Thinking Through Writing

11. 20th June 2011

Angela Rogers. Visual Enquiry. Synchronous Seminar.

Sadly, again not a synchronicitous experience.

The gist of the discussions were about appealing to the audience, and the realisation that we often talk to audiences through our own assumptions - eg, class, etc. The encouragement is to be clear, clear, clear, to avoid jargon and extras, and equally, not to talk down.

There are challenges in writing and choosing what to convey and who we are aiming at. The 200 word draft exercise was to appeal to the imagination, to engage. The task is also to isolate key features, and offer them as a key or a hook to progress further with the piece.

This seminar was really a chance to discuss and summarise all the points made in recent video lecture, Craft of Writing. Technical difficulties prevented much newer or deeper insights.


Reflection

I confess to finding the synchronous seminars deeply frustrating and useless. Everyone is experiencing difficulties to some extent, and in skype discussions afterwards there is much fullsome expression. However, some people are finding it easier than others to cope with the distractions. I am not one of them.

We are as a group now trying to think up other and better ways of doing these things. Video lectures are good, but lack the live pace - at least you can stop and start to hear again something missed. But of course there is nothing like talking all together. Group skype works better.

We will need to evolve a good live multiple seminar model, perhaps looking at other online courses and borrowing different methods. There is also discussion about how to deepen our group conversations about work, to develop critique, to talk through our ideas to explore them and also find out what we think. All of that. Perhaps we each host a rotating session where we talk about our art and discuss whatever we want to bring up.

20th June 2011