Diagrams and Cuts

Abstract

In an attempt to disrupt arts-based research methodologies that simply fold “art” into its midst, our article enters into the theoretical conversations around critical and materialist research-creation to explore the concept of diagramming as self-organized enfoldings that do not describe or instruct experience, rather they are expressed as an open process that is emergent, vital, and abstract. The purpose of our article is to unfurl a theoretical discussion about materialist diagramming through the concepts of pure edging and cutting. In laying out this theoretical framework, we simultaneously consider how we engendered the diagrammatic within a research-creation project on artist-residencies in schools to offer ways in which one can enter into such a methodology and engage with it as data-in-the-making.

Photos of (no)thing: The becoming of data about sexuality at school

“…The purpose, is to imagine what 'newness' (Springgay & Zaliwska, 2014) might be incited by such a process (see also Allen, 2015;Otterstad & Waterhouse, 2015). 'Newness' as conceptualised by Springgay & Zaliwska (2015), extends beyond the idea of discovering new findings or meanings about sexuality at school. For them, 'newness' marks a space for '….the more-than intensity of perception.…”

“…So how then might we apply a feminist new materialist reading to these photos that opens space for 'newness'? I want to draw here on the concept of 'pure edging' as taken up by Springgay and Zaliwska (2015) in their arts-based research involving photographs. Drawing on Massumi's (2011) work, Springgay and Zaliwska (2015) describe pure edging as way of engaging with photographs that involves a methodological cut that manifests as 'a [v]irtual line….…”

“…One way of engaging in pure edging is to choose a seemingly small and insignificant piece of data to concentrate on. Drawing as much as possible from a piece of photo data enacts a cut that Springgay and Zaliwska (2015) argue can reveal a 'pure edge'. Opening up data to its edginess means relinquishing the desire to 'capture' an event either through attention to detail or through a totalizing perspective that encapsulates a story' (Springgay and Zaliwska, 2015: 140).…”

“…What might it mean for research by humans to relinquish (human-presumed) control of, when sexuality data appears, and what it looks like when it does? A new materialist feminist engagement with 'photos of nothing' creates this site of 'newness' (Springgay & Zaliwska, 2015) from which such a question about sexuality research can unfold.…”

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This paper asks, what 'newness ' (Springgay & Zaliwska, 2015) does a new materialist feminist engagement with photos of 'nothing' produce for thinking about images as data in research about sexuality at school? Somewhat unusually, this paper takes as its focusphotos of what appear to be, nothing.

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