...I can't seem to see myself as both (as I would like to be).