Redundant

What a horrible word.

All the same, it looks as if much of my writing so far hits the mark.

Why? Not because it doesn't function, but because it doesn't fit.

I read a bit more (lot more) archaeology today and a bit more (little more) intermediality too. My carefully crafted usage of remediation/remediating pretty much align with the A/I strains.

At first I was a bit bummed, but the truth is this train situates and specifies exactly why my choice of theory matters.

Rather than spend/waste my time/words coming up with clever usages (flowery) of slippage-heavy terms, it makes my selection clearer and more relevant.

I'm basically trying to argue that immediacy is the wrong way to talk about theatre, so instead of being cheeky, I need to expose (as directly as possible) why this is so. I say expose, because explore is the wrong way.

Exploration is in the reading, but becomes redundant in the writing.

Get it? Hopefully you will when you read it.

Le Fin.

Archaeology

Met the Boss and she liked what I'd put down. Said I was in a good space too.

She gave me absolutely spot on feedback. I write like a funny guy - but not like an academic, not exactly.

We had a laugh because she said the same thing about herself. We both get caught up in cool metaphors or cheeky descriptions, which in turn obscures some of the content.

The thing becomes to strip it back and dry it out. Big time.

Rolling from there, the Boss sent me on a mission to dig up some Media Archaeology (there's a cheeky pun for you) and gave me a few names, all unpronounceable, but full of good things.

Erkki Huhtamo was the first hit, and aside from being a media archaeologist, he has a few things about screens, panoramas and the like that coincide theoretically and historically with my line.

I'm going to spend a bit of reading time this week and re-work my chapters, so I won't go too heavily into the theory until the reading gets done.

Ed, Jason and I met up today too and Ed pointed out a few flaws in my writing that Larissa hit without highlighting - but it was nice to have them made properly open.

The main points of contention were the dual uses of remediation/remediating (which can be remedied through a more thorough analysis of the archaeological material) and there was something else but I don't have it on hand so I'll have to get back to that later too.

For now I really need to dig into something else entirely - food, then sleep.

Compilations, Comics and Weaving

With a little rest under the belt, I spent some time putting together a draft (3K) for Larissa to read/destroy.

My original plan was to have a Chapter One down, but instead I had half of Chapters One and Two.

I was a little worried about it, but Jason said I should just roll with it anyway - writing is writing, and better than no writing after all.

So I chucked it together and it reads like a comic strip in progress. Some bits are sketches, others inked and a few places have a splash of colour.

Looking over it, I can see good and bad spots, connections arising, overworked ideas, things that helped me arrive at certain places now proving useless, but the places providing stimulation for new writing.

I don't know what Larissa will say but I'm glad it happened this way, because the threads are the important part. Some weave together to make rope, others unravel, but even as they unravel the material is there to recombine into new weaves.

There's a great thread I found that moves through remediation into remediating, and does so from stage to screen via liveness and immediacy. I haven't played with the fibres yet, but I can tell it'll be a rope by the end.

And it all happens in the writing - and the space in between. If I write until an idea falls out, I write the idea down and go off to think about it for a while. Then I jot down the thoughts and write them back into the writing, and the process repeats.

Weaving the ropes and making the comics aren't too different.

Rest Day

Like exercise, if you never rest you don't get a chance to heal.

I'd been burning several candles all along their lengths and yesterday, I was properly burnt out.

Sure I went to work, but Uni work was out of the question.

Note to self: make more time for rest.

Not Enough Hours In A Day

I wrote more today, focussing on Immediacy, unpacking it further and I came across this great idea from Lahman about looking through vs looking at.

The two ideas respectively align with immediacy and hypermediacy, but offer another way of explaining them, which is really useful when you're sick of manipulating the same words repeatedly.

I haven't finished Chapter One's draft, but I'm plodding along. I have however started Chapter Two, and between them both I'm over my word count.

I also got the meeting set up for ethics, and provided that goes through this time I'm on track for interviews at the end of this month. I've got two pretty sure bets and depending on what comes out that might be enough.

On a note far more related to the theme of this post, I did some extra work on the INXS movie today. For those who know anything about Australian music history, I had a cup of tea with Tim Farriss while we were killing time between shots - and we talked about world politics and the nature of contemporary film and theatre.

I bumped into another lad (Steve Lopez) who I'd done a shoot with a while back and we had a great talk about acting styles and in particular the merits of non-acting - something I'm pretty keen to pursue as a line of enquiry further down the track.  

After the shoot I ran over to see non-acting in action via 'Einstein On The Beach'. The shoot finished early which means I only missed the first hour of the show, but I caught the last three-and-a-half. 

Yeah, it's a long piece. It absolutely lines up with what I'm writing about (it's a hypermediate epic), and it is a beautiful nightmare to watch.

At times I was totally rapt in the smallest things. A light hitting the side of a clock looked exactly like a crescent moon, and I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Other times I was taken with the spectacle, like the penultimate 'scene' when lights met machinery and floating boxes glided past one another as the bomb dropped in the form of a huge semi-transparent screen.

Einstein played beautiful violin. A tiny Asian girl sang 'Bed' all alone. The sheet music was clearly visible - and enormous.

I thought a girl was a dummy - until she moved.

And so much more.

And it was also madness/sleep inducing, but speaking of sleep inducing I'll have to get to that later.

Not enough hours, remember?

A lot is going on

I'm very tired.

I woke up early and wrote.

I went to the dentist. My teeth are very clean.

I came home and wrote.

I wrote more.

I went to the PhD workshop.

I got a gig on the INXS movie.

I went to work.

I wrote more.

I pulled three pomodoros in the morning and one in the evening.

I finished the words for 'Remediation' and started work on 'Immediacy'.

I got my paper back from Shae.

I learned the difference between co-authored and individual publication.

I realised I have a whole host of publishable work.

I realised I have a whole host of work that is really hard to publish.

I practiced my British accents.

I ate, showered and I need some sleep.

There is a lot happening.

PhD Workshop Round 2

- In September, someone (Cleo?) will rock up to the meet to discuss further details

- Scholarships: check websites

- If your project is funded, often a scholarship will be attached

- fee waive

- If you look like getting a scholarship, look around. If you're a good candidate, likelihood is greater

- Applying is big: 1500 words, bibliography, etc. Start with what you know (i.e. extend what you're working on)

- Applications (at least for RMIT) are not yet open

- Everything counts (written work, creative work - plays, photographs) in the way of publication.

- Potential journals: Screen Education Australia, Metro, 

- H1 MUST for Scholarship - as well as publication history

- publications must be relevant to your area of study

- co-authoring vs individual publication

- Endeavour scholarships (Commonwealth based)

- JASON (scholarship database)

- Your Supervisor needs to be your advocate 

- Academic publication is easier to deal with, but all of it counts

- Application to Universities vs application to schools within Universities