• Work, work:
  Staging dislocation in artistic
  and non artistic labour

Blind panel Microanalysis, Oslo, 14 October 2016 (transcript)

part 1

Tom:
Okay, well good morning. My name’s Tom, and I’m running this session, and some of you may not be terribly clear what the session is about, so just to put you a little bit in the picture, that I’m an expert in life history interviewing, and in the interpretation of life histories. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, please wave your arms or do something, because I won’t know that you don’t understand, and also if my voice drops, so anyway, that’s my area of expertise. I come from London, and what I’ve done is to do an interview with somebody who we’ll call Jeremy, and what you are is an interpretative panel, which I hope I will say very clearly – an interpretative panel, goes through chunk by chunk through bits of the interview, and what we are looking for is, and I don’t know whether this translates well into Norwegian or not, “the lived experience of the person telling the story”. We’ve got the sequence of the told – what’s said, this is said, then that’s said, something else is said, so that’s the sequence of the told, and what we’re trying to infer is the subjectivity of the teller – what sort of person was telling this story in this particular way? – so we’re trying to infer the subjectivity of the teller, which we don’t know, from the chunks of material of what they said in the interview, so that’s what we’ll be doing. So, we will be looking at these chunks, chunk interpretation and so on. There are probably about twelve chunks in all, or something like that, and the point, I’ll just explain why the method is like that – if anybody’s interpreted interviews in a different way, then this is different from this way, and this way says basically, a story or an interview is an improvised telling. People are making it up as they go along. They are partly in control, and partly not in control, so the question is, when a chunk is over, the interviewee has either started a new topic, or they’re talking about the same topic in a different way, so there’s the topic, and the way a topic is talked about, and we’re trying to say, well, given that the person has changed from this topic, talked about in this way, to that topic now being talked about a different way, what can we infer about the subjectivity of the person who improvised in that way? So we’re looking at, we’re trying to see, infer a pattern of an improvising subjectivity, as they tell their story chunk by chunk, over the range of the interview, so you won’t be able to see much of the interview. The interview was about, I think, one-and-a-half hours, and then four-and-a-half hours, so it’s two sessions, so we are just taking a bit from the first interview, but I think you will find that it is quite interesting in trying to work out how do you think about situated subjectivity?
The last point I want to make is that you need to think, you’ll be putting forward hypotheses, and it’s a brainstorming session. You don’t have to be right, you just have to be interesting. You can’t know whether you’re right or not, because you aren’t inside the subjectivity of the teller – I don’t know, you don’t know, so all you can do is to put up hypotheses which are risky, about what the person might be experiencing at that particular time, when they said, what do you mean? What are they thinking about when they’re doing that? And then later chunks will come on, and tell you whether you’re starting to guess right or starting to guess wrong, and then you’ve changed your mind, so you’re constantly putting forward two sorts of hypothesis after each chunk.
The first hypothesis is about what they might be experiencing as they said that. They’ve said something, a chunk, and what might they be experiencing as they tell that chunk, and as they’ve now stopped, as it were, to say something different, so that’s the experiencing, and if you say, for example, I think, when the interviewee says, what did you mean? – that they are being puzzled. Well then, what will happen next is that the interviewer won’t understand what’s going on, and they will stop talking or something. We distinguish between experiencing hypotheses – your guess as to what the person is experiencing, and following hypotheses – what might happen next, if you’re right? So you put forward two sorts of hypotheses, the group as a whole, puts forward two sorts of hypothesis: what might be the interviewee experiencing at that time, and if I’m right, I would expect this to come up, a later chunk to look like this, so experiencing a hypothesis, and what would follow if my experiencing hypothesis is right, and usually it isn’t, so you have to change your mind about what they were experiencing, and this is how you get closer and closer to somebody’s experiencing.
Okay, that’s a bit abstract, but I just wanted to say those two things – no I didn’t, I wanted to say three things, and the third one is, that when I am telling the story, let us say you’re telling the story of your first kiss, assuming you’re engaged in some sort of kissing with somebody or other at some point, your first kiss, that actually there was the experience of the kiss at the time that you had your first kiss, which is what you’re talking about, and then your experience in the interview of telling the interviewer about it. Now, those are quite different things. Technically, we call it “then” experiencing, what did the person experience then? – and a “now” experiencing, what are they experiencing now as they tell the story of that first kiss in the interview now? – so there’s always a double experiencing. When you’re telling a story of the past, you are in the present, remembering the past, trying perhaps to recall or to hide the then experiencing, and you’re doing it from a now experiencing. If the interviewer looks sympathetic, you might say more about your first kiss. If they’re really nasty and unpleasant, you might say much less, because you’re now experiencing them as a potential hostile witness – yes, I’ve heard of the word witness this morning, a potentially hostile witness, so there’s always a double experiencing – talking about what happened then, and your experience then, and thinking about telling something about it, and not telling something else about it, now in the interview. It’s never a simple experiencing, it’s always at least double.
Okay, so what we’re going to do … could anybody who hasn’t yet put their name on this useful piece of paper, just put their first name on there.
New speaker (male):
Can I just ask, what chunk means?
Tom:
A chunk is a bit. I will now put up a bit. A chunk is, it’s like a quotation, except, if you like, it’s a summary of a quotation. Afterwards, I can go how into we develop it, how the chunks are developed. Now, if you can’t read this from where you are, it’s because you’re sitting too far away, so if you can make sure that you can read it, because otherwise you won’t be able to comment on it. I will read it out, but you will forget it, so it’s much more sensible if you move up. There’s this theory of porcupines, which is, people need to be close enough to be in connection, but not so close that they feel deeply embarrassed by the presence of somebody else, so this is a porcupine situation. I think the philosopher, Wittgenstein, talked about the porcupines who feel cold, who gather together for warmth, but because they come too close, they feel uncomfortable, so they move away again.
So I’ll read this out, and this is a segment of an interview with Jeremy. He was at Grymov (? 8:07), Boneluca (? 8:08) and Prague – there as a collective authorship of short films. Where they’ve got quotation marks, it’s a quotation from the interview – otherwise it’s my summary. An experimental pedagogic project, with former students, professors and theorists; small film scrips with everybody changing each other’s scripts, collective authorship – for example, one film was about washing clothes in the river, changing shoes with a person in the bar. He cried, “It was more than just funny”, so that’s him remembering, Jeremy remembering something from that particular moment of the past, and the question is, what might he be experiencing at that time – this is chunk one. So we want two sorts of hypotheses, an experiencing hypothesis, and also a following hypothesis, what we might find later in the interview, if the experiencing hypothesis is right. Okay, so what might the person be experiencing, as they remember that? Can everyone read it, or pretend to read it? – or imagine they have read it? – or anything like that? If not, you just do have to move your chairs. Normally there are only six people doing this panel, and so you can gather round this table rather carefully, so anyway, and there are no right answers. What might somebody be feeling as they remember that, and tell that to me in an interview?
Male speaker (new):
Trying to be, to the point, so I think that he’s condensed his form.
Tom:
Right, so he’s wanting to be precise, so he’s feeling he might not be precise, and he’s wanting to be precise, in order to overcome a lack of precision of which he might be afraid, so he’s condensing it – right, okay. Any other, a counter-hypothesis? That’s one hypothesis, and whatever hypothesis anybody puts forward, I ultimately say, well, what might be the opposite? Supposing he’s not wanting to be precise at all? We don’t know, but what would be a counter-hypothesis, a quite different hypothesis of what he’s experiencing as he says that? If you said that in an interview about your past history, what’s a quite different thing you might be feeling as you tell that? What might you be trying to do something, or make the interviewer think something, or stop the interviewer from thinking something else?
New speaker (male):
Can I say? I think that, okay, he’s contradicting the first thing here. I’d say that I wants to mislead somebody.
Tom:
You wants to mislead somebody?
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, so I start off by lying, the initial, starting with a lie.
Tom:
Okay, well let’s pretend that’s right at the moment – it’s a hypothesis, so two is a counter-hypothesis, wanting to mislead. Well, we can’t guess at what the facts might be that he’s trying to mislead us about, but what, let us say, I don’t know whether anyone has done sociology, any sociologists? – probably not. There’s a sociologist called Goffman, who says, we are all presenting ourselves in everyday life. He’s written a book, called “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, so here is Jeremy presenting himself in one way. Supposing he’s presenting himself in order to mislead the interviewer – what in general, what does he want me as an interviewer to think, or you, as an interpreter of the interview, to think? What does he want you to not think? – not so much about the facts, but about the sort of facts? What would be a quite different sort of fact, that he doesn’t want us to think about?
New speaker (female):
I would think that he wants us to think that he’s good at collaborating.
Tom:
Collaborating, okay, so, in fact that could be from both. If he’s being precise here about collaboration, it could be because he really is doing collaborating, or if he’s trying to mislead, he’s telling us about a collaboration that he wasn’t doing, so collaborating would be an important thesis, whether he’s telling the truth or whether he’s trying to mislead.
Okay, any other hypotheses about what he might be doing in this chunk? Let’s assume for the moment, being generous, we always start by being generous, that he’s telling the truth. What might he be feeling now about that period then? What might he be feeling now, about that period then?
New speaker (male):
The chunk means like the last ….
Tom:
This is the chunk. This sheet of paper is the chunk. I shan’t go into the technology of how you get chunks, but let’s assume that is the chunk. He’s said all that, and he’s stopped, so we’re now trying to think, okay …
New speaker (female):
And this person said, he cried – it was more than just funny.
Tom:
They’re quotations. Because they’re in inverted commas, they are quotations from the transcript.
Female speaker (continued):
What he said, yes?
Tom:
It’s what he said, yes.
Female speaker (continued):
He said, he cried?
Tom:
He said, not, sorry – he is not the person in the bar, is he, not he, the interviewer. It’s about the person, the person in the bar cried, and Jeremy says, “It was more than just funny.”
New speaker (female):
I think he’s probably pretending to be very emotional and very insightful into the emotions of other people?
Tom:
Okay, so he’s wanting to be precise, so another thing is about emotional connection. I’m not sure if connection is the right way, word, but something like that. These are very rough words. The important thing is to remember the feel of it. Whatever I write down is itself a ridiculous condensation of what anybody said. It’s like a telegram that you send. Okay, let’s look for a moment at, any quite different hypothesis, something that is not to do with wanting to be precise, or trying to mislead, but some quite different thing that he’s doing by talking in this way. What else might be going on, as he tells the story in this way, or says this story?
New speaker (male):
Maybe his own position within the group, or within the subject somehow? He says, experimental pedagogic project, or is he a fellow, or is he a teacher, or more a kind of … what he wants to say about where he is attending?
Tom:
It doesn’t at the moment – he just says who he’s doing it with. He doesn’t say anything about himself, except that he is doing a, quote, experimental pedagogic project, so he’s using the language of somebody who knows about projects, about pedagogic projects, and about experimental pedagogic projects, so in that sense, he’s … well, I’ll call it situating self as, let’s call it a pedagogue, a teacher, because if you aren’t some sort of teacher, you wouldn’t be doing an experimental pedagogic project. He’s also situating me as somebody who would know what that meant. If I didn’t know what an experimental pedagogic project was, I wouldn’t know what he meant by that, so he’s situating me as an interviewer in a certain way.
Okay, something quite different that occurs to you about that particular segment?
New speaker (female):
Well, it appears to me that he’s a cheater and a conman. He’s trying to pass as a very deep person.
New speaker (female):
He’s using his experimental pedagogic project, and making him, that it was more than funny, just pretending there’s some depth inside of what he did.
Tom:
So you don’t trust him at all?
Female speaker (continued):
No, no!
Tom:
It’s called the “hermeneutic of suspicion”, in which you suspect everything, as it were. Okay, that’s very good. Any final points, before we leave this chunk? Sorry, can people say their name, because I know that, I don’t know any of your names. I have got them on a bit of paper which is somewhere else – oh there, thank you.
New speaker (male):
The thing is, because he …
Tom:
This is one, two, three.
Male speaker (continued):
He talks about (?? 17:57) authorship, like the third part could be either, like something which is written together, or it could like, lots of different people, so it cannot necessarily stand, what he means, he can just like, kind of, list, or summarise, like different chunks, of like the different authors.
Tom:
And if he’s doing that, if he is just giving a list of different things, what would you say about the subjectivity that does that?
Male speaker (continued):
You cannot really … okay, his subjectivity would be just like, wrapping up, or like listing, or making a list of authors, so he doesn’t say so much about it. He doesn’t necessarily say so much about him, or it’s very, like slippery, like you can interpret it in lots of ways, if it’s him, or somebody else saying that.
Tom:
I’m going to call it “list-making objectivist”, in the sense that – sorry, these are my words, but they’re just for me to be able to shorten it down, it’s something about what it is out there, he’s not saying very much about himself.
Male speaker (continued):
Or not necessarily, it depends, you don’t have the context.
Tom:
No, you don’t have the context, so the point is, context will build up as we go on with the later chunks, so let’s imagine, let’s go through each one of these, and put down at least one following hypothesis. There could be any number of following hypothesis. A following hypothesis is the next chunk that I put up, or later chunks that I put up, so if he’s wanting to be precise, what would he then go onto say? What would the next bit be? There’s no right answer to any of these, but just, it’s so that you can start imagining a type of person. It’s called empathy.
New speaker (male):
I think he might want to hurry to a conclusion as early as possible, as something that he could conclude, and sort of get to another seminar, or something like that.
Tom:
He’s not – go slowly. This is an interview, so he’s not, unless you’re saying he’s in a hurry to finish the interview, which I don’t think – you’re saying something else, which I haven’t understood.
Male speaker (continued):
I’m sorry, I was suspecting that this, I’m sort of suspecting of both those positions that occurs there, but when both are wanting to be precise and misleading, so this could be the same thing, almost.
Tom:
Okay, but let’s take one at a time. Let’s just take the wanting to be precise. He wants to be precise, and he wants to bring something or other to an end. Is it, he wants to bring the interview to an end, or he wants to bring this story to an end? What is it that he wants? Spell the things out.
Male speaker (continued):
I think that he wants to bring the story to an end.
Tom:
Okay, so if that’s right, then there’ll be a new story. That would be the prediction. If I’m right in that he wants to bring the story to an end, then he would go on to a new story, or at least not say any more about this. Okay, let’s try a few others. If he wants to mislead, and he’s a conman, what would he do next? What would be the following hypothesis from that?
New speaker (female):
Well, I also agree with you, that either, (?? 21:37) has to be a conman, but definitely he would like to explain what it means, it was more than just funny, so he would elaborate more.
Tom:
He would talk more about that?
Female speaker (continued):
Of course, because he wants to be precise, or, he is a conman, then he has the advance story, but he works more on, what is this, more than just funny? He’s displaying more details.
Tom:
More details about the event – okay, that’s another …
Female speaker (continued):
And also about the emotional outcome, not only funny, but maybe sad, or maybe, I don’t know.
Tom:
So emotional side of story, okay.
New speaker (female):
I don’t know what a conman is?
Tom:
A conman is a confidence trickster, somebody who tries to get money or something from you by pretending to be somebody he isn’t. Thomas Mann wrote, “Felix Krull – the Confidence Trickster”, but anyway. Okay, let’s imagine he’s trying to situate himself as a pedagogue in the interview. He’s doing something in the interview, not so much remembering the past. If that’s what he’s doing, what sort of chunk would you expect to happen next, from somebody who’s situating himself to me as a pedagogue, doing an experimental pedagogic project? What’s the sort of thing he might say next?
New speaker (female):
Maybe you feel that you mastered something, make you feel that you’re very good at something?
Tom:
Making me feel? – so he’s making me feel good. How might he do that?
Female speaker (continued):
Making you feel good at.
Tom:
Okay, perhaps at what, at interviewing? As far as he’s concerned, I am the interviewer, and so the only thing he knows, so he might say, wow, this is really interesting. I’ve never had such an interesting thought before, and it’s all thanks to you.
(they laugh)
It’s not very likely, but you know! And finally, he’s a list-making objectivist. He’s just listing things, that’s what he does. If that’s what he does, what would the next thing he do be? – another list! That’s my hypothesis. I’m allowed to join in from time to time, so I’m going to put down, another list. Okay, so there are attempts to understand what he might be experiencing, and what he might be trying to do in the interview, and we’ve got, in green, some hypotheses about what might follow next. Now, what we need is somebody who’s very good at using sticky tape to stick this somewhere. We can play hide and seek around this thing at some other time.
Okay, where were we, two? What was the … bread. So we now move to the second chunk, the second bit of thing he said. I’m gradually going to learn this technology. That’s much nicer. Okay, so he then goes on to talk about his decision to return to Oslo. He spent many years away from Oslo. He wanted to see his brother, his sister and his parents, “wants a job or assets” in order to go back. He applies for one job and doesn’t get it. Then he gets a job as a study co-ordinator in the Academy of Fine Arts for the Masters programme, and becomes the Masters study co-ordinator for two years. It’s well paid, deciding with others, a rich experience. It’s more, “nuanced” than his English or Czech environment, and he says, “I had different … “ – that shouldn’t be “I” actually, he doesn’t say that. He refers to himself as having different competencies from the normal study co-ordinator, and it was a good return. If you can’t see, you just have to move up. I’d like to put an enormous magnifying glass in front of the thing, but I can’t do it. I’ll read it once more: The decision to return to Oslo, he’d been many years away from Oslo, away from his brother, his sister, his parents, but he wanted a job or an asset in order to go back. He applies for one job and doesn’t get it. He gets a job as a study co-ordinator in the Academy of Fine Arts for the Masters programme, and is the Masters study co-ordinator for two years. It’s well paid, deciding with others, making decisions with others, a rich experience. It’s more “nuanced” than the English or Czech environment, and he had different competencies, or competence, different from the normal study co-ordinator – a good return. So if we just look at the hypothesis we had here, he wants to be precise – well, he’s not moved, well, he’s moved to a different story, so a sense, the hypothesis that, he’s said what he’s got to say, and he’s going onto something quite different, is sort of accepted by two. He doesn’t give more details about that event. The side of collaboration, it’s interesting – is sort of connected up again, because here it’s about deciding with others, so obviously all this may be, if we take the conman hypothesis, we just go through saying, I don’t believe a word of it, through all the chunks, but let’s pretend for the moment that we might believe a little bit of it, that he has got a little more emotional, in the sense of, he’s talking about wanting to go back to Oslo, wanting to see his family more, and he’s talking about collaboration, so this, not about the emotional side of that story, but about the emotional side of something. Does he make me feel good as an interviewer – no, I’m afraid I can’t see anything there. Maybe he’s trying very hard, but it doesn’t work, and then is he making a list? – I don’t know, is he making a list? It doesn’t feel very much like a list, it feels more like a narrative, so I’m just going to put, leave that as a question mark. So a slight, let’s start again on here. The decision to return to Oslo, study co-ordinator at the Masters level for two years. What can we say about that? What’s he experiencing, as he says this? Imagine he’s saying it to you, and you are trying to say, what is this person experiencing, as they tell me this story? This is what it’s all about. Well, I’ll throw in a few, just for fun. So the first one, he’s experiencing a sort of pride, or perhaps a sense of self-worth. It was a good return, a rich experience, (?? 30:11) others. He’s been able to get back. He’s managed to achieve something. He’s got back to Oslo, and he’s got a good job which is interesting, and therefore let’s call it pride, or a sense of self-worth.
New speaker (male):
Maybe a bit of relief? He might have had some, like (?? 30:32) his return.
Tom:
Okay, so that’s another possibility – it’s relief at what?
Male speaker (continued):
From the stress of not having a job?
Tom:
Relief at having a job. He says, it’s well paid – it’s one of the things that he mentions. Relief at having a job, WP for well paid. Any quite different things he might be feeling? Remember he’s telling the story of what he felt then, and he’s talking about it now, so any other thoughts?
New speaker (female):
He also feels the need to explain why he leaves the more experimental environment.
Tom:
Right, explaining, ex, explaining – could you say that again? – feel to explain what?
Female speaker (continued):
The reason why he leaves the more experimental … ?
Tom:
That was the past thing, so is that here as well?
Female speaker (continued):
Yeah, because he’s explaining it. He’s kind of …
Tom:
Explaining his experimentalism.
Female speaker (continued):
He’s turning to the family values, and leaving behind something different.
Tom:
Okay, I’m going to make that a separate one – turn to family values. Anything else?
New speaker (female):
He might be sad, because he might be leading into something happening after that, that is not as happy as that, so he might be sad at the moment, remembering a period that was good, because he’s getting more confident in the situation, and is now going to open up for something that is more, harder to talk about, and what people very often do before that is to say, well, before that, my life was great, and I was handling it, to present themselves as stronger.
Tom:
Okay, so this is an increasing happiness before I tell you the bad news!
Female speaker (continued):
It can be! – presenting itself as, and somebody handling life before this happened.
Tom:
Okay, happiness leading to later bad news, but you’re not, or are you saying that this itself is the bad news? Is this the bad news, or this is still climbing the mountain?
Female speaker (continued):
You said about the now experience and the then experience. The now experience is like, being not unhappy maybe at the moment, but knowing that he’s going to talk about something that is hard to talk about, instead of presenting good news.
Tom:
He’s setting up some good news first before some bad news still to come.
New speaker (male):
He started with, like, fundamentally questioning his credibility, so everything is the opposite of what he says, so everything is already the opposite, so we should always write the opposite of everything we are writing.
Tom:
Right, well, it takes a long time to do that, because if it’s just the opposite, I’ll just put a line.
Male speaker (continued):
One is the opposite version.
Tom:
Wait a second – hold it, hold it, minus to everything positive.
Male speaker (continued):
And he would have to analyse, like his motive, so we can put different clues together, like within those sentences, and just wait, how they add up, and describe those motives.
Tom:
If we had a lot of time, we could certainly do that – we don’t, so I take your point, and it’s a really important one. What we will do, or what can you do, is to bear in mind that actually the opposite of everything he says may be true, and we have to wait for some evidence to show that this is now more likely than not. At the moment, it’s just a general hypothesis – he may be lying through his teeth, which is always possible, but there’s, as yet, no evidence for it in the telling of the story. When we come up to the first bit of evidence, that he is lying through his teeth, or misleading us like anything, then we can start going back and reconsidering it. At the moment, just imagine there’s another sheet of paper in green, which says minus to everything positive on the right-hand side, and we’ll wait for some evidence, a further block to actually suggest that, and there may be something like that, which will be really interesting, or there may not, in which case we’ve saved a lot of writing time, instead of putting the opposite, the opposite, everywhere.
Male speaker (continued):
But I want to say another thing, because I said that only because of something, I didn’t find any hint of this as you just said, in the text, like which (?? 35:22) kind of with suspicion? It’s just because, we start asking that way, or like kind of … like I saw in the first part of the text, like that we’re already questioning his position, like strongly, or his credibility, and this is already kind of shifting in a really extreme …
Tom:
No, sure – paranoia is something that we all enjoy, so all I’m saying is, hold onto your paranoia, that everything is the opposite of what he says, but don’t let’s waste time spelling it out in each item, until we say, hey, well, after this next chunk, I really am starting – it’s not just a possibility that he’s misleading and lying, here is some rather clear evidence. Right, then it makes worthwhile spending a lot of time on it. Until then, as I say, just imagine a minus to everything that’s said here, and that will be ready for, suddenly, when people are paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t being persecuted, as somebody else said.
Any final thoughts about what the person is experiencing as they say that? I’ll read it again – a decision to return to Oslo. He’d been many years away from his brother, sister and parents. He wants a job or assets in order to go back. He applies for one job and doesn’t get it. He gets a job, a job as a study co-ordinator at the Masters level. He’s there for two years. It’s well paid, it’s doing deciding with others, a rich experience. It’s more “nuanced” than the English or Czech environment, and he had different competencies from the normal study co-ordinator, and it was a good return, or it brought about a good return. Any final thoughts about what he might be experiencing? What we’ve said, is some sense of pride or self-worth; relief at having a job. He’s explaining his experimentalism, he’s turning to family values, and he’s telling a happy story, preparing for bad news to come. Any other hypotheses about what’s going on as he tells this story? Sorry, can you just say your name?
Anna:
Yeah, my name is Anna. I’m just thinking that maybe he’s trying to pretend to be happy with this job, or pretend to, like you were saying, he might be a conman, but also not so much a conman, but trying to convey a sense of strength or success – yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, because to me it doesn’t make sense. Someone that’s very interested in experimental …
Tom:
Pedagogy?
Anna:
Yeah, why would he be so happy in a job like this?
Tom:
That’s very interesting, okay, so, well two things might be true: one is, that he’s happy in both sorts of job. People can be happy in different sorts of jobs for quite different reasons. One is that he was very happy in that job, and is really unhappy in this one, and is therefore trying to pretend that he’s happier than he was, and the other is that he was very unhappy in that job, and he’s really happy in this one, so I think it’s very good that you’ve said there is a bit of a problem – these are quite different sorts of jobs, and the question is then, we could interpret that declared, if you like, satisfaction with both in a number of different ways. I’m going to put, “hiding? – happiness, sadness, in one job or another”. I used to have a much longer arm, but it got shorter. That’s a question to be borne – yeah, sorry.
New speaker (female):
For me, in an interview, you can talk about something that happened, more in the past. For me, that happened first, and then this is what he’s doing now, but that is, he’s telling the story of his life, but he’s presenting something that is closer to his life by now. I just perceive it differently than you.
Anna:
It’s not chronological.
Tom:
Right, hold it a second. It’s perfectly true that people in an interview can jump, and tell a story of the now, and then go back, or whatever it is, and a lot can be read out of that – why do they suddenly go back, etcetera? Just as a matter of fact in this interview, this is the real sequence in real time, so that’s a very good thing to bear in mind, that people do jump around their history in all sorts of funny ways, but as a matter of fact in this case, this is not the case. This did come after that – he did do the experimental pedagogy with collective films.
New speaker (female):
And then he went to Oslo?
Tom:
And then he did that, yeah, so that happens to be what the real sequence is, but it’s a very good point to think about. The fact that something comes later in the interview doesn’t always mean that it came later I the life.
New speaker (male):
But the now thing also is, I think that he is sort of gathering strength, in a way, for the next perspective, that is sort of, have to move onto.
Tom:
Is this a version of the … where was it? – happiness to later bad news? – or are you thinking he might be preparing a different sort of thing?
Male speaker (continued):
I think it’s just to see the structuring of his outlay, of the chronology, or the dramatic outlay of his telling. I think this might be a sequence where you want to gather some strength, talking about …
Tom:
Gather some strength? – but then this is the sort of, this is a strength-gathering story, albeit for some thing that he’s going to need more strength later on. He’s going to need that strength later on. One sort of strength is, well, there’s later bad news, and that’s one thing. Is there some other sort of … he’s gathering strength for something quite different, maybe not bad news?
Male speaker (continued):
For the situation, actually just being in an interview situation, maybe.
Tom:
Right, so later bad news, or later, a new situation.
New speaker (female):
Or not exactly bad news, but something that … that could be perceived as worse than this one, because he seems to build himself as a successful person, just to make an impression, because maybe later he’s going to say, okay, and then I quit, and I decided just to be a homeless person, so he wants to somehow persuade the listener that he has had a career, so he wants to judge himself as a successful person in order to make it easier for himself and for the interviewer, to listen later than what he subjectively chose, is not that objective, is successful.
Tom:
Success before objective …
Female speaker (continued):
Because that’s what he’s doing here, describing himself as a successful person, and it seems a preparation, yes.
Tom:
Yeah, we’re not going to be taken in.
New speaker (male):
But except rather than to the interviewer, I was thinking, how he sort of constitutes himself within himself, rather than to the interviewer, so he might be talking to himself.
Tom:
Yes, people very often are talking to themselves, and they forget they’re being interviewed. They’re really talking to themselves, and there happens to be an interviewer in the room.
New speaker (female):
So maybe not, himself, he’s building himself, like a better person, more successful, and he’s persuading himself that what he did is not that bad.
Tom:
Okay, well let’s hope he’s successful. Let’s do a few following hypotheses – if it’s a story of pride and self-worth, what might follow, if he’s told this story, this is what he’s done so far, or this is the telling of the story so far? Relief at having a job, explaining his experimentation, a turn to family values – well, it could be, he will now only talk about his family – that’s a possibility. I don’t think it’s worth going into too much detail. Let’s leave it like that. I’m aware of the time, and I want to get through a number of chunks, so there’s always, you can actually quite often spend half-an-hour on one of these chunks, and it’s very interesting, but there isn’t really time.
New speaker (male):
I have one question.
Tom:
Is it on this?
Male speaker (continued):
On this.
Tom:
Do I need to write it down on a piece of paper?
Male speaker (continued):
You’re always suggesting this is a job interview, but you didn’t say that. You said this is a job interview.
Tom:
This isn’t a job interview, this is a life history interview – nothing to do with the job.
Male speaker (continued):
So a life history, because we are always arguing that he wants to convince us of anything. I think in a life history interview, like, wouldn’t there be also, what is the motivation of this person, to put all the effort into putting …it seems like, very off …
Tom:
In a job interview, you could understand it a bit more.
Male speaker (continued):
In a job interview, that would happen maybe, but in a life interview?
Anna:
But still in a life interview, I think it’s like, you’re always … first, you try to give, like coherence to the narrative, to the story, and life is not always like that, and your mind and your memories are not always like in a sequence, or logically, so probably there will be some … blanks, and then, the second thing is that, when you’re being interviewed, you have to present yourself, so you are not too, you won’t say everything in an objective way, because you can’t. You’re a person, you think, you know your mistakes, you know your virtues, and there are things that people always want to hide, and things that they want to show.
New speaker (male):
I think, for example, (?? 46:09) he’s already, like the sort of rhetoric of mistrust, which I think for a live interview, is not adequate.
Tom:
Well, I think we’re getting into a contextual problem to some extent, which we can’t necessarily do very much with.
Male speaker (continued):
You think (?? 46:20) on that information?
Tom:
Well, at the moment, one of the things that happens in the particular method of interviewing that this is from, this is a life history interview, it’s not for a job or anything like that, and so that’s just a reality about the interaction. The second thing is, yes, people very often are doing psychological work for themselves, by actually allowing themselves, or ask to be interviewed, or asking to be interviewed, or whatever it is, and you have to think about that as well. I wouldn’t go, at the moment, what can I usefully say? I can say that, as far as I know about Jeremy’s real life, this is not telling untruths about his life. He did do these things, he’s not somebody from Mexico inventing a story about an imaginary Norwegian. This is pretty true – the objectives facts in here are true to the objective facts as far as I know them, of Jeremy’s life, and therefore it’s not worthwhile going very far down the hypothesis, if he’s inventing everything. I did once have a student who invented everything. He represented himself as a member of the Irish Republican Army, when the IRA was very active in England, blowing things up. Actually, I heard from a real member of the IRA, that he had never had anything to do with the IRA. He was just trying it on, to see what would happen and enjoying it, but this is not the case of this. Although the values, when he says he was happy with it, he may have been sad, or he may have been happy then, but sad now – all that’s perfectly possible, but the objective record that he’s giving is quite a good objective record, which you can’t know, but I can. Of course, I may be lying through my teeth too, but in that case, it’s hardly worth proceeding very far.
Let’s try the third chunk. So he talks about being the study co-ordinator, trying to build up the courses, promoting student self-organisation possibilities and budget possibilities, “working on the structures.” One shouldn’t be teaching students directly, but … he sees himself as “promoting different ways of thinking about studies”, which led to trips to Beirut, Khartoum, Alexandria and Cairo, not Paris, New York and London. He said, “I found it very stimulating to be in the place I’m from, and to work from there.” At the same time, he talks about doing his own work, and applying frameworks. I’ve been keeping in touch with the Norwegian arts scene, and participating in shows. I received a working grant. I applied for a research fellowship to do my own work, “to do my own work but with institutional resources.” My first application failed, and then – sorry, his first application failed and then he applied again, and got the research fellowship, so this is how he is continuing the story. If we go back to this, we could say that, is he hiding? – oh, happiness, and later bad news. Well, if it’s happiness and later bad news, he’s still delaying the bad news, as far as we can see, because this still seems more like a success story than a failure story, so maybe it’s going to come later, but at the moment it isn’t there.
Explaining his experimentalism – that’s the trouble with different-coloured pens. Let’s go through it – pride and self-worth, well, this continues to be a story of having something to be proud about, or feeling self-worth about, so we’ll tick that from three. Relief at having a job – it doesn’t particularly say that. Explaining his experimental – he’s not so much explaining it, but continuing his experimentalism, because he’s helping students organise these study trips to go to, not to New York, Paris and London, but to Khartoum, Alexandria and Beirut, so I think, not so much explaining, but maybe continuing. Roman iii, turning to family values, not much trace of family values. Happiness for the later bad news – not yet. Who knows, we’ve got lots of chunks to come. Is he hiding happiness or sadness in one job or another? Well, in a study co-ordinator job, he seems to be quite pleased. It doesn’t sound as though it’s an unhappy period, if I read it out again – promoting student self-organisation, promoting different ways of thinking about studies, very stimulating to work from there, and be in the place I’m from – so that all sounds quite positive, so there may be sadness about the past, but it doesn’t feel terribly much like sadness about the present, and again the success before the objective non-success, that hasn’t happened yet. It’s not supported by the third chunk.
So what can we say about … where are we, time-wise? Okay, we’ve still got time. What’s he experiencing, as he tells that bit of the story, about how he, what he did as a study co-ordinator, promoting this, that and the other, and continuing to do his own work, and then getting a research fellowship?
New speaker (female):
I don’t know if I’m answering exactly what you were asking, but it gives me, all of this gives me the impression that this person used to be, like, this is a very structured person.
Tom:
A very structured person?
Female speaker (continued):
Yes, but he likes to experiment with things, to have new experiences, but at some point, he got tired of this, like at the beginning maybe he was like, in a kind of adventure, professionally, and then he wanted to come back to his land, to his family, and he is trying to innovate from a safe place.
Tom:
Innovate from a safe place?
New speaker (female):
Yeah, to change the system from within.
Previous speaker (female):
Like more relaxed, yeah. He was looking for stability.
Tom:
Okay, well … yeah?
New speaker (male):
I disagree, a little bit. I think he put a lot of effort into going into the world, and trying to understand the world, and now he’s come back, and his effort, of getting experience, is paying off. He’s getting a position, he’s at a goal, and he’s also having fulfilment, he can use his experience. He has something to give.
Tom:
Right, so in a sense, it’s not a movement, a rushing back to somewhere safe? There’s an agreement, he got new experiences, and your hypothesis is, he’s moving back to somewhere safe, and yours is, that actually he’s now cashing in, so to speak, or using these new experiences for some more general purpose, or something.
New speaker (female):
He enriched his life, and his experience is, he is enriching the situation that he’s going back to, and that is enriching him. It’s like a growth and a fulfilment, and he’s feeling fulfilled. He’s happy that they’re going to Cairo instead of New York.
Tom:
Sorry, to make a point – the idea here is not to decide on anything, but to put forward different hypothesis, so when two people, I mean I love it when people put forward counter-hypothesis, because that’s when it gets interesting. We don’t have to decide on them, we just have to notice that they’re there, and they’re suggesting different things to different people, and later on we may eventually, but probably not in this panel, come to think, well, I think there’s a bit more of this than of that, or maybe they can be combined or whatever, but this is brainstorming, this is under brainstorming rules, in which you don’t criticise other people’s ideas, you just put forward your own instead. They’re very often triggered by other people’s ideas, but they’re not a criticism, they’re a different idea. So enrich for new experiences, enrich self and maybe others, and it’s not a question of rushing back to safety. There’s no way of knowing, we just put them both down. Sorry, you wanted to say something?
New speaker (female):
Yes, this sort of belongs to your hypothesis. I just get the feeling he wants to change the system from within, or at least.
Tom:
Okay, so we’ll go back from, one is …
Female speaker (continued):
Like there is a decision on how to try to change the system, and it is through the institution.
Tom:
From within.
New speaker (male):
It can also have been very useful, so that they have headhunted him for new positions, so they were ready for him, and his perspectives on teaching.
Tom:
I think that’s useful, but get back to his lived experience. It’s hard enough to work out why he himself, how he experiences it, rather than worry about the them, if we don’t have any data on at all, but I mean, it’s a very good point.
Male speaker (continued):
He found this place.
Tom:
Okay. We could put, found his place, because “they”, whoever they may be, may be wanting something like him around, so one and then two.
New speaker (female):
I just feel like he makes a point, of still having those kind of experimental pedagogical views, like that he’s (?? 57:04), that he’s saying, I’m still a radical person, within this precision, so he’s presenting himself as someone still, like politically engaged, and he’s kept the same views.
Tom:
So in a sense, this is the sort of experimentalism of this, he’s continuing it?
Female speaker (continued):
Yeah.
Tom:
He’s developing his experimentalism, if you like.
Female speaker (continued):
Also it seems important to him that we know that he didn’t give up his former views.
Tom:
Three, goes on, and he tells us, well, he tells me. Any other quite different things about what he’s sort of experiencing, as he tells this story? Okay, let’s see what … well, he might go on, if this enriched, these are structural hypotheses, which are sort of looking over the thing as a whole. They’re not about, the next chunk, but like, what general structural ideas are we starting to have about it. One is that he has, he’s very structured, he looked or looks for new experiences, but now he wants to innovate from a safe place, and this one, which doesn’t have the same sort of insecurity thing or anxiety thing, enriched from his past experience, he’s now going on to try and enrich the self and others. He wants to change the system from within, and he’s … I can’t even read what I’ve written here. It’s about experimentation – he wants to know that he continues to be innovating or experimenting, and so he says that. He gives examples of it.
New speaker (female):
Or at least he wants to present himself to others, to whoever is interviewing him, that way.
New speaker (female):
And he’s presenting himself as a persistent person, because I think twice he has said that he didn’t get something, but he pursued it and he did it. Do we then need to say that he did it again?
Tom:
A persistent person, right.
New speaker (female):
Do you want me to put up?
Tom:
That would be lovely, thank you very much.
New speaker (male):
He might also say that he’s missing room for, or maybe he’s missing, they’re not letting him do the things the way he wants to do them, and they’re not asking why he does it, only if he’s done it, or not. This is where I have a fight with Sellotape! My waste paper basket at home is full of Sellotape, that’s wrapped round itself. A bit like in fairy stories, you touch the magic goose, and then you can’t get your fingers away. Now, I’ve done it on the wrong side.
Now, this is, there is a chronological problem about this, which I’ll tell you. He’s talking about going to a Swiss Saas-Fee, art health and society programme, a kind of summer school.
New speaker (female):
I can’t hear what you are saying.
Tom:
You can’t? I will say it very loudly, in a dramatic voice. I take your point completely, I’m sorry. A Swiss Saas-Fee art health and society programme, a kind of summer school, and he talks about that. It’s a practice-based approach, not big names, theory and philosophy; an adult learning group from all over the world. It’s a different use of the arts, “more like therapy” – low skill, high sensitivity, and quite interesting old people, still developing people and ideas from the Sixties, ways of learning by doing all the time, and then thinking, and then sitting in circles, and being challenged in a very different way, in a more spontaneous way. I’ll tell you that again – the Swiss Saas-Fee art health and society programme, a kind of summer school, a practice-based approach, not big names, theory and philosophy; adult learning group from all over the world; a different use of the arts, more like therapy – low skill, high sensitivity, and quite interesting people, old people, still developing people and ideas from the Sixties, “ways of learning by doing, all the time, and then thinking, and then sitting in circles, and being challenged in a very different way, in a more spontaneous way.”
New speaker (female):
More spontaneous than what?
Tom:
Exactly – I don’t know.
New speaker (female):
Was he the teacher there?
Tom:
No, he was a student. I think he went to it twice, he went to it one summer, and then the following summer, he went to it again. I might be wrong about that, it might just be once. Very often, you find in interviews, people don’t make clear what actually happened, so all you can get is, how they feel about it and how they think about it.
Okay, so if we look at that, we go back to this … he’s continuing to acquire experience. He’s going to a quite different sort of thing from a conventional arts school – he’s going to something rather different, a different use of the arts, more like therapy, low skill, not for high skilled artists, but low skill, high sensitivity, quite interesting people, learning by doing, not by giving, or listening to lectures, so in a sense, the experimentation goes on, so that’s four, yes, that’s that one. A persistent person – nothing very much on that. Well, he’s continuing, unless we disbelieve what he’s saying, he’s continuing to acquire new experiences – that’s the main thing. I don’t know whether, talking about old people from the Sixties having good ideas, whether that’s a return to family values, and the three-generation family, but it might be. We’ll put it in just for fun – iv, a terrible shock that old people might have some good ideas. It might come to him as a really horrible thing. While situating the self as a pedagogue – oh I see … okay, I don’t think there’s anything much there.
Alright, so there is Saas-Fee, what is he doing, as he’s saying all this? What’s he feeling? What’s he trying to get us to feel? What’s his lived experience?
New speaker (female):
I feel there’s still a very strong focus on the community and the collaborative, and continuous.
Tom:
Right, community and collaboration.
New speaker (female):
Yeah, I agree, but I also think there is something of individuality, that is showing that he’s doing something outside of the system. He’s not going back to his family and his background, he’s not going to the school system, that this is something that is, in a way, he is enjoying something that is not considered being, for everybody else, so in a way he’s showing that he’s doing something on his own in a way.
Tom:
Right, non-conventional, on his own. Any quite different hypotheses about what’s going on here?
New speaker (male):
I think he is sort of bringing this experience forth as something that has a political, he will use it for placing himself politically, so he loves (? 1:06:35) to see his own alternative (?? 1:06:43)
Tom:
Sorry, there’s somebody unloading rubbish next door. Placing himself politically – can you spell that out a bit?
Male speaker (continued):
I think that he has other motives for going to this summer school than his peers, so he’s in another position, on the surface of this, then I think that he’s preparing his, like, in the interview, his thoughts on art and practice.
Tom:
Art and practice, so he’s placing himself politically, and you’re expecting, following hypothesis, thoughts on art and practice will come next, in some later chunk. Anybody else got any thoughts about what’s happening here? Anything surprising? What’s happening to your sense of this person? So, I was just turning to you, to say, what is it you would like to say?
New speaker (female):
It’s the first time I doubt his story. Until now, I’ve believed everything, without doubt, and now I’m thinking, either like him, that he’s there, not for the motive of joining in the group of low skill, high emotion, but he’s there to understand what they’re at, and how to become a better teacher, either that or that he’s really lacking some things in his life, because why on earth is he going back to low skill, high emotion? It sounds like his high skills and his emotions didn’t join in.
Tom:
So, he’s doing repair work, or he’s …
Female speaker (continued):
Either, it’s the first time … the doubt or me is, either he’s learning something from the experience of seeing this low skill, high emotion, or he’s doing some (?? 1:08:57) work on his own account, being very private.
Tom:
Learning …
New speaker (female):
So you feel he’s depressed, and hiding it?
Previous speaker (female):
Exactly, either, or a (?? 1:09:15) feeling that he’s been too clever at climbing, and that now he has to do some repair work, either that or (?? 1:09:25).
Tom:
Get away from clever climbing.
New speaker (female):
No, but this can also be seen as clever climbing.
Tom:
Different, even cleverer climbing?
Female speaker (continued):
Yeah, cleverer.
Tom:
Cleverer climbing.
New speaker (male):
But like, to consider the context we have so far, that he’s not having to impress anybody else, that he’s like a normal person who is not kind of, also has to, has like a personal problem where he has to convince himself of being something he’s not, so I would just say, and not like a statement of what I’m projecting, so that, even if that is still a little bit the task. I guess what we can see from it is more, I would say, his motive is to unfold like different spectrums of his personality, and I think this is just like a way of laying out … it’s like a record of different facets of him. I guess one, what he understands, or where he has the project, is to work to a philosophy, and he thinks, and is something that’s more related to practice.
Tom:
Okay, so he’s rebalancing – in a sense, he’s rebalancing his activities?
Male speaker (continued):
Well, he’s kind of trying to show, or give a full spectrum.
Tom:
Go for full spectrum.
Male speaker (continued):
Because like this other motivations are just like suggesting that he, something we cannot know.
Tom:
Right, okay, and when you say, going for a full spectrum, is a spectrum aspects of activities to do, or parts of the self to develop, or both?
Male speaker (continued):
I would say, if there’s a prejudice to (?? 1:11:48), which is a very secluded place, and has a secluded context, but he’s already counter-acting the thought of, like knowledge he might suggest the interview, he has about the place, so he can’t access by saying, okay, or makes it more of a façade, so it’s not about the names, because (?? 1:12:07), they are like, this kind of, a little bit of, questionable institutions, but they pay for a famous philosopher to come there, so he kind of suggests like, that’s also a context, which, I don’t know who has it here, like when you know that context, so you know, okay, he wants to make sure that he’s not going for famous names that this questionable institution pays for, but he goes there for something, which is …
Tom:
It’s practice – he says, practice-based, not (?? 1:12:42) theory and philosophy.
Male speaker (continued):
Something more serious or more decent.
Tom:
Okay, in that sense, it’s a sort of, like an antidote to something he disapproves of?
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, he goes to the place where he knows there are a certain kind of crutches (? 1:13:02) or judgements about a place, so he has kind of to distinguish himself by saying, okay, that was like, very down-to-earth. What he doesn’t say is like, how much (?? 1:13:16).
Tom:
Down-to-earth, not elite – I shall put, just for fun.
New speaker (female):
And isn’t that all connected to the point, like (?? 1:13:27) made, about the political?
Tom:
Right, we haven’t yet got to him being very political in any sense, but it’s interesting, the different use of the arts, more like therapy, and so clearly there’s some sense of, arts can be used in some way which isn’t like therapy, whatever that is, and it can be used in a way which is more like therapy, and we have yet to quite know what that would mean.
New speaker (female):
But it’s also, I’ve observed that I’ve been imagining things, that maybe he didn’t say? It’s him returning, and getting this nice position. I have presumed that he had acquired a high skill, so this no skill, high emotion, is what makes me (?? 1:14:25). It’s maybe, I had just, it was my fantasy, his high skill. Maybe he never said that.
Tom:
Maybe he had never had any skills at all? – what the hell, yes. Okay, hold it a second – I just want to correct one thing, which is, he says, more like therapy – low skill, high sensitivity, which isn’t quite the same thing as high emotion. If I want high emotion, I go to an encounter group, and spend half-an-hour screaming my life out into a pillow. This is not, he talks about low skill, by which I think he means artistic skill, and high sensitivity, so it’s a slightly different polarity from the one that you had in your mind, but yes, we do start reading things, and it’s a bit unfair because I haven’t told you about his early career, and therefore you don’t know. In fact, he is going on doing exhibitions, individual and group exhibitions, pretty constantly throughout the previous 15 years, let’s say, so he has sufficient skill to be exhibited quite frequently, and presumably has sufficient skill to be appointed as a research fellow or whatever. Whatever’s wrong with him, if that’s what it is, it’s not that he hasn’t got any skill. This is a different skill. It’s low artistic skill, but actually the people who go there, he says are, oh, it doesn’t say there, but actually, are therapists, teachers, and a whole variety of people who are not professional artists, and that’s what he means by low skill. They are not there because they are, because they have high artistic skills, but they do have other skills which are very high in their own way, which is not that typically of a professional artist, but sorry, I didn’t put that down, and therefore there’s not the slightest reason why you should know.
I think we probably need to stop in about fifteen minutes for lunch, if that’s alright. If that’s terrible, or if you have to go for lunch straight away, I’m sure …
I’ll put this up. We’ll do this chunk, and then we’ll … thank you very much. So, accepted by the Oslo programme, good news; well-funded, they employ you. Two years with supervisors, you develop your work for the project you applied for. My project is work/work. The process is of producing art, and is it working, or a different type of working? The more demand on people to be creative and invent their own working life. Popular at the time, the new creative class, art is being caught up by the entrepreneur basically. Sorry, this is my rather confused summary, which now I read it out, I’m not sure it means anything at all, but anyway, that’s what I wrote down. What you do, what you have to do for the two years, you need to map out a budget for a deadline and an exhibition place. It’s not like an academic PhD with a thesis, but criteria from the arts, a practice-based thing. The Minister of Education is allowing ten or twelve years to build up how this third cycle, education with in the arts, on the principles of artistic practice. You don’t have to make an exhibition in the end, but, “you do have to have some reflection on your activities and artistic process.” So, he’s telling us about the programme that he was enrolled in, and what his project is, which is work, work, work, or perhaps just work, work – I can’t remember. So, any thoughts about that? I mean, there are two things there – one is about the acceptance, and it’s interesting, he says, well-funded – they employ you, so the worry about, where did we have, something about well-paid? – relief at having a job, well-paid, is sort of borne out again as an important aspect … one, two, three, four, five, six, okay … he’s in a new, rather experimental situation, because he decides what he wants to do. Well, he has to submit a project, apply for it, and it’s for you developing your work. It’s for the person developing their work for two years with supervisors. You have to sort of map out a budget. You don’t have to make an exhibition, but you have to have some reflection on your activities and artistic process, and processes, more and more demand for people to be creative and invent their own working life. I think he’s talking about 21st century society, that in general, people in 21st century society are going to have to invent their own working life, to be creative therefore, and there’s a new creative class, and art is being caught up by the entrepreneurial spirit, so in a sense, you have to be more like your own entrepreneur than just a funded-from-the-outside artist. I think it’s that sort of feeling. Sorry, I can’t put it more sharply than that. Okay, so what’s his experience as he tells … but most about what he’s doing at the moment, or has to do for the next two years? – and what’s his lived experience of that period, or that situation? We’re now in the now situation by the way, this is what is happening at the moment. If you can’t read it, remember, you are in charge of where you entrepreneurially put your chairs, and if you put your chairs too far away from the blackboard, you won’t be able to read what’s on it, but then it gives you a greater capacity for a laid back experience.
New speaker (male):
He seems to be ambivalent about enter … ambivalence towards the situation, where he is an entrepreneur?
Tom:
Can you say what the two sides of the ambivalence would be?
Male speaker (continued):
I think that is, I would guess that it’s (?? 1:21:40) dynamics, that he is positive towards, but he’s sort of having difficulties, problems seeing it, it’s instrumental and relates to some of the bad aspects of life, post-industrial, (?? 1:22:01) situation.
Tom:
Okay. Any other thoughts about …
New speaker (female):
I now, the impression that he is trying to present himself as neutral as possible. What he’s telling us is, he’s trying to, that he’s not going to come to any like, building up for something. Maybe he’s even aware though, that he’s going to be analysed, as we are analysing him now. He’s trying to not lead us, in a way. He’s not trying to lead us.
Tom:
Yes, he doesn’t express his own values very much, is that what you’re saying?
Female speaker (continued):
Yeah, or at least … yeah.
Tom:
Yeah, maybe. It’s interesting, the two things do connect. If he’s ambivalent, then he doesn’t want to just say one side of something. He’s leaving us to make our own judgement about whatever it is.
Female speaker (continued):
He’s trying to be honest, but he’s not trying to … he’s trying to be honest, but at the same time, not trying to lead us.
Tom:
Okay, well, I’ll call him an honest non-leader.
New speaker (female):
It feels like he’s still the list maker, the list making man, as we said on the very first page. It feels like he’s still on this kind of, trying to inform the interviewer, before he’s kind of clearly stating any positions. He did have a positional at the previous page, on the previous chunk, but not as much. This one feels more like, just …
Tom:
So maybe, I think that’s very interesting. It’s the difference between different chunks, that at some point, in this point, he’s just trying to give, in a sense, facts about, well what do you do if you’re enrolled on this programme, what’s the project that I put in, etcetera, and on this, which is all about the practice-based approach, sitting all the time, sitting in circles, doing and then thinking, and all the rest of it, I think this is clearly a positive thing about the sort of thing that should happen. This is his innovative way of doing things, so on some things, like that, on his study co-ordinator period, promoting different ways of thinking about studies, going to the Saas-Fee thing, he’s saying, this is a good thing and should happen, or certainly, I’m glad it happened to me, and on this thing, he’s just saying how it is, and if you’re right that there’s an ambivalence towards it, then he’s just holding back his own final value, evaluation of it all, just saying, well, this is how it is, and I’m not being either very enthusiastic or not very enthusiastic, but clearly … yeah, okay.
New speaker (male):
But he’s careful (? 1:25:03) about how it’s being judged, I guess, because his part is talking about, the inventiveness, and the sort of, getting the experiences, and then producing the list, and the list is sort of like, the shield of the democratic. It’s almost, probably just water (? 1:25:20), but then a democratic ideal, the emotional, the democratic. The list is somewhat, equality, and you can trace back the information. You have some catalogue, and it’s flat structured.
Tom:
I’m going to put the list as a shield. The list is some sort of shield maybe ….
New speaker (male):
So it’s sharing, if that’s what he’s doing, presenting things as objects within the list, and it’s something about, how you constitute the good debates around the arts, and interiors, so it’s on the list, presenting a whole field for everybody, but then the (?? 1:26:01) was saying, hey, you’re a coward. You should have some ideas that should, not just wave the grey flag.
Tom:
I’ve put down, go and be a hero, because actually, as we go through this, you will have your own subjective responses to your imagined version of Jeremy, like you thought he was telling the truth, and actually then you think, no, that doesn’t quite work. Maybe you have an image which gradually builds up and changes, sometimes with each chunk, sometimes over a number of chunks, so I think what you might want to do now, we’re going to stop in five minutes and break for lunch – would you like to spend five minutes just making notes on your sense of Jeremy? – what sort of person you think he is, at the moment, not where you thought he was five chunks ago, but where you think he is now, just to put yourself in the picture for when we come back after lunch. So bear in mind, you don’t have to be right, you just have to have your own thoughts, and if all that happens is a large blank, then by all means write down a picture of a large blank with some nice diagrams in it. So five minutes, just summarising for yourself what sort of image of Jeremy you’ve got at this point in the discussion, and you can’t write down oodles of facts, you can only write down one or two, but just see if you can crystallise something or other – a word painting. It’ll have to be a very small word painting, because it’s a very small piece of paper.
New speaker (female):
Are we giving it to you?
Tom:
No, you’re just keeping it for yourself, to help you get back to where you were after lunch.
New speaker (female):
May I ask the question, (?? 1:27:53), who conducted the interview?
Tom:
I conducted the interview … and I’m sorry for my handwriting. It means a little to people who were here, and virtually nothing to people who weren’t. Perhaps I should say, your sense of Jeremy and his story so far.
New speaker (female):
But I have a question regarding this format, because …
Tom:
Deal with that later. Sorry, could I ask you not to have conversations here? It’s difficult for people to concentrate their thoughts, if you’re talking. It’s difficult for people to concentrate their thoughts anyway.
New speaker (female):
I wondered if I could ask questions?
Tom:
Afterwards, when we come back, but not now. Now this is a moment for you, bringing together in your head, your sense of Jeremy, and his story so far, his story-telling so far.
[people write quietly]

part 2

Unclears are shown in blue with the timecode in brackets.

Tom:
Well, we’ll just carry on with the process. The last thing was, and I’ll read it in a minute …
New speaker (male):
We’ll do it in Norwegian from now on!
Tom:
You may do it in Norwegian, but I certainly won’t! I feel like a science fiction monster in a really bad, second-grade science fiction movie. Okay, so, I mean there’s lots of ambiguity, and I wonder what he was deciding when he spent eleven seconds trying to decide what he would say it was lots of, and it ends up with ambiguity, and just one thought I had was, perhaps he means ambivalence? Ambiguity is when you look out there, and you can’t quite make out what it is, and ambivalence is when you’re having very contradictory feelings about something, and my guess would be that perhaps ambivalence, taking up the hypothesis, the BNIM forward, he’s not quite happy to be so personal as to say, I’m ambivalent, I’m feeling contradictory. He prefers to say there’s ambiguity out there, rather than ambivalence in here, but that’s again another hypothesis.
I mean, there’s lots of ambiguity in all this. Even if I feel like I’ve been talking here, and then this and then that, it becomes partly difficult to take off this cv-ish thing, eleven seconds pause, and I mean, I think it also could be in a story about, like an emotional human being, and then he starts posing questions, either for himself to answer, or for me to answer, and he knows I won’t answer them, so he’s going to have to grab them. What’s the attraction to this, for example? What’s the longing for sharing that process, or why this? I don’t know, to add, but in general I think that’s maybe what’s interesting to work?
New speaker (male):
Well now that you’ve said he’s an actor?
Tom:
No, I said, he trained … sorry, say what you were going to say.
Male speaker (continued):
It’s kind of obvious that he’s talking about his profession as an actor, and his feelings towards a certain play.
Tom:
I’m sorry – I have to stop you here, because I don’t remember saying he was an actor, and he isn’t an actor. He has done acting training at a very early part of his life, so I’m sorry to mislead you. If I said he was an actor, then I was having a fantasy.
Male speaker (continued):
Then also, when he’s saying, what’s the longing for sharing that process, I think he’s sharing this process with the audience, and also that it could be in a story about, like an emotional human being – he’s talking about a play or a book or a film or something.
Tom:
Right, okay – he’s actually an artist, and therefore what you said is as applicable to an artist as to an actor.
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, it’s natural that he’s thinking about what he does is shared with an audience. That’s why he keeps going back and forth between I and we.
Tom:
Okay, so in a sense, there’s the I and we – there’s only one “I” hopefully, apart from we all have several personalities, but in a sense, there’s the we, so I’m expanding slightly on what you said – the we can be the artist and their audience, or audiences, and the we can be, “we artists”, because you remember, there’s, why do we, why do we be part of this? What’s interesting and working there? – so it’s working people, so it’s the, we are, including the other artists, using artists in a very general sort of way, and the we is, self and I’ll call them audiences – he hasn’t given a name for them himself, but the people for whom he does his art, whoever that we is. So, now the question – right, any other thoughts? – so what is he feeling there? What’s going on when he says that?
New speaker (female):
Is he still referring to the first question, when he says, I don’t know, to add?
Tom:
Yes, the too add sounds as though, I don’t know what to add – is there anything you would like to add?
Female speaker (continued):
Is he looking for what?
Tom:
What to add? What is he going to add, yes, okay, so it’s a question mark, so one is about, still thinking about the question, the add question, so he’s still thinking about that. Who’s he talking to, when he says, what’s the attraction to this, for example? What’s the longing for sharing that process, or why this?
New speaker (male):
It’s more, he’s speculating on other ways to approach these questions, or other kind of doors that could be opened up in this interview process.
Tom:
Yes, but are they … I mean, it’s quite interesting – sorry, I just jumped, this is me jumping about a bit, which is, when he used the word “desire”, and we wondering about whether desire meant desire, or just something in a general, here he’s taking about a longing and an attraction, so it’s definitely not a chance use of the word desire. He’s talking about a strong emotional pull, using different words for it, which wasn’t clear before, so let’s say that, six-one, six-two, six-three, there’s a strong emotional pull, and he’s no longer saying it could be a story about an emotional human being – this is actually becoming an emotional self-interrogation about longing, desire, attraction. It’s sort of shifted to a much, a less professional and more personal register of enquiry, it seems to me – this is my speculation, so I’m just going to put that down as a hypothesis. So strong emotional pull, more personal, emotional register.
New speaker (male):
It seems like he’s trying to view himself from the outside, sort of, why am I doing? What am I trying to achieve with this?
Tom:
Right, we had a little earlier thing about a debate with himself, where was it? – I can’t remember. “Why didn’t you continue there if, didn’t you?” – so him asking a question of himself. We don’t know where “there” was, but why didn’t, Jeremy asking Jeremy, why didn’t you continue there? – and now Jeremy is asking, what’s somebody’s attraction to this? What’s the longing for sharing that process? – so he’s continuing with a sort of, a self-interrogation, that’s one hypothesis. The other, of course, is that he’s wanting to ask some other people something or other, his audience maybe. So self-interrogation, or, and in principle, an audience interrogation, or maybe a sort of, a “we” collective, we artists.
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, or “we”, the human race, for that matter.
Tom:
Yeah, let’s think big, yes – no, certainly that’s possible, we collective, we the human race, interrogation – so it’s like a general philosophical thing about humans, yeah. Any other thoughts about what might be the experiencing underneath? The ending is interesting.
New speaker (male):
Sort of starting to approach an idea of, what are the deeper motivations behind what he’s doing. He’s talking obviously a lot about the output and the projects and the work that’s visible, but he’s realising there’s a whole layer of deep motivation within himself about it, which is the longing to share this process, the attraction to doing it in the first place.
Tom:
A deeper level of motivation, but it’s interesting, what I found interesting is, he’s gone back into distance – “I find it interesting to work.” He’s talking about desire, and making questions about desire, longing and attraction, and it’s interesting to work, so it’s sort of taking it away again. It’s the sort of movement between avowing something quite strong, and then using the word “interesting”, which is a sort of, completely uninteresting word, interesting – oh God, it’s interesting. If somebody says, look – I’ve spent three hours making this beautiful object, what do you think? – and they say, “Ah! – very interesting.” (he groans) Say something real, for God’s sake! So I always find the word interesting is a wonderful, having talked about desire, longing and attraction, it’s interesting – the movement away. I’ve forgotten your name, sorry?
Kastia:
Kastia.
Tom:
Kastia, but it’s a shift into something, and then away from it. I think we had an arrow of, there were three arrows somewhere – distancing from self, oh yes – avowing his desire, and then distancing and undermining, so this feels like again, the last phrase, what’s the attraction, what’s the longing? But in general, I think that’s what’s interesting to work. It’s sort of a similar movement, at the moment of experiencing or expressing.
Kastia:
Can I ask a question?
Tom:
I promise not to answer it – sorry.
Kastia:
The first session, everything that was before all this text …
Tom:
Sub-session one, yeah.
Kastia:
Did he finish talking about his past? Or did he finish with talking about his future as well? – because I notice that he talks only about some future possibilities maybe?
Tom:
Yeah, okay – I’ll answer your question, and the answer is, he went basically from early on, and the last thing he was talking about was the most immediate thing he’s just done, and the fact that he is planning to do something new, which he doesn’t give any details about, so he’s gone up to the present in his projects, and then he cuts out now, because if he went on, he would be talking about the future, but he doesn’t talk about the future, because he wasn’t asked about the future – the question is, can you tell me roughly the history of your professional life up to now, and he does that, and he ends with, the now.
Kastia:
I see. It’s just interesting that, when you ask him to say something else, would you like to add something, he adds something about his possible future maybe, but nothing about his past projects.
Tom:
Right, okay, let’s think. I’ve been focusing on the projects, can be interesting, another desire to be working in an institutional context, the motivation behind it, the private Jeremy, why we want to be part of this, difficult to take off the cv-ish thing, a story about an emotional human being, what’s the attraction, what’s the longing? So what was your point again?
Kastia:
My point is that, when he had the possibility to talk uninterrupted, he talked about the past and the present, which was, I suppose, which could be more like a prepared speech – he knew what he was talking about, and then, as if this question, maybe he wanted to add something, as if he was, he started to become emotional, thinking about this, as if he was, all of a sudden he became unprepared.
Tom:
Okay, so that’s a very interesting thing about, I can’t get sort of … so it’s, going to a deeper level of motivation, which he mentions. I just say, is there anything you’d like to add? I’m not pushing him to add anything he likes. So he goes to a deeper level, and unpreparedness. So, in a sense, I’m putting what we’ve already said. We’re trying to do, constantly moving towards a structural hypothesis that will explain all of this, or describe it in a way that’s interesting. I have been talking about my projects. Clearly, if he wanted to, he could just add more detail about his projects. He could go on that line of, level of work as long as he liked. It doesn’t say, don’t talk about the same thing, talk about something new, it just says, would you like to add something? – and what he uses it for is somehow for struggling his way to a deeper level around emotional human being, around motivation, around what’s the attraction, what’s the desire, what’s the longing, so he’s not just adding at the same level, he’s going to another level, or struggling to find some other level from which he would say something of a different sort of order of saying, and I think that’s what’s going on, and just before he broke for lunch, he’s taking off this cv-ish thing, I am a walking cv, so I’m going to, for an hour-and-a-half, I shall be my cv. I’m telling you about my official history. I sometimes call it the official press release, so he does that, and he’s trying, anything you add is, really, I’ve decided, when you ask me what to add, I’ve decided I’m going to try to take off the cv-ish thing. I’m going to not add at the same level. I’m going to take off my cv official press release-type thing, and I’m finding it very difficult, and he is finding it clearly very difficult, and he’s struggling towards some, he wants to understand something in terms of attraction or longing or desire, particularly what’s the longing for sharing that process. We don’t know which process he’s talking about, but he wants, well this is one hypothesis – he wants to share, he longs to share that process with other people, whatever the “that process” is, so he’s forcing to some level of self-understanding. That’s where he’s trying to get to, in what seems to be an unbelievably difficult way, and I’m sure we’d all find it difficult to do that, so it’s just saying, this seems to be what’s happening.
New speaker (male):
It’s like an interview with Morten Harket, the vocalist in A-ha.
Tom:
Who’s that?
Male speaker (continued):
It’s a Norwegian pop band, it was huge. He always talks about, sounds like he’s very deep, he’s got these deep thoughts, and when you read through it, you’re like, it doesn’t really say anything in a sense to anybody else, than maybe himself, if he remembers what he said.
Tom:
Right, well this is why microanalysis would be very helpful, but anyway, carry on.
Male speaker (continued):
That would be interesting.
Tom:
Right, okay, and what’s interesting …
Male speaker (continued):
My point was, he doesn’t seem to be saying anything – he’s just using filler sentences, while he’s thinking about what he really wants to say, so he’s just saying things …
Tom:
So what we’ve got, if we take that and turn it round, he really does want to say something, and he’s using filler sentences because he doesn’t know what it is yet. He’s sort of plunging through a very dark forest, getting a bit lower down, getting closer to something or other about attraction, longing and desire, and a real human being, and taking off the cv-ish thing, but he’s a long way from actually finding out what it is that he’s not yet found, but he’s in an exploration, and he hasn’t yet found anything very much, except notions of desire, longing and attraction.
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, he could have just stopped and thought for a while, and then said what he was trying to say.
Tom:
That might have been possible.
Male speaker (continued):
But he just keeps going.
Tom:
Right, so that’s one hypothesis. One hypothesis is that he could have just stopped, and – yes, this is what I want to say, which is possible, and the other counter-hypothesis is that he has to do this to find it out, that it’s only if he goes through the jungle of not knowing, will he actually find out what the animal is that he’s hunting, and if he stops in the middle of his journey and says, what is the animal I’m hunting, he doesn’t yet know, because he’s still got to do a lot of travelling to find out, and both are possible.
Kastia:
The courses get shorter.
Tom:
Can you say more about that?
Kastia:
He’s talking his way into it, and his reflection is that, coming out of his mouth, that are just in his head.
Tom:
Yes, but there’s a phrase in English which is, how do I know what I think until I see what I say? So you have to keep saying, which then tells you what you’re thinking, and so you can’t, you know it already – just do it, stop talking, which is sometimes true, but the other thing is sometimes, it is through the talking that you actually discover what it is that you were trying to say, and if you said, don’t talk, just tell me, they couldn’t, because the talking is the mode of discovery.
Kastia:
But then he is also getting more and more engaged. In the beginning, I sensed a resistance, but now there is …
Tom:
So he is getting into it, and he’s doing it, through the process of talking. It is the talking that is engaging him more and getting closer to something, whatever it is which we don’t yet know. The animal is still a mile or so ahead in the jungle, and it’s only the talking, the ongoing talking that is enabling him to sift through, at least that’s the hypothesis, okay.
Kastia:
Maybe he hopes for some response?
Tom:
He knows that I don’t do that! (he laughs) Well, I hope he knows that I don’t do that. Well, put it this way – if he hopes I’ll respond …
Kastia:
Yes, well just the blink of an eye, yes.
Tom:
I have to tell you in advance that he won’t get it, and doesn’t get it. Where are we? – one, two, three, four, five, six – looks beautiful.
Okay, next one, because you work, even in an institution, you work very close and very hierarchical, so it’s also, well, it’s healthier to have a focus on the art, and this is also … a five second pause … it could be, I think, fulfilling in many cases, to … four second pause … when there’s more. Just remember the last thing he said – what’s the attraction to this, for example? What’s the longing for sharing that process, or why this? – I don’t know, to add, but in general, I think that’s maybe what’s interesting to work, because you work, even in an institution, you work very close and very hierarchical, so it’s also, well, it’s healthier to have a focus on the art, and this is also, it could be, I think, fulfilling in many cases to … four second pause … where there’s more. What’s the sort of emotional zig-zag that’s going on?
Kastia:
It’s a health issue?
Tom:
It’s a health issue? – ah, yes, well, okay, so that’s very interesting.
Kastia:
Maybe this is the word.
Tom:
So he’s worried – whose health is he worried about?
New Speaker (female):
Mental health.
Tom:
Mental health?
Kastia:
But he wants to generalise. He says you, he doesn’t say, me.
Tom:
Okay, so there’s two things – one is the thing which I think we’ll find so often – is it you, is it him? Is it, in English, we often say “one”, if you’re trying to say, “One feels that one’s health would be better improved if one did this.” It’s an impersonal, everybody in general and nobody in particular, or it means, him in particular, and the point about saying “you” in English is that you have no idea, except from context, which it is, or it could be the interviewer. After all, it is an interview, and he’s talking to me, so he says, “You work”, so it could be to me, but that’s a bit unlikely, but you never know. Okay, so you work very close, even in an institution, you work very close and very hierarchical, so that’s one thing, so it’s healthier to have a focus on the art, and this is, or could be, I think, fulfilling in many cases, to where there’s more …
New speaker (male):
It sounds a bit lost, like, is this the right place for me to practise my art?
Tom:
To practise my art? – yeah, okay.
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, well, he sounds like he’s not sure if he should be working where he is working. Maybe he is looking for other places.
Tom:
Okay, so there’s an uncertainty, relating it back to, you made the point about mental health – let’s call it psychic health.
Kastia:
Yes, about his own psychology.
Tom:
Mental health or psychic health.
New speaker (female):
Is he back to focusing on the project? That’s why he didn’t choose to add something at first – he concentrated, or focused on the projects? That’s almost the same, helped him to have a focus on the arts, or his project, instead of thinking of the whole institutional focus.
Tom:
Well, what’s come into my head is a diagram. There’s the projects, which he’s been talking about at the end, in the first part of the interview and talking in great detail about his projects, leading up to the present, and then he’s talked, in this coda, he’s talked about the institutional context, if you remember. I can’t quite remember what he says about it. “I’ve been focusing on the projects” … there’s this desire to be work, the institutional context is a desire to be working in the institutional context, and then here he’s putting something which sounds a bit negative perhaps, very hierarchical. I mean, maybe he likes hierarchy – it’s not at all clear. So there’s the institution, which has projects, and just for information, he is clearly happy with, from the sub-session one, he is happy with his projects, he likes doing projects. That’s information you don’t have, but I’ll just tell you, he does, so the projects are good, and then there’s the hierarchical of being in an institution which feels more minus. It’s very close and very hierarchical, so it’s healthier, ie, if we just focused, being in the institution, its closeness, not what close means, but close and hierarchical, so it’s healthier to have a focus on the art, and this could be fulfilling, so I think (but this is my fantasy) that it’s more fulfilling to focus on the art than not to focus on the art, and the project for the art, so there’s something about what you could do in an institution, which is very hierarchical and close, whatever that means, so if you focus on the art, it’s healthier. So there’s something going on about what goes on for a person’s psychic, it’s healthier – let’s call it psychic health, we don’t quite know what sort of health here.
New speaker (male):
If this was in any other job, I guess he could say that it’s more healthy to focus on the work that you’re actually supposed to do, than the sort of underlying maybe, fight with the boss, something like that? – or the management, is sort of, trying to control him, because he says, close and hierarchical, which is sort of, they’re watching me and making me do things.
Tom:
It doesn’t feel good, does it?
Male speaker (continued):
No, I want to focus on the art – I don’t want to be in this institution where everybody tells me what to do.
Tom:
Okay, so the close and hierarchical aspect of the institution feels negative, not so good, something to avoid, maybe psychically unhealthy, but it’s healthier to focus on the art.
Kastia:
Maybe has to fight for his position, and feels that …
Tom:
Well, one thing will be fighting for a position, and the other thing is fighting to do your art, or is he fighting for his art, and that’s the way to maintain his position?
Kastia:
And his position in the hierarchy, or the constitutional …
Tom:
Yes, but it is a dilemma? You can either focus on fighting your position, or you can focus on your art, so you have to choose? Or is the way to safeguard his position, by focusing on his art, and that’s what will safeguard his position – do you see what I mean? I don’t think we know. I think it isn’t clear, so we can’t solve this problem. There’s something about, something is healthier, and something is less healthy.
New Speaker (male):
The more I read it, the more ambiguous it seems. He actually doesn’t say it’s negative anywhere there. For a start, he said he has a desire to be working in an institutional context, in the beginning. Now, he’s saying, you work very close and very hierarchical. He doesn’t say that’s a bad thing, or an important thing. Also, it’s healthier to have a focus on the arts – well, I mean, close and hierarchical, that could mean that could be helpful to have a focus on the arts.
Tom:
You have a firm position and you know where you are, so yeah.
Male speaker (continued):
And then afterwards, he said, I think it could be fulfilling in many cases, so actually, there’s nothing specifically negative about the institution in what he says there.
New speaker (female):
I feel like he’s coming to kind of a conclusion, that art is, if he focuses on his art, he is going to feel more satisfied.
Tom:
As opposed to if he focuses on … we don’t quite know what.
New speaker (male):
Bureaucratic aspects maybe?
Tom:
Okay, so I think all we can do is to register that there seems, that there was this thing about the desire to work in an institution, which he says earlier, and at that point, that seems fairly unambiguous – he just desires to work in an institution. By this point, he is in an institution, but it’s a more ambiguous thing than he originally said it was. It could be that it’s not very good to work in an institution. It depends if he’s a hierarchical person, he’ll say yeah – it’s close and hierarchical, that’s the best place to be – fantastic, except he’s talking about something, is healthier to focus on the art in this institution, so there’s some other focus that he thinks is less healthy, at least for him, but it is not clear what it is. So I think you’re quite right in saying, he doesn’t say anything particularly negative about the institution, but there is an implied negative about what is not so healthy, but you don’t know what it is. That’s all you can say about the state that he’s in, or the thinking that he is, at this moment in the chunk.
New speaker (male):
It’s like, he’s happy with the work itself, but not the workplace maybe?
Tom:
Yeah, so it could be that, so if you just focus on the work and ignore the workplace, but of course the workplace is either supporting you, or being hierarchical and dominating you, or it isn’t. These are issues in his mind, and I think all one can say at this stage is not to find an easy, simple answer that just gives one view. He isn’t giving one view, he isn’t saying what he doesn’t like. He’s sorting through a muddy experience in the middle of the jungle, and he hasn’t found the beast on the other side yet, so okay, this is where he is at this moment, this particular moment in the transcript.
New speaker (male):
But he gets more and more diplomatic, I think, during this, at least in this case. I feel that he kind of clears more, particularly when points out that he wants to focus more on the arts, but also, as we just mentioned that, of course, hierarchy is a good thing as well, in my case, the art is maybe my strength, in this case. That’s what I’m thinking about, that he’s trying to put it like, two sides. At the same time, he wants to put his case.
Tom:
But we aren’t clear what his case is? (he laughs)
Male speaker (continued):
Exactly.
Tom:
So it’s quite interesting, because it’s the move from, I don’t know, maybe I’m overstating this, but for me the sort of, in which he is trying to get the emotional human being, and desire, longing, attraction and all that stuff, so he’s moving in that direction towards more of a self-revelation of himself as a human being, and that’s also increasing danger, and therefore he goes into things like, well that’s interesting, or not specifying anything very much, so you don’t know what’s … it may be, is the institution good or bad? What is he not focusing on? – so he’s being diplomatic again, so at each level where he goes a bit deeper, he also starts retreating, and becoming more diplomatic, because it’s getting into dangerous ground, so we’re talking about a dangerous jungle, dangerous shift of levels, sort of trying to get a bit further, and at the same time feeling very nervous about getting any further. Anyway, that’s my feeling about it – you’ll all have your own.
Okay, any final thoughts on this?
New speaker (male):
Maybe there’s a bit of fear? – okay, I want to tell you something, but I can’t, because they will shoot me!
Tom:
(he laughs) Yeah?
Male speaker (continued):
I’ll be punished, if I tell you what I really mean, so it’s kind of hard to get to the gist of it.
Tom:
Or in a sense, the closer he gets to the gist of it, the more dangerous and the harder it is to do it. It’s like ….
Male speaker (continued):
Yes, I don’t like to work here, but I love it, because I have to say that I do.
Tom:
(he laughs) Okay, sorry.
New speaker (female):
Then also the resignation towards his desire?
Tom:
Can you spell that out a bit?
Female speaker (continued):
He says he has a desire for something more around his project, but there, he is closing the doors to this, I think because that’s best for him. “I wanted to, but I … “
Tom:
But I can’t?
Female speaker (continued):
Yes, I can’t.
Tom:
Okay, so a resignation to not doing something that he wanted to do? – okay.
Well, all in all, which is a way of like, this is a sort of attempt to sum something up, or to stabilise where he is, well all in all, I think it’s a very hard and competitive environment, which also takes a lot of, well makes you vulnerable maybe, so this, I think, has … which I’m missing. That’s maybe what I wanted to say – I’m missing that.
New speaker (female):
He’s coming to an answer to his own questions.
Tom:
He’s coming to an answer to his own questions.
Female speaker (continued):
I have this feeling that, again that when you asked him to add something, which, of course, might be a formal way, like you are obliged to ask things in the end, I mean, you didn’t imply that you have to say something now, but usually, if I put myself in the shoes of this person, I don’t know why, but I always feel obliged to say something after this question here, and maybe it was just an incentive for him. He started to reflect about this, and I feel that first he was afraid to open his emotions, because there was some trouble inside of him. Then he somehow recognises deep emotions. He starts to be more personal, to speak about himself, then he somehow zooms out, and he recognises his emotions, but the previous chunk, there he somehow makes it a bit more structural, like he recognises that hierarchy is not that bad maybe, I just need to focus on the arts, and he comes to an answer – what’s wrong? Why is he so troubled about this? – because he understands that, well I like the idea of working with the institution, but there is something sitting inside of me, and telling me that I’m not that comfortable about this idea, and then he reflects about it, and in the end he comes up with, well, that’s just me – I’m missing this.
Tom:
Right, well remember the hard and competitive environment.
Female speaker (continued):
Yeah, this is not just him.
Tom:
It’s not just him, but anyway, no, I mean, I think that’s helpful.
New speaker (female):
Yeah, I felt like he’s, he thinks that, although he wants to focus on art, then he maybe thinks that he needs to get stronger, have strength in dealing with competitive …
Tom:
A hard and competitive environment.
Female speaker (continued):
A hard and competitive environment, so he, which also he says, makes you vulnerable, but this is maybe what he’s missing, but he hasn’t been in a competitive environment, which is, in an institutional context, so maybe he thinks that it has a positive side, so he can be in this kind of place, with his projects, and he can learn a lot from that, which makes you also vulnerable, but you learn to compete with others maybe, I don’t know.
Tom:
Any other thoughts about it?
New speaker (male):
Just to clarify, I mean, I read it from when he says, the desire to work in an institutional context – that implies that he’s not yet, is that right? – or is he already in an institutional context? – because I read from that that he is sort of working alone at the moment, that he wants to move into an institutional context. Is that correct?
Tom:
No, it’s not correct, but he may be saying, he has a desire which, at the moment of the telling of the interview, he is in an institutional context, but he may be reflecting on before that, when he wasn’t. I have a desire, I had a desire to work in an institutional context, which I’ve now satisfied, but I know at the moment I still have a desire to work in an institutional context, which is now, a being satisfied desire, and then there’s the question, is a hard and competitive environment inside the institutional structure, which let us imagine is, you work very close and very hierarchical, so is it competitive and harsh inside that, or is it a harsh and competitive environment if you leave that, then you meet the harsh and competitive environment? So it could be inside or outside, or both – I’ve no idea.
Male speaker (continued):
It’s just on a context point as well, so has he, I mean, recently entered the institution, or has he been there for a long time, at the point of this interview, do you know?
Tom:
I think I’ll not answer that (he laughs), and leave them both open as possibilities, and if you knew …
New speaker (male):
It has a lot to do with what I was going to say.
Previous speaker (male):
It’s to do with, because when he talks about, which I’m missing, because that made me think he is not yet, or he has experienced an institution, and now he’s outside of it, and he misses the experience, of hardness and competition and vulnerability. If he’s just re-entered it, then, “which I’m missing” implies that I have been missing that, and now I’m back into it.
Tom:
The tenses are very variable.
Male speaker (continued):
If he’s been there for a long time, then I find that more confusing.
Tom:
I’m glad it’s more confusing. Okay, sorry – did you want to come back, you said it was sort of something similar to what you were thinking?
New speaker (male):
Yeah, I was thinking, if he had just entered this institutional context, and he used to be like a free artist, then I think he’s talking about him missing his freedom, but at the same time, he wants to defend his own decision to go into this, because that’s what humans do, have to make a decision, we want to stick to that, even though we know it’s wrong, like being in a relationship you shouldn’t be in, or something like that. It’s really bad, but it’s good, because it’s not worse.
Tom:
I think in a way there’s a cost of any decision you make, so if you go back to, there’s a lot of ambiguity, there may be lot of ambiguity or ambivalence, sort of being torn in different ways, whichever way it is?
Male speaker (continued):
Yeah, and there might be an even bigger cost of going against that decision now, that it’s kind of too late.
Tom:
It’s too late, yeah – this is maybe your resignation thing.
New speaker (female):
Yes, but I was also thinking maybe he’s a person that shows his strengths in his project, but not as a colleague or as a social person. Maybe he wants to widen his horizon and be a part of something, but it’s difficult for him.
Tom:
Yeah, that’s not the sort of person he easily is.
Female speaker (continued):
Yes, so maybe he has suffered, tried to speak his (?? 42:32) out, and …
Tom:
It’s been very dangerous, and he’s been squashed by a large comic hammer, bong!
Female speaker (continued):
Yes, and then he tries to make himself visible for the others, to his projects, to his work, not as a person.
Tom:
Right, okay, that’s interesting, yeah.
New speaker (female):
Maybe I’m wrong, but I understood this piece …
Tom:
We can all be wrong!
Female speaker (continued):
… this piece totally different. I thought that, I’m missing, it’s not like wanting to come back, it’s like not having something. It’s like, what he talks about is, he doesn’t say it straight. I think he wanted to say it, but then he changes the phrase. He says, also, it takes a lot of, well, he doesn’t say what it takes a lot of – maybe courage, maybe strength to stand against this competition, and it’s a competitive environment and everything, and then he says, which I’m missing. Maybe that is the answer, why he cannot be 100% comfortable in this environment, because he’s missing some quality, some suspense, something new.
Tom:
Something, we don’t know. I will go straight on, which is a very good moment to go straight on, I actually have forgotten, I’ve made an intervention at this point, and it wasn’t a very detailed one! (he laughs) “Sorry, what are you missing?” – I obviously couldn’t stand the strain of not knowing what he was talking about!
New speaker (male):
Is that the first time you asked him to elaborate on something, during all of this?
Tom:
Yeah, I mean, anything anybody says, so I haven’t said a word about all this, but obviously it’s been very painful, or something! Anyway, so at this moment, I say, well, sorry – what are you missing? So you’re not the only ones who aren’t certain about what is being said and not said, okay. So we’ll put this up, and now all will be revealed, or maybe not.
New Speaker (female):
It’s like brainstorming, when everyone saying some crazy ideas, and then in the end, you clear it up.
Tom:
Well, let’s hope so, but the important thing, even if he could have said it all at the beginning, the fact that he doesn’t is important in understanding the sort of person he is. Let’s say he knew the answer completely at the beginning, he just took this incredibly long time to say it – well, that’s one sort of person he is; or he didn’t know the answer at the beginning, and he’s only discovering it now in the jungle, towards the edge of the jungle where the beasts can be found, so we’ll see.
So this is, what, seven? So, what exactly are you missing? – I’m sorry, “What are you missing?” “Erm … “ – he hesitates. “Well, when explaining or presenting, that there is …. a seven-second pause … in my own presentation, but in general in the environment, there’s not so much room for, why are you doing it like that, or what’s the …
New speaker (female):
There are definitely some secrets!
Tom:
(he laughs) So he’s now talking about my own presentation, so we’re moving from the level of generalities, and this is all my hypothesising, but in my own presentation, but in general in the environment, so he’s about to zoom off into generalities again, he says, “There’s not so much room for, why are you doing it like that?” What’s going on, what’s he trying to say about that?
New speaker (male):
There’s not so much space for stepping back and analysing those motivations again, why is the project turning out, (?? 47:12).
Tom:
No space for …
Male speaker (continued):
Self-analysis.
Tom:
Yeah, a description of motivation. So it’s the sort of lack of space, he says, “When explaining or presenting, in my own presentation, but in general, in the environment …” (remember, it’s a harsh and competitive environment that he’s referred to), “… there’s not so much room for questions like, what are you doing that, or what’s the … something or other.” So that’s what he’s missing – I’ve asked, what’s he missing? – and he’s missing that space for either exploring himself, or telling others about, if he already knows, his own motivation.
New speaker (female):
Or maybe asking questions to others, like, why are you doing it like this?
Tom:
Okay, so own motivation is one possibility. A second is, their motivation, whoever they are, asking questions to others, but the whole thing in explaining and presenting, there aren’t room for these sorts of questions, and that’s his answer – what are you missing?
New speaker (male):
He might also say that he’s missing room for, or maybe he’s missing, they’re not letting him do the things the way he wants to do them, and they’re not asking why he does it, only if he’s done it, or not.
Tom:
Okay, that’s interesting.
Male speaker (continued):
It’s kind of, there’s no room for doing things another way than what you’re told. There’s no room for being artistic.
Tom:
For doing differently, or talking about doing differently – he can’t talk to them.
New speaker (female):
Questioning, maybe?
Previous speaker (male):
Or being creative, maybe.
Tom:
Okay, doing differently or being creative. So if there’s no room for questioning, then he can’t question himself. It’s not useful for him to explore his own motivation, because he has to do what he’s told to do anyway.
Previous speaker (male):
He would like to explain why he’s doing it like that, instead of just being told, he’s not doing it the right way.
Tom:
Sorry, did you want to come in?
New speaker (female):
I think he wasn’t that much happy about the hierarchy.
Tom:
He wasn’t happy about the hierarchy?
Female speaker (continued):
And this piece of his speech proves it, to my opinion, because it’s as if he’s suffocating a bit, being inside the institution.
Tom:
Sorry, I’ll just write this down. I can’t hear, my ears flap sideways.
Female speaker (continued):
It feels like he’s a bit suffocating, inside of the institution, like he feels this pressure, these rules, hierarchy, like you work very close, all these words. For me, it’s a sign that he doesn’t like it so much, like not 100%, and he’s trying to, all this stream of consciousness, it’s just the way to express this anxiety inside, like there is something wrong, but he doesn’t know himself what’s wrong, and he’s trying to understand ….
Tom:
And here he’s just explained what’s wrong. He said, “There’s not so much room for, why are you doing it like that.” I mean, it’s not a very good explanation, if you like, but it’s something.
Female speaker (continued):
But he’s not saying it straight. Again, he’s just going around, and trying to say in different polite ways.
Tom:
Okay, this is a structural hypothesis called the going around, lost in the jungle, hypothesis. So the question is, is he as lost in the jungle as he was when he started off, or has he got closer towards the beast, but he’s still lost in the jungle, but at a further point?
Female speaker (continued):
Or maybe he’s not that lost. He’s just afraid to speak straight.
Tom:
He’s afraid to what?
Female speaker (continued):
To speak straight.
Tom:
Okay, not that lost … can’t speak straight, in the harsh and competitive environment of the interview.
New speaker (female):
Maybe his way of expressing him is a problem, to have this discussion in the institutional context. Maybe he isn’t that good in finding words to describe this thing. Maybe that’s why he chose to, in his presentation, and then, when he got the question, the things, he got confused in his head, and is struggling to find words to explain his thoughts about his work. Maybe they’re in his head, but they don’t come out of the mouth.
Tom:
Well, I’m going to put the final chunk, which of course will make everything completely clear! (he laughs) “I’m not saying, but in general in the environment, there’s not so much room for, why are you doing it like that? I’m not saying that it should be, what’s the psychology of this, or what’s your … but I’m not sure if I can say it better.”
(they laugh)
Which bears out your thesis, doesn’t it? – that there is something he’s trying to say, and he’s aware he’s not saying it well, and he’s saying, I’m not sure I can say it better, so he thinks he’s said something. He’s aware that he said it badly, for whatever reason, and he’s just saying, I’m not sure I can say it better.
New speaker (male):
He’s a bit tired out, after maybe an hour (?? 54:15)
Tom:
That’s a very nice materialist explanation.
Okay, what I’d like you now to do, in the last, well, seven minutes, is to write a little note about what you’ve learnt about what appears to be to you, the key things about the subjectivity of Jeremy, so take this as a way of getting, struggling to understand somebody’s psychosociology, their situation. I call it situated subjectivity. What’s the sort of strongest feeling you have about what you’ve learnt about this person, through this sample of their talking? – just from the talking, don’t worry about the other stuff I’ve told you, just from the talking, so if you could just spend seven minutes writing this down on a useful bit of paper, and hand it to me. When I come to look at it all, your hypotheses will help me remember this discussion, and as always, some of the things I’ll have in my head, because I’ve thought them myself, and other things will be the opposite of what I’ve said, and so if you don’t write them down, I’ll never remember them, because like everybody else, I only remember what I want to remember and forget the rest, so if you could write something down, that would be great, oh, and we even have paper, fantastic!
New speaker (male):
Bullet points, or … ?
Tom:
Bullet points, any way that works for you. Bullet points are absolutely fine. Don’t make it a sort of beautifully-polished thing – there isn’t time and it isn’t useful, so bullet points would be absolutely excellent, and it’s just like, the strongest point that comes to you across. You’re not doing a long extensive study.
New Speaker (female):
I think he’s getting desperate. He doesn’t really know what to do say.
New speaker (male):
Sorry, I’m a little stuck about this, you want us to write … ?
Tom:
I want you to say, what do you think you’ve learnt about the person whose bit of speech we’ve just been studying? What have you learnt about this person, and what do you think you’ve learnt?
Male speaker (continued):
My views?
Tom:
Your views, whatever, the thing that strikes me most about Jeremy is …
New speaker (female):
And after this, are we finished?
Tom:
Not quite finished. Hold it a second.
New speaker (male):
It’s a bit difficult to say if he’s actually using more words than other people.
Tom:
Write it down. It may be, just put it down as a hypothesis. I can’t answer any questions. If that’s a difficulty you’re struggling with, put that down. Let’s not talk about it now, because it interferes with other people writing their thoughts. Just put down your thoughts, whatever seems to be significant.
[pause while people write]
Okay, two more minutes, or whenever you’ve finished. Unless anybody has to rush off very fast, I’d just like to ask a more open question about anything that you’d like to feed back to me about your lived experience, doing this exploration of his lived experience, and having said that. Is there anything, what have you, having done this session, which I hadn’t realised you didn’t know what it was going to be, but having done the session, whatever it was, what are your feelings about it all, what are your thoughts about it – for you, not for anybody else.
New speaker (male):
Still a little bit unclear of what exactly you’re studying, actually.
Tom:
I’ll answer that in a minute, but yes, I take that point.
New speaker (male):
I found it quite interesting, and I mean, I had a little bit of an idea what to expect, a little bit of background information on, that it was going to be analysing the text of an interview. In my own work, I actually do a lot of interviewing myself, and I find that it’s more of a journalistic context, so there’s not often a lot of time to go over and analyse transcripts in such detail, but you do encounter a lot of this kind of, quite difficult to decipher dialogue, and it’s actually really interesting to go and look at all the tiny twists and turns of where, what somebody, what could have been a thing. I actually think it’s quite enriching to do.
Tom:
Okay, that’s nice, good. Any other thoughts about your experience of doing it?
New speaker (female):
As it’s my second day, and I already have some background information about Jeremy, I have this feeling that he’s almost a relative already.
Tom:
(he laughs)
Female speaker (continued):
And yesterday and today, I still feel that, I feel, you know this, I have this feeling that, though he’s quite unstructural, and it’s not 100% clear what kind of person he is, of course it’s impossible to analyse him by this piece of speech, but I still feel some connection, you know? Maybe it’s because of this close analysis, microanalysis, because of that, but I would be happy, if it’s possible, if it’s not a big question of confidentiality, if it’s not the question of confidentiality, I would love to know his real name, to check if he exists and everything, to check his creative works, because what we talked about yesterday, and today he, now it’s a bit more personal, what was going on today.
Tom:
Okay, I’ll think about that.
New speaker (male):
Just one question – is he actually spending more words than other people? – because this looks like a lot of words. I don’t know how long it takes to say something like this. Maybe I just didn’t know.
Tom:
Hardly anything. Just to say, as I think I said – no, I didn’t, I might have said, that what this panel is, it’s called microanalysis of puzzling bits of text, so what you’ve got is a bit of text selected because it’s puzzling. Most of what he says is not like this – most of what he says is quite fluent and well-developed. I only found two bits in this, an interview which took six-and-a-half hours, there’s probably about two, say this is ten minutes at most, about twenty minutes …
Male speaker (continued):
Is this ten minutes of talking?
Tom:
Not more. Oh no, wait – there’s seven seconds pause. No, I’d say ten minutes, not more than ten minutes, so no more than two passages, so twenty minutes out of six hours and 40 minutes were like this, and the other six hours and ten minutes were all perfectly fluid and clear – well perfectly, they weren’t like this, and that’s what’s ordinary, which is, everybody, most people who come for an interview are fairly clear about some stuff, and then occasionally some of them get into what we might call deep water, of which they’re uncertain, and then they start talking more like this, so I would say, this is ordinary. He’s probably more fluent than other people I’ve talked to, and less … I can’t make a comparison. He’s not very unusual in having two ten-minutes, twenty minutes out of six hours and 40 minutes of uncertainty about what he’s saying, and trying to work out what he thinks and feels, and doing all this.
But you asked another question, didn’t you? – which I’ve forgotten what it was now, because I can’t read my own writing – this happens very often.
New speaker (male):
That’s what I was trying to ask, when … I mean, it looks like a lot, but it might take like 30 seconds to say this.
Tom:
Yeah, it’s very fast. I mean, I’m putting ten minutes at the outside, and my own feeling, it’s probably much more like five minutes, so really, and it is not characteristic of how he talks. It’s taken, when people don’t talk like this at all, then you don’t do microanalysis, because you don’t have something complicated and problematic to struggle with. You have fairly clear statements running all the way through, and you wouldn’t want to waste people’s time by saying, can you give up an afternoon to look at this particular passage, because you can make sense of it yourself. These are, where it is very difficult to make sense of it yourself, and then you try and summon up a panel, which is what this is.
Male speaker (continued):
What actually I realise now is that, I was just asking, what are you actually studying?
Tom:
I’m studying situated subjectivity – this is my magic phrase, I think! I could write it out in lights, but I’m studying people’s subjectivity, ie, how they subjectively experience reality, and what sort of person they are, and it’s situated because they are always, have been in different situations, so let’s say Jeremy has been situated as a free artist; he’s also been situated as an artist in an institution, and his subjectivity has changed over his life, and over the different things he’s done, and all the rest of it, and I’m trying to get a picture of the evolution of this situated subjectivity, either because I want to understand the person through the history of that, or I want to understand the Norwegian regime, or the regimes or the situations through which he’s passed, as we all pass through our lives and experience different regimes or situations. So this is what, this system of doing biography does – it explores situated subjectivities as they move through a passage of their life, or all their life. That’s what I’m interested in.
Male speaker (continued):
So it’s psychology, it’s not language?
Tom:
It’s not language, no. It’s psychology, I would call it psychosocial, in the sense that I’m interested … I could do this, for example, if I was studying institutions – what do institutions do to people? So I’d take a number of people and a number of institutions, ask them for the story of their life, whatever, and then see, do they experience it as close and hierarchical, do they experience it as liberating, do they experience is as bad for their health? Is it very good for their health, is it good in some ways and bad in other ways? – etcetera, so you can either, it’s not more psycho than social and not more social than psyche – it’s psychosocial. So if you want a word for it, it’s a psychosocial interest, and sociologists can use it, and psychologists can use it, and studies of institutions can use it, and it’s useable in many sorts of ways.
Anybody else want to say anything about their experience of doing this panel, and what they have or haven’t got out of it?
New speaker (male):
I’ve become partly confused actually, because in my work, I also work with a lot of people every day, in a different way, because I see their faces. I see their expression, and for me, when I just see the text like this, it’s the total opposite, and I feel, you kind of get some points through, but as well, you feel a little stuck maybe, at some point.
Tom:
I think that’s a very good sensation – I’m glad you feel a bit stuck, because being stuck is realising the limits of your own knowledge, and one of the dangers of having all of it, the visual, the audio, and not just the words, is that very often, the dominant emotion is what people tend to go for. As people living in a harsh and dangerous environment called Planet Earth and other people, we’re on the lookout for danger, and we have to read people’s faces very fast, or read people’s bodies very fast, and somebody said, I think I said this yesterday, that there are studies that show that, within 30 seconds of meeting somebody, you’ve decided whether they’re a danger or not a danger, and whether you like them or you don’t like them, and whether you’re going to date them or not date them, or whatever it is, very fast. So actually, because you’re reading emotions, you’re reading some global thing about their personality very fast, when you have all that information. So actually, what, just looking at the words, and not having that information from the sound of the words, and from the face of the person and all the rest of it, means that you have to work harder on the words, and you then may get some more subtle and complex readings than if you have an audio-visual tape, a video tape of the person. So this, okay, here is a bold statement: you get more complicated pictures of people by having just their words stripped of sound and vision, and you get simpler things if you just get them fully frontal in sound and vision, and in the room at the same time. So, I’m not saying it is simply better just to have a transcript, I’m saying that you learn some things by working closely on a transcript, which you will not get from a video tape of the person themselves, but you don’t have to accept that – I’m just explaining a possible rationale.
Male speaker (continued):
I’m just saying that it’s very good, that we are different at some point, in this case, because you get different views as well?
Tom:
Yes, no, I mean it’s been interesting, how many different interpretations of quite little things there have been. Just think of the word “it”, and all its many possible meanings, and “you”, etcetera. Anybody who hasn’t said anything like to come in on this round, before we close it up?
New speaker (female):
Is this also communication? – although already asked two questions, because we know that he is sitting opposite to you, and you asked, he has presented something, which he has prepared, and then you ask him a question.
Tom:
Well, in the interview thing, I start a question saying, “Can you please tell me the story of your life, or your professional life?” He hasn’t presented me with anything before. This is what, it happens, and then he talks …
Female speaker (continued):
But when he presented his project, it sound fairly …
Tom:
He can talk about his project, he talks about his project, so in that sense he presents it, but within this improvised interview situation, and then I say, at the end of it, is there anything more you would like to add? – and this is what he adds.
Female speaker (continued):
Yes, I understand, but the first question, he had some thoughts about what he was going to tell you?
Tom:
Yes, I’m sure he had.
Female speaker (continued):
And he … cut out.
Tom:
He cut out other things, yes – everybody does.
Female speaker (continued):
So maybe he, what’s his, maybe he is content with his project, and then you ask him this question, and then the situation gets dangerous for him. That’s made him stutter maybe? – a lot of thoughts, and he had to sort his out, and maybe it was difficult for him to do it, so it’s about the situation.
Tom:
It’s a situated – his subjectivity is situated in the interview, and its coda. I think what you say is a very nice summary of what happened.
Female speaker (continued):
And he describes, I think he describes the same, in this institution, where maybe he knew what he was saying, but someone else above him in the hierarchy led the conversation to another …
Tom:
I’m clearly not in that, because I’m not in the hierarchy. I’m not even in Norway, but obviously, when you do an interview, then there are lots of imaginary people in the room. If you’re a journalist, you’re going to publish your thing in whatever your journal is, and so when people say, I’m a journalist for the Norwegian blah blah blah, can I interview you, it’s not just you that’s in the room, it’s the readers or viewers of the blah, blah, blah, so there are always imaginary other people in the room. It’s the public, and whatever, whatever.
Okay, any final points from anybody who hasn’t said anything yet? Some people are deeply silent. Go on, say one thing.
New speaker (female):
Well, for me, this is a very interesting experience, because I studied political science, and I’m a journalist, so I work as a journalist, so it’s very useful information I heard here, and I don’t know …
Tom:
That’s fine. I mean, I just hope it has been, obviously I haven’t decided … you’ve come here because, for whatever reason you decided you thought it might be interesting, or whatever, and I just hope it has been useful to you in different sorts of ways, just doing this sort of exercise, and if it hasn’t, I’m very sorry, and if it has, I’m very pleased.
I’d just like to thank you very much for coming along, and joining in. For me, it’s been very very helpful, because together you’ve pointed out all sorts of different aspects of what’s been going on in that process, which on my own I would never have seen. I knew I couldn’t understand it, that was why I brought it, but actually I now feel I have a better grip on it – not a complete grip, by any means. I still feel there’s lots that I haven’t, still haven’t understood, but actually I feel much clearer about some of the things that are going on in that, and that’s very helpful, so many thanks, and thanks for coming along.