10.1 The Conflict Between the Word-Count and Multimodal Representations
As a semiotic resource, writing has been dominant for several hundred years and therefore has achieved a level of effectiveness that can contribute to the use and development of other semiotic modes. In the Ripples approach, alphabetic writing is treated as the rudimentary component for weaving the other modes of expression into its fabric of meaning-making. Written text is regarded as a framework into which images, sounds and movements become remixed, gradually altering the balance between the modalities. For example, graphics are used not only to explain what has already been explained by text through means of pictorial imagery but also to embody the meaning into a merger of imagery and text.
When in the past image appeared on the page it did so subject to the logic of writing, the relation of image to writing which we still know as ‘illustration’. When writing now appears on the screen, it does so subject to the logic of the image. (p. 9)
Culturally, digital screen typing is changing the modality balance in most genres of contemporary communication. It is coming closer to taking the form of what in the Ripples pedagogy is established as cinematic writing (CW): writing with images, sounds and movements. This merger, however, is hardly the case in educational or academic writing. In the majority of cases, learning tasks are one- or two-modal compositions oriented to specific disciplinary purposes. With child-centred education widely proclaimed, learning outcomes are designed in such a way that they still do not allow students to express themselves freely, on the basis of their natural inclinations and interests. Firmly cemented criteria specifying a certain amount of words to be written in a study do not leave room, in terms of time, space and effort, for intellectual experimentations with novel multimodal embodiments.
However, the document does not articulate clearly how these texts can be incorporated into teaching, learning and assessment. Nor does the Draft Curriculum take into account the contradiction between students working with multimodal and digital texts while being assessed through national tests that occur with print-based materials. It is essential that we become specific in the ways we describe new processes of reading and writing that are occurring with digital communications technology; that we allow for appropriate changes in pedagogy; and that we develop relevant procedures for assessment. (p. 212)
The current Victorian Certificate of Education Study Design for English Language (June, 2015) for the accredited period of 2016–2020 repeats the term multimodal only in instructions for the assessment tasks that ‘may be written, oral or multi-modal’ with specifications of the word count. It includes no other specifications for oral or multi-modal formats excepting the ambiguous term equivalent in relation to written text and a note below recommending that teachers decide what task students choose in accordance with the ‘scope and demand’ of the course. Given that the end-of-year examination (which also ‘may be written, oral or multi-modal’) has a specific word count and no other specifications for oral or multi-modal formats as only equivalent, it is not difficult to guess what format a teacher will prefer for his/her students’ practices throughout the course.
In the production of the two probes that I used for exploring representational
meaning-making possibilities in my doctoral study, I faced similar constraints described above, namely, the specific word count, which as Kress (2012) says, ‘stands for’ an amount of work of time spent on the task, an indicator of the kind of work expected and of the seriousness of the enterprise of ‘making a contribution to knowledge’ (p. 250). This means that in the balance between time spent articulating meaning through writing and other modalities, writing wins most of the time.
This can be argued in regards to an exegetical method of knowledge-production and assessment used in creative disciplines, particularly in the area of Visual Art. This type of thesis—an exegesis —is primarily oriented to the development of either theoretical or practical expertise in certain creative subjects by exploring, applying or analysing creative processes. To this end, the word-count in an exegesis is reduced in favour of gaining specialised professional skills and competencies in a particular branch of creative practice. Otherwise stated, the purpose of an exegetical approach is different to that of the Ripples production of knowledge, where: (a) instead of a particular mode of meaning embodiment, a wide-range of multimodal coding is emphasised; and (b) instead of priority of building specialist’s proficiency in a particular way of creative expression. The application of the Ripples pedagogy to a learning task fits neither the prevalent word count system nor the assessment suitable for an exegesis.
10.2 Feedback Loops Assessment
In the Ripples model, the indication of the depth of involvement in learning and the quality of produced knowledge, such as the mechanics of the learning itself, is supported by feedback loops. In terms of assessment, feedback loops provide ‘a systematic review of what is being learned’ (Johnson and Johnson 2004, p. 5). They show the steps ‘of integration of what is being learned with previous learning’. They also help to organise schematically what is being learned and therefore promote ‘higher-level reasoning’ about the subject. In addition, they may assist students ‘to extend their learning to new situations and problems’. The above aspects of the Ripples feedback loops’ benefits to the assessment are adopted from Johnson and Johnson’s discussion on how assessment may be integrated into instructions (p. 5). Given that the Ripples philosophy rests on the discovery and invention, in which instructions may become an obstruction, the feedback loops become a framework for assuring that learning moves in the intended direction.
In this context, in designing a learning task, it is essential to develop clear guides to what needs to be learned and devise a system of feedback loops that will facilitate the progression of learning and achievement of the required outcomes. On the assumption that the unfolding of the Ripples learning task is envisioned as a ripplework rather than a straight-line progression from point A to point B, a specific relationship between time and space must be taken into consideration. A process in its nature is a linear development, a step-by-step unfolding, or as it is defined in terms of the Ripples model, a narrative, syntagmatic dimension. The step-by-step flow of this dimension is evidenced through self-initiation of the learning task, gathering supporting data, representing personal ideas with CW > presenting to and discussing personal CW pages with a learning group > seeing and discussing other groupmates’ ideas > getting feedback on individual ideas > giving feedback to the groupmates > CW self-reflection > discussion of the idea on social media sites > CW self-reflection > gathering data through interviews or other research methods > CW self-reflection > group presentation, after which the looping starts over again.
The direction of the progression is nevertheless not linear but ripple-layered, in other words, overlapping, projecting, spreading, affecting, meeting and changing to coincide. In most cases, the circular movements are influenced by the involvement of non-linguistic modes of representation.
Figuratively speaking, matter at equilibrium, with no arrow of time, is ‘blind’, but with the arrow of time, it begins to ‘see’. Without this new coherence […] life on earth would be impossible to envision. The claim that the arrow of time is only phenomenological, or subjective, is therefore absurd. We are actually the children of the arrow of time, of evolution, not its progenitors. (Prigogine 1997, p. 3)
Thus, the process as such is also a reflection of ‘the arrow of time’. The production of knowledge is directly attached to ‘the arrow of time’, in the sense that it is a step-by-step process intertwined with modalities that change the linearity of the spatial direction of the development.
It is through a circular rippling of equilibration
-disequilibration-re-equilibration that knowledge becomes evident in the embodiments, that emerging in a step-by-step progression. As students start to work on self-designing a learning task, they use multimodal tools in gathering data and assembling CW texts. They manipulate database objects, reconstructing and remixing them in a DIY fashion. The next step in the narrative flow is the presentation and discussion of their ideas with the group. They do this and provide feedback to their peers by means of multicoded data. The process moves through the ripples: self-reflection
, group discussions, social media discussions and so on. When a multimodal group project evolves, it becomes more complex, representing data specific to the discipline for which the learning task is conducted. As a result, the self-reflections become more sophisticated in relation to the details of the learning task. They take part in a feedback loop circuity, becoming one of its binary segments: self-reflections
other people’s (groupmates, classmates, social media friends, experts’ interviews, family conversations and so on) feedback. Churning over, these segments assist students in the ongoing re-evaluation of their cognitive development. This leads to a learning innovation, in the sense that it breaks with the linear path of directly obtaining delivered knowledge and ‘confirming its integrity’ through instructed and appropriately conducted exercises or experiments.
Curiously enough, successful information systems that are developed stem not from formal theories and structured methodologies, or from deliberate designs, but rather from chance events and improvised, serendipitous applications, which are not planned ex ante, and are often introduced by the users themselves through reinvention and bricolage; indeed, innovation happens by taking unanticipated paths and timing and assuming a local, apparently inconspicuous character at the outset. (p. 8, italicised by authors)
[…] if one lesson can be extracted from the major developments that are sustaining the current success of our discipline, it is the strategic importance of ordinary modes of operation, such as bricolage, heuristics , serendipity, make-do, rather than the idealities of methods […] But our concern and preoccupation with method is so deeply entrenched that we remain blind to such strong empirical reminders. (p. 18)
In this light, the Ripples’ five-dimensional (
self-reflection
multimodality
collaboration
distributed
agency
DIY creativity)
pedagogical model serves as a scaffolding assisting the improvised progression to learning. Self-reflective
others’-feedback circuity, which is maintained by means of distributed agency, multimodality and DIY creativity becomes a circuity of learning
assessing
. Self-reflection in this case is a metacognitive activity of self-assessing through the feedback obtained from others.
[…] reflection is the most important part of learning […]
I can’t think of a subject area where students would not benefit from thinking about their learning, writing down what they have learned, and showing how they know that they learned it. Even more valuable is having students express what they struggle with and ask for the kind of help they’d like to receive to make it better. I’m sure a math student could talk about growth in proofs or challenges in trigonometry. Physical education students can reflect on their progress mastering lay-ups in basketball or on the challenges in maintaining a fitness regime. It is this reflection that encourages learners to set goals for improvement. (p. 104)
Expressed in CW, individual self-reflective loops provide an assessor with rich data on the learning progression achieved by a student. Through multimodal expressions, the teacher may ‘read’ the student’s unspoken concerns and assist him/her in finding solutions to the problems the student might not otherwise express openly. For example, working in a group, the student might feel that his/her contribution to a collective project was not appropriately appreciated by the groupmates. Certain videos or photographs in their CW self-reflective document may show the extent of the student’s engagement in learning that was not reflected in the group’s outcome. This can help the teacher not only to more accurately assess the learning advancement of the student, but to also expand his/her own knowledge of the students and plan the next project more efficiently. For instance, in the case of the student’s CW demonstrating sound evidence of learning, but the group’s outcome as well as peer-feedbacks not reflecting it, an issue of personal agency and self-efficacy might need to be taken into consideration. This may also raise the question of the agency distribution within the group, as some other self-reflective compilations can reveal students who have overpowering tendencies or are inclined to complain about others.
Sackstain observes that ‘Self-reflection also resolves the challenge of assessing group work’ (p. 100). Described by Brookhart (2013), the challenge arises when: ‘[…] some students in a group feel unwarranted pressure to compensate for fellow group members who either won’t or can’t do good work’ (loc. 47). With this in mind, the Ripples learning tasks are evaluated on the basis of formative and summative assessments.
Formative assessment includes: (a) ongoing self-reflective activities, performed in a CW journal by means of multimodal recordings based on comparing to and contrasting self-performance with the performance of others; (b) providing ongoing feedback on the work of others, which is included in a CW journal either as a response to the received feedback, or as a frame of reference against which students contrast and compare their own performance.
Summative assessment includes: (a) the completion of the CW journal; and (b) a collective multimodal outcome such as a website, print magazine, interactive product, 3-D installation, 3-D model, chart, radio show, podcast and so on. In such an evaluative model, an assessor has reliable, first-hand data on how each individual progressed in gaining competency and skills in a specialised discipline as well as on that student’s contribution to the production of the collective outcome, including specialised knowledge and social skills. These data are either supported or challenged by the information presented in CW journals of other members of the team, which further illuminate the development of the project, can resolve its unclear moments and allow the teacher to achieve more objective results in his/her assessments.
Informed by the notion of reconnection, the Ripples approach to learning re-joins two time-split processes of learning and assessments into one circuity, in which the student is given an opportunity to actively develop his/her agentic skills of learning through assessing his/her own work and the work of others. Additionally, the student’s process of knowing is not only isolated to a specific area of the educational discipline but also encompasses an agentic mediation of the environment and other people. This allows the student to experience the validity of a certain set of disciplinary knowledge within a rippling medium of reality. Through learning
assessing, the students learn to critically analyse and act within fluctuating circumstances.
10.3 Reconnected Curriculum
This section is a continuation of the discussion of the Ripples methodology as a device to exercise and experience agentic dynamics of the knowledge-production factors such as self, tools, environment and others. A component of knowledge that is under production during a learning task is seen as being entangled with people’s interdependence among the tools, environments and social relationships within the area delineated for the process.
You are as smart as your surroundings – what you have learned from your environment, the knowledge sources you can draw upon, the physical and cognitive tools you can draw upon, and the other people with knowledge whom you can rely upon when you need them. (p. 208)
Today’s awareness of the ripplework within an unstable nature-cultural complexity calls for people to seek continuity with the surrounding world, re-envisioning ways of interacting with the environment and each other. In this light, improving the nature-sociocultural environment is inseparable from people seeing themselves as being part of it. Learning to redesign themselves in kinship with nature, shifting the status from being aloof and arrogant users of nature to staunch companions, may help students find a way to cope with the contingency and fluctuation of reality. Being caught between two paradigms—a belief in a stable reality infrastructure of the past centuries and discovery of such concepts as self-organisation, dissipative structures and chaos—provides us ‘with a motive to be better negotiators – with ourselves, our environment, others’ (Doll 1993, loc. 1376). We must first learn to negotiate our sense of reality, and as a result of this, position ourselves in congruence with the surrounding world. We must also accept the notion that there is an ever-changing view of reality that is in the process of being constructed as long as humans learn to make sense of their experiences. We must learn to accept ‘the risk of relentless contingency’, as Donna Haraway (2016) puts it [loc. 491]. She asserts that it requires one learning ‘to be truly present’ […] ‘entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, time, matters, meaning’ (loc. 296).
The Ripples philosophical conception adopts Steven Rose’s (1997) proposition as described by Brian Morris (2014) that: ‘Humans rather are the products of constant dialectic between the biological and social aspects of human experience. Through this dialectic, humans as a species have evolved, expressed themselves in history, and develop as unique individuals’ (p. 130). The nature-sociocultural framework in the Ripples approach is an inseparable ripplework within which the units of knowledge are constructed. Embracing Spinoza’s (1632–1677) philosophical concept, once again as interpreted by Morris (2014) and adapting it to the Ripples model, it can be said that the knower is equipped with and entangled in ‘
potentia
’—‘power that is active and expressive creativity inherent in the world’ (p. 708). At the same time, ‘rippling within the entanglement’, the knower encounters ‘
protesta
’, resistance force. Framed in the Ripples model, potentia
and protesta
are moving forces present in all players in the process of knowing such as self, tools, environment and others. Here, we observe multiple ripples penetrated with the dialectics of potentia
protesta, where the outcome is a result of reconnection, a synthesis of ‘encounters and becoming’ (p. 707).
In this process of ‘encounters and becoming’, as Haraway (2016) asserts, ‘we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations […] we become-with each other or not at all’ (loc. 348). Our ‘task is to become capable, with each other in all of our bumptious kinds, of response’ (loc. 293). Haraway advocates compellingly: ‘Who and whatever we are, we need to make-with-become-with […] We, human people everywhere, must address intense, systemic urgencies …’ (loc. 2122). As we live in a ripplework of productive and restrictive forces that manifest themselves in multi-representational forms, to be able to address ‘systemic urgencies’, we must first learn to recognise them, to see clearly our position within the ripplework of existence and practice our agentic capacity to address these forces in a productive and creative way in collaboration with others.
is about the political currency that is attributed to certain meanings, or systems of meaning, in such a way as to invest them with scientific legitimacy; there is nothing neutral or given about it. Thus, a critical, materialist link is established between scientific truth, discursive currency and power relations. (p. 27)
Education seems to be affected by and reflects such a model of power relations. Educational thought is deeply invested with scientific legitimacy. Doll (1993) states: ‘Science is one of the dominant obsessions we have had as people […] intellectually its methods have dominated areas well beyond its [education] own domain-areas of philosophy, psychology and educational theory’ (loc. 233). The generation of the knowledge of scientific facts, as they appear to be correct at this point in human evolution, is the currency of legitimate education. Obsession with this takes away attention from the ripplework of the underlying potentia and protesta forces. This preoccupation results in the creation of what Wright Mills (1959) referred to as blind drifts (p. 7) and the cultivation of cheerful robots (p. 174), individuals who happily comply with the programming they have received. According to Mills, blind drifts are the currents in which ‘an ordinary man is trapped’ (p. 169).
The Ripples model as a methodology for learning provides students with the opportunity to exercise their sociological imagination, that is, the capacity to locate themselves within a certain historical period and socio-cultural circumstances and evaluate their position against the state of affairs (Mills 1959, p. 7). The Ripples model is designed in a way that it fosters ongoing reflection, which is an evaluation of self-performance within a potentia
protesta ripplework
.
10.4 The Probes
In this section, I consider the advantage of assimilating Mills’ (1959) concept of sociological imagination into the Ripples model for learning. I also discuss how this concept was incorporated into two probes designed to test the Ripples model as a methodology for knowledge production for my doctoral study.
Mills asserts that ‘sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of […] self-consciousness’ because it makes people ‘grasp what is going on in the world and to understand what is happening in themselves as minute points of the intersections of biography and history with society’ (p. 7). According to Mills, sociological imagination ‘is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another’ (p. 6). He includes examples of perspectives as diverse as political, psychological, family or national budgets, those of the oil industry, studies of contemporary poetry, and so on. Adopting this into the Ripples methodology, exercising sociological imagination entails connecting yourself with heterogeneous, historically and socially personal and remote perspectives, locating yourself in a bricolage of heuristic, serendipitous and make-do possibilities. In practising sociological imagination as Mills describes it, one seeks to resolve a biographical issue—a cherished value that is perceived as being in trouble, threatened by the social setting.
In the probes I was trying to examine the difficulty of coming to terms with accepting my past of growing up in the former Soviet Union. I felt that the cultural conditioning I received in the first period of my life in Russia affected the perception of my Australian present in a negative way, making me overly sensitive to people’s reactions to my shortcomings in understanding culture and language. As a result of my extreme insecurity, I was extremely critical of the Soviet style of living as well as Russian culture in general. Furthermore, I was convinced, and in fact, still am, that the successful utilisation of modern technology allows Soviet ideology and its well-oiled corruption machine that have never ceased to exist to spread its robust and fertile rhizomatic structure well beyond its country’s borders. Often, I felt confused about whether it was wise or fair of me to constantly express my resentment against Russian society.
- a.
self-reflective activities;
- b.
drawing from heterogeneous resources such as electronic books, diverse websites, social media spaces, personal photos, collected objects, memorabilia, and audio- and video-recording from reality;
- c.
discussions with others on Skype, social media groups, face-to-face conversations;
- d.
representing with multiple modes: writing in the thematic parody and memoir genres; and drawing, collaging, generating digital graphics, and animating, using YouTube resources and the work of some of my students;
- e.
discussing my representations with people in Facebook groups and face-to-face talks.
Meaning-making bricoleurs combine their imagination with whatever knowledge tools they have at hand in their repertoire (e.g., ritual, observation, social practices) and with whatever artefacts are available in the given context (i.e., discourses, institutions, and dominant knowledges) to meet diverse knowledge-production tasks. (p. 3)
Both probes are bricolages that combine my imagination, richly utilising a metaphoric cognitive device through multimodal representations.
10.4.1 Probe One, The Tea Party
As mentioned above, probe one, The Tea Party, is written as a ‘thematic parody’, a genre that ‘is pervasive and that […]provides additional levels of meaning in contemporary Russian satire’ which, ‘has found a special resonance in Russian and Soviet culture’ (Ryan-Hayes 1995, p. 3). Elaborating on this, Ryan-Hayes continues: ‘While Western literary traditions have often de-emphasised the didactic function of satire and viewed it as a forum for oppositionist commentary and mockery, Russian and Soviet criticism has emphasised the reformative nature of the mode’ (p. 3). She goes on: ‘Censorship in Russia and the Soviet Union [is] (paradoxically) a factor that contributes positively to satirical writing. Satire aims explicitly or implicitly at the exposure or improvement of a faulty status quo in life; parody, strictly speaking, is an aesthetic phenomenon’ (p. 4).
As a developing individual, I lived mainly under the long rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982), a time when ‘censorship was relatively rigid and writers and purveyors of samizdat and tamizdat literature [secret publishing of banned literature] were subject to persecution’ (Ryan-Hayes 1995, p. 2). Twenty-five years later, living in Australia, I write The Tea Party chapter in an allegorical style. I indulge myself in gathering information and writing about communism in an absolutely free manner, adding imaginary elements without being afraid of unwanted consequences.
Apart from works written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1845/2011; 1848/2014), I also use the writings of such scholars and literary historians as Robert Payne (2015), Peter Singer (1983), Richard Lourie (2000), Robert Service (2002), Richard Pipes (2003), and Ronald Clark (2011). I gather video data from YouTube and various websites. In these probes, I do not make any theoretical claims about the subject of communism. Through the act of conflating the fragments from gathered literature and my personal memories and feelings, I try to make sense of my own attitude towards what I define as ‘Potemkin’s culture’ that constituted the social environment in Soviet Russia.
Based on Marx and Engels’ theory of communism and Lenin’s interpretation and practical utilisation of it in real life, as well as Stalin’s barbarous adaptation of communism as Stalinism, I designed an imaginary meeting with the fathers and leaders of the utopia that was forcefully imposed onto real life with real people. I begin this meeting by envisioning a dispute between Marx and Engels in one part and Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and Beria on the other. Initially, my presence at this meeting is as an observer. However, as I continue working on my writing and multimodal representations utilising such modes of operation, as bricolage, heuristics , serendipity, make-do, gathering information, documents and photos on the internet that were previously classified and hidden from public view and talking to other people, I begin to see myself as an insubstantial particle within the conglomeration of a human mass used for an inhumane social experiment. The dispute that initially appeared to show some signs of Marx and Engels’ enlightened humanistic premise crudely misinterpreted by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin crumbles when, by virtue of the improvised modes of activity, it comes to the factual declaration made in Marx and Engels’ Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848): […] ‘the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property’ (p. 17).
Undoubtedly, there are many people to whom what I will say may appear rather obvious—although, I had never come across clear evidence of this. Of course, we all knew about the horrors of collectivisation or rasculachivanie, namely, the confiscation of private properties through political repression and the deportation and execution of millions of farmers, carried out by Lenin and Stalin in the early years of the Soviet state. However, the personal significance of this finding through my work on bricolage was the unpacking of the term private property with which the communist virus spread into all areas of socio-cultural structures. Property is not only real estate; it can also mean possessions and goods. In addition, it can mean intellectual property. Property also refers to qualities, characteristics, features or aspects of an object or subject. It can describe peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, and virtues of the mind and body of the individual. In other words, property can be your self-identity.
[…] man will begin to harmonise himself in earnest … he will want to master first semi-conscious and then also the unconscious processes of his own organism: breathing, the circulation of blood, digestion, reproduction, and, within the necessary limits, subordinate them to the control of reason and will … Man will create a higher sociobiological type, a superman, if you will … (as cited in Yanitsky 2014, retrieved from: http://individual.utoronto.ca/yasnitsky/texts/Yasnitsky%20(2014).%20Nietzsche-Trotsky-Vygotsky.pdf)
Needless to say, the property of the ‘control of reason and will’ is deprivatised in favour of the state’s ‘control of reason and will’, and under conditions of abolished individual peculiarities, idiosyncrasies and virtues, ‘a superman’ becomes nothing but ‘a robot’. The notion of the abolition of private property/ies, resulting in what Trotsky believed happens to man in communism, is linked with Mills’ (1959) concept of the Cheerful Robot. Behind the hunger for a communist utopia was hidden an infrastructure for breeding ‘a higher sociobiological type, a superman, if you will’ who will have no personality, no ability to question or doubt. In this light, it can be said that the principles of uniformity and standardisation evolve from a gradual self-alienation: the less of personality—the more order and control.
The antithesis to the alienated education that produces cheerful robots is the reconnected learning that lies at the core of the Ripples knowing. In this model, such binary categories as self
others, natural
cultural, personal
social, man-made
digital, real
virtual, narrative
database, and so on, are not dichotomies but dynamic circularities that are activated by ongoing feedback loops. In turn, feedback loops reconnect two central segments of knowing, learning
assessment, that at present are severed from each other by the structure of the educational process, in which you first learn, then your learning will be tested.
10.4.2 Probe Two, The Harlequin
The second probe, The Harlequin, is based on actual events from my childhood. They are reflections of the reality of life juxtaposed with the absurdity of the ideological construct composed by the people at The Tea Party as envisioned in the first probe. The harlequin—along with the cheerful robot, who happily complies with the programming he/she has received, and the fearful puppet, who cannot help but obey instructions from those pulling the strings—is the third social-archetypal individual. However, unlike the previous two, the harlequin is an emergent category. I am personally attracted to this character from classical Italian comedy, at least in how I perceive him, because of his trust in himself to find a way out of any difficult situation. Although he can be credulous at times, his ability to intelligently evaluate circumstances brings him out of his misery. As the Italian Comedy site describes: ‘He has all the necessary wit and creativity to get along, survive, take his satisfactions in the world that is constantly abusing him’ (retrieved from: delpiano.com/carnival/html). In other words, the harlequin knows how to use potentia force within the sociocultural environments saturated with the force of protesta.
In its old sense the verb ‘bricoleur’ applied to ball games and billiards, to hunting, shooting and riding. It was however always used with reference to some extraneous movements: a ball rebounding, a dog straying or a horse swerving from its direct course to avoid an obstacle. And in our own time the ‘bricoleur’ is still someone who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman. (p. 16)
In this probe, the harlequin is the one who learns how to adopt the role of the bricoleur, who uses heterogeneous recourses to find the way out of societal oppression by means of DIY creativity. Placing the harlequin inside the social structures of my childhood, I proceed in my usual bricoleur fashion. I de-construct what I have ‘at hand’—the harlequin’s original character features, removing the mask from the face—and reconstruct him in my identity-likeness.
10.5 Potemkin’s Village
In keeping with the Russian historical myth of the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great’s first minister and lover, Grigory Potemkin, allegedly erected abstract pasteboard façades representing non-existent villages as if they were planted along the picturesque banks of the river Dnieper. Travelling by barge, the Empress Catherine the Great saw artfully constructed houses and was greeted from a distance by handsomely dressed serfs. Not knowing that she was being shown skilfully crafted theatrical scenes, the Empress was impressed with the progress Potemkin, governor of the region, had achieved in a previously war-devastated area.
While the authenticity of the story can be questioned, its wisdom was widely applicable in Soviet Russia. As Patrick Wright (2009) states: ‘The charge of Potemkinism would be made many times through the history of the iron curtain’ (p. 142). Lev Manovich (2002) described the Potemkinist technique masterfully, identifying it as a metaphor for life in the Soviet Union, where people experienced their ‘monochrome, rusty, half-broken’ reality through the decorative ‘official shining façades of ideological pretence’ (p. 145).
The concept of Potemkin villages became the official aesthetic doctrine in the Soviet Union. It replaced living reality with a window-dressing myth. This lavish window-display ideology required people to see, and for writers and artists to depict, ‘the present as though it did not exist and the future as if it had already arrived’ (Pipes 2003, p. 70).
In consequence, what was printed, staged, filmed, or broadcast in no way corresponded to reality: it was surreality. People adjusted to it by splitting, as it were, their minds and personalities, creating a schizophrenic condition, on one level of which they knew the truth but repressed it, sharing it only with their closest family and friends, while on another they pretended to believe every word of official propaganda. This created a strain that made life in the Soviet Union exceedingly difficult to bear. (p. 70)
Stalin himself fell victim to the surreal existence he created. Being afraid to leave his well-protected dwellings in expectation of an assassin at every corner, Stalin never visited the country he governed. ‘Surrounded by sycophants’, he obtained knowledge of the ‘true’ condition his subjects lived in from specially prepared films that glorified his leadership and demonstrated the prosperity and happiness of collective farm workers, who sat at tables ‘bending from the weight of turkeys and geese’ (Pipes 2003, p. 71).
Diligently heeding Lenin’s (1917) statement, ‘Of all the arts, for us, the cinema is the most important’ (as cited in FilmReference. Retrieved from: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Propaganda-PROPAGANDA-AND-NATION.html), Soviet cinematographers, writers, actors, artists and musicians constructed a reality that never existed. It was from this unreal reality that we, former Soviet citizens, learned how and what we were supposed to think about ourselves and our lives. Whatever struggles, oppression or severe purges our parents and then our own generation had to experience, we not only accepted them but considered them necessary in order to destroy ‘the corrupt society’ that consisted of us—‘the sorry specimen’ (Pipes 2003, p. 69)—and to build society anew in which those ‘who were nothing would become everything’, as a Russian translation of the Internationale declared.
The whole of Soviet Russia was an enormous Potemkin Village with a cinematic web that spread the hypnotic communist virus across it, making people see only the movie sets, hiding the ugliness beneath the decorations. By an intriguing coincidence, one of the most famous Russian movies is the film called The Battleship Potemkin (the ship was named after the same Kniaz Potemkin, the architect of the Potemkin Villages). The 1925 film was directed by Sergei Eisenstein and became popular due to his application of innovative montage editing techniques. There is a strong link between cinematic montage and bricolage in qualitative research, and the description of Denzin and Lincoln (2013) can be applied to both methodologies: ‘The underlying assumption […] is that the viewer puts the sequences together into a meaningful emotional whole, as if at a glance, all at once’ (p. 8). With a multimodal dimension added to the bricolage, it acquires a cinematic quality. It provides the unified experience but it also facilitates extended participation in interpreting the content of a digital page.
10.6 The Struggle Not to Become an Automaton
… because it departed in its structure from conventional bourgeois drama – the eternal love affair between a man and a woman. Its absence from Potemkin was attributed solely to Eisenstein’s pristine concentration on the social forces governing society according to Marx. (loc. 2149)
Aside with sentiment, the representations of life were constructed of components severed with mighty hacks, made of thick lion’s strokes and electrifying colours. No smeared sfumatos—blurred lines and borders—or anaemic chewing of emotions, just forcefully chopped slabs of substance.
The Potemkin film taught us well. Its famous Odessa Steps sequence was cut deep into every Soviet citizen’s psyche: the panic, the terror, a young mother trapped between the Tsarist troops firing at people on the steps leading to the city’s harbour. The mother pushes her baby carriage across the landing but is shot and falls. ‘With accelerating speed, the carriage (with the baby in it) bounces down the steps, past the dead citizens’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2013, p. 11).
From this scene, we learned that our enemies were merciless monsters. The scene sparked a sacred fire of hatred towards anyone who could be associated with them in any way. ‘Burn them, be pitiless to them too’, the smoking fire demanded, ready to flare up at any moment.
The second important aspect of The Battleship Potemkin is encapsulated in McLuhan’s (1964) aforementioned famous aphorism, ‘the medium is the message’. ‘The message of the movie medium is that of transitions from linear connections to configurations […] the movie appeared as a world of triumphant illusions and dreams’ (loc. 228). Each technology creates a new environment. Metaphorically speaking, fake Potemkin villages became a national environment of illusory projections of life that did not exist. In the electronic age, the recreation of the environment is total (loc. 95) because it shapes and controls the form as well ‘as eliminates time and space factors’ of human association (loc. 170).
With cinema, the metaphor of the Potemkin village façades cropped up clearly as a projection displayed on the walls of the Kremlin. As in the allegory of Plato’s cave, people watch propaganda movies continuously and are made to believe that what they see is their only reality. They prefer to stay ignorant, glorifying and identifying themselves with the subjects and events seen in the fake realities. There are, of course, some individuals in that fake virtual environment who realise that they live in a skilfully orchestrated illusion. They desperately seek the truth and find that it is hidden behind the Kremlin’s walls and is much uglier than was ever expected. The ‘discoverers’ are left untouched by the government as long as no one knows what they have discovered. The most common scenario, however, suggests that they are unable to keep their newly found knowledge unshared and are consequently taken behind the walls; someone needs to do hard labour to sustain the continuing projection shown to others.
The psychological mechanism working behind such submission to political power, described by Fromm (1941), is individuals’ adoption of the cultural patterns offered to them to such a degree that they lose sense of the mismatch between themselves and society in order to be rid of ‘the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness’ (p. 189). This kind of state, in Fromm’s terms, is that of an automaton. This is when the individual becomes ‘identical with millions of other automatons around him [and] need(s) not feel alone and anxious anymore’ (p. 190).
The life of such a renowned master of cinematography as Sergei Eisenstein, the director of The Battleship Potemkin, can be taken as an example of the trauma that many creative intellectual and free thinkers suffered when they tried to survive without slipping into an automaton state.
Eisenstein’s change of mind about montage has nothing to do with aesthetic theory; it is simply an adaptation to the political pressures which have crushed all Soviet Art […] The cinema is a dramatic art form, and dramatic structure depends largely on the tension created by conflict; but there cannot be conflict in a totalitarian state, since there is only one principle, one set of values authorised to be publicly expressed. (as cited in Bergan 2016, loc. 5587)
In today’s Russia, the condition of deadly totalitarianism is ‘ostensibly obsolete’. The most controversial fact that can strike a contemporary observer, however, is that although the truth that has been hidden behind the Kremlin walls for decades has been somewhat revealed, Potemkin’s Cinema never stopped. As the resistance movement (if one had even truly existed) was almost been extinguished by the severe pressure of the regime, the Kremlin extended its physical walls to the world of the virtual web, projecting Potemkin villages across the universe. Kasparov (2015) claims that Russia’s biggest export today is not oil or gas, but corruption (loc. 2707).
Potemkin’s culture was never limited to Russia and is definitely not only a Russian strategy to keep people in a state of being blinded from the truth by forged decorations. It is a tried-and-true persuasion technique to cultivate automatons ranging from the cheerful robots to the fearful puppets , depending on the circumstantial climate of that society.
- a.
Potemkin villages—the ideology of a fake reality used by the ruling force to manipulate the population;
- b.
Potemkin media—the media available for a society to spread the myth about the fake reality;
- c.
Potemkin art—creative expressions used to win people over to thinking in a way that benefits the ruling power;
- d.
Potemkin battle rigour—a highly developed attitude of zealotry that supports the ruling ideology to the point of exercising physical force.
Having made the above distinctions, I propose considering the above distinctions in the construction of an analytical device through which to examine the forces that shape the world, recognise their true nature and to learn how to detect possible deceitfulness.
In the analysis of the probes that follows this chapter, I attempt to understand how the embodiment of meaning by means of writing with images, sounds and motions affects the meaning-making process.
10.7 Convergence Points
This chapter bridged theoretical assumptions with the description of the probes designed for my doctoral study to test the methodology of CB. It illustrated the enmeshment of individual cognitive development and the social life within which the development takes place. In this context, the Ripples model is concerned with the creation of such a learning environment that facilitates the cultivation of individual agency through being involved in the complexity of a real-life social situation, which promotes the development of critical citizenry and intellectual independency.
The assessment of learning based on word counts, percentages or grading is an inefficient system for evaluating students’ progress in the Ripples model. The model promotes formative assessment achieved through the ongoing loops of self-reflection and feedback provided by others. In this case, learning
assessment become two interdependent segments of a circuity that becomes a dynamic force in the progression. The creative force of potentia and restrictive force of protesta penetrate all aspects of learning, such as the self, the tools and means of production, environment and interactions with others, agitate the disturbances causing the application of critical thinking and resulting in their dialectic, and as a consequence, the refinement of produced knowledge.
Key terms | |
|---|---|
Exegesis | – Interpretation of the creative process or product used as form of academic assessment |
Learning
| – A fundamental circularity of CB pedagogical model |
Milieu | – Sociocultural spaces of individuals |
Potemkin village | – Ideological or material construct representing a fake reality the ruling force uses to manipulate the population |
Potentia | – Expressive and creative force inherent in the world |
Protesta | – Force negative to that which is inherently expressive and creative in the world |
10.8 DOING
KNOWING: The Ripples Pedagogy in Practice
10.8.1 Learning Task Nine: The Potemkin Village
In 1934, the Hungarian writer Gyula Illyes described ‘the Potemkin complex’ contracted by Western visitors as they crossed the frontier into Soviet Russia. ‘Its prime symptom’, he wrote, ‘is that at times the eye becomes a magnifying lens making an elephant out of a flea, while at other times it turns a cow into a mole’ (Wright 2009, p. 290)
Testing the theory—doing, observing and making your own meaning
- 1.
Start your digital journal and write approximately 200 words of how you understand Gyula Illyes’ description of Potemkin Villages.
- 2.
Think about and write down the symptoms that distinguish ideological or material constructs of Potemkin Villages. Create a digital diagram in which these symptoms and their relationship can be represented.
- 3.
Look for articles on the internet; ask people on your social media sites; talk to or interview your family members, friends, and acquaintances: What do they think about this concept in relation to the society in which they live?
- 4.
Gather images, audio and motion ideas. Insert the multimodal data into your digital file in a meaningful way that reflects your reasoning. Identify one political construct from your own reality that can be classified as a Potemkin Village.
- 5.
Argue your point by assembling the data and writing with images, sounds and motions. Annotate your argument in a way that the text, cuts, animated and video fragments constitute a gestalt assemblage conveying a clear message.
- 6.
Show your CB to other people: family members, friends. Post it on your Facebook page or blog. Ask people to comment on it.
- 7.
Write a conclusive self-reflection on the idea you have constructed and on the process of its representation.