Beyond the MA

I can't help it.
While I want to keep the focus on everything to do for the ending of the MA, I have found thoughts straying beyond that time. It feels great - like freedom! I have really kept a lot of thoughts quite repressed for almost four years, as I wanted to fully allow the MA to lead me. Of course there have been plenty of other creative projects and life events during the MA, but there were some I had to put to bed for a while which are now reminding me about themselves. And there will be new thoughts and ideas.

14th August 2014

Apart from creative projects, art I'd like to make, and perhaps novels I'd like to write, I am thinking of jobs to apply for after the MA. There will be plenty to follow through next year. I have hardly submitted any proposals for anything this year, or exhibited, although there was the altered book at The Weiner Library:
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/which-alters-when-it-alteration-finds.html

This is probably some preliminary thinking to Task 7 where we will be exploring our plans, but thinking beyond the MA goes much wider than practice and into all areas of life. I am certainly considering pursuing some research, perhaps PhD, perhaps something else.

29th August 2014

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Guerrilla Research

One of the many fruitful thoughts and ideas which I got from doing the Open Research course http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/open-research.html was the idea of Guerrilla Research. It appeals to me very much as an individual freelance type of person who likes to create projects. You just invent a research project and go ahead - why assume that all research must be linked to a larger institution or part of a collaboration? Of course, to be verified, there are other procedures and protocols, also discussed in the course, but structuring that is really part of the research parameters.

If I don't have an exhibition to make work for, I still make work, and likewise, now that I have dipped my toe into research, I will continue that. It actually may suit me better, at least for a while, rather than undergoing a PhD - that is still a decision to make for later if I reapply.

PhD is not the only research avenue, and there are other sources of funding also. I'm getting an idea of the language and the lay of the land of research. It's integrated now into practice, and funded or not, I will come up with some research projects to pursue. I'm used enough to art being unfunded, and can survive that. I wonder why I start from that base line of assuming I will not get any funding for art or research, but at least it is realistic and resourceful.

Again I realise I need a little time to think after the MA to identify areas although I have a good idea of interests I would like to contribute research to. At the moment it is very difficult to find time to think about anything other than completing the MA.

15th October 2014