Engaging Lives: A Nomadic Inquiry into the Spatial Assemblages and Ethico-Aesthetic Practices of ...

312 Pages·2014·9.94 MB·English

by  Coats, Cala R.

ENGAGING LIVES: A NOMADIC INQUIRY INTO THE SPATIAL ASSEMBLAGES

AND ETHICO-AESTHETIC PRACTICES OF THREE MAKERS

Cala R. Coats, B.A., M.A.

Dissertation Prepare d for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF P HILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

May 2014

APPROVED:

Terry Barrett, Committee Chair
Laura Evans, Committee Member
Joni Acuff, Committee Member
Denise A. Baxter, Chair of the Department of
Art Education and Art History
Robert Milnes, Dean of the College of Visual
Arts and Design
Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate
School
Coats, Cala R. Engaging Lives: A Nomadic Inquiry into the Spatial Assemblages and
Ethico-Aesthetic Practices of Three Makers. Doctor of Philosophy (Art Education), May 2014,
301 pp., 49 figures, references, 264 titles.
This research is a nomadic inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of three makers’ social
and material practices. Deleuze’s concept of the nomad operated in multiple ways throughout
the process, which was embedded in performative engagements that produced narratives of
becoming. Over four months, I built relationships with three people as I learned about the
ethico-aesthetic significance of their daily practices. The process started by interviewing
participants in their homes and expanded over time to formal and informal engagements in
school, community, and agricultural settings. I used Guattari’s ecosophical approach to consider
how subjectivity was produced through spatial assemblages by spending time with participants,
discussing material structures and objects, listening to personal histories, and collaboratively
developing ideas. Participants included a builder who repurposed a missile base into a private
residence and community gathering space, an elementary art teacher who practiced urban
homesteading, and a young artist who developed an educational farm.
The research considers the affective force of normalized social values, the production of
desire by designer capitalism, and the mutation of life from neoliberal policies. Our experiences
illuminate the community-building potential of direct encounters and direct exchanges. The
project generates ideas for becoming an inquirer in the everyday and reveals possibilities for
producing pedagogical experiences through collective and dissensual action. Ultimately, the
project produces hope for performative and anti-disciplinary approaches to education, rupturing
false divisions that fragment the force of thought, to produce, instead, aesthetic experiences that
privilege processes and are based in direct and collective engagements with life.
Copyright 2014
by
Cala R. Coats
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation is for Ben and Rose. I look at you and see all of the potential in the world.

I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by loving and supportive family, friends, and
advisors. I want to first thank Terry Barrett. Your support, care, and thoughtfulness allowed me
to create my own path with the belief that my work was meaningful. I want to thank Laura
Evans and Joni Acuff for encouraging me to trust myself, offering supportive feedback, and
inspiring me to always think about how my work might do something real. I also want to share
my deep gratitude for Denise Baxter. I don’t know that I would have made it all the way through
without your support.
I am so thankful to have met and worked with my dear friend, James Thurman. You
made me love making again. I want to share my sincere gratitude for Denise Clyne-Ruch, Ken
Nelson, and Amanda Austin for generously inviting me into your homes and your lives. I also
want to thank Kyle Jensen, Jason Wallin, Nadine Kalin, Rina Kundu, and Brent Hirak. You all
pushed my ways of thinking in entirely new directions. I owe so much of this to my Mother,
who instilled in me the willingness to keep trying, knowing that the failures are where the real
learning happens.
Most importantly, I want to thank Bill – my best friend, husband, and partner in crime.
You are the best father I know. You listened and supported me through all of my ideas, worries,
and successes. You are my rock.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
Producing Dissensual Force ................................................................................................ 1
Why Not Do-It-Yourself? ................................................................................................... 3
Producing Places ................................................................................................................. 6
Becoming Interested ........................................................................................................... 9
Putting Concepts to Work ................................................................................................. 13
Assembling Ecologies ....................................................................................................... 16
The Process of Engagement .................................................................................. 17
The Affirmation of Life ........................................................................................ 18
Limitations and Biases ...................................................................................................... 19
Engaging with the Dissertation ......................................................................................... 20

CHAPTER 2. BECOMING LOCAL NOMAD .......................................................................... 23
The Production of Ecosophical Assemblages and Ethico-Aesthetic Subjectivity ............ 27
Ecosophical Assemblages ..................................................................................... 28
Ethico-Aesthetic Potential .................................................................................... 31
Place-Based Nomadic Inquiry .......................................................................................... 34
Ethnographic Approaches ................................................................................................. 41
Autoethnography within a Feminist Frame .......................................................... 42
Affective Encounters and Haptic Knowledge....................................................... 45
Mapping Micro-Ethnographies ............................................................................. 53
Methods............................................................................................................................. 55
Interviews .............................................................................................................. 55
Journaling (Written and Oral) ............................................................................... 56
Photographs........................................................................................................... 56
Cultural and Historical Research .......................................................................... 57
Cartography........................................................................................................... 57
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Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 58

CHAPTER 3. TRACING A CONCEPT: DIY AS PRACTICE AND ETHIC ........................... 60
DIY Practices as Domestic Production and Consumption ............................................... 63
Critical Pedagogies of Consumption .................................................................... 63
Creative Domestic Practices of Consumption ...................................................... 65
DIY and a History of Art Education ................................................................................. 69
DIY and Social Reconstruction ........................................................................................ 70
Community-Based Art Education ......................................................................... 72
Folkvine.org .......................................................................................................... 73
Zines as Material Culture Embodying a DIY Ethic .......................................................... 76
DIY as Anti-Capitalist Tactic ........................................................................................... 81
Visual Culture Art Education............................................................................................ 84
DIY as Activist Participatory Cultural Practices in Art Education and the Everyday ...... 86
New Genre Public Art Education ......................................................................... 88
Performative Public Art as Activism .................................................................... 89
From DIY to Self-Organized Cultural Activity – Collective Singularization .................. 91

CHAPTER 4. KEN: REPURPOSING AN ECOLOGY OF CONTROL .................................... 94
Consensual Assemblage.................................................................................................... 95
Dissensual Assemblage ................................................................................................... 101
Repurposing an Environment ............................................................................. 102
Collective Reconstruction ................................................................................... 110
Subjectivity in the Making .................................................................................. 119

CHAPTER 5. SUE: LEARNING LIMITS THROUGH CULTIVATION ............................... 126
Curating a Life ................................................................................................................ 130
Freedom and Responsibility ........................................................................................... 135
Ecology of the Garden .................................................................................................... 142
Normativity and Affect in the Institution ........................................................................ 145
Becoming Strange ........................................................................................................... 152
Reclaiming Potential ....................................................................................................... 158

CHAPTER 6. AMANDA: REAFFIRMING LIFE THROUGH PERFORMATIVE ETHICS 168
Memory and Materiality ................................................................................................. 174
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Women’s Narratives ........................................................................................... 176
Fundamental Skills.............................................................................................. 179
Art and Education but not Art Education ....................................................................... 182
Becoming Farmer............................................................................................................ 184
Hidden Villa ........................................................................................................ 184
Meeting Cardo and Finishing School ................................................................. 186
Common Ground ................................................................................................ 188
Developing the Farm Project .......................................................................................... 192
Community-Building .......................................................................................... 193
Collectivism ........................................................................................................ 198
Looking to the Future...................................................................................................... 204
Labels and Ethics ................................................................................................ 204
Institutional Potential .......................................................................................... 205

CHAPTER 7. ART EDUCATION AS COLLECTIVE ENGAGEMENT ............................... 213
Taking Flight ................................................................................................................... 214
Temporary Layover ........................................................................................................ 215
Nomadic Thinking and Affect ........................................................................................ 218
Activated Thinking ............................................................................................. 220
Engaging Affect .................................................................................................. 223
Memory and Double Articulation ....................................................................... 228
Performativity as Nomadic Becoming ................................................................ 232
Nomadic Inquiry’s Potential ............................................................................... 236
Ecological Assemblages and the Production of Subjectivity ......................................... 238
Producing a Home............................................................................................... 240
Institutional Ruptures .......................................................................................... 246
Community as Collective Consciousness ........................................................... 249
Public Participation ............................................................................................. 251
Living as a Work of Art .................................................................................................. 254
Producing an Ethico-Aesthetic Art Education ................................................................ 257
Building a Community of Inquirers with an Experimental Spirit ....................... 259
Engaging Nomadic Teachers .............................................................................. 261
Rupturing Public/Private/Community/Institutional Boundaries ......................... 264
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Producing Subjectivity through Socially-Engaged Pedagogical Encounters ..... 266
Returning Home .............................................................................................................. 271

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 277

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LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1. Image of underground shelter from photographic inquiry into bomb shelters. ............ 26
Figure 2. Interior gate at the southeastern edge of Ken’s land. ................................................... 94
Figure 3. Image of the building closest to the entrance to Ken’s land. ........................................ 98
Figure 4. South-facing exterior wall of the mess hall building. ................................................. 100
Figure 5. East-facing exterior wall of the ballroom. .................................................................. 103
Figure 6. Interior wall of the ballroom (west side of the building). ........................................... 104
Figure 7. Northwest interior corner of the ballroom. ................................................................. 104
Figure 8. Detail from interior of the ballroom (south end of the building). .............................. 105
Figure 9. Southwest interior corner of the ballroom. ................................................................. 106
Figure 10. Detail of southwest interior corner of the ballroom. ................................................ 106
Figure 11. Northern interior wall of ballroom with large tables pushed together. .................... 107
Figure 12. Empty room adjacent to ballroom that previously functioned as swamp cooler. .... 107
Figure 13. Interior of the Jackson Pollock Room with Ken’s cylindrical sculptures displayed. 108
Figure 14. View from outside of Jackson Pollock Room at night. ............................................ 109
Figure 15. Interior of mess hall with long wooden table built be Ken. ..................................... 113
Figure 16. Façade of mess hall with windows boarded up for winter. ...................................... 114
Figure 17. Interior of mess hall where performances take place. .............................................. 115
Figure 18. Private room for dancers to dress and prepare for performances. ............................ 115
Figure 19. East end of strip of land with three tall cement columns. ........................................ 121
Figure 20. West end of sculptural strip with circular cement area. ........................................... 122
Figure 21. Central sculpture with bath and welded bird. ........................................................... 122
Figure 22. Collaborative photograph submitted to the “Chicken Show,” 2012 ......................... 128
Figure 23. Stack of Pyrex bowls in Sue’s kitchen. .................................................................... 131
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Figure 24. Sue’s living room decorated with mid-century modern couches coffee table. ........ 133
Figure 25. Mid-century modern with other personal affects in dining room. ............................ 134
Figure 26. Framed photograph of a restaurant in Amarillo, TX. ............................................... 135
Figure 27. Grandmother’s map drawing with other drawings attached to a bulletin board. ..... 177
Figure 28. Bulletin with drawings, photographs, and multimedia artworks attached. .............. 178
Figure 29. Amanda holding a photograph from the interior of her grandmother’s farmhouse. 179
Figure 30. Spinning wheel in Amanda’s trailer. ........................................................................ 181
Figure 31. Small part of Amanda’s large crop installations. ..................................................... 182
Figure 32. Cardo’s Farm Project sign at the entrance to the property in Ponder. ...................... 191
Figure 33. Small dome structure built by Cardo. ....................................................................... 194
Figure 34. Outside of barn at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. .............................................................. 196
Figure 35. Chalkboard inside renovated education center at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. ............. 196
Figure 36. Teaching resources inside renovated education center at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. .. 197
Figure 37. Community kitchen inside renovated education center at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. 197
Figure 38. Ducks walking away as we entered chicken pin. ..................................................... 199
Figure 39. Chickens inside of pin at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. ................................................... 200
Figure 40. Brown crates stacked to form chicken coop at Cardo’s farm in Ponder. ................. 201
Figure 41. Exterior of trailer Amanda lived in during first visit. ............................................... 203
Figure 42. Amanda’s new home and location of Cardo’s Farm Project in Denton. .................. 208
Figure 43. Close-up of map drawing Amanda’s Grandmother’s house. ................................... 208
Figure 44. Drawing Amanda made of her grandmother’s house. .............................................. 209
Figure 45. Approximately 6’ x 4’ multimedia piece inspired by grandmother’s farm. ............. 210
Figure 46. Detail of house in multimedia piece inspired by grandmother’s farm. .................... 210
Figure 47. Detail of shelf with jars in multimedia piece inspired by grandmother’s farm. ....... 211
Figure 48. Photograph of jars on a shelf taken in kitchen of farm house in Ponder. ................. 211
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