CRITIQUE SUMMARY — Chat with Thea

Had a brief chat with Thea Kable after the Wednesday seminar on workshopping, and there were some great insights into her project and ways I could bring similar methods into my work. 

Chat with Thea — 29/4/2020
I was asking a question about generative participatory methods in a very nebulous world building context, and knowing what to offer as information and what spaces to leave blank. 

• Embedding people in the scenario to start off with --> giving them a sense of purpose and agency, which they run with once they have prompts. 
• e.g. first exercise as introducing themselves in the workshop: making them aware that they are not assuming a character, but operating in this world as themselves. 
• Refinement comes from the experiments! Don't overthink it, think through it. 
• The experiments started as individual, self-testing process. Things that she found interesting/compelling, content self-generated/quotes from historical texts and Haraway. 
• Figuring out what works best, seeing what ends up being the most interesting just with your own ideas, then taking that and designing participation into it. 
• The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit by Lydia Kallipoliti — worlds as an extension of the body?
• Participatory methods are great! But don't necessarily need to all be workshops and big, they can be small moments and still really valuable. 

Action List

• This was really helpful in realising that I can take it slow, and introduce participatory methods when it makes sense or I feel that I'm in a good spot to start thinking about it. For now, totally ok to make things for yourself. (Although we do start student workshops on Monday I need to start thinking about that.)
• Look into the Architecture of Closed Worlds if you're revisiting bodies and designing in that space/towards worlds. And if you need more textual research into it.