Beyond regimes of signs: making art/istic portrayals of haptic moments/movements with child/ren/hood. Issue 5 (2nd September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Otterstad, Ann Merete; Waterhouse, Ann-Hege Lorvik
• Is Part Of: Discourse. Volume 37:Issue 5(2016)
• Page Start: 739
• Page End: 753
• Publication Date: 2016-09-02
• Subjects: Non-representational theory -- photographs -- child/hoods -- affect -- cutting together-apart; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- Australia -- Periodicals; 370.5
• DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2015.1075727
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0159-6306

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we try to move beyond fixed narratives of child/ren and childhoods, a fixity that comes, in part, as a consequence of the adult/child dyad. We undertake a cutting together-apart of childhood photographs which allows us to explore the complex machinery that produces the categories of child/ren as human beings that are, variously, de(scribed) as not only 'natural', 'innocent' and 'romantic', but also 'uncanny' and 'sexual', tropes that find meaning and depiction through child/hood bodies and faces. Inspired by non-representational ethnography, we want to generate pictorial acts that move beyond the face – 'as regimes of signs' so that body and language can interrelate where 'the configuration of the face is inextricably tied to the evolution of the voice'. In undertaking a form of schizoanalysis, we undo images of child/ren/hood from 'the inside' by connecting to haptic thinking as well as cutting together-apart, processes that allow us to think otherwise about our own and other childhood(s). Additionally, we want to liberate child/ren/hoods through artistic photograph sensing, and doings may be seen as a political act, a way to break down boundaries of power through art as events.