Thesis

Methodology and methods

Flow chart of interactions through which animations are made.

The primary methodology has been practice-based. My practice as an animator has been to use improvised movement, drawing, and assemblage to make visible responses to what is just on the edge of understanding. I then develop a lexicon of gestural forms from which to compose discrete works. For example, see Beware of Pedestrians (Appenxix 3A), Roget's Circular (Appenxix 3B), and A Little Skiting on the Side (Appenxix 3A).

The methods used to develop the material to support the thesis were anchored in a relational world view. Such a view holds that life on Earth is maintained through dynamic relationships between physical and biological systems. This view was identified in Indigenous research methodolgy as described by Shawn Wilson and in the Gaia view of the world as a whole living entity, as promoted by the scientist James Lovelock (Wilson, 2009; Lovelock, 2000). My understanding is that Earth is a system that maintains its life by regulating flows of energy between its parts, and that our lives are part of this system and therefore subject to its regulation.

As an artist-scholar with Indigenous and non-Indigenous ancestry, I sought common elements in views that could reconcile what are usually held as opposing ways of knowing. I am part of an Antarctic research community and a community of artists who work with various media. People who were willing to share their practice (in art and/or science) were invited to participate in the project.

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