I know that my perspective based on my own creative experiences, values and aspirations are the primary tools to make sense of my findings. The research is by nature subjective, I think it has to be, because peak and flow experiences are experiential and subjective. I think this is the right approach to fully engage and understand the phenomena and present the findings.
Today’s workshop (10/7/24) on Culturally Responsive Feminist Interviewing solidifies my conviction that my research does not need to, in fact shouldn’t, yield a codified model for peak-flow states in creative practice (embodied Screendance filmmaking). I need to allow the interlocutors and collaborating artists to speak freely and listen as I engage and together find what the focus is. Dr Shuling Wang (Southampton University) mentioned the need for a culturally responsive discussion. The researcher’s role is not to pose questions but to give space for the participants to create their own narrative which give contextual insight too within the culturally responsive discussion. I think art is also a culture for a lot of artists, it is for me, I don’t feel my identity is bound to geography, race, gender or sexuality but it is definitely tethered to being an artist. I need to allow space for the participants to speak from this ‘cultural’ perspective of art if they feel inclined to. I shouldn’t try to guide their narrative towards academic norms. Their experiences and their ways to articulate them is essential. As are mine. I also liked how Dr. Elizabeth Maber (University of Cambridge) described the process of interviews as not an extractive process, but a co-constructed process or learning. Not neutral but shared understandings and perceptions. There needs to be reciprocity in interviews, we both share and learn from the process.
I have noticed in the past year that my research is focusing mostly on feminist scholars because they have moved away from Western ideologies of rational thought, quantifiable experiences and concrete findings. I think I am also using the ‘female gaze’ in how I approach my practice. I think that my lived experience as a woman through which I have immediate access to the synergy between my mind and body, has directed my practice. I have predominantly used the female body, without the aim to objectify the body of the performer or fetishize the female form. The kind of dance practice I have been drawn to uses feminine traits, whether the performer is female or male. I think might be because the movements and nature of the forms feel familiar, my mind can imagine my body in those movements.
So far all the analytical methodologies that I have looked at fall short of complementing the practice and an experiential research into peak-flow states. Even IPA ends up parsing experiences and reifying them into what seems reductionist and devoid of the life of the experiences. I have been arguing against reductionist methods that use algorithms to codify the experiences. Using coding methods to analyse my written reflections on each practice and those of other artists and interviews seems to follow precisely what I am arguing against. There must be a different way to approach this, a way that brings the reader closer to the actual experiences, what it feels like to be in peak-flow moments.
I need to consider my positionality of being from an Iranian background and the traditions of fascination with poetic and mystical states that shape my approach to life in general. Hearing poems by Hafez, Sadi and Rumi by my dad and Baha’I texts which reflect these and the admiration for the kinds of other-worldly states they describe was a part of childhood. Although I left Iran after primary school and didn’t see my dad for some years after the Iranian revolution, and began to find an identity influenced by Western cultures, the thread of fascination with such internal states and being lost in creative processes has continued. I looked for them in drawing and painting first, then in singing, photography, motion graphics and film, basically in any form of creative expression I have been engaged with. The idea of peak-flow states as a phenomenon has fitted right into what I have looked for experienced.
I have to be careful that my ‘insider’ experiences and understandings, don’t impose on collaborators, interviewees and artists that take part in workshop/s. I’m not sure if there is an insider/outsider binary anyway. I am always both inside and outside of my own creative experience, when I ‘perform’ the art making practice and when I reflect or write about it as I relive the experiences in my mind (embodied mind) and as I hear (read, listen to) to other artists’ creative experiences.
I have to be careful not to assume that my collaborating dance artists or filmmakers whose works I am engaged with (Greenfield, Harris, Millar, Langan, Truffarrelli, Czarnecki, McPherson …) experience/have experienced some or similar peak-flows in their practice. This may not be the case. Although the ones I have made contact with seem to be leaning that way.
It is very likely that my cultural and personal interests in spiritual writings and practices of meditation/prayer, interest in internal and mystical experiences, values placed by my culture of origin on aesthetics, poetry and lyricism, all impact my approach to my art practice, research and assumptions. Many, if not all of these, are not shared by my collaborating artists or those I interview.
It is clear that although I don’t feel a strong affinity with my Iranian heritage, it has shaped in part my approach to art, its meaning and purpose. I only attended primary school in Iran and most of my upbringing has been in the UK, my immediate family was scattered around the world since I was a year old, and following many traditional Persian cultural practices were not particularly strong in my family. Nevertheless, I heard and have been influenced by some of the characteristics of Persian (Iranian) culture, especially the emphasis on lyrical and poetic aesthetics of visual arts and literature. I often heard my father recite poetry and speak lyrically about it while growing up. I find I instinctively tend to look for these in art and life. I feel a sense of belonging in my practice when I engage reflectively with beauty and aesthetics in making art, in the visual poetry of movement through the lens of the camera, in drawing, painting and animating it.
I have an inherent assumption that, in one form or another, that some other artists feel similar experiences in their engagement and immersion with their art form and practice. I need to be mindful of this, that it doesn’t affect the authenticity of my research and I remain open to other experiences which do not include peak-flow.
I need to make sure my own interests and assumptions are bracketed during interviews. But would this not make it difficult for the interviewees to connect with me and open up? They need to feel safe to speak about feelings and experiences that don’t exactly sit within commercial and academic ideas of art or even among all artists. They can be dismissed as airy-fairy, not concrete. Maslow also found people needed an approach that made it OK for people to talk about or remember their peak-experiences. There is fine line that I need to be conscious of.
How much am I influencing the collaborating dance artist/s, interviews and outcomes?
- I need to take care, while using Maslow’s ‘rhapsodic communication’ technique for interviewing, I don’t influence the artists’s reporting of their own experiences.
- It is different with the dance artist Maeve who I mainly collaborate with. We have already discovered and established that we share a very similar approach and expectations/aspirations to and from our different practices. I think it helps the study for us to be so in tune and it facilitates the possibility of experiencing peak-flow in our experimentations.
I am away that have looked for a sense of recognition of my approach to art in collaborating artists or those I want to engage with as a viewer. This is what I have ‘sense’ed especially in Maeve as a dance artist, we seem to speak the same language in art and sensation, there is an immediate recognition and ease. This is why I am drawn to working/collaborating with her. I need to take care that this doesn’t limit the research and ignores other kinds of approaches and experiences.
It seems natural and instinctive to share freely my thoughts and feelings with Maeve and she freely resonates, as though I have said what she has already been feeling, just waiting to hear them out loud by another, like a mirror, seeing yourself in another’s face, words, sentiments. I have to be careful that I am able to step out of this mode and look more objectively at the processes. Is that even possible? The process does not only live in the actual concrete event of practice, it continues in me, in my reflections, my approach.
I think this is the right approach for my research. I have already experienced Maeve’s art practice and her striking interest in being in ‘the flow’, ‘the zone’ while dancing and her eagerness to be part of my research practice, I think sharing my experiences and aspirations fully with Maeve can only help us fully collaborate, intra-act (Barad) in an ‘enkinaesthetic’ (Stuart) way. But I need to make sure that the collaborative practice still is part of the research, it’s exploring new ways, not just confirm what I already know. Maybe it’s not so much about coming up with new directions in practice but a new approach to researching peak-flow state, using methodologies that haven’t been used before.
I feel uncomfortable to discuss peak-flow states in creative practice with those who don’t seem to have experienced them. It seems to put them in a defensive mode and gives an assumption that I see their experiences as less important, as though I think there is an elite tribe they don’t belong to and they resent that. They assume that my approach is exclusionary and therefore invalid. How do I mention and discuss peak-flow states without the excitement and engagement I feel to have experienced them at times in my practice? I think this is not necessary. It would limit the possibilities of accessing other artists experiences. As an insider researcher, I need to bring my experiences to share so that it gives permission and opening for artists who do experience them to share there. But I also need to be careful and be inclusive in my use of verbal and bodily language and show that I value all experiences in collaborations, workshops and interviews.
Presenting my practice, my film works as part of the research makes me feel somewhat intimidated and vulnerable. I feel very uncomfortable about my creative work being analysed and judged. I have a fear that my art works may be looked down on, not really accepted as ‘art’ by others, supervisors mainly. It feels like my work has to be approved of to be good enough to be called art and me good enough to be considered as an artist by people in a position of power. I have never believed in systems, institutions, funders, etc who have to approve of artworks to give them a chance. How do you evaluate art, which to me is all about human experience in all its richness? My artwork is in some way, always a self-portrait, but especially in this research. It has to be, because peak-flow states are intuitive and deeply personal. I need to accept this vulnerability and present the unfinished works, not polished and reducing the risk of being considered not good. This anxiety is a quiet undercurrent for me that I have to ignore in my practice and be prepared to be in the firing line for this research.