Reflections on a tutorial with Dr Juliet MacDonald, Friday, 7 July 2017.

Had a very constructive discussion with Juliet last Friday after my meeting with Richard, and have allowed a few days in between to let my thoughts settle on so much content.
Juliet agreed with the idea to totally immerse myself in the writing that I intend to do over the next week or so, and suggested our cottage could be a "writer's retreat". I like that idea!
I explained that I have indexed all of my blogs which are useful for helping me to reference. I did mention that there were some blogs which are still in draft form, where I am trying to find further information for references within them and other areas where I can distil. In the learning that I obtained at the time and the need to paraphrase it, if it's relevant, for it to be published, much of it should be re-written.

The indexing process is useful in itself because it's made me review the year as a whole exercise.
With regards to the document and the title "A Speculative Re-visioning of the Peregrine", I bounced off the idea (in response to Dr Bailey's ideas and suggestions of making it into a book), as an artefact, and I was thinking about the format of a proposed book. In the ideal world, I felt that formats of something like an 'A5' size to get away from the usual straightforward academic A4 format.
- I need to think about the scale of the booklet, and it may be a combination of these measurements?
In artistic practice, it's possible to create any size of a format of course.

Moving on to the first review of the essay by Juliet, she liked the style of titles, and that there were 'not too many layers'.  
I'm intending to remove some of the more academic style headings, keeping the paragraphs of course, but at this stage, many of the headings are just there in place as an "aide memoir".
What I have also done, (bearing in mind there are approximately 10,000 words currently in the document), if I am aiming to produce something of A5 size, is to think about the readability of the text. I have some concerns as to whether it needs to be double-spaced as a standard academic paper, while I want it to be easily readable, do I have to conform to a classic format that I need to adhere to?

- Juliet confirmed that this was not necessary, as it is recognised that what I'm trying to produce is a book which is representative of a practice of research; that is, a creative research project, therefore it is taking an innovative format, and that includes the size and text spacing et cetera.

This means it can be any size or format that I choose. Whatever works best for me. I was delighted to hear this confirmation as it gives me a licence (as long as the text is readable and clear it is possible to go a little smaller with text size, and one and a half spacing is very acceptable).

Now that I have decided that it is not going to be of a standard academic format, I can be much more creative with the design of this book and am really pleased that I can go forward with a style of whatever I choose. I'm mindful though that so long as it is correctly referenced using APA6 referencing style, then I should not have any issues.

The drawings can also be included as marginalia, they relate to the original storyboard, and I have an intention of putting the document into InDesign. The Adobe InDesign application will allow me to set up a standard grid anyway.

Juliet provided some further examples and advice on using the drawings within the grid. Some of the books that Juliet referred to in the previous workshop were extremely useful, and indeed just after that session some months ago, I actually went out and bought the book "Grid Systems: in Graphic Design" by Josef Muller Brockmann, published by Niggli (1981). 12th edition published 2017.

I can then use the drawings and have a grid which allows columns for marginalia, text, spaces between text, layout help and so on built into the document as I am creating it.  This will be much easier to develop.

We also talked about the suggested book by Richard Grusin, "The Nonhuman Turn", which I managed to acquire from the University library just before our one-to-one on Friday.
This is a very useful book to read as it is a collection of essays, one of which Juliet recommended, and that jumped out at me, was an essay by Brian Massumi.  While at times it was a little bit difficult to read, did hold some of the essences of my enquiries and was certainly helpful for research. The Brian Massumi essay actually has a project at the end of the chapter, which can be followed by the reader, on the "Supernormal Animal" (Page 1).  This 'plan' allows one to 'index' an animal, and make it recognisable, finding the human in the animal, the passion, and introduce the human being into its animal becoming.
This is interesting because I recognise that it is impossible not to be a human being, when trying to see the world through another creatures perception. It is therefore impossible not to anthropomorphise in some way. Nevertheless, in a kind of confluence to Massumi's thoughts, in this essay I am trying to produce I have already speculatively written a couple of sections by using my own humanly orientated imaginings of peregrines perception of the world, and written in a style as if it was the peregrines own voice.
In addition to The Peregrine's Story, and as a kind of nod to Donna Haraway, I have also chosen to write a section entitled The Dogs Story. The intention with this is to put an alternative spin on the writing by Haraway of her Companion Species Manifesto. Whilst I accept that this is slightly mischievous, there is in fact a serious point that I'm trying to make in supporting Haraway's assertions, by thinking about the dog's point of view, rather than the human observations that could be perceived in isolation. Clearly it is speculative, and totally made up, but nevertheless, hopefully it engages the reader to see things from a different point of view. This is the crux of what I'm trying to do.
Regarding "the Chora" part of Grusin's book, (Section 8, Form / Matter / Chora: Object-Oriented Ontology and Feminist New Materialism by Rebekah Sheldon p. 193, the author is talking about two different modes of academic scholarship, which is Speculative Realism (and especially Object-Oriented Ontology of Graham Harman and the likes), and the contrasting, yet symbiotic ideas of New Materialism; particularly the Feminist New Materialism approaches which include Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. So juxtaposing those theorists, with Graham Harman and OOO, it highlights the two different approaches. How these two theories intersect in my own project could be talked about in my essay perhaps?   Or I could put this discussion into my CRS after the research has had time to assimilate in my mind.  I need to think towards which approaches I lean towards myself... Is it the Graham Harman OOO approach or the Karen Barad FNM version?

This is particularly useful in helping me to situate the two areas of theory.

(Erin Manning also writes in this book "The Nonhuman Turn" a section called "Artfulness", p45, which would be helpful for me to read too).

I also mentioned that I had found work by John Berger (1977), "Why Look at Animals" which is a different view, but this time from the 1970s. His writings still have poignancy even 40 years later. This is very appropriate because it is about seeing and looking in the visual process too, so this is been a precious find.
Juliet very kindly offered to read my essay so far, but I know that I need to rewrite large amounts of it, and areas where I have potentially yet to introduce some new parts.
Juliet pointed out that whilst this is a reflective essay, there may be ways in which I can cut down my own decision-making discussion as much, and I could make a number of sentences more succinct. That is, for example, instead of me saying "it is important to state ... blah blah, something" I should just only "state" it!
So the essay can be far more statement orientated.
The greatest difficulty for me is to manage all of the various voices which covers anthropology, philosophy, sociology. Juliet pointed out that as soon as I claim to be the voice of a dog then it makes sense that it is speculative writing. A dog is a whole species, whereas an anthropologist is not, they have their own particular practice and sets of training and so generalising an academic discipline, and not specifically repeating a voice of an individual may become problematic.
An idea that Juliet suggested might be to change the typeset, such as to italicize the voice of the dog or the Peregrine, but this is something I need to think through. Whether this is appropriate or not might need some sort of introduction? Perhaps what I ought to do is explain somewhere in the document why I have chosen to adopt the voice of these animals?
Another area that I discussed with Juliet which I'm unsure about, was that now that we recognise I can write the book as a creative product, I still do want to be able to lend itself towards an academic document as research for my masters degree. I was a little concerned because I am still expecting to put research methods et cetera into the essay. Should this go into my book? Whilst there is a fair bit of this discussion on my blog, I'm also assuming that I will need to reflect, that is to create a critical reflective summary of the truly creative piece, the 30% submission up to September. So not sure where this should fit with regards to research strategies and how I discussed them? I need to think about this clearly, and keep some ideas open-ended.
When I submit the 30% practice it would be acceptable to provide a CRS with research strategies at that stage, but my thoughts on grounded theory as a research strategy (which comes from social sciences, and interviewing): they start with a problem and end with a quantitative outcome. A typical question might be 'how would people respond when somebody is going into a care home' for instance? At that stage they don't actually know the question, and so the research argument comes out of the outcomes of interviews.
It may be possible to adapt grounded theory, and Juliet explained how a PhD student has used a series of paintings as experiments, and then produced a coding wall as she calls it, and then from unable to find key terms and pick things out from it. This provides an opportunity through a quantitative analysis.
Art applied through the theory by actually doing the practice in itself and this is a kind of appropriation of the grounded theory method from social sciences. Therefore it does not operate exactly like Glazier and Strauss's had originally stated but nevertheless uses some of its methods.
The strategy often emerges from the research practice itself, and I could argue that this has been established to grounded theory even though there is a similarity. If in future I do want to use some kind of coding, and coding wall, it may be something in distinguishing where the boundaries are to make sense through a qualitative and quantitative reflection.

A nice model of writing academic narratively to consider our various essays and books by Rebecca Cellnet, wanderlust is one and a Field guide to getting lost is the other book that I have managed to get copies of.
An alternative idea that Juliet suggested was to create some sort of map, is a visual guide,
as a kind of step-by-step? Perhaps at something for me to consider for my CRS.

Also, I provided an update to Juliet of all of my research over the last two weeks as a summary document. I'm feeling quite confident that it is beginning to come together, there is a lot to do still but my themes and goals and objectives are still on target.

Conclusions:

• The book/artefact can be any size or format that I choose. Whatever works best for me.
• Use the drawings and have a grid which allows columns for marginalia, text, spaces between text
•  CRS after the research has had time to assimilate in my mind.  I need to think towards which approaches I lean towards myself... Is it the Graham Harman OOO approach or the Karen Barad FNM version?
• Make much more of the essay sentences more succinct! 
• Grounded theory method is a method of generating data, it is not a theory as such. Research through practice and practice through research is incredibly variable, and my dilemma is to whether or not to put this completely into my blog or into a creative artefact as an essay?

References:

Berger, John (1977), "Why Look at Animals", in About Looking, Pub. 1980, Random House, London.

Brockmann, Josef Muller   (1981), "Grid Systems: in Graphic Design", published by Niggli. 12th edition published 2017.

Grusin, R. A. (2015). The nonhuman turn.  University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

... and, Rebekah Sheldon p. 193,  Section 8, Form / Matter / Chora: Object-Oriented Ontology and Feminist New Materialism

... and, Erin Manning in "The Nonhuman Turn" - "Artfulness", p45

Reflections on a one-to-one tutorial with Richard Mulhearn, 7th July 2017

The conversation started with a general question as to what my current thoughts were; In essence, I was reconfirming my intention to produce 70% of my submission in written form and 30% as practical outputs.

I felt that I was on track with the 70% written piece for a week next Wednesday, that is, for the submission date of 19 July. I am in a good position with the document, having already written a substantial part of it even though, as agreed with Dr Bailey and Dr MacDonald, I would be producing the output in a book form rather than the standard academic paper format.

Approximately 10,000 words have already been written out of the 14,000, and my intention is to lock myself away for the next week in our cottage in Northumberland to finish off the writing of this document!

I was extremely reassured when Richard provided very encouraging feedback and said that he was not at all concerned with my work. He said that I have all the material that I need and if anything, it is probable that I need to stop my research now, and just articulate and condense my findings.

As I have already indexed all of my previous blogs, which has been a great help in returning to reread them at times, has helped a great deal with the creation of the book. With approximately 110,000 to 120,000 words currently in the blog, there is a huge amount of resource that I can work with.

One of my plans today was to print out all of the blogs for easy reference.

Richard observations were that with that amount of material, I need to drill in and eject (to distil) the information, and 'that' will determine my success. I am worried about the distillation of the information, and anxious to make sure that it is correct and valid. I recognise also the need to get the voice right, and I bounced the idea off Richard,  that as there are so many voices within my research, the approach that I'm probably going to adopt; and the one that I think I want to go forward with, is to actually write 'within' the voices of the various players?

By anthropomorphizing, I'm giving the Peregrine a human voice, and whilst I didn't want to do this initially, having read so much with Donna Haraway, and more recently, Richard Grusin (The Nonhuman Turn (2015)) and various others, plus John Gray's Silence of Animals (2016) together with the recent book (Animals: Documents of Contemporary Art, by Filipa Ramos, 2016), I acquired from Whitechapel gallery, together with what I think is probably a classic, which is John Berger's (1980)"Why Look at Animals" (which Richard confirmed was an amazing document in itself, and surprise that this was the first time that we have mentioned it).

Getting the voice correct, with a number of messages to verbalise is critical according to Richard and I entirely agree. While I do have research material, with research methodology and so on, considered with the research strategy and my own voice needs to be clearly enveloped, included too.

In discussion with Richard, I also mentioned the social sciences idea of Grounded Theory Methodology (which Richard confirmed is familiar with), and how it may be possible, that this strategy, where there is a 'non-linear', yet a massive amount of research data can be considered and distilled?  This may be a similar process that I may be able to adopt with some variation too perhaps. The GT process is all about a kind of wandering and serendipity, in the way that things are 'found'.

To describe my own research strategy, rather than a "methodology", this Grounded Theory 'strategy' by Glazier and Strauss, (who originally discovered it, and they themselves describe it as a "discovery"), is appealing to me as it is very 'non-linear'.

I'm currently combining this GT idea, because the more I write it seems the more that I want to research!

The distillation is critical with this approach, because while I want to say that I have a strategy that can narrow down, and focus, with a timescale set on it. In this case it is the cut-off point aiming towards a week next Wednesday (about 10 days time on 19th July). However, I feel I can make a conclusion without it being a final resolution, and there's an opportunity to leave things sufficiently open for further study should I wish.

Richard agreed that it is more than sufficient for me to say something along the lines of "at this point in time, these are the findings et cetera".   Richard also confirmed that whilst there is still work to do, it seems clear that I understand my methodology; to encapsulate the direction and wandering through the materials and theories towards findings, and in 'getting the voice correct'.

Just to recap then, my intention is to talk in terms of the Peregrine itself, to talk in terms of an anthropologist/biologist; to talk in my own voice as well.

Thinking through this, the argument of the studies perhaps could be the exploration of how voices could be linked together? Otherwise, they could end up being discreet? Do I need to think about this?

What links all of these 'voices' nicely, is the book itself "The Peregrine"... But, I need to be careful that all of the voices interact with each other, but also draw together through the book itself.

Part of the distillation process needs to be a clarity in each of the voices and how they are talking so that they can relate to each other. The central core of the work from which all of the voices emanate, and what each of them is saying in relation to the core, is what is important here?

How then, whatever it is that they are saying, relate to each other?

The book will need some careful editing. My intention is to produce an awful lot more than the final output, and possibly between 20 to 25,000 words can then be condensed down to the 14,000 words that I need in readiness for Monday 17th, as a printing day, with Tuesday 18th as a contingency. I will then be able to submit it in readiness for the Wednesday the 19th July deadline as a fully functioning 'prototype'.

At the moment the essay is very much a report style. But as mentioned earlier, the book will become a much more lyrical output combined with drawings. What I have already created is the scaffolding, which will then be stripped away within the book itself.

An observation that Richard made, was that in a lot of my writing it seems that I am searching, together with the reader, in a kind of clarification style language?  That is, I tend to say things in a certain way and then perhaps 'reword' them and repeat the substance of my conjecture or statement.
I need to watch that.
I need to be clear about the words and confident with the voice!!

How is my own story in all of this documented?
- My findings come towards the end, and what these are, are very much based on my journey.
While I introduced this idea of a journey at the beginning of the book, I've introduced the other, of the voices as narrative, as a lyricism if you like. But then at the end of the book, is a summing up using my own voice, of what I have found.

Equally, I've taken on board entirely, the idea that the 'finding' of my photograph in Helen Macdonald's book is wonderfully serendipitous, but I shouldn't make a fanfare of it. So this element is left towards the end, not presented as a final fanfare, more of a reflection of how I was, - say 12 years ago. The journey in itself is not just this year's journey but it is almost like a 12-year journey, and it lays out grounds for further study and further consideration.

This reflects on me because of how I have changed so completely as to what I was 12 years ago, and my own position 'in' the world and 'of' the world, is extremely different to how it was 10 or 12 years ago. Richard wanted to confirm if this was still part of the work? - Because if that is the case, this is less about the Peregrine and more about me? I need to think about this carefully because this is kind of satellite stuff and may distract the message.

However, in thinking about this, what I do feel, is that in many of (if not most of) the books that I've read, including The Peregrine itself (JA Baker, 1967), and Helen Macdonald's H-is-for-Hawk (2014), but also the theoretical references such as Donna Haraway, Tim Ingold, and even the great John Berger himself, is that all of these books are written around the authors themselves.

Conclusions:

The conclusion is, there is no escape from the anthropomorphising, the anthropocentric reflection. 

Despite trying to get away from this, it is simply impossible, and so this is why I feel that the philosophy of Speculative Realism is so important in this work too.  - I have to try and view the world from a completely different vantage point, the rejection of Immanuel Kant's ideas of human sovereignty over everything else. This idea of, if you like, 'domination of the universe' from a human centric point, is what is of critical importance here.

Richard observations were that, as my own observations, that the author is central to the work makes absolute sense, and tone and voice do not need to be sugared (which is something that I tend to do). I shouldn't be worried about that though.  I do need to make sure that the process, is about confidence. I should be able to say things only once, rather than three times, and that is the distillation. This takes time and I may not get it right each time, but Richard agreed that this just needs to be practised.  I suspect this schema within my own mind, that constant looking for reassurance, comes from my childhood, but also probably from the people that I live with too, as I'm always unsure of what is expected of me, or if I am being understood.

This was a great session with Richard, I'm confident in what I need to do, but with his help and guidance have been able to improve my confidence, which I struggle with a great deal. Richard's closing words were that it is not the collection of material that is important but the distillation and clarity of delivery, with beautiful elegance. Talking about extremely complex things, but making it simple is what is required.

References

Grusin, Richard A. (2015) The Nonhuman Turn

Gray, John. (2106) Silence of Animals

Ramos, Filipa (2016), Animals: Documents of Contemporary Art, by  Whitechapel Gallery, 

Berger, John (1980) "Why Look at Animals" 

Baker, JA (1967). The Peregrine, 

Macdonald, Helen (2014), H-is-for-Hawk 

All set, - reflections on a discussion with Richard Mulhearn

As always, I had another great conversation with Richard on Friday, who really instilled some confidence in me as to what I am doing.

A lot of things have been happening over the previous week, which may not have directly contributed to production for the major project, but nevertheless, now out of the way and I am able to refocus again on my work.

I felt that Richard was pleased that I was working on the storyboard as a structure to my essay and original artefact, and he asked some questions relating to the methods and generally "what was it about?".

I explained that I have re-evaluated, with Rowan's help, the best way forward for me to take. Originally I had started from the position of trying to write a formal academic essay, with the usual rigid foundations and heading format. However, after a few weeks of wrestling with this and putting it into a much more original context about the Peregrine, I have now adopted a format that is far better placed. Both regarding artistic context, but also readability as a story of my journey, rather than what could have been rather dry and stuffy report.

So to create a 70% essay, purely as a report would probably have been rather dull!

I am in the process of making this a story, as a practical piece and Richard agreed that it does not need to be constrained within the confines of the academic strategy. My current document is somewhere in between the moment. While it is following the general idea, instead of the traditional titles to each chapter, I've already paraphrased them into similar titles from Baker's book, plus more Peregrine orientated titles. There is a subtlety of following a kind of educational process, but not making it formal. What I was really pleased about on Wednesday after my meeting with Rowan was the ideas of introducing more art into the work, as a result of the previous conversation that I had had with Dr Juliet MacDonald, when she pointed me towards the work of Ernest Seton Thompson. He used to do lots of books with tiny little line drawings as marginalia. The illustrations are exquisite, and I have already blogged about Seton Thompson and his work in a recent blog.

My intention, therefore, is to do something similar in my own document, creating small line drawings in the margins of the story, as little signposts, almost like visual memoirs. My thoughts are to make it much more of a narrative the journey of my discovery, culminating eventually in this bizarre twist of finding me at the end of the voyage.

Richard suggested and was interested in me looking at a particular film, a slightly different subject, but a beautiful film entitled "Sleep Furiously". This can be rented on Amazon for approximately £2.50, and a small snippet, entitled "Snow", by the filmmaker Gideon Koppel was shown to me. In brief, it tells the story about a small village located in an isolated rural community in Wales. The filmmaker was born in the area and has a high affinity for the place.

Notebook sketch
 by Graham Hadfield, January 2017

Having watched the film over the weekend, it struck me just how similar the landscape of Wales resides in my own imagination, particularly in the drawings that I've created that are purely speculative and have no direct image or reference point that I've copied from. The short piece that Richard showed me on Friday had some remarkable similarities, quite fascinating even when compared to some of the drawings I've been making. For example, just a couple of these what I call speculative drawings are shown below, next to screenshots of Gideon Koppel's film.

Screen shot, Gideon Kappel, (2010), Sleep Furiously - Film
from a short clip called 'Snow', retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefwozBCZL4

Photoshop, simple digital sketch, GP Hadfield, Feb, 2017.

The film resonates with me entirely, even though there is a different subject matter. The landscape is very similar to what much of that that I'm thinking. Some of the shots are incredibly evocative. The snow in the scene, the temporality of it all, a beautifully slow contemplative film, with very long cuts.

Screen shot, Gideon Kappel, (2010), Sleep Furiously - Film
from a short clip called 'Snow', retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefwozBCZL4

I recognised the ideas of Gideon Koppel's and his association with this movie with the writing of Dylan Thomas quickly. The visual descriptions of people's faces, the descriptions of the landscape, the individuality of the characters and characteristics, a role written by Dylan Thomas, that have been visualised into this film by Gideon Koppel. I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself into the 90 minutes or so of contemplation while I watched this movie.

I picked up on a piece of advice by Richard during our discussion, which was not to sensationalise (I think he may have said, "don't make it too dramatic") the strange twist, of finding myself in the photograph of Helen MacDonald. While he loves the idea of 'the curveball', I should resist making it too dramatic. My thinking is that it should be part of the process of making connections, rather than some amazing declaration or statement, and "a Ta Daar moment" as such. There is a significance in that it is "incongruous", but it is relevant. Richard felt that it locates me within the work. It is about finding me, which Richard believes is a gift. The structure is good, and Richard thinks that it is working. It enables me to use the connections and strange twists of adjustments and drawings. Richard feels that I'm ready to finish and was very encouraging, that we no longer need to explore key themes anymore, but still keep experimenting, still, keep working hard, there is still a long way to go! - I entirely agree!

I also mentioned that I'm looking at Tacita Dean, and I provided Richard at this point with a copy of my summary. Richard was delighted that I keep providing these to my tutors because in effect I am doing my creative reflective summary (CRS) continually. He really appreciated that this makes it so much easier for instructors to keep tabs on my activities and ways of thinking through the learning progressions.

The word equivalent for the CRS is likely to be between 3000 and 4000 words, plus or -10%, which includes all my notes and valuations. I need to make sure that I'm able to condense and distill the summaries. Richard was pleased that these work as a way of tracking my progress, drawing on the experience of working together with me. I also think that this is the easiest way for my tutors to quickly understand where I am visually, almost like a weekly report.

As part of the assessment process, Richard confirmed that it makes it far easier for the tutors to assess the work, reading the CRS, understanding what decisions I have made, where and what are the significant points, have I been able to recognise and contextualise them, what I'm reading, thinking about and making decisions upon fit with the rubrics of the assessment marking.

I was really pleased with the one-to-one I had with Richard and felt very encouraged with this feedback.


 Conclusions:

 References:

A very encouraging conversation with Dr Rowan Bailey, Wednesday, 21st June 2017.

It had been a challenging week in many ways for me, trying to juggle some really great personal opportunities (new house, etc.), which was taking up a substantial amount of my time, together with the applied focus that I needed to make in the creation of my essay. So I started the conversation with Rowan feeling a little battered and bruised!  Rowan put me at ease straight away!

To have a discussion with Dr Bailey to try to crystallise my thoughts a little further on how my reflective essay should take shape was what I needed. It had been a couple of weeks since my last check-in, and I was looking for some 'steerage' and reassurance. I provided a two-page summary update in the usual form (an up-to-date copy of which is shown below);

 together with a more recently annotated version of my storyboard (also shown below).

As the process of the structure of my reflective essay is still emerging, I have been a little uncomfortable in that my approach has been perhaps a little constrained by attempting to use the more traditional and perhaps formal academic research paper format. While I have already started my essay based on a paraphrasing of the 'official' titles, into a more speculative re-visioning of The Peregrine, I'm conscious that there is no argument as such within the title of the document. Whilst I have used the storyboard to start to think about what it is that I am going to use for its content, I am using the storyboard as an aide memoir, some structure or scaffolding. However, a major question I had for Dr Bailey, was an observation by Dr MacDonald. This was regarding the work of the early 20th-century writer and artist, Ernest Seton Thompson whom Dr MacDonald had steered me towards during the previous weeks. I've already written some of my initial findings on Thompson's work and in particular, how I love the idea of his stories being published with his own little aide memoir type sketches as marginalia to his books. These simple line and ink drawings are charming and exquisite, and they play perfectly together with the literature. My question to Dr Bailey was more of a kind of concern, as I want to deviate from the usual formal academic report style by adopting a similar, but a different method of including small ink drawings within my own text. My concern, of course, was to understand if this would be an acceptable deviation from the usual academic submission?

I was delighted to get a very positive response from Dr Bailey who confirmed that such expressiveness, especially since this is an arts-based Masters degree, is especially welcomed, and I need not concern myself with trying to conform to any kind of traditional academic style (other than of course, correct and proper referencing using the American Psychology Association (APA) method). Dr Bailey went on to confirm that as my writing is indeed very experimental piece, it is definitely acceptable to experiment both with the text and with the drawings as of the drawing can be part of the experience. Similarly, as the lines of research and enquiry and connections have so much in common with the study conducted by Prof Tim Ingold (and this is about his book Lines: a Brief History, (2007, 2016)). How the visual, and in particular the drawing emerges within writing in the process. Rowan confirmed that it may be, for my own piece of writing, the "beautiful little artist book" form, it does not have to be an academic paper. It can still have academic and critical rigour, and yet still be an art book.

This was incredibly reassuring for me. The next worry that I had regarding my production was the fact that much of my reading and research had been heavily academic. In previous papers, I'm conscious that I perhaps included too many references. I probably overcomplicated individual sections by putting too many references into a document from different sources. I am therefore thinking about starting to be more creative with my own opinions and thoughts as a postgraduate. I'm reticent to make independent views. Rowan was quick to clarify that the final major project is a creative piece. Therefore, if one was to be writing an academic essay is a report then personal opinions may be problematic, however as this is a creative output, rational and evidenced opinions formed through the critical analysis and reflection of the works of others means that, as an original piece of writing, there will no doubt be different "voices", or perhaps a better phrase may be "registers" coming in, to produce this artistic and creative artefact.

• What are the voices in the project?
• What are the perspectives that need to come interview?
• So that would be about revisiting structure, and pulling out the key stories that I need to rip/or narrate as part of this process.
•  I need to ask myself what the key moments, stories or findings that I need to be told in the speculative re-visioning are?

In thinking about this question a little further, although my initial thoughts were ideas for example from Donna Haraway et cetera, and from a background point of view, speculative realism needs to be discussed in a limited detail: perhaps some pointers to what it is at a fundamental level and how I have been able to interpret it on my own and adapt it to my own thoughts, including some of the history perhaps from Aristotle and Plato: but then coming back to the anti-anthropomorphic point of view, I can then start to talk about the stories that come into play. The story begins to unfold, I need to incorporate JA Baker's The Peregrine and his obsessive observations. I feel that obsessiveness of observation is what is critically important, from my own work. That is important as a story because of how he gets so close to the Peregrine, and in his mind becomes a Peregrine almost himself. This also leads on to Helen Macdonald, and H is for Hawk, and her own discovery of herself, and as a side link to that, her first book Falcon, before H is for Hawk, and then finally the surprising discovery on the back page of her book Falcon, and the photograph of me, in a former life.

While those were my initial thoughts of the reference points that I need to think about, Rowan correctly pointed out a slightly different view. That is, what stories would she like to read about in my (that is Graham's) speculative journey?  Those original thoughts with the academic theoretical journey, but not my own personal one!

Rowan asked a critical and brilliantly intuitive set of questions, which I paraphrase and ask myself, here;

•  "Am I writing a piece about 'me' and my own journey of investigation into JA Baker's book?
•  And how have I investigated and developed as a source point, my views to this, i.e. - to develop a research project through Baker's book?
• And the journeys that I have gone on to attempt to do, in this investigation where the different bits of literature are coming into play?"

This can be a very creative process, & Dr Bailey recognised that at the core of this 'speculative re-visioning' is about shifting perspective!
This could be discussed later as part of the story, that I'm telling in a way. However, I agree with Dr Bailey that it is probably more important to set the scene early. It is after all, speculative, therefore has to be about shifting perspective not necessarily in a fictional way, but through intention nevertheless.

In other words, this is a story about shifting perspectives!

Thinking further then, on my own journey, I would invite the reader to accompany me, on my own journey of investigation into the book by JA Baker published in 1967. At first thought, the perspectives are all of the things that I have explored around Donna Haraway too. I do not have to do this in an academic sense, but I could do it through how my encounter with Haraway, and all the other sources (and how I have got to grips with them), has made me rethink aspects of Baker's book or my journey?

Rowan likened it to different voices;  These different voices, therefore, are voices of yourself. It's possible to even play with the structural form.
In shifting perspectives, for example, as a novel, there would normally be alternate chapters such as; the Peregrine's view, and the next chapter the human perspective, and the next chapter may be about the Peregrine's perception...
But all of these can be narrative points of view!

Even though it may be the Peregrine narrating something, and even though it's an "anthropomorphic gesture" (as Rowan put it), on my part, - That is, by me getting inside the raptor and imagining what the Peregrine might be thinking.

All of that creative play can be applied to a recollection of this whole past year of my journey, and as Rowan put it, "the phenomena" in a sense.

There is an opportunity, therefore, to experiment in, and through, the writing itself.

Conclusions:

This conversation has been quite critical for me because it has opened the door for a much wider ability for me to create, as I felt somewhat stifled by trying to comply with the academic structure.

For example, I don't have to say that it's a particular document with an academic methodology - The method is the book, the investigation.

While I need tell a story, what I do need to include is;

•  my position is of course, and theoretical positions, theoretical perspectives,
•  my primary research for example around storytelling,
•  my accounts of observations with landscapes, 
• my discoveries of reading the various literature, 
• my imagining of the Peregrine and the Peregrine's Journey, 
• my 'struggle to situate' my drawings as ways of imagining the Peregrine's world. 
• My own discovery, such as the experiences of temporality. 
• The changing seasons, the journey as a process, 
• the discovery of me, from a previous time. 

My own subjective, lived experiences start to come into the story that way.

The standard academic structure would have been a struggle to comply with.
Because I've been trying to do a project which is opening everything up and break boundaries, I would be making poetic reflections, but an academic format might (would) stifle these.

While the new chapter headings in the essay are entirely acceptable (see storyboard above), they should also allow me to tell the story of the process that I have been through.

I then need to try to create a structure of what the piece would be itself. That is a creatively written outcome.

....And all of the time thinking about shifting perspectives.

....Hanging onto my own voice as a creative researcher but also recounting the investigative journey.

As an attempt to take this forward I'm currently trying to index my previous reflections and blogs so that I can paraphrase and reflect upon the voyage.

So while the formal structure has been a block, this conversation is much more open for creative input and now OUTPUT!

The book itself must be a beautiful artefact!

To submit this with my blog in July as an original 70% piece of the major project is perfectly acceptable. Then the 30% part can be the visual outcomes and pieces that I have been thinking about.

 References:

Baker, J. A. (1967). The Peregrine (2015 Edition ed.). London: HarperCollins.
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
MacDonald, H. (2014). H is for Hawk. London: Jonathan Cape, Vintage, Penguin Random House.

Thoughts on a tutorial/one-to-one meeting with Dr Juliet MacDonald, Friday, 16 June.

I had another excellent discussion with Juliet on Friday, and we covered a lot of ground including the recent blog that I'd created following my fortuitous discovery of a method to convert previous blogs into an easily readable document format easily. I think this will be a useful tool which I can further modify by using the various tabs that I allocate to my blogs so that they can be correlated into suitable chapters or sections of the book. I'm quite pleased with the outcome of this short exercise, even though arguably it became a bit of a distraction away from essay production over the last week.

Juliet also commented on the review of my two-page status report, together with the John Gray books that I have been reading. We also discussed the ideas of discursive reading by Karen Barad. Juliet pointed out that the Haraway and Barad reference both come as a kind of feminist writing position, but there is a recent piece of work at Juliet recommended which looks at both the feminist position and Speculative Realism. I'm not sure if this has already been pointed out to me by Rowan, is a section of the book "New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies" by Richard Dolphijn and Iris Van Der Tuin. Published by the Open Humanities Press, University of Michigan.

Juliet confirmed that it's possible that this is the book that contains the chapter of the interview and agreed to double-check her source at some stage. The book may also be in the library at the University of Huddersfield. Juliet kindly agreed to try to find the one that she saw which is also available through Summons. I shall add this to my reading list.

We also discussed my recent acquisition of the book By Alan Parkin "essential cognitive psychology". Dr MacDonald confirmed that this was an important book to consider this especially the chapter regarding visual perception. Thinking about this in line drawings ties well together with this book. As this is an MA in digital media and the fact that this project touches on embodied vision and digital computer vision and media, what I'm doing particularly around edges and computers mapping these edges, there is a critical history to it, which I can be critical towards regarding its historical development. How the computer maps the boundaries is important to understand what models of visual perception have been used in creating computer-based cognitive kinds of algorithms that pick out edges, based on an understanding of embodied bit vision but mapped and designed into algorithms for a computer to interpret and change into human readable embodied vision.

This is of interest to me because it has probably followed quite a rigid development and evolution based on scientific advances of the camera initially, and then digital technology. What is of interest to me here is that the general discourse on scientific progress has more recently taken a wider turn towards artistic development. My project in the way that I am going about it may bring about different type of understanding compared to the qualitative scientific and traditional technical development, and textbook cognitive psychology. The project keeps expanding and touches on various areas.

The storyboard layout for the essay is beginning to take shape as a vehicle for me to create the paper. This is a helpful tool for me to use to create some structure and scaffolding, together with various signposts. I felt that my drawings for the storyboard are a little bit over the top, especially for a storyboard, and I was quick to defend the reason for doing this was more to create a diversion. These drawings have been set up in Photoshop, and even through this diversion, I learned a valuable lesson. Probably a mistake that I initially made was to make these drawings on a single layer within Photoshop. Therefore each addition and change that I was making affected the single layer in the same way that a pencil drawing was done previously on paper. The advantage of creating multiple layers means that I would have been able to make nondestructive adaptations and I would have been able to change the order of the various layers to try and achieve the best effect.

Within these drawings, while they are not very detailed, they are of course raster based graphics, which means that their scalability is limited. Juliet asked if I was able to create these as vector drawings, but I think perhaps the shortfall would be that I would not be able to blend vector drawings in quite the same way that it is possible through a raster based photoshop picture only because the capability of blending is reduced. Nevertheless, sticking with the idea of the line, then Adobe Illustrator vector drawings are ideal.

Juliet asked if these images were originally based on photographs which I confirmed many of which I had taken at the various falconry displays that I'd attended both last year and a recent one in April. The idea that the images can be frozen in time and then re-articulated through drawing in itself makes an interesting engagement.

We also talked about the work of Ernest Seton Thompson, which I'm incredibly grateful that Juliet pointed out to me last week. Dr MacDonald is particularly interested in the drawings as a kind of shorthand that Seton Thompson tended to create in the margins to his books. The blog that I was able to create last week goes into more detail about the beautiful and exquisitely minimal ink drawings that he rendered. There is something about my storyboard that reminded Juliet about seeing Thompson's work previously. I loved the books that Seton Thompson had created, and I was very inspired to review the technique to such an extent that I was able to cut many of the drawings out and paste them into Adobe In Design. Juliet pointed out also the personification goes on in Seaton Thompson's drawings as well as his text where he is able to call many of his animal encounters with human names.

The structure of the headings and subsections of the storyboard can continually be adapted as I start to go forward with production of the essay in the body of the work. I recognise that I need to get cracking on the full production of this piece.

From a personal point of view, I replayed to Juliet that my mind has been wondering a great deal over the past few weeks, particularly after some recent heart and lung tests that I had to undergo. They culminated in echocardiogram's yesterday, and other tests, possibly with an overnight stay in hospital in the next few months. I'm still not sure when this will be as it was declared that there was a potential waiting time of up to 87 days when I applied for this, so it's likely to be sometime in August now. Whilst it's been playing on my mind a little bit, I'm also in the process of trying to buy a second house, a cottage, but the various solicitors and their timescales have been somewhat frustrating. Meanwhile trying to pacify my wonderfully enthusiastic wife and at the same time balance, the concerns and worries of the sellers are making my position a little difficult. Especially because I'm trying to immerse myself into an environment of artistic production and learning, I am conscious that these distractions do make such immersion difficult. I have full empathy for my peers and younger students who are trying to hold down part-time jobs together with various other pressures which are far greater than my own. I still feel truly privileged to be able to switch off however and meditate through drawing.

There was a brief discussion on the works of WG Sebald. Juliet enjoyed the film I had suggested and found entitled "Patience (after Sebald)", by the movie that the director and producer, Grant Gee (2012). I found this to be an excellent reference because he had this approach of taking his readers on a journey, similar to the device used by Rebecca Solnit and many others. He does this in one of his books "rings of Saturn", and this journey brings in many details from his personal histories and global histories. This is a nice method, with the idea of even how the way that the film has been made, with different voices and reflections with voices being layered over landscapes has these similar layers to my project. These constantly different ways of bringing these things together are similar to my essay and how I bring these various threads together in a critical way is important too.

Juliet mentioned that there were a couple of things in the recent graduate degree show, where there is a video playing on layers of screens by Kerry Freeman, I was later able to take a look at this installation. I met Kerry sometime ago at an exhibition at the Artworks in Halifax, and we did a joint collaborative exhibition with many of the graphic design students while I was between my second and third year, and Kerry had just been completing her first year. Mainly through the work of UoH lecturers together with a lot of her students in graphic design.

Juliet was thinking about the kind of parallax installation with various images around the room and was unsure as to whether that would be able to be achieved through a layering of screens or whether I had a difference. I explained that my thoughts were more perhaps like the work of William Kentridge and his Documenta 13 exhibition. I found this very inspirational, even though his work is very silhouetted through a beautiful series of animations, there is a level of recognition and confusion in his work which I love. In my job what I'm thinking about is through the use of layers in Adobe Illustrator Photoshop, but then mixed through after-effects and then projected with very slight overlaps in the way that it is projected. The reason for this is because of my observations of peregrines and their head bobbing that goes on regularly when they are in a static state. This creates a level of parallax that they can take advantage of through their second fovea and acuity of vision.

It was confirmed that this would be achieved through software manipulation, and Dr MacDonald confirmed that it was probable that I could borrow a number of projectors that I could use once the undergraduate degree show has been completed.

Another piece of work in the contemporary arts exhibition is the work of Daniel Davies. He created a large wall display of drawings and text like a kind of evidence board with various threads of connections. This is a worthwhile piece to also consider, in a way of mapping the project and tying things together. At the practical stage, this may be a useful technique that Dr MacDonald suggested would help to position my work. Thinking of various connections within the essay will be large, there may be other ways to explore the visual outputs.

 I mentioned too the work of Dr Graham Lister which I recall seeing about 18 months ago. He too used a kind of storyboard and connecting lines of evidence for his artistic trip and journey across the United States of America. There were pictures of how we presented this when he first started at the University I think back in January 2016. They provide an excellent presentation and overview which I'm sure I must have a copy of somewhere. It was a nice mix between the digital and the ideas of space which he also used Google maps to draw things together with.

"There is so much to work with that I'm not short of things to do" as Juliet suggested, feeding my writing into the reflective essay rather than into my blogs is important though, and I need to be careful to divide my time up correctly.

While it is important to keep moving forward and interrogating the idea of rapport being a fundamental idea, the idea of approaching a new design by developing a rapport with something else is an interesting way of starting a journey. Reappraisal of the role in our world, and my intellectual argument encompassing how rapport can be developed for the various headings of responsibility; environmental, and ethical concerns must support my argument. Which by the way also supports Donna Haraway's assertion of dogs being companion species, whereas I assert that peregrines and Falcons should also be considered as companion species. Dr MacDonald correctly pointed out that dogs have been specially bred for their various attributes to become "companion species" whereas falcons, hawks and eagles are almost all evolved from totally wild and independent species. It is only very recently, and on further research that hybridisation and falconry have taken place.

The radio four series entitled "natural histories" was a useful resource for me to review according to Dr MacDonald because it is highly likely that they may have done a series or at least a program on falconry? This was a good steer for me to take a look at and use the BBC archives that are now online.

I also mentioned the previous suggestion by Richard Mulhearn to get a copy of the book from the Whitechapel Gallery "Documents of Contemporary Art: Animals" and one of which contains various essays by practising artists and practitioners. Marcus Coates and his work has some resonance with the idea of establishing rapport with creatures, together with various other philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Brian Massumi, Walter Benjamin and John Berger all of whom I have been studying throughout my undergraduate degree and as part of this master's. So this is an excellent source of real world essays and material and another wonderful find.

Further reflections on Essay production;

 A subsequent conflict in my mind has now been resolved thanks to a simple discussion that I must thank my wife, Julie. I have been struggling to maintain a flow in the production of the essay, while literally staring the answer in the face. Julie correctly pointed out that I can quite simply flip from section to section, chapter to chapter and each day start wherever I wish by using the storyboard as a prompt. I, therefore, do not need to create an extended essay in a traditional sense of the start middle and end. This might seem obvious, but the conversation led to a profound realisation that my approach, and sense of being frozen to some degree, could literally be this flexible. I'm incredibly thankful that I'm able to have such conversations and gain insight through such productive discussions.

Conclusions:

• Continue reading the work of Karen Barad, and Diffractive Reading
• Finish reading essential cognitive psychology by Alan Parkin, especially the chapter around visual perception and supporting chapters (only!)
• Build upon the use of the storyboard is a flexible scaffolding for the production of the essay.
• Think about the production of drawings and the need to continually add and develop layers in all the Adobe applications that I use. Layers make it easy for nondestructive adjustments to be made.
• Keep making small drawings, possibly to be used in the margin of the essay perhaps in a similar way to Seton Thompson's margin drawings?
•  I need to ask Rowan if it would be acceptable to make such margin drawings in an academic paper?
• Keep reviewing the work of William Kentridge and other practitioners including the work of the recent graduates at this university to help contextualise and position my own work.
• Try to avoid blogging too much, but instead devote more time to the essay production as I now have less than a month to complete this.

References: 

Dolphijn, RJ and Vander Tuin, I. (2012). New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies . Open Humanities Press, University of Michigan. Retrieved online at http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11515701.0001.001

Gee, G. (2012). Patience (after Sebald), a documentary video/film available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaMwDApbIlc

• Parkin, A. J. (2000;2014;). Essential cognitive psychology. Hove: Psychology. doi:10.4324/9781315784854
  

Ramos, F. (2016) Document of Contemporary Art: Animals. Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT press. London.

Seton Thompson, E. Various works, now available online at

Further thoughts on my discussions with Dr Juliet MacDonald, Friday 10th of June 2017.

• In thinking about how I have been setting out my reflective essay, some of the things that Dr MacDonald suggested last Friday make complete sense, now that I have had time to rethink and digest the long conversation that we had, which was extremely useful.

The numbering of my headings should perhaps be removed as they provide too much granularity, especially in the subheadings/header two and header three styles, should be lost, as an essay is much more flowing normally. The main headings are fine, but the others should perhaps just provide an aide memoir for structure. Juliet recommended that a more flowing reflective essay tends to have a lot fewer subheadings and should not be broken up too much as it becomes granular.

This makes sense because if the essay is too granular it becomes linear, and by ideas of meandering means that I'm looking for a kind of non-linear journey. Juliet pointed out that it's important for me to keep a focus on balance and destination especially as my reader may struggle if there are too many tangents.

One of the techniques that I think is probably a wise thing for me to follow with the idea of planting "seeds" early in the discussion so if there is any meandering to be done, the reader is able to understand where I will be going with my discussion. Juliet asked me if I was going to be using any of the drawings that I have created, and while it is my intention, I find that what I often tend to do is to translate a visual shorthand into a sketch through associations and playing around with different routes.

The digital media drawings will form a significant part of my final outcome and should, therefore, be included towards the end of my essay, as it is my intention to submit the paper essay in July, with conclusions to produce the physical artefacts and outputs through the end of July and August. Therefore if the writing forms 70% of my submission, then it makes sense that the bulk of this is submitted earlier, and the artistic, physical artefacts come about from my research outcomes and conclusions. This makes sense to me because it seems highly likely that the work I'm doing may not end at the completion of my masters, as it could well form a body of work that can be built on through further study perhaps at the next level?

I'm not saying that it is open-ended, but indeed, preparation for a future piece of work that can become ongoing. The journey hasn't finished.

The artefacts that I produce between July and the end of August must be polished and fit for purpose, in their own right but can also open into other things as well. These artefacts should provide good tasters of visual components that could come from my findings

We then discussed the potential outputs, such as very large format drawings, very large format engravings or woodcuts, and also concepts around using 3-D devices such as Oculus Rift or the new HTC immersive virtual reality environment. However, with the time available to me, I am a little uncomfortable that I have the technical competency or indeed the possible time to complete anything much of substance using the 3-D route.

What I am considering seriously instead, however, is based on some ideas that I observed when researching William Kentridge and his Documenta 13 piece entitled "The Refusal of Time" (2012). Taking this idea of projected images on all four sides of the room has an appeal where I would be able to use some of my existing drawings, supplemented with speculative drawings imagined from JA Baker's The Peregrine. These images can then be juxtaposed and layered (which is different from Kentridge's technique), through Adobe's Creative Cloud suite, and the various layers potentially have the same drawing can be slightly shifted. Thus, creating a sensation not too dissimilar from parallax shift, based on the head bobbing motions that a Peregrine Falcon almost always adopts whenever it is not flying, sitting on a perch or other vantage point.

I've already made an approach to the technician's manager, to try and source a space. By projecting the line drawings on all four walls, my observations of Peregrine behaviour can be articulated perhaps through this medium?

Creating some sort of confusion and for the viewer to step out of their normal perceptions is key to my physical artwork being a success. The sensation of three-dimensional witty being recreated through the two-dimensional drawings requires an element of parallax. The element of recognising something that is hard to read, through some sort of movement (of an enormous still image) with other pictures layered behind to create parallax, through projected images of layers, or even multiple layers that can shift is my concept. In itself, this is probably quite a big project but is realistically achievable for me to do rather than some kind of three-dimensional virtual reality computer-based 3-D project. Dr MacDonald agreed that the idea sounded very plausible and was confident with encouragement.

Fundamental to my own project is Helen Macdonald's discovery in her book "H is for Hawk" (2014) that Hawks are unable to seemingly understand two-dimensional line drawings, and yet tie that together on a visual plane with JA Baker's book "The Peregrine" (1967). Apparently, Macdonald's book was indeed influenced by Baker's earlier book. Dr MacDonald had read that section of the book slightly differently to myself, since her interpretation was that even though this was a line drawing, it may not necessarily be a drawing of edges, in the kind of style that I have been rendering. However, what it did bring to Juliet's mind was an excellent reference to work by an illustrator and storyteller Ernest Seaton Thompson, around the mid 19th century, who although English-born, spent many years in the Canadian wilderness as a trapper. His experiences allowed him to produce many books of a genre of naturalist writing, but in the margin, on many pages, he provided some lovely, very straightforward and minimal, yet readily recognisable sketches (as mini sketches), almost similar to those on my storyboard. Juliet very kindly provided me later with URL links to some of his books, which are now in the public domain and not subject to U.S. copyright as he died in 1946.

A title of one of his books jumped out at me...  "The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore" published in 1912.  How could anyone not find this interesting?  On taking a look at this book, and many others, freely available through the internet archive, http://www.archive.org/ I could see immediately what Dr MacDonald was referring to.

Works by Ernest Seton-Thompson (1860-1946), from his essay,
The Slum-cat, in "Animal Heroes" (1912).  http://www.archive.org/details/animalheroesbeinseto

Sometimes, he represented through line breaks, the lost&found line style and an also, outline, rather than the full 'edge' of objects and animals, to provide sufficient in order to recognise a representation. Ernest Seaton Thompson produced some beautiful drawings through a kind of lost and found line style, with many parts only skipped over as blank space, but nevertheless provided sufficient detail (albeit very sparsely) for a viewer to recognise what may be happening in a particular scene.

Having reviewed some of these beautiful drawings and sketches after our discussion, Juliet has perfectly identified an excellent source of material for me to consider and potentially draw inspiration from. Seaton Thompson was able to capture minimal detail exquisitely and I thoroughly enjoyed looking through his books.

I still have a lot of work to do based on Dr MacDonald's previous recommendations to look at "Essential Cognitive Psychology" by Alan J Parkin (2000). In particular the chapter regarding visual perception. The psychologist, Marr, provides some excellent historical reference which Parkin builds on.

Finally, I explained my need to create the body of my essay as soon as I possibly can, so that I have sufficient material the cat I can begin to hone and craft into a short and meaningful essay. Much of my blogging will allow me to use this as a reference, together with my metaphors and play of words, as a creative process. Part of the artistic production may be intangible, but the writing is part of my creative practice, and the drawing becomes a meditative contemplation of the practice.

Conclusions:

• I need to own a creative process of writing that works alongside drawing. 
• I'm reassured that there are many contemporary artists such as Helen Martin and more recently work that I had seen by Tacita Dean. Juliet suggested some of the very large format chalk drawings that Tacita Dean had provided for Documenta 13 and I later reviewed these beautiful renderings. 
• Having seen an earlier discussion on Tacita Dean and her creative methods using traditional cellulose film I recall that she mentioned some ideas that she had taken from the French writer René Daumal and his book "Mount Analogue". Further research on the book shows how impressive Tacita Dean has been in developing her chalk drawings. The original book by René Daumal in the early 20th century talks about a strange and mystical mountain that is far bigger than any known mountain on earth (such as Everest or K2 et cetera), and can only be found at a specific time of year and a day, when the sun lies at a particular angle to the earth. René Daumal was unable to complete his novel which also seems to be written as a kind of lifelong journey, and so his own destination was never realised. Indeed the quote taken from the book "The Art of Climbing Mountains" by Daumal seems particularly relevant through his comparison of the act of climbing with art itself. He states:

"Alpine-ism is the art of climbing mountains by confronting the greatest dangers with the greatest prudence. Art is used here to mean the accomplishment of knowledge in action… There is an art to finding your way in the lower regions by the memory of what you have seen when you were higher up stop when you can no longer see, you can at least still know."

References:

Baker, J.A. "The Peregrine" (1967), Penguin Books, London.
Kentridge, William.  (2012) - Documenta 13 piece entitled "The Refusal of Time", retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtkA6qq4t40.
Macdonald, H.'s  "H is for Hawk" (2014), Vintage Books, Random House, London
Parkin, Alan J(2000) "Essential Cognitive Psychology" Psychology Press - M.U.A, Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis.
Seton-Thompson, E. (1912), "Animal Heroes", Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/animalheroesbeinseto

Reflections on a meeting with Dr Juliet MacDonald, Friday 10th of June 2017.

Juliet started the conversation by congratulating me on the regularity of my blog posts and explained that she had enjoyed reading them. She stated that I clearly write a lot which is a healthy activity.

I provided Juliet with an initial draft of a storyboard, which I been concentrating on for most of the last few days, to help to layout the essay and the contents. My intention was to bounce the ideas of the storyboard off Dr MacDonald to make sure that my proposal to use nonacademic phrases as headings for my research and the reflective essay is appropriate for submission. Rather than the traditional form of an introduction, methodology, literature review and so on, I have decided to use headings which are taken from both JA Bakers The Peregrine (1967), together with phrases often used in falconry and hawking.

Headings for each of the chapters (slightly paraphrased) are therefore adapted, even though I am trying to follow the standard academic principles and thesis format. This creates a similar kind of structure, to become more "falcon-like".

For example, Introduction is replaced with "Beginnings"; and Methodology is replaced with "The Chase" And Findings I have replaced with "The Kill" and so on for similar headings and phrases. Those are the thoughts that I have at the moment, and Juliet liked the fact that it gives the document structure. It was recommended that I may reflect a little more on continuing this predatory structure, and in thinking about what does that say about how I am figuring out knowledge and learning with the structure of research? It is a nice way of organising the project as a kind of pursuit, and when I am considering a broad Vista in front of me of potential research material (just as a Peregrine looks upon the landscape and sees various forms of prey). Thus, I am able to narrow down and dive into a chase, a kill, grab it and consume it, then look around for the next meal. (Sustenance in other words, including intellectual digestion).

Dr MacDonald suggested that what should also be part of my essay structure/and/or introduction is either in the chase or before the chase, an idea of where I am flying above the ground, and I can see a vast territory and landscape below me? And there is a sense of "oh my goodness there is so much choice!" about the reference and research subjects. I confirmed that "the view of the landscape" is within my opening chapters, so I'm glad that Juliet clearly understands my approach so quickly!

In essence what I am attempting to do, after reflecting on a recent film that I managed to find after Dr Bailey's recommendation to research the works of WG (Max) Sebald (1944 to 2001) a creative writer and professor of the University of East Anglia.

In many of Sebald's books, he invites the reader to take a walk with him, literally, as he narrates his books through the journey and process of a walk. In a way, this is similar to JA Baker. An invitation to come on a voyage, to encourage a view as unaccompanied guidance. Sebald often starts with a literarily magnetic device and method which some have referred to as "fog". He commences the journey (the walk) as though staring through a thick layer of mist or fog, unsure of where he is going or the destination. This unclear goal, perhaps too distant to understand immediately, requires a method of meandering. I'm conscious that this is a similar trait that I have myself, as I often meander through my own writing and reflections. However, the metaphor I'm using is important to remember as river meanders, it has a final destination that takes many twists and turns. This is very different from drift, which arguably does not have a predefined target per see. Furthermore, it is a line if it is to be stretched out straight. Juliet pointed out correctly that a river flows from a higher point down to a lower level, and has direction and purpose, and in reflection, I think about as the river reaches its destination it often gets wider and slows down, which is not dissimilar to my own research processes.

Playing with different metaphors is part of my project, and Juliet has recognised this from my previous blogs. Various forms become different metaphors, in similar ways to Tim Ingold's metaphors in his book "Lines: a Brief History" (2007). All of these metaphors are useful ways of thinking about things according to Dr MacDonald and encouraged me to continue to use them, not only to articulate but also to reflect with.

The metaphor of a Peregrine's flight and the chase, hunting in the kill also has the connection to Tim Ingold's ideas of the line.

Finding threads and triggers through my writing is an essential component of it, and Juliet recommended that I introduced the ideas of Tim Ingold and his lines early in the essay. Once this reference has been made, I can then go on to expand on the whole notion of threads and connections, the walk, the line of flight, the line of enquiry, the chase and the kill et cetera.

While my storyboard is a useful tool in providing some structure to the reflective essay, it is important for me to remain flexible and to cut and paste the various sections of the storyboard and feel free to move them around to get a succinct and legitimate flow of ideas. Ultimately, the final part of the essay, that is the sections of "sustenance and digestion" (and digestions is a particularly poignant method of thinking about self-reflection), that should help me to explain. Thus, articulate what all of this research and the journey that I have taken means to me, and that is me as an individual. The thing that really captures that is the picture at the back of Helen Macdonald's book "Falcon" (2006), which shows a photograph of me walking through an underpass in London some 12 years ago, a reflection if you like of my own life with its various changes. A very different life that I had, but with a hint of escape that is subconsciously being suggested through the graffiti and artwork of the stencilled hooded goshawk to the right of the picture, on the underpass wall.

This photograph coincidently appears at the end of Macdonald's book, and it is my own intention to repeat its presentation and explanation at the end of my research essay. It provides a piece of magic, it could be a myth, and yet everything points to it being true. I, therefore, see it as clear opportunity to use the image in a very powerful way. Dr MacDonald agreed that this would be a good idea, as it also reflects my journey back to that point, and rediscovering that point through some weird intellectual journey.

A short discussion with Dr Bailey to bounce ideas with ...

I had another productive meeting with Dr Bailey yesterday morning which moved me towards a renewed vigour to look for the works of Siebold and also to continue my reading of John Gray and the most recent book that I have acquired called Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. (2002).

I will explain a little more about my meeting with Dr Bailey, but my mind had already been positioned somewhat by my recent readings of Gray. A couple of paragraphs should help the reader to understand my mindset first.

Gray's book starts with a quotation from Jacques Monod, which goes "all religions, nearly all philosophies, and even part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its contingency" (Jacques Monod, Molecular Biologist, 1910-1976).

The thrust of Straw Dogs is to justly articulate the actual human position in the world, which could be paraphrased and summarised as follows.
Despite our assumed sovereignty over and above everything else on the planet, we are just another animal: we believe that as humans, we are on a forward path of progress. However Gray points out that this is a myth. Indeed, the myths of religion, and even politics (such as the communist experiment on one hand, and fascism on the other extreme), and now dominated by liberal humanism are also no more than idealism or pious hopes.

So this illusion of progress is particularly impressive from an artistic point of view, as Gray spends the first chapter debunking most of our human myths. My eyes were raised in curiosity in the section which describes how Science (always being challenged by the Church), is proud of its reputation that it is based on logic and reason alone. This is exclaimed by its most vociferous (yet possibly less academic) supporters. However, in reality, (as such), it is in fact rooted in "faith, magic and trickery." In my own experience, this actually makes a huge amount of sense! Most scientific theories have indeed started as a hunch, and in a belief which may have never had a rational or logical source. I have been witness to the emotional pleadings from scientists, and those that are successful seem to be the ones that are able to secure funding for research through emotional, rather than rational or logical arguments alone.

The reason for Gray's positioning makes further sense in the next section, where he states "science works to entrench anthropocentrism. It encourages us to believe that, unlike any other animal, we can understand the natural world, and thereby bend it to our will." However, it is becoming clear from the advances in science (and here, read physics, quantum physics, genetics, microbiology et cetera), that not only our world but our universe can perhaps never be fully understood.

At last, is this the taste of humility?

Anyway, back to my meeting with Dr Bailey. My actions from the previous conversation I had had with Rowan was to create some kind of storyboard to help commence the production of my research essay. As it had only been a couple of days since we last spoke. I didn't have much to show her, other than a quote from Werner Hertzog which I mischievously repeated with a strong German accent;

 "I do not use a storyboard, it is an instrument of the cowards!" (Werner Hertzog)

However, I assured Rowan that this was pure mischief on my part, and I had been reading Graeme Harper's essay "Creative Writing: Words As Practice Led Research" (2008). This together with a paper by Lisa A. Mazzei (2014) entitled "Beyond Any Easy Sense: A Diffractive Analysis", an essay discussing Karen Barad's concept of a "diffractive methodological approach" (2007). These articulate the ideas of finding multiple insights through the readings of a multitude of sources. The red suggests that connections are made in unpredictable ways and so through reflection encourages new questions to be formed, with the outcome of generating alternative routes to knowledge.

Dr Bailey agreed that diffractive reading is an excellent method articulate my various sources of research material and recommended that I looked at an interview with Karen Barad, called material realities, the interviewer was Iris van do to in.

I need to consider carefully how I am doing the literature review for my essay. The intermingling, twisting and overlapping research threads of my enquiries are interesting in their own rights and the ideas of Tim Ingold and his discourse on "lines" is of particular use here. For all of this to finally become concrete through the unexplainable confrontation that I have been presented with, that is with my own reflection found in Helen MacDonald's book "Falcon" (2006). It provides genuinely interesting and exciting artistic research. Through this I can explain why creative research can be speculative, and why situated knowledge (which includes the work of Donna Haraway) can be so valuable.

My conversation with Rowan gave me new enthusiasm to continue, as it almost always does, - I'm feeling incredibly privileged and grateful to be able to have these short conversations with such a patient mentor.

Notes on a one-to-one meeting with Dr Rowan Bailey, Friday 2nd June 2017

I provided a weekly update sheet to Dr Bailey with my latest thoughts and visualisations. This presented a summary of the research readings and various visual experiments that I've been carrying out during the last week or so. A combination of drawing photography, experimentation writing, digitised images, trying to look for edges as perceptions. The idea of these drawn borders comes from Helen Macdonald's ideas in H is for Hawk (2014). The idea is that Hawks can see two-dimensional images as line drawings and makes sense from sketches and pictures.

What I have done this to take an original picture, the scene of a cliff face made in North Jersey, and tried various experiments with hand drawing as outlines of edges that might be important to a Peregrine, and defining those critical edges with thicker markings, and providing minor detail with thinner line thicknesses. This is just to make something different and minimal, which is the point which is I'm trying to get to, this minimisation. But I am also attempting to shortcut it through digitised images, by using Adobe Illustrator and provides a variety of possible outcomes through various post-production manipulations.

These to me seemed to come out as images that are interesting, but arguably wrong. The digitisation finds the edge of cliff faces, but a stray sunray is also treated as a digitised edge.
So there are no shortcuts. I've played about with a few images and photographs that I took of the Easter period. I'm not sure if these are right for my exploration because they are a little bit too muddled and jumbled and more not minimal enough. My hand drawing something, and making a judgement call as to what is important, and what edges are less significant the outcomes are more anthropocentric.

When comparing the hand drawn version against the digitised version while the hand-drawn image makes immediate sense to a human being, the digitised version might indeed be sufficiently "different, and otherworldly" to provide some more value in exploring this method. In Dr Bailey's opinion, these digitised versions reminded her of some of the kinds of images from the film "Terminator", starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The cyborgian type of digitised image. Dr Bailey reminded me that by seeing something from the perspective of a peregrine falcon I need to be experimenting as an artist in ways that I am demanding an audience a particular perspective to see too. In other words, the artist demands the viewer to see a new and alternative perspective, that is clearly not anthropocentric.

I need to remove the view (such as the hand drawn version), that this has been a humanly created rendering, and instead when looking at the strange digital perspective image one can imagine that this is kind of how a Peregrine might see. Nobody truly knows, even with all the science, but in terms of the signs (such as Helen Macdonald's discovery that Falcons can recognise two-dimensional drawings), the sharply defined lines are what the Peregrine sees and can actually see pictures of prey and identify with things like that.
As a Peregrine is travelling through a landscape how does it see? One may be able to imagine that this is how it sees (the digitised version) and draw a new conclusion? Whereas, considering the hand drawn version if one was to suggest that the Peregrine sees in the same way (a more anthropocentric version), it becomes a human interpretation again and not absorbing as a different way of looking and seeing. So, Dr Bailey confirmed that the digital versions become interesting experiments in their own right because as forms of didn't digital manipulation they might also be telling a story about Peregrines and my journey.

If the existing literature says, from a scientific point of view, or from other points of view, that birds of prey and their eyes are optically able to spot things that are tiny over enormous distances, what is that perceptual experience?
This is what I have to communicate in my work if that is my purpose, to see how the Peregrine see. And then it is all bound up in that beautiful symbolic narrative in which I become the prey or the preyed upon, and vice versa in this journey. The hunted and the hunting and the hunter and the hunted.
But at what point does this become reflected upon me, as the hunter or the hunted? My journey as a hunter and researcher but also as an individual being hunted by the Peregrine, as the object of investigation. And what has been hunted down... is my former self?
All these threads that begin to connect but also like a line that is lost and found?
I was very interested in Dr Bailey's opinions as I'm trying to get as many people's views as possible. How each individual encounters my project and the outputs both as a narrative and as a visual form are extremely pertinent. Everybody has their own particular view and response, and I'm keen to capture these in their own right.

To try and get away from the human-centric, the anthropocentric and anthropomorphic feeling of representing other animals perceptions and phenomenology.

I also informed Dr Bailey of my acquisition of Prof Tim Ingold's book "Lines: a brief history" (2007), who was clearly excited and pleased to look at the contents. The initial discussion that Prof Ingold makes about musical notation may not be directly linked to my project, but the future chapters about traces and links and connections are very much of use.

Another book that I've also acquired is the Whitechapel publication "Documents of Contemporary Art: Animals" (2016) edited by Filipa Ramos. There are a variety of essays within the tower particularly relevant such as John Berger's essay "Why Look at Animals?" (1977), and more recent articles such as "Becoming Something Else" (2014) by Marcus Coates. Many other lectures and essays are recorded in this book including work by Walter Benjamin, Giles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Simon Critchley, Brian Massumi and Donna Haraway all of which are of great use. This was recommended to me by Richard Mulhearn and is an excellent find which I am very grateful for.

Whilst I believe that some of Marcus Coates's approaches are somewhat wacky and unusual, what they actually do provide is an alternative view of ideas generally. It provides another dimension "to becoming something else", and I am finding this of interest in itself.

Dr Bailey felt that all of these sources will certainly help in building the context, and in my ambitions to not only improve my theoretical outputs. I realise that I need to incorporate all of the suggestions that Dr Bailey, Dr Macdonald and Richard Mulhearn are making. Equally, in reflection, all their feedback has been positive, and I should not be fixated on the 'the numbers' or marks from previous module assessments (as Dr Bailey pointed out).

But instead, what is crucial is (whilst I am very systematic and thorough), what I need to try to do, at this stage of the project, (because it is so big), is to revisit the project question. The statement.  I have gone some way to doing this already, but this still needs to be tightened up.

At the moment the 'problem statement' is too much and convoluted, and in some senses 'tricky'.

So thinking and reflecting on Dr Bailey's suggestions to take this forward, I need to go back to the original problem statement and rework it so that speculative realism becomes the "thread" and is a subtle undertone, not domination.  The danger of so much emphasis on Speculative Realism is this becomes a mode of thinking that actually stops other things from being seen, or experienced, or reviewed.

JA Baker and the Peregrine(1967) is at the core of this project, but my "modes of seeing" must be carried through the discourse of my essay, and equally tied with the discussions of the research literature that I have been exploring.

One way in which I can tighten this up is by developing a framework of artistic research that works correctly for me. Creative research needs to be carefully managed by revisiting "history, theory and practice". These are the three "prongs" of the triangle or circles of a Venn diagram.

I need to create an open-ended approach as a speculative enquiry, that is non-linear, but the anchor should be 'artistic research' through different ways of seeing...
Such as:
the Peregrines way,
as me as a researcher,
as an explorer,
and me as a subject confronted with myself in my own journey.

So what story is it that I want to tell? ...And how?

There is something about the writing of Siebold, and similar writers who take you on a story, on a journey, and I need to think about what is it that I want to do.

I need to think about my outcomes, which could be an online platform, as a curated, edited thing?
Or as a blog writer?

Some of those elements can come out and start to plot a story is an online curatorial platform, where the story is told. Some of this might appear later, as a beautiful, simple, little artists book with some of my drawings to accompany them?   This is something that I was thinking of creating as an artefact, as a kind of book, after my own writing and submission in July which will be the bulk of the writing. The visual book would come as a summary, that is, in a graphical and imagistic form for the final submission in Late August.

Because I am focusing on a written submission for July 18th's deadline, I need to think about styles of storytelling NOW through a kind of curatorial strategy.  Perhaps by mimicking all of the influences that I have been working with or navigating through?

It was decided that in preparation for the next meeting with Dr Bailey, I will develop a storyboard to put a framework together of the component parts of the project, but also the threads that I need to weave through them. So that way, there will be a sense of how these different voices and perspectives play a role, how do I theoretically and historically situate them together with my practice, which when mapped onto this provides a curatorial framework to structure this.

A curatorial strategy is what is required!

 There is an awful lot to explore, but it is about refinement too of the curatorial approach.

Once I can clarify that all of the research is in place (and anything that follows), I will be able to work this forward (to a common purpose), and it will naturally fall into place, with a coherent and cohesive output and outcomes.

In addition to carrying out my own artistic research, what I also need to do is to articulate what all of this means to me as an individual and as an artist. This will help you to define the story that I want to tell and how I can curate it.