Against Interpretation: Searching Marina Abramović’s Face

Abstract

In this article, I explore some of Marina Abramović’s artworks as a reference point for developing a possible philosophical orientation that privileges lingering in the search of research. Abramović’s work eludes conventional interpretation. As such, it provides a potential lens with which to rethink and reorient research practices toward unpredictable and unprecedented ways of knowing occurring beyond the scope of established qualitative methodological research processes. In this article, I attempt to reconceptualize the process of research not by offering yet another process, but by articulating a disposition that allows for the emergence of new concepts of thought that might disrupt interpretation, postpone conclusions, and give rise to novel modes of research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Throughout this article, I have intentionally used the present tense to introduce and reference quoted material to affirm their simultaneity within the context of other ideas (regardless of chronological origin) and my own. I have done this so as not to position the quotes as something “said” in the past, but rather as living ideas in the present with duly attributed origins of these ideas.

² References to the works of Sontag and St. Pierre are not intended to draw an equivalency or imply some kind of direct influence on one another; they wrote in different eras and within different disciplines. I have referenced their work as a starting point because each of them reached a kind of impasse in their respective thinking where the conventional ways of knowing through qualitative social science research (St. Pierre) and aesthetic criticism (Sontag) either constrained or simply reproduced existing knowledge. In this way, they serve not as models of alternative practice, but as examples of the value of challenging not just the way we articulate and affirm knowledge, but the potential for new thought and different ways of knowing inaccessible to conventional research practices.