Knock, knock, who's there? Ada Henskens reflects on the completion of a Postgraduate degree in Fine Art.

Do you ever get lost in a warm fuzzy world of things and a state of ‘taking-for-granted’? Do you ever find yourself waiting impatiently for the occasional harsh bump of reality to pass away, and let you continue blowing through life like a leaf in an eddy of wind? It is not necessary to be privileged to experience this state of affairs; simply to float on auto-pilot, as it were.

I cannot say that this latter state of affairs has been an overwhelming feature in my life so far, but it might have been restful at intervals, and I do think that, wherever bombs fall from the sky (whether physically or metaphorically) this non-intellectual mode of existence could be a relief. An alternative that I can recommend is to combine both worlds by doing a postgraduate degree. Neurones Vascularity. Photograph courtesy and copyright of the artist.For preference this would be in Visual Art, where you can get very serious while wearing a silly party hat and the bruises don’t show. In pursuing my Doctorate, the harsh bumps of reality fed me the theme, (exploring how we create concepts of reality), and the floaty-bits cultivated a talent to fantasise and speculate. I took selections from neurophysiology, quantum physics and philosophy, linked them together in a melange of traditional and electronic-based processes, and incorporated them into an expression of visual art. What I was not prepared for was how the experience would change me and my way of thinking by some of the territory that it led me into: I knocked on some doors that gave unexpected responses. My reaction to these responses was the trigger for the changes that took place.

Pursuing this kind of study required disciplined concentration to determine what lay at the core of the project, eliminating side issues, and being prepared to drop beliefs and attitudes that were no longer viable within the parameters of the theme, no matter how attached to them I had believed myself to be. It required the paradox of developing a mental version of tunnel vision, while deepening independent learning ability, probing unfamiliar theories and developing practical skills that I had not known to exist. A definite gain was the facility for intense discussion of art practice with a wide cross section of other people and share unselfish interest in art practice. Another was the acquisition of expertise with video, film editing softwares, and the electronic technology that supported them. Yet a third was having the cooperation of various experts at the university to test out the validity of theory in their fields as I applied it within a Visual Arts context.

Some of the new vistas I encountered included updating my knowledge of the structure and functioning of the brain as expressed through the visual cortex; I had chosen vision and landscape as the vehicle to carry the research. Questions of self-awareness and existence of the world followed naturally from this. I could have become lost in Heideggerian philosophy, (the matter of Being, Das Sein), and aspects of quantum physics (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle ). Another door opened onto electronic technology, film-making and photography, which Focus. Photograph courtesy and copyright of the artist. became a direct, enduring influence. Reconciling aspects of various theories with studio practice demanded a difficult balancing act. If I had been left to my own devices at this stage, I could have wandered off into some side road and never have achieved an objective overview that dealt satisfactorily with the topic. Supervisors play a vital role here in hauling the student researcher back on track.

Within the confines of doctoral research in visual arts I found that great subtlety of expression could be written into the works, and various viewers, no matter how tenuous this might be as indirect background material, could pick this up. Whether these subtle expressions arose from unusual events in personal experience or derived from considering states of existence that might be possible, and were not overtly inscribed into the works, I received perceptive feedback that amazed me. One of the greatest gains has been this experience of the breadth of knowledge and insightful thought that goes with being part of an artistic community. Seldom pompous and there for everybody, the preparedness of the artistic community to consider all things on their merits has for me the light touch of comedic logic. To illustrate this, I finish by a return reference to the title of this article as quoted below:

Will you remember me in a month?
Certainly.
Will you remember me in a year?
Of course.
Will you remember me in two years?
Yes.
Will you remember me in three years?
Of course I will!
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
See, you've forgotten me already.

Last of all, because of its metaphysical connotations:
Knock, knock
Who's there?
The engineer to repair the doorbell.
I do believe there is a (cosmic) doorbell.

Ada Henskens is a Hobart-based artist who recently submitted her doctoral thesis Perception and Representation: the visual cortex and landscape art, an investigation, at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania.