Thinking about my Critical Reflective Summary, Tutorial on 31st March.

My senior tutor spent some time with me on 31st March, to help to crystallise my thoughts for my critical reflective summary (CRS).  I have waited a couple of weeks to review my notes and allowed some latent learning/digestion to take place.

A number of books were suggested that could be useful for my reading, perhaps not immediately, but certainly, as I draw closer to the major project module after the Easter break.

The books mentioned included:

"In Praise of Shadows" is an essay on Japanese aesthetics by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the Japanese author and novelist. It was translated into English by Thomas Harper and Edward Seidensticker. Published in 1933, in Japan, the English translation was published in 1977 by Leete's Island Books.

Also by the philosopher John Gray, "Silence of Animals" together with the book "Straw Dogs".  I have subsequently found the Silence of Animals as a Kindle edition and have now purchased a copy.

I may also consider reading "A Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter?  It appears that this is an interesting twist on the original little red riding hood fable.

There is a further useful reference to the post-human discourse by Rosie Braidotti.  The following publications may provide valuable material;

• Braidotti, R. (1991) Patterns of Dissonance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Braidotti, R. (1994; 2nd ed. 2011) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Braidotti, R. (2002) Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity.
• Braidotti, R. (2006) Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics. Cambridge: Polity.
• Braidotti, R. (2011) Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press. 

Further sources that are leveraging work around film and perception, particularly the psychoanalytical and the "imaginary signifier" can be gained from the author Christian Metz.

Overall this was a useful tutorial and there is plenty of work and reading for me to undertake during the next few weeks through my holiday period.

I am aiming for approximately 75% of the document to be in written form about the theories, observations and reflections, with around 25% of the document covering my practice.

Final Thoughts on Innovation and Entrepreneurialism Module, TMA1402

Just rounding off on the final day of the 2nd term of a three term Masters Degree in Digital Media. 

Phew, that was an interesting 12 weeks.

Facilitating what started as a rather disparate group of creative individuals, from a cross discipline pool of talents, ranging from Photographers, Digital Artists / web designers, Graphic Artists, Textile Designers and Fashion (oh, and not forgetting me as a Contemporary Artist & Illustrator), has been a challenge at times, but also great fun.

We set out with a brief that was highly flexible in many ways, almost to the point of ambiguity, but with the right mindset, determined optimism (especially on my part!), we've come a long way. 

Having set good boundaries to work within, documenting our thoughts and meetings, and most importantly, regular contact with our client, (Dr Liam Devlin), we have created a solid structure of delivery. By reflecting, evaluating and checking on the progress of our ideas, both informally in group chats, also with our client, and through formal presentations of those ideas, the group have created various artistic outputs, which meet the brief through innovative design choices.

Outputs from the exhibition, expressly designated as being suitable for archive, include artifacts that are complete in many cases, (Such as the internal reflections / e-portfolio web-site - Which for completeness (Created by Chelsea Horan and myself) can be found here: https://discursivedocuments.wixsite.com/eportfolio

a fully functioning Events Archive Website by Chelsea Horan and Daniel Ainsworth (here) > https://discursivedocuments.wixsite.com/rotor

- The above site is in production readiness for the closing event scheduled for May 5th.

We've started to finish off the long editing process of the film productions of the "Event Discussions" with the First Event (Edited by Grete Tvarkunaite and Adam Summerscales), below;

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvD-mko0Ko&feature=youtu.be) Video By Adam Summerscales, April 2017

An example of a tangible output that we are proposing to hand to Dr Devlin as a little 'keepsake' is the production of a small book that details our 'interpretations' of each of the three "Discursive Documents" events.  The book will be printed for all the participants on the Masters Degree team, with some additional copies made available for the artists if they wish to have them.

Link to Flash / .SWF file of Discursive Documents "Interpretations" eBook

While this is a work in progress, with the final event (the closing event) due in May, we have a few weeks to finalise the design and produce a sufficient print run of up to 20.

Above all, I think the outputs are 'fit for purpose'.  This is bourn out because of the positive feedback from not only members of the group, but other (albeit anecdotal evidence) casual viewers of our work.  This creates a positive sense of accomplishment.

Final Reflections & Conclusions;

• It has been a pleasure to work with those people in the group who are organised and self motivated.  They have used their own autonomy and initiative to complete tasks to agreed group deadlines, and for that, as a facilitator of the group, I am personally grateful.
• There were a small minority, only two or three within the team, who haven't chosen to, or been able to commit to the group in a particularly organised manner.  There will always be reasons for this, some intrinsic, some extrinsic, and the group structure must allow to accommodate for this. It's basic group dynamics, and good teams are flexible to take up issues.
• I'm disappointed that one of the team started raising issues on the design of the internal website at the eleventh hour.  There has been ample time over the last twelve weeks to collaborate with the group and jointly define what might be acceptable and not acceptable for changes to be made in a timely manner.  Especially as the internal collaborative site was made available to everyone around week 8. To raise observations suggesting changes virtually at 'submission time' isn't very collaborative, or organised.
• Perhaps in reflection, could this issue of someone only just getting involved in the final week be a failing on my part? That is, should I have been even more persuasive towards that individual to get engaged with the group much more at an earlier stage? 
• But then again, as I've considered before, there are those who 'say' they want to engage, and those who actually do.  The American phrase of "there are those who talk the talk, and those who walk the walk" comes to mind.  What people say, versus what they do are two very different things. Simply put, actions do speak louder than words...

References;

Ainsworth. D, & Horan, C. (2017): Website https://discursivedocuments.wixsite.com/rotor
Hadfield, G.P. & Horan, C. & al. (2017); Website https://discursivedocuments.wixsite.com/eportfolio
Summerscales, A.P. & Tvarkunaite, G. (2017); Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvD-mko0Ko&feature=youtu.be

Thinking back over the last twelve weeks and facilitating the team for the ROTOR project.

Thinking again about the work I've been doing over the last twelve weeks, I've recalled some of the areas that have helped to keep the group happy and focussed, and some of the techniques that I used in my own industry over the last 30 or so years.

To maintain individual's happiness when working in teams, I have found that a key component to keeping those who 'want' to be motivated, (and those who's talents lie elsewhere), is to provide the critical element of autonomy; - the freedom to choose; to decide, to get involved, to produce something of their own.
(or not, as the case may be for some...)!

In the role of facilitator, one might view this very differently from a traditional role of being, say, a 'Manager'.  In older models of behaviour, a professional manager was expected to motivate people and constantly push them towards higher and higher achievements.  This works to a point. - But at what cost?

By driving people too hard, productivity actually falls, - it goes down in line with self-motivation, and I know this result from my own experience when pushing individuals in business to achieve KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and sales targets too much; especially when working in an environment without the resources necessary to achieve what they have been committed to provide. (This also includes putting too much pressure on myself!)

A report that I read some time ago defined autonomy as: "the feeling that your life, its activities and habits, are self-chosen and self-endorsed." (Mautz, S. 2015, p126). Self-motivation and autonomy go hand in hand, each work in tandem with the other.  Without self-motivation, autonomy on its own doesn't create anything; but without autonomy to make many of your own decisions (within a good 'framework' of governance of course), then self-motivation on its own, without a level of empowerment, can become frustration and bitterness, both of which lead to a reduced creative output.

In his book, "Make It Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning", the author Scott Mautz quotes Gretchen Spreitzer, a University of Michigan professor.  Her study found "that empowered employees report a high level of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, lower turnover, increased performance effectiveness, and increased motivation. Likewise, supervisors who reported higher levels of empowerment were seen by their subordinates as more innovative, upward influencing, and inspirational". (Mautz, S. 2016).

Mautz provided a framework in his report of eight methods to give people autonomy 'intelligently'.

Interestingly, I seemed to have followed this structure virtually autonomously! (What irony!)...
Mautz says: (I have Italicised his suggestions for readability in the following);

"1. Fulfil the foundational requirements
Ensure a baseline of trust, a practice of information sharing, and a willingness to delegate growth work,"  (Mautz, S. 2016).
This is the 'Framework of Governance'.  In week 2 of the project, after the team had voted for me to become their 'facilitator', I provided a structure to work within. This took the form of stated roles and responsibilities for each team member; a rough time plan; formalised & recorded meeting minutes and other devices, as a foundation for the team to move forwards with, through getting their 'group witnessed' commitment to operating within these loose, yet defined boundaries and expectations.

"2. Create an agreement for autonomy."
In week three, I created a signup sheet for each team member to agree to their roles and responsibilities, now that they had been established.  Everyone was given the opportunity to make their own 'choice' of contribution. Whilst I didn't feel the need to make the formal requirement for each team member to sign their names on a form (as with consideration, this was a voluntary group, - by tying people down too rigidly would probably have had an adverse affect.  In a commercial or salaried environment, such written commitments are, however, the norm). The simple fact that I had created such formalised sheet, and distributed all 12 copies of it so that each individual had a copy and knowledge of what each other's roles were, was felt to be sufficient.  This provided a level of committed 'buy-in'.  In other words, the individuals were not only making a commitment to themselves, but also to the wider group.

Example of Team Roles & Responsibilities documents,

with initial meeting minutes beginning to form.

 


"3. Facilitate recipient readiness."

"Provide training and resources and discuss the benefits of their newfound autonomy. Ease the fears of accountability that can come with empowerment by ensuring they're set up to win--and confident that they will." (Mautz, S. 2016).

The first few weeks of activity within the rotor team was very purposefully very "gentle", and I took a great deal of time to help to explain to each of the members what they had agreed to do, and what was required of each of them, but just as importantly, what the team should expect from me. Patience is happily, one of my better virtues, and I helped each person create a valuable contribution to the team wherever they had the appetite and capacity to do so.

"4. Provide intrinsic and extrinsic reward"
"More work without more reward is rarely welcome. And even if the work must be done, the motivation might not exist to do it. So ensure that there are intrinsic and extrinsic rewards..." (Mautz, S. 2016).

Bearing in mind that the rotor team had been asked to complete various activities on a voluntary basis, the need for continuous praise and the verbal reward was essential.  As the engagement was voluntary, extrinsic rewards of recognition must be sensitively delivered.  I have continually tried very hard to give recognition for all the good work that has been carried out, and I have tried to gently coach some members of the team who needed a little more encouragement.

There will always be people in a group who, for various reasons, may not be able to engage in either the way that they might want to or in a way which the rest of the group desires. Group dynamics, clashes of personalities; personal preferences to working relationships etc. are a complex sensitive human condition that we all fit somewhere into.  I've been careful not to let personalities or issues of motivation scupper the overall focus of the team.  My former management experience has been brought to bear on this through gentle guidance, individual counselling and sometimes direct persuasion.
Generally, I am very pleased that each member has performed well, at least to their own expectations, but mostly in excess of them!

"5. Facilitate by assisting success versus avoiding failure".
"Mistakes will be made when [people] are given autonomy--and then learning happens. So don't react poorly to their mistakes. Act as a facilitator, not a fixer, and allow delegated decisions.... 
shift to a mindset of assisting success. Help empowered people get past mistakes as needed, and then turn your energy back to finding ways to help them succeed." (Mautz, S. 2016).

While I find it reasonably easy to manage small teams like this one, of up to say, 15 people, much of my existing commercial experience in facilitating interpersonal relationships has been put to good use over the last 12 weeks.
I have seen a variety of management practices in my various vocational roles over the past 30+ years, (some good, some not so good, and some really awful!).  I've been able to recall those varied experiences and tried here, in this 'safe' environment, to practice the best elements.
I can remember a number of examples where individuals may have made genuine mistakes and I recall my late father's advice that "people who rarely ever make mistakes, rarely ever 'do anything' themselves!" It was good advice from him, - a company director who knew a great deal about the "humanness" of failure.

A failure is, in fact, a successful lesson, and any mistakes should be treated as such. I have witnessed too many managers in my own past, who were blaming everybody else and their employees for failures that arguably could be attributed back to them as managers. Unfortunately, by focusing on mistakes all the time, those managers were far less successful, and so their teams were equally less successful too.

Example of corrective 'Action Plan'

Thankfully, there have not been any 'failures' as such, as we have all been aware of our achievable objectives, and progress against plans has been carefully managed, applying corrective actions where issues were identified. (See week 7, mid-stage review, action plan for example).

The action plan was put in place to specifically address some observed concerns brought to the group through meeting our 'client' (Dr Devlin). This was extremely useful in helping to steer the team as they approached the 'implementation' phase of the project.

"6. Construct communication loops"
"Breakdowns in communication can mean a breakdown in trust between you and the empowered person. [Encourage] autonomous employees... to find ways to report back regularly on progress.
Checkpoints should be established to provide updates, encouragement, help, training in teachable moments, and to avoid operational drift whereby work migrates away from previously aligned objectives and parameters. 
"Those working autonomously can't forget to check in. You can't just delegate and check out, either. Communication needs to remain a two-way street." (Mautz, S. 2016).

We are social creatures. According to Robert Waldinger, a Harvard University Professor who has studied human motivation and 'happiness' over 3 decades, says that one of the critical things needed to keep people happy is to create healthy social relationships; strong 'networks' to use modern parlance. (Waldinger, R. 2015).

Throughout the whole engagement, after the team had asked me to help facilitate the work, I have made sure that there are clear records of meeting minutes, critical action plans devised and documented as necessary, a clear understanding of each of our availability including individual holiday commitments, and regular weekly progress meetings with clear objectives.

Example of initial Gantt Chart, showing key 'milestone' dates, timescales/timelines, resources and tasks

I initially created a Gantt Chart to show a graphical representation of timelines / tasks to be achieved and resources available.  While such Gantt charts are frequently used in industry and have been for many years, some of the group were not sufficiently familiar with this method and so I was able to provide additional alternative documented methods (e.g. See the Action Plan above in point 5), to help to communicate key issues and time constraints.
Nevertheless, I continued to use the working Gantt chart model for my own cross-referencing of events and to build a single picture of progress ('Actual' versus 'Planned' progress and so on).  The use of Gantt charts allows for what is known as "critical path analysis", which if simply put, is a visual ability to see bottlenecks in a plan. (That is, where conflicts arise because of task timing, execution and 'effort', out-weigh the resource ability to achieve them (in terms of time scheduling, critical task predecessors, task subordinates, execution time, labour and materials resource availability)).

I have also adopted and encouraged the use of "SMART" objectives too. (- More on SMART objectives later in this blog.).  This approach is essential to help generate action plans that are executable. (e.g. See Action Plan example in point 5 above).

"7. Covet communication loops"
"Communicate with empowered [team members] in such a manner that they actually come to covet the communication loops in place over time, viewing them as helpful and rewarding. (Mautz, S. 2016).

By holding regular meetings, and my adopting and adapting the University of Huddersfield's internal Microsoft SharePoint 360 facilities, the publication and communications network has been particularly efficient and useful. We have been able to use the SharePoint 360 facilities as an overall repository, for all the management and collaboration artefacts, together with the practical outputs from each of the "Rotor events". I have been at great pains to make sure that the internal collaboration pages are regularly updated, at a minimum of weekly, but in practice much more frequently. Everybody, therefore, has a clear understanding of where to find information, as well as where to save it.  The meetings have been clearly structured, using an agenda based framework with a review of previous agreements and actions, progress to date and forthcoming actions/actions arising.
See example of meeting notes below;

Example of Meeting Minutes (Week 11), Showing "Traffic Light" status.

"8. [Create} a measurement tether"
Periodically review progress on success criteria. It will keep you informed and keep the empowered motivated since they have tangible evidence they're on track to hitting their goals" (Mautz, S. 2016).

Because I have been able to facilitate the team through an acronym of "SMART" objectives, that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound: each of the actions on our action plan have had clearly defined statements which outline precisely those smart criteria, together with 'due by' or 'action by' date for everybody to see. More recently over the last 3-4 weeks, I have adopted a traffic light, red amber and green notation on the Meeting Notes (See example in Point 7 above), to help to highlight a sense of urgency on some items, where required. This has worked exceedingly well and I'm glad to report that almost all the actions, some 60 or so specific action points, are either complete (at the time of writing 47) and a further 13 amber status actions require some remedial work over the next four weeks to complete, prior to the closing event for the rotor exhibition which will be held on Thursday, 5 May.

Conclusions;

• While Mautz does provide a good framework to inculcate autonomy, I have generally been following his observations in any event.  It is interesting that his framework, having been found after I have already been facilitating the group for a number of weeks, fits with my approach methods too. 
• I'm delighted that my management practices and facilitation skills are still effective, and current. 
• Whether I continue to use these skills post MA study is hard for me to say, as I think much of the methods become baked in over time. 
• I do, however, need to recognise when bad habits are drifting into my ability to facilitate teams, so this last twelve week period has been invaluable to me to bolster up innate skills.

References;

Waldinger, R. (2015): What makes a good life? Harvard Study of Adult Development; https://www.ted.com/playlists/4/what_makes_you_happy

Mautz, S. (2015). Make It Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning (pp127-129),
and
Mautz, S. (2016), Blog Article, http://switchandshift.com/intelligent-autonomy-give-employees-the-autonomy-they-crave   February 2016; Retrieved 2nd April 2017.

Adobe Premier Pro, V.s. Apple's Final Cut Pro. A Workshop with Dr Juliette MacDonald, Friday 31st March 2017

Following a very useful workshop in which Dr Juliet MacDonald compared the feature rich and fully integrated Adobe software suite "Creative Cloud" and its application Adobe Premiere Pro, against the Apple version known as Final Cut (version 7). It was suggested that we should try and avoid Final Cut Pro X (v10), because it seems that the Apple software is taken around the backward step.

Whilst Adobe After Effects is a good software application for animation, transitions and vector graphic imports, there are lots of layers and keyframes to it together with excellent control of title sequences, especially where there are lots of graphics that need to be intermeshed. The product is ideal for short time length videos.

Whereas Adobe Premiere Pro is much better for longer scale movies, simply because longer length clips are handled in a much more user-friendly way.

As a short exercise to get to grips with Adobe Premiere Pro, on opening the application
select "create new project".
Select the [editing] button on top.

Content and footage can now be imported, and it will appear at the bottom left-hand side of the screen. This shows a series of JPEG files
or sequences such as movie files et cetera (.MOV) or audio visual files (.AVI).

Once sequences selected, it can be dragged onto the right-hand pane, which is the "Timeline".
Use the timeline pointer at the top of the timeline area to scrub across the timeline frame.

The top left-hand panel shows the whole clip sequence, and it can be used in order to set your "In" and "Out" frames for your selected clip. (Also as a shortcut it is possible to use [I] to set the in position, and [O] to set the out position).

By using masks to create merged effects within a sequence, this can be a very useful tool. A combination of still photographs animated and overlaid with a moving image is particularly effective.

On the right-hand side of the bottom left panel [which can be navigated to through the shortcut of [~]] provides you with a view of the "Media Browser".

An important principle of Adobe Premiere Pro is that all the source files remain completely intact. That means that all the operations are nonintrusive, and hence our nondestructive. This is vitally important when you are using footage and editing on-the-fly.

To import files into your project, use either the "import" command or alternatively the Media Browser. These are two separate and different ways to perform an operation, something that regularly occurs in many of Adobe CC applications.

Once your raw files are imported, in the file menu, it is possible to create a new sequence. Try various video capture formats and choose the right input and output format depending on the following:
A) the constraints of the video capture
B) the speed and power capabilities of your PC or workstation
C) the intended output/audience/usage of your final film video.

In essence, the Adobe Premiere Pro screen is divided into two areas. On the left-hand side is the workspace or input area, and on the right-hand side is the output area effectively. If one thinks in these terms then the use of this application can become quite second nature and intuitive.
If using the timeline on the lower right-hand portion of the screen, it is also possible to double-click section sequence, which will automatically open the clip onto the left-hand top quadrant workspace area. It is then possible to use various effects of, for example, size, scale, motion position et cetera and a multitude of other effects through the "effects" tab.

Another useful pointer and suggestion when one is using projection mapping, especially with multiple projectors there is an open student free version of the application "Isadora" that many students have found particularly valuable.

Book Review, "H is for Hawk" by Dr Helen Macdonald (2014), Part #4.

As the book begins to unfold and McDonald's ideas of fear and anxiety become more evident and present, I was delighted to find a reference that she made to something that she found on one of her friends bookshelves: "the new edition of J.A. Bakers the Peregrine, the story of a man obsessively watching wintering wild peregrines in the Essex countryside of the late 1960's" whilst I think she was correct to say that it was published in the 1960's, in is within the text notes of "The Peregrine" (Baker, J.A. 1967), which suggests it was his observations through the 1950's that were then translated and condensed into effectively a single year. The book was published in 1967. Perhaps my own observational pedantry is coming through even here? !

Nevertheless, my pedantry aside... The fact that Helen MacDonald remembers reading this book on a previous occasion, where she is able to explain, not only the obsessive observations of "The Peregrine" that Baker is entwined with but also his sense of mortality, and in her words "an awful desire for death and annihilation"(MacDonald, H. 2104, p199).  I was both a little shocked, but also heartened, that while I recognised his sorrowful and saturnine approach to his writing, with a melancholic reference throughout, I must say I couldn't read the yearning for annihilation as such? This nihilism is much more akin to the writing of Frederick William Nietzsche, (another favourite philosopher of mine).

McDonald compares the writing of Baker and her intentions, with's the writings of TH White, in that inspired of his [White's] dreadfully failed attempts of training his goshawk, the struggle that White was having was in fact, against his own death, although in "The Goshawk" (White T.H. 1951), he recognised that there were beautiful things going on, in the outside world, and there is a sense of hope. However, when MacDonald compares this to J.A. Bakers "the Peregrine" she explains that his 'worldview' showed mostly death and dying, and this mirrored the Hawks (Falcons) as "Icons of extinction: ours, their's and his own". According to MacDonald, to Baker, his death was inevitable, and any hope was utterly dashed; hence she writes "there are no place names, though people in his book. They'd fallen away.… (Bakers) Hawks were made of death." (Page 200).

While other commentators of JA Baker's "The Peregrine" (1967) do underline his sense of mortality, I think McDonald's reading of it is particularly dark.  I did not feel the same way about the outcomes of the book that clearly had such an effect on MacDonald.  In my case, on first reading the Peregrine some six months ago, the book apparently inspired me to think from a different viewpoint altogether.
I'm pleased to stay that this position remains and my continued desire to use Baker's book remains fast and genuine.

Nevertheless, in the analysis of MacDonald's grief and despair, it is not surprising that "the conversation of death" (MacDonald, H., 2014, p210) remains close to the surface. The anxiety and depression she seems to be suffering this point caused her to withdraw even deeper within that grief. She "jumped in panic when the postman knocked on the door: recoiled from the ringing phone. I stopped seeing people. Too, cancelled my gallery talk. Deadlocked at the front door. Out on the hill by fled from walkers, dodged behind hedges when farm vehicles drove up… Some days I lay in bed in so much mysterious pain and began to believe the only explanation was a terminal disease." (p210, p211). Her depression was taking hold of her. I have lived through similar bouts myself and can speak first hand of the wretched fear and darkness that it brings.

In her sorrow, she thinks only of Mabel, the goshawk, and again draws parallels through her own reading of relationships formed between animals and humans, particularly in research conducted in anthropology. For example, she quotes the work of Rane Willerlev, who lived with the hunters in the extreme environment of Siberia in the north-east of Russia for a year. He wrote how the hunters "believed that animals and humans can turn into each other by temporarily taking on one another's bodies" (Macdonald, H., 2104, p211). Macdonald goes on to say that such notions can be very dangerous and continues to explain that Willerslev suggested that by taking on such transformations of mind it can "make you lose sight of your original species identity and undergo an invisible metamorphosis" (p211). This idea of transforming a human soul, our very inner being, as the way we think and see the world about us, by viewing it through an animal's eyes can indeed "imperil the human soul" (p211).

Perhaps this is a warning for me?

Indeed this idea of taking on a spiritual and otherworldly extension is explained further by Macdonald who states "the ability of Hawks to cross borders that humans cannot is a thing far older than Celtic myth, older than Orpheus-four in ancient chauvinistic traditions right across Eurasia, hawks and falcons were seen as messengers between this world and the next."(p226).  I have already articulated in previous blogs the relationship that Egyptians had with hawks and peregrines in particular. For example, the principal deity ancient Egyptian God, Horus, and his father Osiris are both depicted as gods in the form of a man, - with a man's arms, legs and body; but crucially, illustrated with the Peregrine or falcon's head.

But there is hope, and as Helen Macdonald is beginning the journey on the road to recovery from her despair and depression she sees something more than "not just winter moving onwards to spring:… But a land filling slowly with spots and lines of beauty." (p238). She is starting to see a kind of new birth, through her own individual contact with nature, and a special place that she begins to call home. Indeed she tells of the hill becoming her home.  She says;

"I know it intimately. Every hedgerow, every track through dry grass where the hares cut across field -boundaries, each discarded piece of rusted machinery, every earth and warren and tree… ...Yellowhammers chirping and hedges. Cumulus rubble. The maritime light of this island, set as it is under a sky mirrored and uplit by sea." (Page 239).

This particular paragraph is so much like the style that JA Baker writes of when he is reflecting upon his place, his special place, within the Essex marshes in his book "The Peregrine" (1967).

 Macdonald goes on to say "I don't own this land. I've only got permission to fly in here. But in walking it over and over again and paying in great greatest attention, I've made mine." (Macdonald, H. p239). It is clear that a sense of hope is growing in Macdonald's mind. The latter part of the book is much more uplifting, and again in her own words "there is a sense of creation about it: when the hare leapt up from our feet today, it was as if it had been made by the field ex nihilo." (p241). The sense of wonderment is almost palpable. The reattachment of her own soul to her place in the world and her appreciation of each and every stone or blade of grass begins to take significance again. She writes "it's a child's world, full of separate places. Give me a paper and pencil now and ask me to draw a map of the fields I roamed about when I was small, and I cannot do it. But change the question, and asked me to list what was there and I can then fill the pages. The wood ants' nest. The newt pond. The oak tree covered in marble galls."(p241). I find this particularly interesting because it is clear that Macdonald's 'first' language, that is, her first method of communication, is linguistic.

Whereas I believe my own sense of communication, while deeply rooted in the linguistic, has the benefit of imagery and imagination through drawing. Macdonald's explanations provide an insight into another person's perception of the wonderment of nature and the world around us. But I can't help myself creating mental images, which are far more 'tactile and tangible' than merely linguistic prose.

This gives me great heart and confidence again to continue with my intended drawing as a mediation of understandings between Baker and his Peregrines, and vice versa.

But then again, am I giving Macdonald a disservice in suggesting that her first language is linguistically recalled rather than imagistic?

As her recovery from the dreadful grief begins to return, further excursions into the countryside with her hawk Mabel helps her to see!

A passage that is particularly engaging is an encounter that she and Mabel have while out hunting, where they see a herd of deer some half a mile away. It seems that she recalls how her hawk, having already located a hare as potential prey, turns its' attention to the deer, 'some 30 Fallow Deer' near to a river. She says "The deer in procession resemble charcoal cave paintings rendered manifest. Art's magic working backwards." (Macdonald, H., p262). This imagistic reference of cave art provides more resonance to her identification as an illustrator; it gives more of a graphic meaning behind this primal notion of drawing as a form of recorded expression. It is clear that she recognises such importance as an artist herself, for not only the linguistic medium but clearly the graphic articulation as well. It is further expanded upon and again, has resonance with J.A. Baker, as she quotes "Old England is an imaginary place, a landscape built from words, woodcuts, films, paintings, picturesque engravings." (p265). This imaginary place, this notion of something out there that perhaps no longer exists, this idea, maybe again, of a liminal place can equally be brought to bear in the sketches and images that I'm making too.

A sense of contentment begins to emerge towards the end of the book. It seems that Macdonald is re-finding her own feelings of happiness. She comments on her emotional state of mind in a short reflection of TH White's book "The Goshawk", and states "I have not thought of White for a while. As I grew happier his presence receded, his world more and more distant from mine." (p274).

This sense of happiness is also transmitted to Mabel, the goshawk too. "I know she is content: the half closed, happy I, the rattling of her feathers: these are signs of raw good humour. I cannot know what she's thinking, but she's very alive."(p275) The sensation of 'being alive' within herself provides an outlet of joy and happiness in Macdonald at last, it seems. It is evident again, now that her transference of soul into the hawk, while still tenuously present, has become more healthy. She thinks about how T.H. White has gone through such despair and sadness and goes on to say;

"I swear to myself, standing there with the book open in my hand ['s goshawk] is, that I will not ever reduce my hawk to hieroglyph, and historical figure or misremembered villain.… I can't. Because she is not human. Overall lessons I've learned in my months with Mabel, this is the greatest of all: that there is a world of things out there -rocks and trees and stones in the grass and all the things that crawl and run and fly. They are all things in themselves, but we make them sensible to us by giving them meanings that shore up our own views of the world. In my time with Mabel, I've learned how you feel more human once you have known, even in your imagination, what it is like to be not." (Page 275)

This last selected paragraph, while not ultimately the  ending of her book, is a fitting conclusion of both a recognition of the incredible majesty of hawks (and Falcons), but also a tribute to the writer that she has been able to detach herself from an intense relationship with Mabel, and return to 'human-ness', with a continued and open sense of wonderment of the world(s) we inhabit.

Final Conclusions;

• In final summary, the intertwining of Helen Macdonald's experiences of distress and grief, as she goes through the awful mourning of her late father, entwined with the agent of T.H. White's book "The Goshawk"(1951), provides an excellent setting and anchor points, for not only emotions to be explored and compared with, but also the psychological exploration of the relationship with a goshawk. In both cases, the relationship helps both writers to overcome their anguish and drive forward towards new beginnings. 
• I thoroughly loved reading Helen Macdonald's book, it is a worthy prize-winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction (2014) and her intellectual and articulate style is incredibly appealing. So much so, that I have already ordered her earlier book entitled "Falcon"(2006) which will give me further reference material from a very credible and validated academic source, to continue with my theme.
• In the meantime, my reading of Rebecca Solnit may have to be temporarily postponed while I read another book from a student of an associate of Solnit, that is, Professor Donna Haraway, and her student anthropologist Thom van Dooren, with his book "Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction" (2016) published by Columbia University Press, Chichester, West Sussex. 
• There is a busy time in front of me!

Full References (inc. Previous blogs of this book review);

Auden, WH (1930) "Consider This" (first published 1930) in "The English Auden", edited by Mendelssohn, E.Faber and Faber (1978), p 46.

Baker, J.A. (1967) "The Peregrine", (2105 edition) HarperCollins Publishing, London.  

Blain, G. (1936), "She is Noble in her Nature"(pp229-230) from "Falconry",(1936), Phillip Allen, London.

Macdonald, H. (2014) "H is for Hawk" Jonathan Cape Publishers, London. 

Morris, D. (1967) "The Naked Ape" (2nd Ed. 2005), Vantage Books, London 

Solnit, R. (2002) "Wanderlust", Verso Books, London.

Solnit, R. (2006), " A Field Guide to Getting Lost", Canongate, Edinburgh. 

Van Dooren, T., (2016) "Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction" (2016) published by Columbia University press, Chichester, West Sussex. 

White, T.H. (1951), "The Goshawk", Jonathan Cape, London.

Thoughts begining to crystalise after further discussions with Dr Anna Powell

After a short review with Doctor Anna Powell on Friday 17th March, I recall discussing some of the recent photographs that I had been taking by using an extended monopod, to capture images from an unusual height.

The extended monopod is approximately six feet in length and when held at my own arm's length,  with a remote camera shutter trigger, I have been able to record images from approximately twelve to fourteen feet above ground level. I explained my conscious choice to do this, despite getting some
strange looks from passers-by who were out walking or exercising their dogs!

Nevertheless, I recognise it is important to let go of how people receive my work both in terms of how it is generated and in terms of my outputs.

However, I also need to recognise and ask myself the question as to how do I engage the prospective  viewer, to ensure that their interpretation of my work outputs are relevant to the subject and context
in which I am trying to research and articulate?

In considering my own work, I explained in brief, that I am trying to join together very ancient philosophical ideas with very new ideas. Together my output is formed through the human act of obsessive observation, and in this case through literature.

In a way I could call this a collision, a collision between ontology, that is speculative realism, with digital media (and in particular digital drawing) together with the literature of the book  "The Peregrine" (Baker, A.J. 1967).

Dr Powell replayed the message I gave, back to me as "living and thinking in the world from a different point of view" which I'm glad to say fits precisely with my objectives!

As an exercise, these objectives properly articulated, intertwined with my methodologies and practice, together with a third area, which is a description of my various interests will become areas of discussion for my critical reflective summary for this module.

I feel well placed in being able to articulate these several points sufficiently over the next few weeks and start to form a cohesive document.

A further conversation with Dr Powell on 24 March helped me towards thinking about creating and maintaining my body of works. This was directly related to the workshop that we conducted around postproduction earlier in the month and explores and expands on the ideas of practice being a series of fitting and finding concepts theories and imagistic references (and often the other way round) of finding and fitting images of the moments.

This reminded me of previous reading that I had recently made regarding Henry Cartier-Bresson, who described "The Moments" of photography.

Images of the mind are equally fleeting, but they need to be recorded and maintained as a body of work develops. In my own case, I think the "where" (that is the location), is not so important, but the "what" is vitally important as content for me to capture and go forward with. The workshops and tutorials with Dr Anna Powell together with Dr Juliet MacDonald have been particularly useful and I'm looking forward to working with them a little more closely in the third semester.

Book Review, "H is for Hawk" by Dr Helen Macdonald, Part #3

As the book progresses with the trials and tribulations of training Mabel, eventually Macdonald is able to remove the leash or 'creance' from the raptor's Jessies and allow the free flight to commence.
This idea of freedom and its association with flight is one of the most powerful images that we have; equally, the sense of liberty is essential in considering the mutual respect that a falconer must have for their Falcon. A falconer is not, therefore, a 'keeper' of Falcons, but merely a guide.
Our own human yearning for freedom, which is almost universal, is of peculiar interest here as Macdonald describes her visit to an art gallery and her encounter with a full-size copy of a bird hide. The construction is rebuilt within the museum, an identical copy of real structure in California. The exhibition itself shows a recording video through the windows of the hide of the flight of a wild Californian condor.  The intent was to bring attention to the fate of not just that particular bird and its close encounter with extinction, but a more general observation of wildness and freedom and the complicated relationship that humans have with it.  Macdonald interprets the piece perfectly in my opinion. She states
"I think of what wild animals are in our imaginations. And how they are disappearing, -not just from the wild, but from people's everyday lives, replaced by images of themselves in print and on screen. The rarer they get, the fewer meanings animals have. Eventually, rarity is all that they are made of.… There is a vast difference between my visceral, bloodied life with Mabel and the reserved, distanced view of modern nature appreciation." (Page 181)

Dr Macdonald is still dealing with her deep sense of grief, and through her hawk Mabel, she finds a new kind of escape and freedom from the enduring emptiness she is experiencing. She talks about her distress and numbness of mind and the mundane activities of day-to-day life. Macdonald hints at the escape from it while out flying with her hawk. She states "I stayed out longer with Mabel, found it harder and harder to return, because out with the hawk I didn't need a home. Out there I would forget I was human at all. Everything the hawk saw was raw and real and drawn hair fine, and everything else was dampened to nothing." (p186).  
Again the use of language to describe the hawk's perceived images is being drawn, 'hair fine', and is very resonant with my own thoughts about how I could speculatively represent an alternative view of their world.
That alternative perspective of the world through the hawk's contemplation has been written about before and again I'm glad to see it.  Macdonald talks about a time when her mother calls while she is with the Raptor and half in conversation, she notices;
"Hawk on my fist, tail fanned, shoulders dropped, staring through me and the phone, and her attention catching on everything serially. Field-fence-fieldfare-wing flick-pheasant-feather-on--some-on-wire-12-wood pigeons-half-a-mile-distant-tick-tick-tick".(p187).

I love the way that Macdonald thinks about the hawk's brain processing things serially. Does it do this? Or is the hawk's mind much more capable of processing data in a parallel way? The idea of digital drawing and the serial processes of engagement come to light here.

Later, in the same vein, Macdonald recalls an incident when a huge flying fortress aircraft flies overhead and brings terror to the wild animals beneath it. Except for Mabel, who virtually ignores this huge, yet perhaps perceived as a similar, a 'harbinger' of death. While Macdonald is mesmerised, her mind draws an example from the poet WH Auden who stated "consider this, and in our time as the hawk sees it, or the helmeted airmen:" (Auden, W.H.,1930), (Macdonald, H. (2104) p188).

This comparison of hawk and aircraft as bringers of death, or is it that, rather than 'bringers' of death, they have an ability to decide? Macdonald goes on to say on page 189 "the hawk is on my fist. 30 ounces of death in a feathered jacket; a being whose world is drawn in plots and vectors that pulls her towards lives ends." The idea that the choices of life and death can be made in an instant often haunts us, not through our own desire to carry out dreadful acts, but more the simple fragility of life and death itself. (Page 189). Macdonald articulates her own sense of clarity, and she quotes the remainder of WH Auden's poem with the lines "the clouds rift suddenly look there".

She feels "the insistent pull to the heart that the hawk brings, that very old longing of mine to possess the hawk's eye. To live the safe and solitary life; to look down on the world from height and keep it there. To be watcher; invulnerable, detached, complete. My eyes fill with water. Here I am, I think. And I do not think that I am safe." (Page 189).

It is interesting that in this turmoil of seclusion and isolation, in this total loneliness, it keeps coming through in Macdonald's writings and in an earlier passage she even quotes a piece of poetry by Marianne Moore: "the cure for loneliness is solitude" (page 32).

That sense of isolation and loneliness is another trait of a slightly different writer, Rebecca Solnit of whom I have read one of her books "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" (2006) Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. The sense of walking alone to is further explored by Solnit in a book that I have just acquired called "Wanderlust: a history of walking" (2001) published by Verso Books, London. - Something I need to read and create a critical evaluation of in the next few months no doubt.

References:

Auden, WH (1930) "Consider This" (first published 1930) in the English Auden, edited by Mendelssohn, E.Faber and Faber (1978), p 46.
Macdonald, H. (2014) "H is for Hawk" Jonathan Cape Publishers, London.
Morris, D. (1967) "The Naked Ape" (2nd Ed. 2005), Vantage Books, London.
Solnit, R. (2006) "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh, UK.
Solnit, R. (2001) "Wanderlust: a history of walking" published by Verso Books, London.
White, T.H. (1951), "The Goshawk", Jonathan Cape, London.