odd+end

What Happens in a Pressure Cooker, or a project of Relations at Hollins

How easy is it to get focused on my story, me and my life. That we become so consumed on narrating and making our story, we forget where and how other people’s stories relate. Comparing experiences, collecting experiences, is what the interface of this project aims for.

I start from the questions that I must ask myself in collecting this data, these narratives. While the process of this project is ongoing, these are the questions that I will continue asking myself as the research, project design, and data collection, continues.

The project as I see it now centers itself around the concept of shared bodies, the relationships between bodies. Specifically, I am interested in the types of relationships and groups of relationship experiences that happen in a small “safe haven” for these relationships. I have been deeply affected by the connections and relations that happen between women at a women’s college. Women’s colleges have been recently ensuring a safe space for all women; this function comes into question when we contemplate the transgendered policies that are going through constant revision and questioning. In this contemplation, I am asking what other transportations we come subscribe in this environment. What transforms one relationship to another? What are the moments that friends become lovers, lovers become enemies, acquaintances to classmates? When a community is so small that it is possible, and popular, to know close to every body, how does the vocabulary change?

Logistically, I am thinking about identifying five or so major categories of relationships (topologies) as the data provides. Taking influence from Winterson, I propse that each of these categories work its way into a bodily system (nervous, digestive, sensory) with alternating clear and vague borders. I will start with each person as a point in this group; their relationships will be a function to the other relationship or group. Then we can take groups to groups, on different levels: spiritual, emotional, physical. We can look at each of these functions (for example, from eye to skin, blink) that transform or incorporate one point from one page to another. (The organization of the data is topological, and I feel could be better explained in an independent statement. The interface should stand, albeit with some transparencies, on its own and interacting with the audience.

There is no definitive answer, as the combinations of answers to those questions for each woman in such a community is limitless. My project will attempt to emulate a relational web using actual data and experiences. “History is not just a line from past to present; it is a web, a ‘dispersing interplay’ of discourses.” – Alexandra Carter, “Disrupting the Discipline”. The history of Hollins is not a definite, the history of a group of women is not the definite, but a dialogue. It makes sense in order to write poetry about this dialogue, or poetry as the dialogue, I must include and base it on the actual dialogue taking place. To do otherwise disempowers the community from whom I’m asking to privilege me with their stories.

I am part of this community.
As part of this web, there is a bias of being attached and intertwined in this web. I hope to locate that bias in the idea of author; all the poems will be my interpretations of the narratives of bodies that I collect. How does one gain distance from the bodies that she is tied to? I question whether distance is required in talking about shared bodies; I would argue that I am at an advantage with personal experience and a base knowledge that can offer only a starting point. Those who know me may be more inclined to participate in my project, more inclined to share their stories. However, the personal knowledge and contrast of those relationships can be also material for the project.

What data am I looking for?
I am searching for stories of shared and states of shared bodies. This includes stories of relationships (romantic and/or platonic), as well as transformations of relationships (getting closer to a particular friend, or breaking up with a lover). I’m also interested in finding out what knowledge people have of other bodies that is not first-hand (aka, what do you know through another person’s narration?).

Questions will be collaborated on and workshopped, and they will not be strict (as in the structure of the interview will follow the narrator).

How will the data be collected?

I am looking for a plethora of data in various forms. I’d like to collect both video and audio data, as well as online data. This set can also include workshopped written pieces, or other artwork that has an innate personal element. With the full knowledge of what a magnitude of data is, I will most likely only use a fraction of what I collect.

A release agreement will be signed, gaining use of the entirety of video and audio data, as well as any journal (online and off) information that they wish to give me access.

How will the data be displayed?

I feel that to display video and audio without protecting the names of the named would alter the depth of the narrations that I have access to. I feel that if the interviews and data collecting was anonymous, then the interviewers would feel more at ease to tell me. I am also not trying to document the exact college relational state, but make an emulation that is based off of this data. I would create fictional characters or narrators that would incorporate or draw their inspiration from several people. Therefore, in the video, I could alter it severely so that both the audio and visual would be unrecognizable. This takes away the identity and liability of the narrator, but it also takes away some of the power of the teller. What could also occur is that I give each participant a choice to receive notification of which parts in which their stories/data appeared.

I think the major component is an online component, which is a permanent online exhibit, as well as a short-term interactive gallery showing where people could interact with the web that was in place before them. It is also possible to have a participant’s workshop or one that is open to the whole campus where we can begin talking about and acknowledging this dialogue of shared history.

What roll does the teller have in this project?

It would be optimal to have the teller have as much a role or nonrole as they wish. I would like to give the teller the option of remaining anonymous, not tied to the project at all, or claiming their parts of the project. By altering the video or audio, it allows me to tell the emulated story of shared bodies, constructing a “fictional” narrative of the similarities of the stories. To have the power of author, I must also take on the power of editing. These powers can be actively discussed in the project, however, and sought to be minimized as they unfold.