Contextual Background :
Within the BA ACC Theory in Practice, I wanted to plan a one-day teaching session on Habit, Repetition, and Accident in relation to mark-making for a group of mature female students who are managing menopause and fatigue after 3 days of intensive learning, of which my session is the final class.
Evaluation :
The challenge is to maintain afternoon engagement following a morning lecture. My aim is to transgress skills when fatigue is at its highest and concentration at its lowest. For that reason, I intended to offer in the afternoon a variety of individual and collaborative activities that encouraged peer-to-peer learning and independent decision-making, while embracing the fatigue of “happy accidents”. Inspired by a Howard Caygill lecture at Kingston University that used discussion prompts with slides I modelled my morning lecture on Malabou and Deleuze’s understanding of Habit, Repetition and Accident similarly by connecting prompts to visual art examples of the theoretical concepts. I wanted to test Bell Hooks proposition for students to speak from their own experience to create more enthusiastic learning as I don’t always invite the students to share their own personal experiences as it can result in a loss of focus. The prompts encouraged students to relate the concepts to students’ personal habitual gestures, mark-making and looking. I also wanted to use a dynamic approach to the session reading (excerpt of Deleuze’s Repetition & Difference), which I tested by projecting the text with highlighted sentences. This enabled a group analysis demonstrating their understanding of key areas and encouraged peer-to-peer learning.
Moving forwards:
Using prompts for students to identify concepts related to their own experience was an excellent way to focus mental energy on a specific understanding of substantial material. I was surprised at how effective this worked. Unexpectedly, it built student confidence owing to some students highlighting similar sections. I was able to use this as a demonstration of a “happy accident”. Students responded positively to the afternoon (film/drawing), and the divergent learning associated with identifying Brown’s terms in their drawings assisted in maintaining enthusiasm.
Film analysis: I often use dynamic workshops rather than films to accommodate menopausal afternoon energy levels. Using a film of Trisha Brown’s choreographic method to introduce a collaborative drawing activity unexpectedly led to students requesting to see more of Brown’s work, which involved showing further episodes (that I will plan for future sessions).
Collaborative activities: Creating a wall drawing collectively encouraged teamwork through the self-allocation of “choreographer” (directing) and “dancers” (moving, placing, and drawing). The “accident” was explored by students adopting Brown’s method of turning things sideways and upside down to shift the overall composition. (See Doc-C attached) Duration was key to momentum, so activities were timed by changing students’ physical positions from working sitting in pairs to working upright collectively. A key phase of learning to make senseless gestures via repetition was identified at 5 minutes which prompted a change towards making the wall drawing. These can be scheduled into future LPs.
I would like to test the session in a larger classes to invite more varied personal habits and to allow for collaborative drawings in groups. Going forward I will use discussion prompts in future lectures alongside projected readings and have scheduled another session with another class.
References
Brown, T. (1996). Choreography to Bach’s Musical Offering. YouTube. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2tBfmjIr-0 (accessed 19 Feb 2024).
Caygill, H. (2022). Planetary Aesthetics. YouTube. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geTAXnm_U2w (accessed 10 Feb 2024)
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. Trans Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.
Malabou, C. (2012). Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity. (Cambridge) Polity Press.