Heidegger

The first strategies of thoughts lecture in the series was on Boredom from the philosopher Heidegger. It was my first experience of Heidegger so it took a little while to adjust to his writing style which is almost a stream of consciousness. He examines the subject from one angle and then another. He never really focuses or comes to a definitive answer to what he is examining. Despite this initially being frustrating you quickly realise that this is an important way of thinking that can be applied to your own practice. It is not the answer but the journey that is important and so viewing things from different angles has a great value.

Heidegger also highlights the importance of documenting your ideas as it is not possible to hold two thoughts in your mind. Therefore techniques such as his writing style and mind-mapping are important parts of research.

The notion of time is one way of understanding boredom. That when we experience boredom time seems to slow, however we try to avoid this. It is almost contradictory to our nature as we wish to live for a long time yet we are wishing our life away. Heidegger also uses Dasein which refers to man as in state of Being, which is very structuralist. For him the human mind is more static and fixed in itself, which used as a basis for patriarchal society.

So from Heidegger's work around boredom I can apply to my own practice his stratedgy of thought. I can think around my subject and try to view it from different angles in order to be more thorough and original. Another concept I can learn from Heidegger relates to the nature of boredom. It is that an object itself is not boring but it is a combination of our own perception and the object that creates boredom. This can be applied in my practice in terms of remembering where I place my own work. That something like too much exposure can produce monotony and so the right amount of work in the right place will produce the best results.