Pinpointing the project

I spent all yesterday desperately trying to pinpoint what I am trying to do with this work and how best to represent it in a scratch.

So far I have been really enjoying myself, having tea and chatting with some people around London, but that big 'so what' keeps cropping up for me. I have needed to think about moving the project on and to do that I need to understand exactly where my interest lies to push that aspect further. 

As I mentioned in a previous post Kira O'Reilly suggested that I try and embody people's stories by telling them as my own to see how it feels. This didn't work as it felt so awful to have lied to someone when they were really open and truthful with me. When discussing this problem in the VLP forum last week Doug made a really good suggestion that I simply frame it differently. If I don't pretend that I am telling the truth about me then it is not as deceitful. As I have previously mentioned, I was really looking forward to embodying different ages, classes, races and genders. Doug suggested that I make this a little more explicit in the same way that Tim Crouch does and state "I am a 40 year old man" - this will instantly allow the participant to know that the story is not my own. 

So, back to the 'so what'! Why do I feel compelled to want to do this so much? Yesterday Rich suggested a book for me by Grant Kester. I have actually been reading an essay by Kester in a different book but Rich's suggestion made me go back and pick it up again yesterday. Rereading the text I began to pick up on the theme of empathy and once again remembered my tutorial with Kira. It is what happens whilst relating to someone that interests me, how you tell stories to understand and how you have to have empathy to relate to someone's story.  I think that the following quote is the best summation of what I am aiming to do with my project,

"Rather than entering into communicative exchange with the goal of representing "self" through the advancement of already formed opinions and judgements , a connected knowledge is grounded in our capacity to identify with other people. It is through empathy that we learn literally to redefine self: to both know and feel our connectedness with others."

(G. Kester: Conversation Pieces The role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art 1998)

Rather than representing my own opinions and beliefs in this project I think that I want to find a way to physically represent how I understand the exchanges, and maybe how the participants have understood the project. Maybe by telling the stories as my own this will enable me to see a way in. 

I have also been thinking a lot about the 'Emancipated Spectator' by Ranciere. It is a text that I am now using a lot in my dissertation - I am only just getting to grips with the bloody thing! Anyways, I have been thinking a lot about ways of knowing, community and difference. The thing that makes us equal is that we are all unequal, we are all different. I am never going to be a 40 year old man, so what is happening with the empathy there? 

I'm going to do Southbank Tea today... if the rain holds off! I am aiming to gather enough material to put something together for the scratch next week. I have decided on a plan of action but we'll see what comes out of today before I get any further.