Anonymous
General Note:
[…] Ellipses Journal for Creative Research endeavours to make bare the process of research and development in creative and artistic research. This is for readers / viewers an opportunity and mechanism to see the types of academic critique engaged with creative research and to make visible the responses and development.
The following peer review was produced blind and in process, the artist / author has subsequently been given the opportunity to respond and develop both the theoretical and interactive parts of the article before publication. What you see published has been edited post this review.
Peer Review 1: Narratives of Mobility (2020)
Reviewer: Anonymous
Which aspects of the submission are of interest / relevance and why?
This is a great project as it really fits the theme of the current issues and relates an experience of the city and maps through various interactive point a journey from point A to B we’ve all done as pedestrians in the city.
The project offers an interesting reflection on what it means to be a womxn in Joburg, and the measures we all take to guarantee our safety. It reflects Johannesburg daily life and brings forward larger issues related to patriarchy and violence in the society through the map of a short journey.‘
How are the artistic and research outcomes represented?
The use of mix media media: audio, animation and text does service to the project and its discourse. The submission has an adequate description and explains clearly its intent. The use of various points on map with each its explainer supports the overall effectiveness of the message and makes the viewer / listener curious about the city and the points mapped by the artist.
How well does the design support the submission?
The design is overall aesthetically pleasing and works to convey the intention of its creator. I however would have like to see the medium pushed a bit further: while the objectives is to related the author’s experience of the city, I think it would have been interesting to include background noises of the streets: kids chatter, horns, etc… I also would have like to see more of a visual variety, like multiple animations speaking to each point of the map. There is currently only one animation to take you through the journey.
Are there any ethical or legal concerns?
None
Conclusions and and pre publication revision:
I think the submission could go as it is presented at the moment. I however would recommend improvement to the design as listed in point 4.This piece in my opinion fits with the theme of Joburg Last and brings important reflections about the status of womxn in the city.
Anonymous
Peer Review 2: Narratives of Mobility (2020)
Reviewer: Anonymous
Which aspects of the submission are of interest / relevance and why?
What I found most interesting about this submission was the multiple ways it engaged with the notion of agency.
The first instance was overt:in the use of ‘womxn’ and the deliberate elaboration on why this was done. To extend the experience of women to all who identify as such is an essential gesture, particularly when considering the work takes the form of map laden with many of tropes found in a public service announcement. It is an extension of the understanding that the public domain in the city of Johannesburg can be considered hostile to all who identify as women, and this consideration is derived from similar or shared experiences. It casts the net wide, and provides a successful social and political contextualization of the personal observations that follow.
The second was in the presentation of two possible routes from Park Station to WAM. The presentation of two separate routes is not overt, but it becomes evident through the illustration used that there are two pathways, each with landmarks that are evaluated according to their potential to offer safety. The preparation of two routes means implicitly that there will always be a second option should a chosen direction prove unsafe –perhaps in the event of a strike (asis suggested for COSATU House). What is interesting to me is the tension between vulnerability and agency. The author is extremely successful at portraying the street, or the public domain between Park Station and Jorissen Street as completely out of her control, where at any moment circumstances could change. Through her descriptions of certain spaces, we begin to get a sense of the vulnerability of her body where she does not feel 100 percent certain of her ability to predict what might happen next. Her use of an audio recording to convey this, adds to the physicality or tangibility of her lived experience. That her experiences and consequent findings are real, and perhaps also the result of the necessity within her own daily life only become clear later on –at the hair salon and at the conclusion. While at first my initial reaction was a wish to have learned of this earlier, instead of feeling as though I am learning of an experiment done for its own sake, I now feel that leaving this aspect to be discovered adds a layer of meaning perhaps best felt in contrast to the clinical language used throughout.
How are the artistic and research outcomes represented?
As mentioned earlier, it only became clear to me much later in engaging with this work, that almost all of the content or findings it contained were as a result of a daily lived experience,that takes place outside of the academic context. The first time this happened was at the moment the author relayed an anecdote about getting hair extensions at the salon that also features as a place of safety on one of the routes. Up until that point, as a reader and viewer, I was kept within the interpretation that this map was created as part of a theoretical unpacking around the experience of walking in the city as a black woman. The author even goes as far as to verbally quote authors and years published in her opening text, as if to reinforce the sense of distance between researcher and subject. Choosing to frame the question, as well as the notion of agency within a theoretical framework complete with references; has very cleverly set up the start of a narrative where the reader is quickly drawn into series of observations that are immediately related back to the framework provided.
The narrator’s tone of voice does not deviate from a monotone, devoid of emotion, and the listener therefore immediately associates the narrator with the role of researcher and observer. But, as the journey progresses, the audience is allowed clues to something outside of theory, and without distance. Changes in the author’s tone as she relays a particular sentence begin to betray her emotions, however subtly. One such instance is when the author describes how children offer safety not as a result of their individual strength, but rather because “they travel in packs”, the listener can almost hear her smiling as she speaks. These moments give way to a more personal experience, one that is not simply an exercise created for the purpose of knowledge creation, but knowledge gained through the crafting and exercising of personal agency in volatile space. By the time the journey ends with at the arrival of the academy; where the author can finally relax, and where things become predictable again the relief in the author’s voice is palpable. It is within this space, traditionally, that the theorizing and reflection is to begin, and in some way I am left with the feeling that the narrative in fact ends where it began.
The opening text concludes with a reference to the 2019 African Feminisims Conference and “the principle of theorizing from personal agency”, and in light of this, I think the work is successful in doing this.
How well does the design support the submission?
The design of the work is clear in portraying a journey that has a beginning and an end. This is very important given that the author frames the work as a narrative, and the design therefore supports perfectly in form the work’s conceptual proposition. I think the strength of the work lies in the fact that is conveyed through audio, but I also value very much the fact that the text is also provided in that in ensures complete access to the work. The placement of the text at each ‘stop’ on the journey also does not obstruct the work in any way and in fact supports the structure of a map. The elements to the right of the map (‘tactics’, ‘allies’, ‘points of safety’, ‘strategy’) lay clearly the approach taken by the author at each point in the journey. On the whole, the design of the work is extremely clear and builds toward a strong argument throughout the narrative.
Are there any ethical or legal concerns?
The one concern I have is the crossing out of ‘if’ and replacement with ‘when’, in the strategy outline to the right of the map. This part of the work takes on very strongly the aesthetic of public service type communication, and the replacement of ‘if’ with ‘when’ in reference to acts of violence being perpetrated against women seems to play precisely into the tendency of “pathologizing” the city that the author warns about in the opening text. While the work does center on the acknowledged vulnerability of women’s bodies within these spaces, there is an uncomfortability I have in calling events of violence into being before they have taken place.
Conclusions and and pre publication revision:
I think that this work presents an extremely strong argument that in peeling back its layers, presents a cyclical interpretation on how academic knowledge is created. Theorising cannot happen firstly without the physical body being safe from harm, and secondly without material with which to do so. The daily journey from the train station to the university encapsulates this perfectly, and also fits perfectly into the author’s wish to theorise from “personal agency”. This is a work that draws its audience into wanting to experience it again and again; now having realized the deliberate way in which it has been crafted, hoping to find the contradictions that draw on the tension between theory and reality.
The only concern I have is with the public service ‘advice’ to the right of the map. While this does strengthen the frame that the author provides for her audience, the use of ‘when’ instead of ‘if’ feels like an aesthetic gesture that could be misinterpreted as a flippant calling of violence into reality. I know from the meticulous way in which this work has been put together that this is likely not the intention, and so I would caution against the use of this for the sake of aesthetics and without further contextualization as to why this would be justified.
