Playing it by ear: potential as an improvisatory practice

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the concept of potential through a Deleuzean lens and argues that what is commonly understood as potential is often confused with possibility. It moves through four parts: an introduction exploring the language and context in which potential is ordinarily used in order to uncover underlying presuppositions; the next section explores key concepts from Difference and Repetition- namely the Dogmatic Image of Thought, Virtuality and Actuality- to illuminate ways in which a more nuanced concept of potential might be understood, arguing that it is a creative process, rather than a fixed characteristic. Next, it explores how improvisation is a way in which potential can be experienced, before finally considering how changes to education practice- specifically a move towards a more mechanised, digitally-orientated world- might be wholly irreconcilable with potential as a creative process of encountering, and risks a much more impoverished concept that is liable to concretion.

KEYWORDS:

• Deleuze
• virtual
• actual
• digital ontology
• potential
• improvisation

Introduction: seeing potential

‘They’ve got potential.’

How many times have we heard or uttered those words? For teachers, it’s a phrase that often indicates a student isn’t yet achieving an expected standard; a level perhaps the teacher can see even if the student can’t. It might be a way of informing a parent that their offspring could gain higher marks, if only they put more energy and effort into their work. But is that utterance merely a euphemistic way of telling someone that they ‘could do better’? And what of the verb choices? They have got potential. Are we to understand potential as some sort of defined, observable property- like dark hair or long fingers?

Potential is not just something that is talked about. It is simultaneously a focus of attainment (Theurer, Berner, and Lipowsky 2016), forms definitions that underpin global educational policies (OECD 2014) and is presented as something that needs ‘unlocking’ from current education systems (Couch, Towne, and Wozniak 2018). It is given serious consideration across all subjects and at all levels; numerous books aimed at educators, employers and leaders indicate as much with various titles tell us that we need to ‘ignite,’ ‘access,’ ‘reach,’ ‘uncover’ and ‘find’ it. A common thread linking all these ways of understanding potential is that it is something. It can be assessed, measured, or released from a student as if it has been trapped by external forces. The emphasis is frequently on ensuring individuals create certain ‘mindsets’ or participate in prescribed activities that will help to ‘free’ the potential from the student or assist them in ‘reaching’ their potential – as if it is a fixed point in space.

There seems to be something inherently problematic with these ways of understanding potential. Firstly, it gives the impression that it is something already specified: a destination to be reached or an entity to be unleashed into the world. Whether potential is something one achieves (like a gold star) or releases (like a captured animal), the underlying idea is that it already exists in some form, and it is somehow independent of the person whose potential it is. Consider the wording from the OECD’s PISA 2012 report on problem-solving skills of students in the UK:

Problem-solving competency is an individual’s capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and resolve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious. It includes the willingness to engage with such situations in order to achieve one’s potential as a constructive and reflective citizen.

(OECD 2014, 122)

Or of comments on using augmented reality (AR) in classrooms:

I’m personally and firmly in the AR camp for now … Rewiring education is not about predicting the potential of students and technology in some hypothetical future; it’s about unlocking all of this potential today.

(Couch, Towne, and Wozniak 2018, 157)

How can students ‘achieve’ or ‘unlock’ all of this potential if it hasn’t already been established? The ‘constructive and reflective citizen’ must exist in some form for otherwise how would those conducting the PISA study know which students were achieving it? The potential Couch, Towne, and Wozniak (2018) want technology to release from bored and disengaged students in the classroom presumably resides somewhere. Is there not a paradox with the very idea that potential – that which is becoming – is also something that is conceived of fully formed? Let us take the idea of a student who is struggling to unlock or reach their potential in mathematics. What is being said about that student? Is there a separate, more mathematically able version of that student hiding away somewhere? How might we find them? Or how are they to ‘reach’ their mathematical potential? Is that a fixed point in space, or can it be moved to make it easier to grasp?

Of course, such ideas are ridiculous. So why is it that the language surrounding potential is seemingly so inadequate?

Perhaps it helps to understand potential this way because it is a convenient fit for a system in service to that which is predictable and measurable. Student A has reached their mathematical potential when they move from a Level 5 to a Level 6. Or to put it another way: if Student B completes x number of additional questions on tasks y and z, then they will unlock their potential of becoming a level 7 student. Thinking of potential as something recognisable and repeatable is certainly efficient, because then it can be monitored, assessed, and tabulated; of great use if your aim is to predict and prove the efficacy of your practice or to show that you have reached a certain standard or competency. And indeed, when it comes to many jobs, subjects or skills, that is important. I want to know my dentist has reached at least a basic level of proficiency when it comes to wielding the drill in their hand.

But surely our concept of potential has so much more to offer.

It is on this point that the rest of the paper now turns.

Part one: Deleuze and an Image of Thought; Deleuzean virtuality

It is telling that potential tends to be ‘seen’ in a student when they are already engaged in related activity- a student’s potential for physics is more likely to be recognised in the science laboratory; a student’s potential for athletics is more likely recognised on the sports field. This seems to reveal two things:

Firstly, potential appears less like an essential part of an individual and more like an activity reliant on interpretation. I am reminded of a story my partner (a jazz musician and composer of over forty years) told of one of his early encounters with a music teacher in his secondary school. There were few opportunities for him to perform, given that there was no orchestra or recital evenings and what music education there was, was entirely entrenched in the classical tradition. However, his father was a jazz pianist and so he did get numerous chances to hear live music and to engage with musicians regularly. His early influences included Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum and Bill Evans. When, in the school hall, he started playing some of the chords and improvisations inspired by these greats, there was no encouragement or ‘recognition of his potential’ as a jazz pianist, rather he was tersely instructed to ‘stop making that noise.’ The teacher had little time for jazz and my partner never played a piano in school again. He did not interpret my partner as a potential pianist because he did not recognise the activity as musical.

Secondly, potential appears to be something dynamic; a creative process that relies on the openness of those involved to acknowledge, accept and foster that which is becoming. It is not hard to imagine that, were it not for the opportunities afforded to my partner to play outside of school, his experience in school would have quashed any further desire to learn the piano and it’s unlikely he would have pursued a career in music. If all those around him shared a similar attitude towards jazz and felt his playing was merely ‘noise,’ would he still have had that potential? If he had stopped playing piano all together in that moment, would the potential still exist today? What if he had decided to turn his attention to woodwork? Was the potential carpenter just biding his time until the potential pianist moved aside? It seems more likely that potential is more akin to a process than it is a fixed characteristic of someone’s identity. That is not to say that there are not traits that might enable individuals to become more adept at certain activities. Being tall might be helpful when it comes to playing basketball, but this is surely far too simplistic an understanding of potential; not every person over two metres tall is a potential basketball player.

The way in which my partner’s teacher thought of potential, and the language commonly used to describe it, reveals a link between the ways in which thought and potential are commonly perceived and the problems raised as a result. In chapter three of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze questions the presuppositions underpinning commonly held notions of thought and this is helpful when it comes to exploring potential. He argues that it is impossible to know where to begin in Philosophy, as it is an impossible to task to distinguish subjective presuppositions from objective ones:

Descartes, for example, in the Second Meditation, does not want to define man as a rational animal because such a definition explicitly presupposes the concepts of rationality and animality: in presenting the Cogito as a definition, he therefore claims to avoid all the objective presuppositions which encumber those procedures that operate by genus and difference. It is clear, however, that he does not escape presuppositions of another kind-subjective or implicit presuppositions contained in opinions rather than concepts: it is presumed that everyone knows, independently of concepts, what is meant by self, thinking, and being.

(Deleuze 2004, 164)

In trying to avoid presuppositions, however, the philosopher ‘takes the part of the idiot’ (Deleuze 2004, 165); we cannot avoid presuppositions, they merely possess us in different forms. The only individual free of presuppositions is the one ‘full of ill will who does not manage to think either naturally or conceptually’ (Deleuze 2004, 166). Presuppositions form part of our being-in-the-world. That is not to say that it is impossible to change or reject such presuppositions, but even to eschew them means establishing and cementing them in order to do so. Descartes, in stating ‘I think, therefore I am’ was presupposing a universally held and immovable concept of ‘I,’ ‘think’ and ‘am.’ This, Deleuze argues, is a dogmatic or moral image of thought; an image that is dependent on a model of identity, rather than the version of difference outlined in chapters one and two of Difference and Repetition. The model amounts to one of recognition, defined by Deleuze as the ‘harmonious exercise of all the faculties upon a supposed same object’ (Deleuze 2004, 169) but the problem is, this recognition is reliant on ‘the subjective principle of collaboration of the faculties for “everybody”’ (Deleuze 2004, 169). In seeing thought in this manner, philosophy fails in its attempts to break from the doxa that undermines it. Without questioning the Image of Thought, there will always be a hierarchy of concepts that grow from it and concept creation is forever destined to be an act of concept recognition. That being the case, then what we believe to be an act of thinking is really an act of recognition. Recognition may well preoccupy our thoughts, but that does not mean we are thinking.

Similarly, potential is commonly viewed as something recognised but what is the object being recognised? Potential as a concept is not being referenced in such examples. It is not being recognised as a thing-in-itself, rather it is being used as a modifier: a potential pianist; potential teacher; potential writer, etc. So how might this be understood? When a person talks about recognising, reaching, or unlocking potential, are they not condemning themselves to commit the same Deleuzean error of adhering to a dogmatic image? Perhaps they have an idealistic version of what a pianist/teacher/writer is like and the characteristics and behaviours of the student in front of them resemble that ideal- a Platonic version of those kinds of people. It certainly appears as if my partner’s teacher fell into this category. He did not recognise jazz as music and so did not recognise my partner’s potential as a musician. For him, ‘real’ pianists played classical music and, crucially, music students played classical music in school. Or maybe they recognise the rudimentary skills and techniques the student is displaying and can imagine them in particular contexts. For instance, a student might show an ability to maintain good rhythmic timing during a drama activity and the teacher recognises their potential as a musician or a dancer, even though they are in an acting class. But there is an inherent contradiction- a paradox even – when someone recognises potential as something or in someone, because what they are really doing is representing that person, event, characteristic as something that already exists – namely a concept or concepts handed down from the past.

So how might we avoid reverting back to these dogmatic images? Deleuze (2004, 175) argues that ‘something in the world forces us to think. This something is an object not of recognition, but of a fundamental encounter [which] can only be sensed.’ Our confrontations with the world push us into thinking; a creative process that relies on the senses and gives rise to a state of openness to new possibilities of becoming. Thinking is an embodied action brought forth into and by the world of which it is a part. Perhaps potential then, can be stood as a form of encountering. To encounter something is not only to meet it unexpectedly or by chance, but its etymology (hailing from encontre, meaning to confront or oppose) gives it additional meaning- to contend with difficulties and struggles. Perhaps this is an interpretation of potential that gives us something more to work with: it is not something to recognise and release, but an encounter that opens up new ways of thinking and seeing; a creative activity that springs from and shapes dynamic relationships between people and their environment. An activity reliant on what is sensed.

This may seem somewhat divorced from the reality of the classroom (how many lesson plans have ‘creating chance meetings and opportunities for confrontation’ as their Learning Objectives?) and so it is at this point that I would like to turn to Deleuze’s exploration of reality and his conception of the virtual as part of that reality.

‘Virtual’ is frequently used as a modifier to indicate something that is intangible or simulated: a virtual world, virtual reality, virtual selves. This can muddy the waters as Deleuze is not thinking about the virtual in terms of something distinct from lived reality; on the contrary, the virtual is real. He does, however, distinguish the virtual from the actual, though the two are intimately bound. What might commonly be called reality is perhaps closer to what Deleuze would call the ‘actual’- that is a ‘realm of things that exist independently of our ways of thinking about them and perceiving them’ (William 2010, 223) but the actual is a manifestation of the virtual, which itself is a synthesis of actualities.

Deleuze is keen to point out that when we talk of the virtual, we are not talking about the possible:

The only danger … is that the virtual could be confused with the possible. The possible is opposed to the real; the process undergone by the possible is therefore a ‘realisation.’ By contrast, the virtual is not opposed to the real; it possesses a full reality all by itself.

(Deleuze 2004, 263)

Why is the ‘possible opposed to the real’? Because in order to be seen as something possible, it ‘is understood as an image of the real, while the real is supposed to resemble the possible’ (Deleuze 2004, 263). On this view, the real amounts to something little more than the possible plus existence. An ordinary understanding of potential then, and the resultant problems with it, is akin to Deleuze’s criticism of confusing the possible with the virtual. The language around potential – that it needs to be ‘recognised,’ ‘reached,’ ‘unlocked’- presupposes existence in some form because it must be determinable and predictable: Child x needs to complete these activities in order to reach their potential; if Child y does this, then they will unlock their potential and so on. On this view, potential is merely the real minus existence. In Deleuze’s terms, this is not reality, or at least it is not reality in its fullest form because reality constitutes the virtual and the actual. When a teacher ‘recognises’ the potential in a student, they are stating something more akin to a possibility, but this is an impoverished concept, because it is reliant on representations of what already exists.

So, what does this mean in reality? Virtuality is a reality that coexists with Actuality and has ‘the capacity to bring about actualisations’ (Boundas 2010, 300). There is no such thing as a purely actual object because ‘every actual surrounds itself with a cloud of virtual images. This cloud is composed of a series of more or less extensive coexisting circuits, along which the virtual images are distributed, and around which they run.’ (Deleuze and Parnet 2007, 148) Talk of clouds and circuits in the context of a virtual reality inevitably lead us to think of computerised worlds populated with avatars and binary coding. But that is not the interpretation of virtual reality I wish to explore at this moment; in fact, such explanations arguably run counter to a Deleuzean virtual reality. A Deleuzean virtual is ephemeral and gives rise to actualities, but those actualities can fall away and become virtual – a continuous movement between the circuitry of reality.

Part two: potential as an improvisatory process

An activity that allows for the fluctuations between virtualities and actualisations to be clearly experienced is improvisation. Often, improvisation is conflated with ‘making things up on the spot’- as if there is no prior context or grounding for what is produced. However, that is not the case. To improvise requires an array of skills and experiences that are honed over time. When musicians improvise for instance, what comes into being (or is actualised) is dependent on a multitude of factors: the tastes, feelings and skills of the musicians involved; the instruments at their disposal; the asperities of the room in which they play; the responses and demographics of the audiences. There are numerous ways in which an improvisation might go, but they will be influenced and moulded by the forces and environment in which the improvisation takes place. Even if a musician is improvising around a predetermined set of chord structures, there will still be differences between the pieces that come into being across different performances. In a similar way, we might think of all those conditions that allow a piece to be actualised as the virtual reality that coexists alongside the actualised reality of the music that gets created. What is significant is the dynamic relationships between the virtual elements (feelings, past experiences etc.) and the actual elements (instruments, performance space, time of day etc.). Improvisations can be restricted, even anticipated, to a greater or lesser degree, according to the structures that are put in place. These structures include genre, the dynamic of the performers, the emotion on stage, the cultural context, to name but a few.

To illustrate this from a real-life example: I’m currently the resident drummer with a theatre group based at the Bristol Improv Theatre where we perform an improvised comedy-musical inspired by stories from the audience. We don’t know exactly how the story will unfold and we don’t know what the audience will give us in terms of the anecdote that forms the basis of the show’s narrative. However, once a character and storyline have been established (actualised), that actuality will influence what happens next. What’s more, we can anticipate – based on previous shows and practice sessions, as well as the conventions of the genre – when a song will take place. Having studied the structures of various musical theatre songs, it becomes more-or-less obvious when a verse is heading towards a chorus or middle eight, which will influence what I play and on which instrument: is this a rhythm to be played on the cymbals? Snare? What about bongos or the cowbell? But these structures do not determine what happens. It is quite plausible that something will take us away from what is expected: a performer hesitates and another takes over; the audience laughs (affecting the pace of the delivery of the lyrics); someone has an idea for a dance move and the song evolves into an instrumental breakdown, allowing for greater emphasis on and complexity from the music.

But these are not decisions to be made in the sense that anyone consciously weighs up competing options and makes a choice. I don’t deliberate on each rhythm, instrument, or choice of stick before picking one; a song is far too impatient to wait for such contemplations and would blithely move on without me. Rather it is part of a response to what is happening in the room – both on stage and in the audience. It is part of an encounter of which Deleuze speaks, that which can only be sensed. Which sticks or brushes I use will be motivated by a host of virtual images: memories of their sounds; a recollection of their proximity (if the song suddenly goes in a different direction I may not have time to pick up the brushes I placed behind me, I’ll have to opt for those near my left hand); the sound of a similar song where I know the drummer used wire brushes and so on. What becomes actualised, in terms of the story and the music, is a result of a synthesis of all of the events that have taken place before and in the moments that precede and produce them. And as soon as the note, bar, song becomes actualised it passes into the virtual, perhaps to become part of a further interplay at another point in time. Of course, these are simple examples taken from a light-hearted comedy show. But the point is that not only do the scenes, stories, songs and characters become actualised from virtualities that surround them there is also continuous movement and interplay between the virtual and the actual. The actual is affected by chance (two singers, sensing slight hesitation in the group, step forward to start an opening verse and sing dissonant lines. The song suddenly becomes about the competitive nature of these two characters and twin protagonists are born). And so the realities of the world – both actual and virtual – act as forces upon us and we on them.

In improvisation, the potential of a melody, a storyline, the development of a character, is not so much a fixed characteristic of any of those things. Nor is it something that is identified and worked towards but rather it is a process of actualisation. The forces that influence that process – the virtualities- were also actualities at some point in their history and have a dynamic relationship with what becomes actualised moment to moment. Virtual reality is both a context and a force with which we interact, and the nuances of those interactions give rise to different actualities. Potential describes the creative process during which the relationship between the virtual and the actual bear fruit. This is not to say that ‘anything goes;’ in the same way that there will be certain forces acting upon the improvisation (the skills, personalities, relationships of the improvisers; the notes already played; the response of the audience and so on) so too are there forces acting upon and engaging with our students, staff and parents. In improvisation, there is obviously space to experiment and explore, but there are considerations around musicianship and trust that mean suddenly modulating into an odd time signature in the middle of a pop song might not be the most ethical decision to make. It might be exciting and productive in a rehearsal space full of experienced improvisers, but to suddenly break the groove and the song during the opening number of a live show, when a new performer is taking their first solo, may well be seen as unsupportive. Improvisation is about creating, not creators: the moment a performer decides to play simply want they want, regardless of whatever else is unfolding, the opportunities for encounters diminish. It would be a little like me suddenly insisting at a family gathering that the conversation should now be about Deleuze. Or a teacher dismissing a student’s question because it didn’t fit with the intended plan for that lesson. Of course, there might be very good reasons for either of those occurrences and it is possible that what emerges is lively philosophical discussion or a helpful lesson that clearly explained a complex topic. The point is that skilful improvisers are able to create and respond to the encounters from which potential proceeds. The experience of improvisation as explored earlier perhaps gets us a step closer to understanding potential as an activity. When we think about potential for our students, or indeed for ourselves, we need to bring into the conversation the whole reality with which we are interacting. But the virtual realities that bring about actualisations are of course affected, with varying degrees of determinacy, by the actualities that feed into them. The final section of this paper, therefore, explores how the mechanisation and technologization of thinking and being, affects concepts of potential.

Part three: potential and mechanised thought

The arrival of the pandemic has had a significant impact on all aspects of life around the globe, not least teaching. Online lessons, meetings conducted via video conferencing, the drive towards app-based exercises, fundamentally disrupted the experiences and expectations of students, teachers and families. Of course, technology in classrooms has been increasing for many years and the use of digital resources is a familiar practice in many countries. But their sudden and prolonged employment as a replacement for face-to-face interactions was, for many, entirely alien. Quite apart from the ways in which it exacerbated existing inequalities (Montacute 2020; Bonal and González 2020; Andrew et al. 2021), student experiences of online learning were often widely varied and with damaging consequences (Battisti et al. 2022). Though political and socio-economic consequences are not dealt with directly in this paper, it gives further cause for consideration of the seemingly inescapable drive to automate and digitalise education and practice.

So, what impact might the increase of online and digital interactions have on our concept of potential? Of course, there are the practical effects to consider in terms of the limits of the technology: unreliable connections, limited bandwidth and the enduring struggle to find the ‘unmute’ button inevitably hamper the progress of the activity we’re engaged in. Latency and the way in which video conferencing audio settings impose a one-speaker-at-a-time rule, create frustrating delays and disruptions to conversation, which not only use up time but cut off avenues of exploration as participants are forced into false-start soliloquies that favour those with the loudest voices and quickest responses. It is almost impossible to read body language (entirely impossible when cameras are switched off or avatars are used in place of the actual person) and so identifying tell-tale signs of engagement or disengagement is reduced to guess-work or a reflection on one’s own feelings. It is not surprising that the subjects that really struggled with moving on to digital platforms were from the creative arts particularly those of drama, music and dance; their reliance on physical interactions meant that a forced move to a digital space was likely to be destructive. My ability to teach drums online was severely hampered by the technology: I was unable to see my student’s feet and hands moving at the same time. The video conferencing software ‘heard’ the drums as different voices and so would not allow for me to hear more than one drum at a time. The time delays meant we were unable to play together. But it is not simply that the technology is too rudimentary to allow for a nuanced experience of these subjects. Even if online classes took place in the most sophisticated multi-dimensional virtual reality spaces that stimulated multiple senses, a digital ontology is fundamentally different from (and, to a certain extent, incompatible with) ontologies grounded in the physical world. Thus, if digital spaces and interactions are to dominate reality (both actual and virtual), then that will inevitably impact our concept of potential, as our encounters will become increasingly determined by digital dictates.

The online classroom is not simply an alternative version of the physical classroom, in the same way that synthetic strings on a keyboard are not an alternative version of a violin. The online space is itself an actualisation and it is important to consider what virtualities and actualisations are coming into being as a result of its presence. What encounters, if any, are being prioritised? Deleuze’s virtual is a place of productive chance, encounters that flout predictability and duplication and what becomes actualised is engaged in a generative relationship with the virtual. The virtual of the digital space is antithetical to this. In The Force and the Virtual: Deleuze, Science and Philosophy, Aden Evans investigates ways in which a digital virtual world are irreconcilable with Deleuzean ideas of virtuality:

The exclusion of accident is a top priority in the digital, and this project is remarkably successful. Digital technologies operate with astonishing regularity and accuracy, doing exactly what they are programmed to do nearly one hundred per cent of the time. (This is not to say that computers always do what the user desires; rather they follow the rules established in their hardware and software architectures, which may sometimes be flawed.) A digital process is never aleatory, and it is in fact impossible to simulate the aleatory. Rather, the digital is determinate. Every operation proceeds according to a fixed rule calculable in advance. The data themselves are wholly determinate; every 0 is exactly 0, every 1 exactly 1. There is no excess, no character, no “kind” of bit.

(Evens 2010, 151)

It is hardly surprising then, that those subjects that depend on openness and exploration withered in the digital landscape. It is not simply a question of creating state-of-the-art resources that overcome the technical hitches, because even those, though undoubtedly more sophisticated, will be operating within the paradigm of binary code and programmable outcomes. The dynamic forces at work in a Deleuzean virtual – the process of potential at work in improvisation -– are surrendered in the digital. The digital space is a world of impotential because ‘every input has been anticipated in advance and every output is a necessary consequence of some input’ (Evens 2010, 151) Mistaking potential for the possible is almost inevitable in the digital world. But more than that, its paradigm of predictability favours concepts and ways of thinking that are similarly constituted.

The digital space has been imposing itself on offline virtualities since long before the pandemic, however. It is part of a trend of mechanisation that even predates computers. Predictability and repeatability have become gold standards of educational practice in many institutions. Consider the language routinely employed: aims, bite-sized, content, deliver, framework, learning designer, MLE, modular, outcomes, platform, programme; the list goes on. It is not simply that these words refer to entities or concepts from the digital world, they are used to refer to roles, practices and spaces in education more generally. The determined and determinable processes of digital operations have influenced our concepts in the classroom for many years now. Assessments invariably favour subjects that are easily codified and quantifiable. Consider the way in which a major UK exam board assesses its drama qualification for students taking their General Certificates of Secondary Education. The subject is divided into three components: one assessed by a written exam (worth 40%), one a practical assessment of devised drama (also 40%, although 60 out of 80 marks are for a written logbook) and one practical assessment of a scripted piece (worth 20%). I do not wish to suggest that there is no place for an ‘academic’ study of drama or that I object to the expectation that students understand the theory underpinning much of theatrical practice. But what is the rationale for placing such weight on written work, even in the practical assessment?

That the majority of the marks for this drama qualification are awarded for a student’s written work raises questions about what is valued in the subject. Of course, it is notoriously difficult to apply a scheme of marks to live performance; not least because much of its success relies on the audience engaging with the performers, who are as much a part of the creative process as those on stage. To attempt to make an ‘objective’ assessment of a performer’s skill is already presupposing the contentious validity of the move from a participatory audience member to impartial observer. What becomes actualised in a live performance is too dynamic, too connected to its virtualities that they cannot possibly be controlled or measured. A written paper has the possibility to be much more accountable. Question stems can be repeated; exemplars offer structures that govern expectation and specialist lexis can act as placeholders for knowledge. Once a pattern of ‘reasonable,’ ‘good,’ and ‘excellent’ responses has been established, it becomes possible to go through the marking sequence – crediting those responses that conform syllabus to the outcomes. The efficient, quantifiable and measurable characteristics of a digital virtuality are far more seductive than Deleuzean virtualities, particularly in socio-political contexts that promote calculable growth.

So where does this leave potential? To be clear: this is not a plea to do away with digital technologies nor is it a technophobic treatise on the tyranny of Twitter and Tik Tok. Digital objects are both actualities and virtualities in the world and as such offer up opportunities and spaces for creativity. However, it is important to be aware of the ways in which digital ontologies are reducing those spaces; a reduction that could well be accelerated in light of a move towards digital technologies in the wake of COVID-19. It is perhaps unavoidable that technological spaces – actualities determined by mechanisation – will favour possibility over potential or merely conflate the two for the sake of efficiency. And it is not merely a question concerning better technology – mechanisation imposes itself on and alters thought but thought struggles to impose on or alter it; technology repeats itself in its own likeness. If potential, as conceived through a Deleuzean lens, is an encounter – a creative process that arises from realities constituting a swirling interplay of virtualities and actualities – then the rudiments of the improviser: activity, chance, unpredictability, sense and sensation, must be given time and space in practice and improvisation must be valued as a legitimate part of teaching and learning.

Bio- Catherine Herring

Catherine is a PhD student at the UCL Institute of Education, London, where she is exploring concepts of mind, rhythm and rationality. In 2019, her collaboration with Professor Paul Standish, Displacing the one: dislocated thinking in Higher Education, was published by Routledge. It appears in the book Conversations on Embodiment across Higher Education. She also tutors English and drama and is an examiner for English Language.

When she’s not playing with words, Catherine spends her time playing the drums, which she started learning alongside her PhD. She now plays with several bands in her home city of Bristol and is the resident drummer with the Bristol Improv Theatre.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.