abstract envy
Monday, March 31, 2008
Now here's the PhD abstract I wish I'd written. Judith Butler, eat yer heart out:
Mark [...] is doing really interesting PhD work on martial arts, dance, how the obsolescence of martial techniques leads to aestheticisation, and how martial arts allow men to execute beautiful movements without accusations of being a giant pansy. (From Stephen's blog)
Following Jack's recommendation (and having been booted out of the house) spent this weeks QMT* at the Aniwaniwa exhibition at the City Gallery, lying on the mattress in the dark, side by side with all the other art appreciaters, looking up at the floaty pictures and listening to the soothing sounds and thinking this is more the sort of art exhibition I was thinking of really, and this mode of viewing would definitely work for Colin McCahon or any other sort of grand tableau, which is probably not the right technical arty term but never mind and hey wow, maybe this is why all those old dead guys painted the grands tableaux on the ceilings of chapels and suchlike, perhaps they meant people to lie on the floor to look at them and ... gosh those two pillows on those two empty mattresses are right next to each other come to think of it i wonder if anyone's ever had a quick one off the wrist while lying here peacefully in the dark next to all these anonymous other bodies it's just like being in a youth hostel really, in one of those big 40-bunk dorms, all that comforting anonymity, the reason people live in big cities in order to be alone undisturbed apart from the deafening roar of someone trying to leave quietly at 4 am in order to make an early train, kicking you in the head as they creep down off the top bunk and then packing all their toiletries including that absurd giant hairdryer into individual bloody plastic bags and going SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and then my mobile rang and I debated answering it and bellowing HELLO!!! NO, I'M AT THE ART GALLERY! CONCEPTUAL ART! NO!!! IT'S
RUBBISH! but that joke's ten years old now and anyway irrelevant in NZ so I picked up my Docs and tiptoed apologetically outside to answer it. In Britain, anyway, there'd have been far more tsk!-ing.
*Quality Mummy Time
2 Comments:
Oh Heather, for a modest fee I'm sure we can sex up your thesis for the punters too.
Now there's a career niche for you: spinning theses.
In any case my thesis is about (believe it or not) narrative and the childbirth metaphor. Spin that, meta-boy!
(Sigh. No wonder I can't get a frickin' job.)
By 
elderflowerpressee, at
9:24 AM