Present presentation in Colloquium

Yesterday, I finished my presentation in the colloquium. Although I prepared my script for the presentation, I felt I needed to fix many things for my presentation, maybe for later.

It is interesting how to present one’s own work, especially when it is not a single experiment but a whole year project. I want to write down some reflections here so I can be better next time. First of all, what I did for this colloquium was prepare a very simple structure that started from a holistic view of the project concept and then moved on to each concept I used for my project. There were two main concepts and my experimental video, which I won’t talk about here but maybe briefly some aspect of it. As my title shows from the picture, Map, Montage, and Frame are the central core of my project. However, because they are all very complex ideas and are not necessarily interconnected, it was harder to introduce why I picked them for my project and how they are intertwined together. In retrospect, I should put one more slide for that.

Maybe it would be better to show some examples of the map and montage than just some words to explain. I got one comment that the video was nice in the end, and it probably made more sense than just showing some concepts, but it was harder to grasp what those concepts meant. One of the reasons why it was still very vague was that I am currently developing those concepts in the context of cinematic space, and both authors, Deleuze and Eisenstein, had never clearly explained the exact meaning when they used those terms. The second reason would be that those concepts are ongoing projects for them, too. Some people say it is philosophical, and yes, they were philosophers; Eisenstein was, in a sense, an aesthetic philosopher, and those concepts are ongoing concepts and unfinished concepts for their own time.

Then, the problem is, how should I explain something that is still in the process of development, such as experiments, concepts, ideas, or images? How should I present them in a tangible sense? I always thought that showing my work would deliver a better effect, but when it is ‘a concept,’ how should I show it to others who never heard about it? One answer would be showing the process. Notwithstanding its complex relations, it would offer some sense of holistic understanding of how the conceptual journey went through. But what if it only touches the boundaries or surfaces of it? This is probably one reason I should practice ‘diagram’ here. Maybe I can draw a diagram to cut twigs and maintain abstract connections with them. (That’s the spirit of the diagram, isn’t it?!?)

I have one more presentation left and hope to have a few more in the future. Before those presentations, I should draw a diagram of my project and post a reflection here.