MA Contemporary Art Theory

MA Contemporary Art Theory

2022-23 The University of Edinburgh

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  1. MA Contemporary Art Theory
  2. Themes in Contemporary Art //// Course Handbook //// Semester 1 //// ARTX11044 | 2022
  3. Learning Sprint #1 | Weird?

Learning Sprint #1 | Weird?

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What is the Weird Sprint?

‘Weird?’ is a two-week learning sprint, in the 40 Credit Themes Course within the MA Contemporary Art Theory programme. This learning sprint is designed by Prof Neil Mulholland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
 
The sprint incorporates elements of LARP workshops (See: Buckley 2020) by The Interactions Group and Reed Berkowitz: The Wonder Machine and Guided Apophenia from Blend&Bleed: On Transreality and Pervasive Play both of which serve as  contemporary exemplars of weird practice that we can all experience through participating in them.
 
It also incorporates a number of fabulation workshops that Neil Mulholland has created. The workshops are focused on forms of fabulation and fictioning that are found equally in contemporary art and weird fiction. They will draw upon fabulation methods that Neil has developed with Norman Hogg as the Confraternity of Neoflagellants. confraternityofneoflagellants.org.uk (link)
 

As much of the Weird Studies sprint as possible will be taught ‘in the open’ (OER)  

‘Problem Scenario’

‘Weird Studies?’ sprint participants will respond to this Scenario:

‘”Weird Studies” is a scholarly field that doesn’t and can’t exist. The Weird is that which resists any settled explanation or frame of reference. It is the bulging file labelled “other/misc.” in our mental filing cabinet, full of supernatural entities, magical synchronicities, and occult rites. But it also appears when a work of art breaks in on our habits of perception and ordinary things become uncanny. ‘https://www.weirdstudies.com/about …’

Aims, or what will we be doing in this learning sprint?

 
As a way of responding to the provocation, we will pursue forms of weird (psuedo)research.
 
This should not only mean exploring the weird as a field (as perhaps  a ‘weird studies’ might do?) but crafting weird methods for exploring or generating (anti)knowledge.
 
You should be able to apply what you learn here about Weird Studies to ‘make a scene’.
 
Making a scene involves the creation of an artworld as an anticipatory institution.
 
This should give you the skills you need to fabulate
 
a) your own weirded logic:  engineer your own escoteric concepts regarding contemporary art (‘art theory’)
 
b) your own weird scene: investigate how the concepts you engineer might generate a (cultic) milieu
 
These insights should work well as catalysts for your own organisation-building as CATs.
 

What else might this learning sprint involve?

 
In this sprint, we will encounter claims to knowledge and research methods that are frequently rejected as ‘psudeo’ or ‘anti’-knowledge.
 
We will also engage with unusual methods for divining what is yet to be known, with allegedly ‘hidden’ knowledge, and with different concepts of the unknowable. Imagining an (impossible?) discipline such as ‘Weird Studies’? requires that we engage with forms of miscellany by adopting and adapting their logic; viewing them from the inside as active participants in their reproduction.
 
In so doing, will gain a different view of the culture of what is commonly accepted as ‘research’ within the academy. We will be able to investigate nonknowledge/knowledge boundary formations and gain insight into where and how forms of (anti)knowledge are produced, disseminated and challenged. In addition, we will gain more insight into what drives counter-knowledge and what forces help it to grow.

Weird Resources (link)

To begin with, here’s a tentative resource list on the weird:

‘Weird Studies?’ | Weird Tales, New Weird, Weirding, Weirdness Coefficient, Quantum Weirdness, Spooky Action, Hauntology, Esotericism, Misc. (link)

Weird Sprint

This is the structure we will follow:

Week 1

Pre-Sprint – Can there be a “Weird Studies”?

James Clegg The Weird (online)

(Video: 1hr:13mins James Clegg, Curator, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh)

James Clegg is a writer, curator and MA CAT alumnus. We will watch a little of James’ unique response in response to the provocation ‘can there be a weird studies’, which he has created especially for us.

You must watch all of James’ provocation before our first class on the 21st of September.

Mandatory Reading Pre-Sprint: Provocations on the Weird

Before our first class, set aside a little time to read/listen to the following two provocations:

– Phil Ford, Birth of the Weird https://www.weirdstudies.com/articles/birth-of-the-weird  (link)

– conspirituality.net Reality Bites: The Tragedy of Magical Thinking (link) Podcast, Duration: 9min:42sec

Day 1 – Which Weird(s)?

10:00-12:30 Wednesday 21st September | Neil Mulholland | Room 1.02, 7-8 Chambers Street, Central Campus

Weird Resources (link)

11:30-12:00 We will begin the Sprint by examining other weird methods and concepts.

An introduction to various forms of weird studies across different disciplines by reviewing the Resource List for this Theme:

‘Weird Studies?’ | Weird Tales, New Weird, Weirding, Weirdness Coefficient, Quantum Weirdness, Spooky Action, Hauntology, Esotericism, Misc. (link)

Please familiarise yourself with this Resource List and attempt save books and resources that are of interest to you in EndNote Web (link).

Weird-o-Verse (link)

12:00-12:30 Working in the Weird-o-Verse (link) that’s been created in Miro, each CAT will select a different example of methodological weirdness to research on Friday of Week 1.

The Weird-o-Verse (link) began at 11:00am on Thursdsay 22nd September 2022

 

Instructions:

 

    1. Pick out one thing from the Weird-o-Verse (link) that is of interest to you.
    2. Copy and Paste it into the space provided for you in Miro
    3. Start to add images, sounds, videos and links that relate to the one thing you started with.
    4. Build up a picture of associations as rapidly as you can.
    5. Try to add as many relevant examples of art/cultural practices and ‘weird’ methods of engaging with these examples as you can find.

Weird-o-Verse : Day 1 Class Assignment

This research needs to be completed we meet again on Day 2 of this Sprint (Monday 26th September)… Please ensure that you address the following when you present to the peers in your Basho:

 

What are the rules/logic/laws that govern the behaviour of the world you are constructing here?

Present the rules/logic/laws as clearly as you can in the Miro Space set aside for your own Weird-o-Verse.

 

Try to present this rules/logic/laws in the form of a typology in the Miro Space set aside for your own Weird-o-Verse.

(For an example of a typology see: Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. “Weird Humanists.” I Tatti studies 22.2 (2019): 345–354.) (link)

Day 1 Suggested Reading: Weird Fiction Review

Before we meet again on Day 2 of this Sprint (Monday 26th September), you may wish to have a browse of The Weird Fiction Review (link) and read whatever draws your attention.

You can read as much, or as little, as you like.

Week 2

Day 2 – Weird-o-verses, Weird Machines, Weird Scenes

10:00-12:30 Monday 26th September

Weird Machines

10:00-10:45 As a way of getting you used to working with your Themes Basho, we will start the Sprint by looking at the concept of the Weird Machine (link).

 

Link to Slides on the Weird Machine (link)

 

We will then play a game devised by the The Interactions Group called The Wonder Machine.

The Interactions Group is a nomadic autonomous group affiliated with the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Amsterdam, where it began, and Center Leo Apostle, Free University, Brussels.

To find out more about The Wonder Machine, please follow this link (link).

We will watch some of this video in class before we attempt to become The Wonder Machine.

Presenting your Weird Scene, Creating a Cultic Milieu

11:00-12:00 Your Basho will then begin to create a body of propositions that will generate your Basho’s ‘weird scene’ or ‘cultic milieu’ (Campbell, 1972).

This weird scene will contribute to and form a part of a larger Weird-o-Verse, the nebulous sphere of allegedly ‘counter-knowledge’ that we may collectively seek to explore following this Sprint.

Jigsaw Group

Each basho should meet in a jigsaw formation to pool and share the initial research you have conducted in Miro.

You must all do the following:

Present:

Present your own boards to each other; focus on:

– the examples you have chosen

– the rules/logic/laws that govern the behaviour of the world you constructed.

– your typology

World-Building, or Weird Scenography

Once you have presented your ideas to each other in your Basho, we will move on to work on some of the following prompts:

Weird Scenography:

In the space between the boards that you have created individually, collectively work on the following:

 

a) Create a technology for your Basho’s collective Weird Scene. 

How does this technology behave? What does it enable?

 

b) Design a ritual for your Basho’s Weird Scene.

What does the ritual involve? How is it practised?

Neography: Day 2 Class Assignment

12:00-12:30 This Class Assignment will be introduced at the end of Day 2’s Class.

This research must to be completed we meet again on Day 3 of this Sprint (10:00-12:30 Wednesday 28th September)

Neography is a tool used commonly in Concept Engineering.
 
Neography is the practice of constructing a new writing system or ‘conlang’ e.g. Nüshu, Hobo signs; Huttese; Shorthand (link)
 
Neologisms (link) are what we might call ‘new’ words that are beginning to be more widely used e.g. as I write this, Astroturfing, Amirite, Whataboutism and Cloud Kitchen are still neologisms.
 
The practice of theory can construct ‘new’ words, but they become neologisms only if and when they start to be used by others. 
 
Here’s a quick example of a neologism:
 
Weirding
 
Combining computation’s concept of the Weird Machine with Levi Bryant’s Ontology of Machines, we could engineer the following concept of the weird machine:
 
A weird machine is a deliberately ‘crafted input’ or ‘ exploit‘ that violates the expected state of any given system (the extant machine) (Bryant, L. 2007) by turning its own logic against itself. (Bratus, Sergey; et al. 2011)
 
A ‘weirded’ machine will create unexpected ‘weird’ states. From this the neologism ‘weirding‘ might be coined to refer to the process whereby the machine turns its own logic against itself to create unexpected ‘weird’ states.
Bryant, L. (2007). Ontocartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media. Edinburgh, Edinburgh Universtity Press.

Day 2 Class Assignment

 
 
… Before the next class, create a new word on your own that you feel might be able to aid in the understanding of any aspect of the Weird Scene you have been creating with your Basho today. Create a definition of the word and post it in your Portfolio and in your Tutorial Group MS Teams Channel for the Themes Course.

Day 2 Suggested Reading: Apophenia

Before we meet again on Day 3 of this Sprint (10:00-12:30 Wednesday 28th September), please try to read ONE of the following two texts:

On Audio Apophenia:
Banks, Joe . Rorschach Audio: Ghost Voices and Perceptual Creativity Leonardo music journal, 2001 Volume: 11, p77-83. DOI: 10.1162/09611210152780728 https://eu01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/public/44UOE_INST/citation/34097308480002466?auth=SAML
 

OR

 
On Visual Apophenia (pareidolia):
ROBERT G. BEDNARIK. “PAREIDOLIA AND ROCK ART INTERPRETATION.” Anthropologie (Brno) 55, no. 1/2 (2017): 101–117. https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/1viuo5v/cdi_proquest_journals_1904471101

Apophenia Moon

Day 3 – Guided Apophenia: A Conspiracy Theory Workshop

10:00-12:30 Wednesday 28th September | Neil Mulholland | Room 1.02, 7-8 Chambers Street, Central Campus

 

This final day of the Weird sprint is a modified version of a Conspiracy Theory Workshop devised by Reed Berkowitz.

 

 

This will begin with a short intro to Reed Berkowitz (above, start at 1:14) and, at the same time, an intro to a present-day American conspiracy theory.
 

Berkowitz is a media professional with over twenty-five years of experience designing, writing, and researching award-winning interactive experiences for some of the best entertainment companies and brands in the world, including Universal Studios, Paramount, Cartoon Network, Peanuts, Sanrio (Hello Kitty), and many more.

Each Basho will now build a Weird Scene / Weird Theory in the form of a Conspiracy Theory.

We will use techniques outlined by Berkowitz – specifically research on apophenia and on Cambell’s ‘cultic mileu’ (e.g. Jorgensen 1982; Kaplan & Lööw, 2002.)

We will equally consider the important work here of hacktivists and affiliated contemporary artists, specifically Discordians (Cusack, 2010) and ‘pataphysicians here.

This will enable us, hopefully, to create our own persuasive consipiracy theories as significant contributions to counter-knowledge and psuedo-research.

Sprint 1 ‘Weird’ Assignment | Due Friday 30th September 5pm

 
At the end of this sprint, you should return to the Problem Scenario:
 
‘”Weird Studies” is a scholarly field that doesn’t and can’t exist. The Weird is that which resists any settled explanation or frame of reference. It is the bulging file labelled “other/misc.” in our mental filing cabinet, full of supernatural entities, magical synchronicities, and occult rites. But it also appears when a work of art breaks in on our habits of perception and ordinary things become uncanny. ‘https://www.weirdstudies.com/about …’
In your Portfolio (Student WordPress), write a reflective post of 1,000 words that critically responds to this scenario.
 
You can approach this however you wish.
 
You can draw on any of the work you have done so far either on your own, or in your Tutorial Group (Basho).
 
Some questions you may wish to tackle are embedded in the scenario. i.e.
 
  • Can there be a weird studies? If so, why? If not, why not?
    • (you may wish to consider what directions a ‘Weird Studies’? could take for you)
  • Does the weird resist “any settled explanation or frame of reference”? If so, why? If not, why not?
  • What would you label as “other/misc.” ?
  • How exactly might a work of art break “in on our habits of perception?
  • Do ordinary things become uncanny?
  • Does the weird solicit legitimate forms of research or does it encourage psuedo research?
  • How might you consider the artworld as a ‘cultic mileu’, a scene that “resists any settled explanation”?

 

Such questions may help you to structure your response, but you do not need to answer all of them.

Post-Theme Diagnostic (link)

Due End of Week 3

A short online diagnostic to ascertain what you have (and have not) learned so far about “weird studies”, the social production of counter-knowledge, so-called? ‘so-called psuedo-research’, and what remains as misc. Add this to your Portfolio.

Link to the survey here

Checklist

Essential Class Assignments:

 

☑️ Did you complete the Pre-Sprint viewing/reading?
☑️ Did you create your Weird-o-Verse for the Class Assignment set in Day 1?
Did you post a link to it in your Portfolio?
☑️ Have you presented your Weird Scene? Did your Basho create a Cultic Milieu? Did you post a link to both in your Portfolio?
☑️ Have you completed the Neography: Day 2 Class Assignment? Did you create a new word that you feel might be able to aid understanding of the Weird Scene you have been creating with your Basho. Did you post it in your Portfolio?
☑️ Have you completed the Day 3 – Guided Apophenia: A Conspiracy Theory Workshop? Did you post it in your Group’s Conspiracy Theory in your Portfolio?
☑️ Have you completed the Sprint 1 Assignment:  Write a 1,000 word blogpost in response to the Weird Problem Scenario and post it in your Portfolio?

If you’ve completed all of these Sprint 1 tasks, then you can move on to Sprint 2 in Week 3. If you haven’t completed all of them, you will have time in Week 5 to catch up with what you may have missed.

Additional Work:

☑️ Did you manage to complete the Day 1 Suggested Reading: Weird Fiction Review. If you did, you may wish to make a post on this in your Portfolio.
☑️ Did you manage to complete the Day 2 Suggested Reading: Apophenia?
If you did, you may wish to make a post on this in your Portfolio.
☑️ Did you manage to complete Post-Theme Diagnostic (link) Due End of Week 3. If you did, you may wish to make a post your answers in your Portfolio.
 
KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD Portland, Oregon, USA.

Keep Portland WEIRD! Portland, Oregon, USA.

Citations used in this page:

Buckley, Chloé Germaine. “Encountering Weird Objects: Lovecraft, LARP, and Speculative Philosophy.” in Diseases of the Head, 361–. Punctum Books, 2020. (Download PDF: Encountering Weird Objects Lovecraft, LARP, and Speculative Philosophy)

Campbell, Colin. “The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularisation” A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5, 119-36, 1972.

Cusack, C. M. (2010). Discordianism: Chaos is a Goddess, Routledge: 35-60.

Jorgensen, Danny L. “The Esoteric Community: An Ethnographic Investigation of the Cultic Milieu.” Journal of contemporary ethnography 10.4 (1982): 383–407. Web.

Kaplan, Jeffrey, and Heléne Lööw. The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization. Blue Ridge Summit: AltaMira Press, 2002.

“Pataphysics.” A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. “Weird Humanists.” I Tatti studies 22.2 (2019): 345–354. Web.

Some further reading:

 

‘Weird Studies?’ | Weird Tales, New Weird, Weirding, Weirdness Coefficient, Quantum Weirdness, Spooky Action, Hauntology, Esotericism, Misc. (link)
This page contains information specific to MA CAT students, but, if it’s open, you are free to use it providing you stay within the license of the OER:  ‘Weird Studies?’ | Learning Sprint designed by Prof Neil Mulholland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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