today’s session is about Feedback,
There is a judgement involved with feedback, which touches us completely when it comes to our work. It is well intentioned but most of the time it’s not really beneficial. what’s beautiful about this film, is that the person who is seeking feedback needs to be vocal about we are look at and what do they need feedback in.
A film about feedback: https://vimeo.com/97319636 , which was very interesting, which is supposed to be a process of exchange thoughts and ideas, however the sessions within the feedback turned into a different direction where artists had this need to defend their work so much as to feel discouraged and outraged by this feedback. The idea was to empower and get more discipline and structure to the one receiving the feedback and to have more precision and fun and raising the idea of having a collective learning experience above all judgements for everyone participating in this session.
How do we think together? you can think by yourself obviously, but how can you come up with a theory, the experience that is very individual, how can we make this a communal experience.
Feedback and critique is totally different – the intention is super different. Person who is giving the critique is essentially the person in power and the person who is receiving the critique is lower in terms of hierarchy. As if its been given to you as a favor from a much knowledgeable person than you. It is tricky when you explain on your work, that’s why it’s essential to be clear when talking about your work.
Feedback is given to the work without the artist at first, so it could be extremely emotional from the person, and when the artists is not there, that is essential so that the audience can be comfortable with sharing their thoughts. After that it’s essential that the artist is there so the unemotional feedback in a way is being shared, an affirmative feedback where there is no “but”, and phrases like “this worked for me” instead of “I liked”.
Feedback is one of the main social reactions in life, from personal life to professional life. in order to formulate a perspective, when looking at work you need to understand what is it that bothered me. – you immediately think of what would I need in the future to not be bothered, then it becomes a more constructive feedback. As an audience member I need this, as a director I need this, don’t make it personal, make it critical and constructive on what is needed to make the boat float.
Basically the clearer you know the rules of the game, the better you can play. You need a sense of safe and free space so the person who is getting the feedback and the person receiving can be able to have a beneficial exchange. Feedback can also be looked at as a “gossiping session” but with you there haha, which is something I never thought of. Another approach to feedback is also to write a personal letter to the artist, because some people from the audience don’t feel heard much so when it is a personal letter it becomes an exchange for after the feedback session and it allows both the maker and the audience and the third aspect of the idea of concept and building of the concept to help everyone grow.
The second part of today’s sessions was to understand and research 3 things, Liz Lerman’s critical Response Process, Non-violent communication and Giving Feedback
Liz Lerman’s critical Response Process is a method for giving and getting feedback on work in progress, designed to leave the maker eager and motivated to get back to work. The method consists of 3 roles, Role 1: Artist/ Maker, Role 2: Responder, Role 3: Facilitator. As well as having 4 steps, Step 1: Statements of meaning – where responders state what was great, meaningful, interesting to them. Step 2: Artist as Questioner – where the artist asks questions and the responders answer those questions. Step 3: Neutral questions – Neutral questions from the responders to the artist that do not hold judgement or feelings or opinions (which is a step that is the most challenging). Step 4: Opinion Time – responders give their opinion after taking permission from the artist
In terms of Non-violent communication, research states that its a toll with the goal of creating empathy in the conversation when starting it. Once empathy is there it will be much easier to communicate between two parties and the hostility goes down. The four steps to Non-violent communication is observation, identifying feelings, identifying needs, and making requests.
Starting the class today the first question that was asked was: What is feedback? Feedback by wikipedia – occurs when outback of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop. Which is different than how my peers and I replied to the question. The reason feedback is important is because we need to understand how to communicate to help one another produce better work and have a better impact on the work from the response given by the audience.
In the readings there are 3 distinct approaches, foraging is essential, you go out and search and do your own research and see what you might find. During the session we were asked to be part of a 3 person group where we were asked to take on the role each, the artist, the responder, the facilitator and to be honest I felt it took energy from myself to be able to not give an opinion and an emotion. One of my team members also acted as the artist and suddenly we found her defending the artwork where everything we read and saw in the film perspired into reality where we as humans have this need to want love and crave for a constant approval, and if someone gives a negative feedback we have this feeling to have a need to defend the work because the work is us? in fact you are not your work, your work is your work but this distinction is interesting to make, because when we create is when we pour a part of ourselves into the work and therefore making us the work and the work us.
Not taking feedback for granted, what an interesting week it is/was.