My feedback was again very positive and took the form of a video chat. The feedback was more a sharing of ideas rather than a review of previous works.

I started with come comments on what I regard as the administration side of course; so, course notes, online resources, course layout and where to find things. I gave the example of the unit recommended reading list which was hidden away at the bottom of the unit descriptor which in itself was hidden. Am reminded of a Douglas Adam quote from his book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”
“Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”
“But the plans were on display …”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.” (Adams, 1979, p12)

I have added an outline of the information on course layout and assessment criteria to my blog in my introduction section of my coursework because this seems like the logical place such information should sit. Such fundamental things should be front and central and listed in coursework and not hidden in a word document. While this is frustrating, am sure for tutors as well as students, I did comment that I didn’t feel that I wanted to focus too much on such admin tasks and would rather focus on my research and creative journey. So, while I can poke a little fun with the Douglas Adams quote, this is just me putting this admin side in its correct place in my head. In grand scheme of my learning journey, this is not a big thing.

Continuing with some practical/admin points was a reminder to submit my notes following feedback meeting in a suitable format to allow for editing and a pointer that some of my submissions where I had re-used an old form and these still mentioned previous DIC unit.

There was brief chat on aims of unit; production of learning logs to show progress, production of creative works based around research, a reflective presentation with in video form or written form, a critical review or dissertation proposal and how this relates to my practice and finally a literature review.

I made comment on the project plan which I feel is just a means to an end. The plan is not an end in itself. I therefore didn’t spend too much time thinking about my plan at this stage of unit. The two parts of the course descriptor which my tutor brought to my attention were the reflection presentation and the critical essay or dissertation. I think am going to go down the path of the dissertation as I feel this gives more change to explore my work in depth. For the dissertation from the perspective of this 3.1 unit, a proposal and literature review of 2,500 words is required. We talked over the literature review as I wondered how I could supply a list of crucial texts before I had started writing the dissertation. It felt to me that this was putting the cart before the horse. Answer was that this list of texts was not intended to be a complete or unchanging list that is fixed in stone. The list provides an outline of the most important sources for the written work helping with direction and thought process. I think of this in a way as a kind of anchor. My tutor described this as the foundation of the theoretical framework and is about basic knowledge and building blocks for future study.

I was worried that my research and coursework was very different to what has gone before in the degree. Was I doing enough? How would assessment work and what could I show them when my work in a month might all be theoretical research? This was at forefront of my mind as I got back some positive feedback from Photography 2 Digital Image and Culture. This sent me down path of worrying I might not be able to reproduce such work and in turn led to doubts about myself which seems to be a natural part of my process that comes into my head fairly regularly. My tutor thought that the change from Level 1 to 2 and then to 3 was substantial and that level 3 left the student without a fixed list of tasks or a sense of reference.

I mentioned that in DIC I submitted a reflective presentation to my tutor who suggested I do this in video format as a way of including more of my personal reflective processes which am not always best at remembering to write down. My submission to assessment therefore consisted of my original written reflection piece as well as a video piece. We never get detailed feedback on what we submit for assessment but was interesting for me to try something different and wonder about how assessment tutors viewed by submission. We chatted over the literature review as I worried that how would I know which sources I might use until I had started writing dissertation? I suggested that this might be putting the cart before the horse. My tutor suggested idea to me of building blocks. The basic idea behind my dissertation proposal would be based upon some pieces which I regarded as being the most important to my work. The list of sources would be in no way complete at such an early stage.

We had wide ranging discussion (this idea of wide ranging seems to mirror my research which feels very broad) covering various ideas

• of the paradox of remembering yet at same time forgetting. I think of the ritual of death and the funeral as an end to a life. Do we keep thoughts of the dead with us after this? Well yes in the form of grief. Yet memories fade and graves and the dead are forgotten. Maybe the rituals around death are about shifting that person from like into a different space as much as a thought process rather than a physical move to a grave.
• We went on to discuss that the death ritual and commemoration are not the same thing.
• Of the symbols associated with death and that many of these appear in tattoo culture.
• Of the differences between death and remembrance in western cultures and in other cultures.

I have been making bigger effort to record my thoughts and feelings but this is still something I need to give conscious thought to. These ideas and feelings can shape and even alter perspective and might lead to a different approach or an extension to an existing way of thinking. I have adjusted my blog space to accommodate and reflect my (hoped for) clearer way of working.

In coming month, in addition to continuation of research, I been taking some photographs in graveyards and might consider how to present these. I have more online chats with other students planned, one of which Dan is coming along to provide some explanation of how the course been put together and laid out. In addition to that my tutor suggested I read Geoffrey Batchen’s book, Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance. I have had a quick look and this book is very expensive to buy. Luckily, I see that is available online via the UCA Library. I will also look again at last month’s text, Barthes – Camera Lucida and specifically Barthes idea that photographs are harbingers of death. My review of these written works will be posted in the same section of my blog as this post.

Reference

Adams, Douglas, (1979). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. London, Pan Macmillan p12