Month: January 2022

Using Adversarial Design as Inquiry and Practice as a lens to interrogate my practice gave me a framework to clarify my methodology. I was particularly struck by the definition of inquiry put forth by the author, which states that, “Inquiry is a process of skilled examination and reconstruction that renders problematic situations sense-able.” (DiSalvo, 115). The problematic situation in this case is presented by my chosen medium of screen printing and my lack of skill in manipulating its elements to achieve my desired outcome. However, rather than yielding to frustration, I used the reading to recontextualize my approach.

My methodology thus became, “sense-able” allowing the problematic aspects of my work to become “apparent and known and thereby better able to be addressed and acted on,” (DiSalvo, 116) the stated goal of inquiry according to the text. I analyzed my work from last week and realized that one of my problems was a lack of compositional depth, making the work dull and characterless. Understanding this specific issue, I experimented with using different materials and finally achieved an outcome that was much closer to what I was striving for. Going forward, I hope to incorporate this perspective into my practice and use it to guide and elevate my work.

Reference

DiSalvo, C. (2012) Adversarial Design as Inquiry and Practice. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Can an unpredictable practice produce deliberate work? How can abstraction yield specificity? These are the questions that have arisen from my week of experimenting with screen printing. Over multiple rounds of prints, I found that control of the work is as much a function of the placement of ink as it is of the gestural motion of pushing ink through a mesh. As such, unpredictability becomes a methodology in and of itself; these are works that cannot be thoroughly planned, but must still be anchored in an intent to possess a precision and clarity that allows them to resonate.