Action Research: Russian Ark

The second session of the action research project was even more useful and enjoyable than the first one. JG and LL (the only 2nd year student) were present and the latter presented the ‘text’ and problem.

Her choice was a very fortunate one: the film Russian Ark by Alexander Sokurov. It really drove the whole discussion around notions of similarities and differences between disciplines and the specific territory of drawing, which is an ongoing issue in our meetings.



What was most interesting about the discussion was the fact that what seemed to be the problem (pseudo research in the art world) was not the real problem in LL’s research. This new issue (vehicles of research) proved to be a far more important, urgent and fascinating. Russian Ark was a successful vehicle of what Sokurov wanted to convey in the same way as Grayson Perry’s pots are too. This was evident to us post facto but when confronted with our own research, it wasn’t so straightforward.

This is something I suspect we will take up this issue in further meetings. It came to my mind that as last week I already discussed Duchamp (and his influence on my own research is changing) there was a new text, linked to the issue of vehicles of research, which I could put forward for my session. It is also fortunate that it comes from literature. I find that these sessions are most useful when we discuss a ‘real’ problem and when the text is tangential to drawing but not literally -as it provokes new connections and links unseen and invisible before.

This second meeting, due to the short time since the last one, proved to be a lot more agile. Memories were fresher and issues, examples and relationships easier to establish. Even my note taking was more copious and confident. I found out that the best way to do it is to jot down bullet points and then, when typing them, to organise them around debates or issues –which, thinking back, is what I tell students to do for their literature review!