VIOLETA MAYORAL How does working in a pedagogical context make sense for your artistic practice?
ARNAU SALA SAEZ Currently, working in the classroom helps me understand my research, but it also helps me to revisit it. It is a tense and very vulnerable space, which forces us to constantly question our own statements and ways of relating. I really wanted to resume my work with teenagers and to continue exploring certain things that had arisen in class during my work in other high schools. I had also carried out workshops at Hangar with the Biofriction project and at the Massana School which were both focused on distracted listening. With both of these I had already dealt with issues around attention deficit applied to listening. So I wanted to continue to delve deeper into distraction as a methodology and into this idea of otherness, and I can’t think of a better context for that than a high school classroom.
VM I am very interested in the way in which you reflect on attention, tackling it from a productivist logic. Generally, distraction is linked to unproductivity, while attention is linked to productivity. When did you stop understanding distraction as something essentially negative?
AS It has been a long and therapeutic process that has gone through many stages. Being diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder) as an adult was a disruptive experience for several reasons—the main one being that it changed the way I understood myself.
At first I was relieved, because I could finally make some sense of what was happening. However, at the same time, I felt like the label “disorder” that was dropped on me was perceived like a stigma, and it eventually became a limitation. It made me feel unable to face daily life in a normal way. My process since then has been to stop understanding it as a pathology and try to process the fact that it has nothing to do with me, and to learn not to identify with everything that I have been called during my life (lazy, dysfunctional, etc.).
I came to understand our society’s predominant angle of it as a systemic problem. As the perspective of a system which does not take into account sensitivities and temporalities different to those governed by the logic of efficiency and profitability. I now understand distraction as a form of resistance to a series of contemporary dynamics. If we don’t approach it only as a pathology, I believe it has enormous pedagogical potential.
For many years I felt that academic and professional failure had made me a dysfunctional person in society. When I tried to approach a certain type of knowledge that interested me via the dominant methodologies or techniques, I was always frustrated, because I could not process it the same way a neuro-normative person does. So it was always somewhere beyond my expectations. However, when approaching it in alternative ways, it triggered new motivations in me. The same thing happened to me with music, and specifically with percussion. For many years I did that—playing, improvising—which led me to other practices related to sound and art. Drumming gave me clues on how to apply intuition and sensitivity to my practice, how to approach reality and my interests from a different place and a different time frame.
Fortunately, in my artistic practice I have found a place where I can take advantage of this condition, where I can develop any investigation in a less dogmatic, more flexible, more intuitive way. The way I see it, learning has to do with experimentation, and experimenting has to do with putting the status quo and the canonical ways of approaching reality into crisis. Students can learn how to play an instrument through the study of music theory, through a score, or from an academic perspective, but I like to teach them other sensitive fields in which they can move, without a language or a normative code.
VM I am curious to know what it’s like to return to the classroom, to an educational context in which attention is at the core of pedagogy, with a project that understands distraction as a tool. How do you approach students from the role of a teacher, taking into account your experience of academic rejection and exclusion as a teenager?
AS I approach them from a place of sincerity. Where better? The first thing I share with them is my experience with school and my inability to pay attention in class. I really emphasize that I have no expectations, that I don’t expect anything specific from them. I try to find a way to create a comfortable space, to integrate pluralities, so that they can feel good being themselves. But this doesn’t always work, because they aren’t used to having that space and often they don’t know how to act.
It is especially difficult because the system is designed to produce certain academic results and students are rewarded when they play the role which is expected from them. When you suggest different exercises, not everyone knows how to behave because they don’t know what they can experience.
I clearly recognize how systemic these expectations appear—establishing the ideal image of what a teenager should be—and not everyone feels safe when they are asked to go beyond what they are accustomed to doing. I recognize this feeling because the image of the teacher also appears in me, and I identify in myself the voice that questions a different response to that representation. Going beyond what is socially required of you often entails giving up that internal voice, understanding that the voice you have learned is not entirely yours.
That is why being in class is a learning process that pushes you to review expectations. It works almost like a survival mechanism, in which it is necessary to open up and accept anything that may happen in the space of the class. Accepting chaos as an educational tool, adding more chaos to chaos and playing with it. However, all experimental processes are difficult because we tend to seek certainty and end up perpetuating precisely those dynamics which we are trying to avoid. There is no instruction manual; the most powerful tool is our ability to learn by questioning our expectations and being very aware of how we reproduce these learned values, but this time through the role of the teacher.
VM What exactly do you mean by attention?
AS The issue of attention, or lack of attention, is complex because things are not black and white. The more I research, the more I realize that both states,—attention and distraction—, are very close, and in fact they are quite similar. It is an intricate issue because it goes beyond the concept itself, the idea being that you should pay attention to what is important, and if you are not paying attention you are distracted. But in reality you’re not distracted; you’re just paying attention to other things. The question, then, has to do with what a society considers important to pay attention to and what it does not. Attention is understood in a very dualistic way.
This dichotomous condition is the first thing that people consider when they are diagnosed with ADHD: “Am I functional or dysfunctional?”—and then guilt and the idea of failure versus success. For me, it is obvious that society is making you dysfunctional the moment it doesn’t rethink what it excludes and what it condemns. I ask myself why and for whom one is functional.
My priority in class is that the information I am giving them is absorbed, but I am not interested in a methodology based on memorizing information. I don’t care if the information I share doesn’t reach them exactly as I express it; I’m more interested in getting them to draw their own conclusions, because that’s how this input becomes learning. And learning is always good, whatever it is that you might learn. Then praxis will take care of solidifying that information, right?
Above all, I want to avoid creating in the students a feeling of blockage or inability due to the expectations which arise while seeking “excellence”. That’s why I don’t teach them that there is one good thing and another bad thing; in my way of thinking there is no room for dichotomies, but plurality instead. You have to be very careful because if you’re not aware of the diversity in a class, it can lead to students experiencing depression or a lack of self-esteem. So I try to teach something which I think is very powerful: that this way of understanding attention is not the same for all cultures, nor is it considered equally, nor is the idea of failure or success the same.
It often happens in my classes that certain students who are supposedly “below average” understand the things I present to them quickly, while other students who have good grades cannot understand what is happening and even give up. I think this happens because this idea of excellence that is constantly sought in the educational system ends up constricting the infinite ways of relating to the world, the plurality of paths to acquiring knowledge. The worst thing is that they do not even know that they have the capacity to experiment.
VM I think that the clay exercise you do in class and the distraction notebook are good examples of how to apply distraction to learning.
AS There were exercises that made me understand that distraction was a method of learning.
In this exercise I put blocks of clay on their desks. My goal was for them to manipulate the clay as I teach. Many students have notebooks full of fantastic drawings that they do while teachers talk. What happened in my exercise was that they were hyper-focused on the clay and completely ignored what I was talking about. For me that was a success, because I had found a space where they could flow without any order or expectation, a place where there was no mental blockage, no wondering whether they were doing well or not.
The point, I suppose, is to provide them with a series of tools and to be very careful not to foster an expectation regarding the results, encouraging experimentation and preventing systemic pressure from falling on them, so they don’t think it is their fault or that they are unfit. It is important that the school context becomes more open to diverse possibilities and that pedagogical dualism is questioned. Students can give us some clues about what they need; students can teach teachers.
VM When we are not paying attention, are we also learning?
AS Yes, we are always learning. What happens is that we do not value it because we have learned to value a certain type of learning that is acquired through a series of very specific channels and methodologies. We run the risk of teaching students that something is wrong with them, when what is actually wrong is this system which is not interested in the plurality of sensitivities, capacities and concerns unless they are profitable.
When we are silent, not talking, supposedly distracted, it may be that we are processing information. Our mind is taking the time it needs to organize outside information, understanding certain feelings, etc. I think that this is an important cognitive state, and that we should study in depth what happens in that space of “distraction” and how it can be integrated into a pedagogical framework. Another question I ask myself when teaching is how I can set productivity aside and work with other temporalities.
VM What role has experimentation played in your practice?
AS Experimentation is crucial. It’s the only thing that allows me to find my own path. Or, more importantly, it has allowed me to discover that alternative paths actually exist. Without the experience of actual experimentation I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. It’s the only option when faced with confusing information or any limiting scenario. I see it as the only possibility. It’s true that to allow yourself to experiment you need to value what you are, and this is a long process that requires trust. Some days we think we are capable, some days we don’t, but it’s just our imagination. This assimilation process is not immediate and you have to fight with those feelings all your life.
My earliest memory of consciously experimenting involves drawing. I was very young and I wanted to copy some characters that I really liked. At some point I had to accept that they would not be the same as the ones I was trying to copy, but other things that appeared on the paper really caught my attention. I didn’t know if I liked them or not, but they surprised me. When I was thirteen, my uncle gave me an old electric guitar that he wasn’t using, and at home I was told that I had to take lessons if I wanted to play it. Obviously, at the music academy I didn’t understand anything; I found the lessons unbearable and playing any chord seemed like mission impossible. Everything the teacher told me was too boring and it heightened my feeling of inadequacy. Shortly after, I went to some friend’s rehearsal space and they let me play drums; I immediately started to flow with the instrument. I felt a lot of hope and it encouraged me a lot to keep trying. For years, I clung to that instrument and started doing things that surprised me. But over time I began to perceive the instrument as limiting, and I had to find other ways to “play” it, which made me experiment with other tools—playing with chopsticks or other objects—or I would amplify drums with contact mics, working with feedback and experimenting with rhythm and patterns in a totally intuitive way.
VM I guess you question the dogmatism linked to technique.
AS An imposed technique can be somewhat limiting, and my process of absorbing it is very slow. My brain just doesn’t work like that. I need to create my own techniques through intuition. And I am not saying this out of some sense of urgency or impatience. In order to be able to talk about something in a rational manner, I need some form of deep internalizing which is usually a long and deep process for me.
Back to the students: I like to show them live noise concerts as an example in class, so that they can see that there are people who choose to do that and other people who decide to pay a ticket and attend the show, applaud, etc., so that they understand that you can also give value to something that society rejects. I want them to become aware that when we listen to music we are not only listening to sound, but we are consuming a series of values that are socially attributed to it. Noise is highly codified, and I think that this can limit our experience, since we enter into another type of logic. The classification or the sharp definition of what surrounds us makes expectations come into play and, with it, a certain way of experiencing it. Prejudices are something that we constantly address in class. I also try to talk to them about very everyday things that for me have a transcendental character. And I try to make them understand how we discriminate some things over others.
In one of the classes, we were visited by Rosa Maria Gil Iranzo, who is a Computer Engineering and Digital Design professor at the Polytechnic University in Lleida. She investigates human neurological systems in connection to technology and she showed us examples of new technologies and how these affect attention. We did exercises in class on individual and group perception, and we saw how our mind discriminates without being aware of it. It was interesting for them to see how the phenomenon of attention is treated from the perspectives of cognitive science and technology.
VM Do you think it is difficult not to act according to social expectations?
AS Of course. I empathize with students who don’t know what to do beyond what they’ve been taught. This happens to me constantly as well. I struggle with what I think is expected from me. It’s a trap we set for ourselves. Meditative practice is one of the things that help me observe these expectations, and to make them become increasingly secondary. I started meditating twelve years ago and, over time, I have incorporated Buddhist teachings into my practice. I’ve gradually begun to understand what is happening at a cognitive level and also how to apply this understanding in my daily life. My way of approaching meditation has changed a lot; in the past, I used it as a tool to relieve stress so that I could be more productive with my life. Now it’s sort of the opposite.
In class, I have introduced meditation so that they experience how the flow of thoughts is always there and understand that it can actually be controlled or managed. We visited the Buddhist temple of Dag Shang Kagyü, in Panillo, in the Pyrenees of Huesca, where they explained the different types of mantras and meditations, which we later used in class to create a small “distraction protocol”. We worked on distraction through listening, understanding it as a phenomenon that is always happening, without us being aware of it. We did some more classic listening exercises by Pauline Oliveros, Max Neuhaus and Annea Lockwood, but also “distracted listening” exercises, which are usually a variation of the latter, generally following the instructions backwards, or doing the opposite. We did some in Parc de la Mitjana, in Lleida. We hid sounds and tried to find them or guessed sounds in a group. Many of the exercises try to reveal what is already present but goes unnoticed. I am always very mindful of the confusion that overstimulation creates, so I try not to add more information than necessary, and focus instead on becoming aware of what is already happening. This is something I have worked with in my artistic practice: reducing the variants, simplifying the amount of information that surrounds us—like, for example, only using multiples of 11 numbers or one chromatic scale—and although this may seem somewhat limiting, its possibilities are endless.
VM At what point in your practice were you when you made the Participant album?
AS It was a very intense moment of transition, because I was putting my productivist way of making music into crisis, trying to stop fitting into a specific context and trying to escape from the dynamics and logic of commerce. The album explores the cracks; sounds and themes blur into one another, they seem to bleed. It’s a very personal work and it has many layers. I feel like I was shedding my skin, in a way, and that this helped me to connect to my practice in a much healthier way. It also came out at a time when I needed to deal with a crisis with contemporaneity, a crisis that seems to never end. I was wondering what to do with all of that, and then Participant appeared. Afterwards, I discussed these issues more in depth in a series of workshops. I would say that this album and what it unleashed for me placed me in a different context.
On the other hand, it was a time when I completely distanced myself from productivist time frames, and I practically isolated myself for almost two years. I had a very hard time financially, but it allowed me to fully focus. People diagnosed with attention deficit often find ourselves hyper-focused on something that is difficult to overcome or that is difficult to temporarily combine with daily tasks and duties. You come into conflict with your environment because it goes too fast and you don’t have time to assimilate it.
VM How would you like to remain connected to teaching?
AS This is something I also wonder about. Although it is a complex space, I like teaching because it pushes me to adapt and learn in real time. On the other hand, working outside of the contemporary art environment helps me understand that the productivist dynamics, competitiveness and individualism associated with the idea of success (or failure) permeate the whole of society. Working in class involves sharing your work, sharing it even when it has not yet been formalized, and it has a lot to do with a desire to learn from others. This is always the case, whether in educational projects in high schools, or in workshops where there is space for collective articulation. For me, it is a format that allows me to get out of my internal narratives and in which I feel privileged.
On the other hand, teaching seems very difficult and complex to me. I feel admiration for the people who work in the field and continue to improve the educational system.
From: Alteritat Radical Book, published by La Panera
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