differently.
A colleague has compared reading chapter seven, which lays within the analytical part of this study (although differing from the analytical chapters before), to a roller coaster ride. Adding that, after riding this roller coaster, he would go straight to line up for yet another ride, and then another. This chapter [30] begins with the statement that it is not a chapter after all, but a “text” following Roland Barthes’ concepts of a text. Next, I engage in a brief reflection on creating. I follow that by an introduction to how key concepts, such as time and space, are crucial components to site-specific and participatory artwork. Then I discuss terminologies used in site-sensitive and participatory art, such as space vs. place, or site, which is followed by an introduction of the concept of “Niemandsland”13 as the place the chapter is written from and within. Following this, I discuss the contribution the participatory art project Of Women made to this study and can make to discussing the value that artistic and embodied knowledge production processes have for research that aims to include diverse populations and voices. This chapter discusses Of Women in communication to two additional participatory projects conducted by others within the timeframe of this study. That section is followed by a short conclusion.
Lastly, the study ends with a chapter called “Showdown.” I borrow this term from poker, a game I don’t play. In doing so, I play with taking authority away from me as the writer of this study and handing it over to people who engage in the field and will lead it in the future. Showdown in poker refers to the requirement at the end of a round of poker for all remaining players to be obliged to show their cards in order to determine which is the strongest hand. The showdown is the end and its purpose is for the winner to appear. Thus, having started this study with a prologue that invited readers behind the curtain in order to see, again at the end of the study, I use a term that refers to visibility. Furthermore, the term showdown acknowledges that at least given the experiences I gathered throughout this study while wearing so many different hats: as bioethics expert for the European Commission, as artist, as writer and colleague, as mother, as researcher, and as first-generation PhD student, in this game (biomedicine and RGTs ) there are some that win, and some that lose.
Who is who, is intersectional to other historical and contemporary factors, for people and countries alike. This last chapter provides exercises for readers and for education/teaching in the field of RGTs and biomedical practice that wishes to include and activate notions of the Leib as addressed in this study. With this last chapter, I am leaving the field of my research. In doing so, I turn linear time, as it should apply to a PhD student’s life, upside down. This study does not mark the beginning of my academic commitment to and expertise in the field; it marks the end of my engagement. I’ve published and spoken, I’ve created and cried, I’ve listened and written, I’ve taught and thought. This is the showdown; I am providing vocabulary and pedagogical tools and with that I am leaving traces in the future of the research field this study engages.
[31] 2 On the Matrix of this Study OR How to Soar
“ma·trix
/mātriks/
late Middle English (in the sense ‘womb’): from Latin, ‘breeding female,’ later ‘womb,’ from mater, matr- ‘mother’”
(Google.com 2018: online source).
“Ali, ono je ne to i govorilo:
tela nema, ali tragova ima, tragovi moraju biti uklonjeni.
To je nemogua misija. Oni uvek
negde preostaju, oni uni tavaju savr enstvo teksta,
svrsishodnu celovitost kompozicije, jasnu
usmerenost poruke. Tragovi tragaju za jasno
om i tako, postaju garant neispunjenja. Tragovi se
bri u, ostaje trag gumice, izrabljenost podloge,
urez, mikroskopski urez”14 (Stevanović 2001: online source).
By tradition, this chapter, as a gateway to the analysis chapters, would present a literature review examining the existing research and publications on the topic of this study. The following chapter is not a literature review in the traditional sense. It is not a literature review as materials engaged with analytically differ in their materialized appearance, such as written text, visuals, artwork, and such. Creating a literature review focusing on literature in the field of my studies would have been a challenging task as until towards the end of this study “my field” as such, did not exist. Thus, this chapter creates connections to work conducted and theories developed in various related fields and it introduces embodied ways of engaging with a field in which developments change at a fast pace. In this chapter, I will explain the overall conceptual approach of the study as it relates to various theoretical frameworks and concepts.
Inputting the term “matrix” into the Google search function produced the first opening quotation. When doing so, I recognize that in some instances Google is a powerful mechanism and structure that organizes knowledge distribution globally, yet excludes those who lack access to the gadgets and technologies [32] needed to access Google. Google is a way of breeding (hierarchical) knowledge. It is the environment in which knowledge is served (now). Knowledge served through Google is ephemeral, as, by the way, to a certain degree all knowledge is. Google knowledge changes in Planck time. The second quotation is translated from Croatian; so Google informs the reader that the text I inserted to be translated is translated from Croatian to English using the Google translate function. The translation can be found in the footnote provided. However, suspecting that the source is not Croatian, I presented my Croatian colleague Petar Jandric with the text and he confirmed that it is “Serbian language and Serbian text”15 (Jandric, private email exchange with the author, June 18, 2020).
The two opening quotations stand in for, and open a discussion of, the wing-spread (Spannweite) of issues dealt within this study and of nuances being of matter. When flying, the wingspread, as in the Spannweite, is crucial to the performance of flying. “Larger wings produce greater lift than smaller wings. So smaller-winged birds (and planes) need to fly faster to maintain the same lift as those with larger wings” (Science Learning Hub n.d.: online source). Birds with a large wingspan (that communicates well with their body’s design, are capable, such as in in the case of the hawk with its large wingspan, “of speed and soaring” (ibid). “Soaring is an effortless way to scout out a large territory for food by using little energy” (Falcon Environmental Services 2018: online source). This knowledge is presented using Google sources. As will be laid out in the methodology chapter, the wingspread (Spannweite) of issues included in this study is wide. While this creates an unavoidable lack of in-depth analysis for this study in some places, it, at the same time, allows the combination of speed and soaring, in the sense of keeping up with developments, looking at them from a distance, and if they look full of flavor, catching them “in flight or ‘on the wing’ as we say” (ibid). This study is the work of many years of cross-Atlantic and cross-disciplinary engagement/flight. Also, for this reason, maintaining and permitting a great wingspread (Spannweite) of issues was important in the sense that soaring using a great wingspread allows “support [for] its multi-year voyages at sea” for the albatross or, in my case, my multi-year journey across the ocean and “through” a variety of issues (ibid).
Soaring, in terms of energy consumption, is effortless. Thus, if reading this study, if engaging with the messiness of developments is consuming more energy than available, I suggest soaring as a mode of engagement. With this suggestion, [33] I introduce the first theoretical approach to my research, namely practice-led research. In my last departmental location, this means moving to think.16 Finishing my writing, I was a visiting researcher at the Department of Dance at Smith College, located in
