Drawing intensities

“Matter is agentive, not a fixed essence or property of things. 

Mattering is differentiating, and which differences come to matter, 

matter in the iterative production of different differences” 

(Barad 2007:137).

When we examine our research interviews and go beyond the usual interpretations associated with the linguistic interactions and observations, valuable revelations emerge. By asking interviewees to draw their thoughts about the conversation, a wide range of responses becomes apparent.

These interesting insights are revealed through exploring the material arrangement and relationships in the material-discursive practices. The apparatus of paper-drawing implement- interviewee-interviewer involves intra-activity which becomes mutually generative. The different agential possibilities offer potential for different meanings to be revealed. Barad (2007:140) claims that “it is through specific intra-actions that phenomena come to matter”.

The image above (created using the You Doodle App then Paper App on my iPad) reflects and represents my recent interview with an experienced midwife connected to our students. It was a challenging interaction in which my facilitation skills were tested. The interview highlighted the variation of flows and intensities of the intra-actions that can occur in such an apparatus. She agreed to create a drawing yet struggled at the start and at times through the process. She apologized for “being useless”. However once she began, there were noteworthy peaks of energy, force and intensity as she shared her valuable insights both verbally and through art-in-the-making.

This encounter was dynamic, moving in different ways over the time spent with and on the drawing. At the start there was hesitation with uncertainty. Her desire was to express her thoughts in an abstract way. Where to start and where to go caused her to seemingly freeze. She shared her weakness in artistic expertise, wishing that her daughter could be there to assist her. I encouraged her, explaining that artistic talent was not necessary and acknowledging the difficulties. I checked to understand if the blockage to action could be released by changing the paper orientation or size of the sheet, and whether coloured markers or pastels would be more comfortable for her. Eventually it was the colour grey that released the block, shifting inaction to an emerging and iterative revelation of her thoughts and ideas that became visible in/on/with paper-pastels.

I felt like a croupier at a roulette table, spinning a ball round a wheel, waiting to see where it landed. I emptied out the box of pastels onto the table. Perhaps the movement and array of colours could entice some action. It was the grey pastel that landed and gave me the next move. When my interviewee began speaking about the grey area that our students move into as they are becoming doctors, I passed her the grey pastel and the drawing began. She then moved into the next space on the paper, choosing blue as the colour of hope while explaining the bifurcation of ways in which students’ experiences influence their obstetrics learning.

This encounter was particularly meaningful to me. It illustrated the variation of intensity that was driving this healthcare provider/educator and influencing her power to engage with and through the paper. Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concept of body co-ordinates related to longitude and latitude helps explain the forces that shape and influence art-in-the making leading to the drawing on paper. On the one hand the longitude is described as “the set of relations of speed and slowness, of motion and rest, between particles that compose [the body] ... between unformed elements” (Deleuze 1988:127). On the other hand the latitude is “the set of intensive affects of a body, what the body can do and what it can undergo in joining assemblages” (Bonta & Protevi 2004:104). Both the longitude and latitude make up the co-ordinates that inform the body’s cartography (Deleuze & Guattari 1987).

McCormack (2012:136) points out that the “intersection of latitude and longitude is interstitial or inbetween existence”. It is part of our becoming through the in/determinancy of matter. There is no certainty in advance about what we can and cannot do. Haecceity, meaning the ‘thisness of things”, is a Deleuzian term that explains our “becomings in action” through the uniqueness of each individual (Sauvagnargues 2013:43).

After the interview both myself and the midwife were changed by this drawing experience. Through different roles and intra-actions we reached the point of recognizing the similar threats that both students and midwives endure in a threatening environment.

“the material and the discursive are mutually implicated 
in the dynamics of intra-activity”

(Barad 2007:184).

Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bonta, M. & Protevi, J. 2004. Deleuze and Geophilosophy: A Guide and Glossary (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.  

Deleuze, G. & Guattari. F. 1987. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Trans. B. Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G. 1988. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. City Lights Books. San Francisco.

MacCormack, P. 2012. Posthuman Ethics Embodiment and Cultural Theory. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Surrey.

Sauvagnargues, A. 2013. Deleuze and Art. Bloomsbury, London.