Writing from the Milieu. Towards a Practice of Transversal Poetics as Method

Abstract

In this essay, I make a case for transversal writing as a method for artistic re­ search. I use transversal to describe a writing entity that is capable of shifting across media and disciplines, while remaining open for critical reflection. This method is akin to a metamodel, a model not confined to defining itself to the exclusion of other models. Rather, it serves as a heuristic tool for re­ flecting on how we proceed in an artistic research inquiry.

My inquiry is located in the fields of artist’s film and video, ficto­ critical writing, and performance. I begin by shortly positioning artistic re­search as an intentional and original search for new knowledge, with the inherent value of radical openness. I introduce a metamodel for transversal writing, which encompasses but goes beyond the film essay tradition. The hybrid forms of essayistic film and fictocritical writing are shown to carry a common interest in radical openness, turning them into sites of new knowledge. Through a link with performative writing, the concept of the event completes my metaphor of writing from the milieu.

In conclusion, I propose a diagram and a narrative reflection on the making of the artwork seeds of degrowth, whose production is a site of my research.