This is not an audioguide.
(c) Charlotte Bastam
This is not an audioguide, 2022
Sonic study (headphones and MP3 Player)
How many stories must be made invisible in order to tell only one?
This is not an audioguide, however it will tell you stories about the becomings of this exhibition. Maybe what you will encounter will speak to you and the artwork you are currently eyeing, maybe a new connection will arise or maybe it will disrupt you and you will put it on pause. However, when you put on a pair of headphones, you will listen to discussions, conflicts, and laughs students shared during the planning of this exhibition, encounters that influenced what we now call From there through here. The piece aims to show what usually stays invisible while approaching such a big project. Thereby it challenges the often unconscious assumption that an exhibition–a story–is only what you see and what the narrator(s) wants you to know.
Neither the artist nor the artwork will tell you the full story of this exhibition. The audio files stem from hours and hours of recordings that were transcribed, coded1 and then reassembled from the single but continuously relational standpoint of the researching artist. Furthermore, it will be received by you and the way you wish to interact with it. Nevertheless, This is not an audioguide., may give an idea of how much time, care and emotional labor was put into creating this experience. As well as how we came to perceive it and approach this exhibition the way we did.
By that this piece becomes an endeavor also into storytelling. Not only the becoming of the exhibition or the artist’s take on it is on display. It also explores what it means to go deeper into stories themselves, to dig into why they are the way we tell them. It explores the question: How many stories must be made invisible in order to tell only one?
This is not an audioguide. is a sonic study on how this exhibition was performed, the researching artist approached this story and about the ways such an unfolding can be told. Thereby the piece puts artistic research into practices. It is based on ethnographic methods, while playing with the possibilities of the encounters, the materials of the recordings and with her own position as a narrator. The artist reassembled the audio in a certain way. Consciously or unconsciously certain encounters spoke more to her than others, as well as certain voices will get more attention. Yet is it only the word “artistic” in artistic research that gives her the freedom to play with her research material in such a way? Or is it possible that the word “artistic” gives her the freedom to openly experiment in a personal way?
This challenges the assumption that science, in any case, can be done in a linear way. Like stories, scientific knowledge rests on relational processes depending on material, societal, gendered and so many more circumstances and by that inescapably on the scientist’s context.
This is not an audioguide. is the product of many. Clearly, whether the research nor the art work would have been possible without the lively contributions of the students of Art & Science. Their uttered thoughts and reactions to one another made this piece and the exhibition happening. But also the environment of our studio at Alte Postsparkasse with its noises of the construction site are a part of this. So to wrap it up with the words of science philosopher Donna Haraway, we need to question the ways we tell stories, become aware which encounters and voices we leave out, while knowing that we can never tell the whole thing: “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”
― Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
1Coding here refers to a term in qualitive research methodology that describes the process of going through a piece of data, in this case transcripts of recordings, and analyzing it while assigning sequences to specific categories. That way the researcher gives certain meanings to specific parts of the text and is able to make new connections
About the artist
Charlotte Bastam, born 1994 in Stuttgart, Germany.
I am an ethnographer and interdisciplinary artist with a core interest in experimental storytelling. To fill these representations: I gained a bachelor’s in anthropology and history, and a master’s degree in Science and Technology Studies. In a recent ethnographic fieldwork, I delved into the world(s) of an Austrian fact-checking collective, fought false information and was thereby deeply intrigued by how much knowledge production and communication is a practice of care(ing). On this note, I started a master's program in Art & Science to bring forth these caring and challenging aspects of knowing things and telling stories. My goal was, and still is, to move beyond the academic ivory tower, to take the attentive and reflecting methods from anthropology and mix them with my artistic practices.
I use qualitative research methods such as narrative interviewing, participant and practice-orientated observation, field journaling and recording, transcription, and coding. These methods need time and continuous re-questioning about the field2 and my own position within it. I strive to enter participatory research projects that are narrated not only through my behalf as researcher but through the multiple relational encounters of humans and non-humans that tell stories.
Recently, I began to engage with relational storytelling through the practice of field-recording. I aim to enlarge my ethnographic research practice by playing with and staying open to what narratives, sounds and atmospheres might entangle with each other. When I am experimenting with the rearrangement of recordings, letting sounds glitch and slide into each other; this ideally makes other processes and possibilities visible. Of formerly one string of a story, I can see many. I grasp becomings not to their end but in a certain moment of their process. This happens while trying to unfold the strings of how stories come to be while making new ones and continuing paths that would also have been possible but were made invisible. However, all the strings I aim to grasp will go through me–me as an artist, me as an anthropologist, me as a feminist, friend, daughter, and a person who prefers pistachio ice cream over every other sort. All of this is undeniably entangled with my continuously changing situated standpoints but is also simultaneously dependent on all the participants during my fieldwork. What is important for my artistic research is that it remains open for outcomes, to not get fixated too much on one limiting research question as it often goes with academic fieldwork, and to be present and listen, really listen deeply with my whole body and to open my thoughts for all the stories that might be possible.
Of course, these perceptions came to me through many encounters in my life. I am deeply inspired by the mind-enlarging writings of Donna Haraway and her take on situated knowledges, the constant forming of relationships with other beings. Important for my work is also Karen Barad’s concept of agential realism and Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of care. I am glad to have encountered anti-capitalist intersectional feminism with bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Nancy Fraser. And I keep on being inspired by writings that enlarge the possibilities in what relations to think with. I have also grown with posthumanist writers such as Elizabeth Povinelli, Anna Tsing, and Bruno Latour but also with the poetry by Patti Smith. Yet, all these readings would not be tangible for me had I not made certain experiences in my life. Several leisure and professional trips to Latin America and Central Asia have made me experience colonialism and extractivism close-up and reflect on my own privileges. Other encounters, at home and in Europe, allowed me to feel the need for feminism and a critical awareness and the will to act against exploitation and climate change. Such experiences, my circle of friends and co-students at the university, the performing artists at my workplace and the people at my neighborhood café, my dogs, and the all too dry green around me make me aware of how connected and intra-dependent I am.
2In ethnography the field describes the location, the environment and the interactions that are the source for observations.
This is not an audioguide, 2022
Sonic study (headphones and MP3 Player)
How many stories must be made invisible in order to tell only one?
This is not an audioguide, however it will tell you stories about the becomings of this exhibition. Maybe what you will encounter will speak to you and the artwork you are currently eyeing, maybe a new connection will arise or maybe it will disrupt you and you will put it on pause. However, when you put on a pair of headphones, you will listen to discussions, conflicts, and laughs students shared during the planning of this exhibition, encounters that influenced what we now call From there through here. The piece aims to show what usually stays invisible while approaching such a big project. Thereby it challenges the often unconscious assumption that an exhibition–a story–is only what you see and what the narrator(s) wants you to know.
Neither the artist nor the artwork will tell you the full story of this exhibition. The audio files stem from hours and hours of recordings that were transcribed, coded1 and then reassembled from the single but continuously relational standpoint of the researching artist. Furthermore, it will be received by you and the way you wish to interact with it. Nevertheless, This is not an audioguide., may give an idea of how much time, care and emotional labor was put into creating this experience. As well as how we came to perceive it and approach this exhibition the way we did.
By that this piece becomes an endeavor also into storytelling. Not only the becoming of the exhibition or the artist’s take on it is on display. It also explores what it means to go deeper into stories themselves, to dig into why they are the way we tell them. It explores the question: How many stories must be made invisible in order to tell only one?
This is not an audioguide. is a sonic study on how this exhibition was performed, the researching artist approached this story and about the ways such an unfolding can be told. Thereby the piece puts artistic research into practices. It is based on ethnographic methods, while playing with the possibilities of the encounters, the materials of the recordings and with her own position as a narrator. The artist reassembled the audio in a certain way. Consciously or unconsciously certain encounters spoke more to her than others, as well as certain voices will get more attention. Yet is it only the word “artistic” in artistic research that gives her the freedom to play with her research material in such a way? Or is it possible that the word “artistic” gives her the freedom to openly experiment in a personal way?
This challenges the assumption that science, in any case, can be done in a linear way. Like stories, scientific knowledge rests on relational processes depending on material, societal, gendered and so many more circumstances and by that inescapably on the scientist’s context.
This is not an audioguide. is the product of many. Clearly, whether the research nor the art work would have been possible without the lively contributions of the students of Art & Science. Their uttered thoughts and reactions to one another made this piece and the exhibition happening. But also the environment of our studio at Alte Postsparkasse with its noises of the construction site are a part of this. So to wrap it up with the words of science philosopher Donna Haraway, we need to question the ways we tell stories, become aware which encounters and voices we leave out, while knowing that we can never tell the whole thing: “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”
― Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
1Coding here refers to a term in qualitive research methodology that describes the process of going through a piece of data, in this case transcripts of recordings, and analyzing it while assigning sequences to specific categories. That way the researcher gives certain meanings to specific parts of the text and is able to make new connections
About the artist
Charlotte Bastam, born 1994 in Stuttgart, Germany.
I am an ethnographer and interdisciplinary artist with a core interest in experimental storytelling. To fill these representations: I gained a bachelor’s in anthropology and history, and a master’s degree in Science and Technology Studies. In a recent ethnographic fieldwork, I delved into the world(s) of an Austrian fact-checking collective, fought false information and was thereby deeply intrigued by how much knowledge production and communication is a practice of care(ing). On this note, I started a master's program in Art & Science to bring forth these caring and challenging aspects of knowing things and telling stories. My goal was, and still is, to move beyond the academic ivory tower, to take the attentive and reflecting methods from anthropology and mix them with my artistic practices.
I use qualitative research methods such as narrative interviewing, participant and practice-orientated observation, field journaling and recording, transcription, and coding. These methods need time and continuous re-questioning about the field2 and my own position within it. I strive to enter participatory research projects that are narrated not only through my behalf as researcher but through the multiple relational encounters of humans and non-humans that tell stories.
Recently, I began to engage with relational storytelling through the practice of field-recording. I aim to enlarge my ethnographic research practice by playing with and staying open to what narratives, sounds and atmospheres might entangle with each other. When I am experimenting with the rearrangement of recordings, letting sounds glitch and slide into each other; this ideally makes other processes and possibilities visible. Of formerly one string of a story, I can see many. I grasp becomings not to their end but in a certain moment of their process. This happens while trying to unfold the strings of how stories come to be while making new ones and continuing paths that would also have been possible but were made invisible. However, all the strings I aim to grasp will go through me–me as an artist, me as an anthropologist, me as a feminist, friend, daughter, and a person who prefers pistachio ice cream over every other sort. All of this is undeniably entangled with my continuously changing situated standpoints but is also simultaneously dependent on all the participants during my fieldwork. What is important for my artistic research is that it remains open for outcomes, to not get fixated too much on one limiting research question as it often goes with academic fieldwork, and to be present and listen, really listen deeply with my whole body and to open my thoughts for all the stories that might be possible.
Of course, these perceptions came to me through many encounters in my life. I am deeply inspired by the mind-enlarging writings of Donna Haraway and her take on situated knowledges, the constant forming of relationships with other beings. Important for my work is also Karen Barad’s concept of agential realism and Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of care. I am glad to have encountered anti-capitalist intersectional feminism with bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Nancy Fraser. And I keep on being inspired by writings that enlarge the possibilities in what relations to think with. I have also grown with posthumanist writers such as Elizabeth Povinelli, Anna Tsing, and Bruno Latour but also with the poetry by Patti Smith. Yet, all these readings would not be tangible for me had I not made certain experiences in my life. Several leisure and professional trips to Latin America and Central Asia have made me experience colonialism and extractivism close-up and reflect on my own privileges. Other encounters, at home and in Europe, allowed me to feel the need for feminism and a critical awareness and the will to act against exploitation and climate change. Such experiences, my circle of friends and co-students at the university, the performing artists at my workplace and the people at my neighborhood café, my dogs, and the all too dry green around me make me aware of how connected and intra-dependent I am.
2In ethnography the field describes the location, the environment and the interactions that are the source for observations.
Fact Box
This is not an audioguide.
Categories
Part of
Date
June 02, 2022, 17:00h
-
Students
- Charlotte Bastam (participating artist)
Pariticipants