notes on “crit” / feedback protocols / performance study

Visual art education revolves around a particular group feedback protocol -- often called the "crit." Lots of ink has been spilled questioning the efficacy and political implications of "crits" as a form of collective evaluation  and analysis (for example, see here, here, here, here, here, and here). This ink spillage brings us to broader questions about institutionality, authority, education, evaluation, aesthetic judgement, and group process. It brings us towards the question of what constitutes "constructive" criticism and towards various attempts to mitigate the potential relational violence of feedback -- for examples, see Liz Lerman's "critical response process" and the much discussed "feedback sandwich."  

As we move towards showing work and responding to each other's work in class tomorrow, I wanted to take a second to think about how we might approach feedback and response. We are in a graduate department devoted to performance and study and I suggest we keep this practice of study in mind as we respond to each other's work. Rather than engage in responses that are evaluative (ie. "I thought it was good," "I didn't like it,") or shaping (ie. "I think you should try this," "What if you did this instead," "I think you should take out this element"), I'd like us to respond in the form of thought associations, concept connections, and reading references. For example, here are some potential feedback formulas: “This moment made think of the artist x that we talked about in class..." or "your piece made me think about the concept of x..." or "I thought of this one moment in that text we read a few weeks ago, here let me read it aloud..." etc. We will use each other's work as occasions to study together, with the hopes that this collective studying will also inform each of our ongoing investigations and processes.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

-Ethan

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