In alignment is another line of the Western thought which concerns the tendency to operate from a fixed or grounded position: either the position of being/man or the subject of humanity as in the former example or thinking beyond the human realm. In this thinking life tends to work through fixed perceptions that produce a perceiver and perceived, an inside and an outside. Instead we should try to free thought from a fixed point of view or position of judgement, a way that allows thought to wander, to move beyond any recognized ground or home, to create new territories (Colebrook, 2002).

 

Furthermore, there is in Western thought a tendency to always privilege a politics of the actual over the potential. This thinking is possible by stressing human life as already expressed and constituted. Therefore it is vital to consider that any thought or image we might have will always grasp only a part or expression of difference.

Consequently, to be able to explore and see life in different ways, to move and reveal "new things" or think of potentialities we have to let go of the actual and as life was always constituted in certain ways. Otherwise thinking is only caught up in circular and repetitive patterns a nothing but a perceiver and perceived and an inside and an outside is or can be possible. In its place we may consider the potentialities in what we see, in how we look, in attention, perception, articulation and affect, in relations, in the unfulfilled. To expand our view of what we might attend to, see, usually label and hold as fixed images we need to constantly overturn, question and disrupt our terminologies and our differences. As MacLure (2009) so neatly put it: to allow people to mean more than one thing at a time; to fashion moblie and nuanced readings of situations; to connect with others despite not knowing exactly 'who' they themselves are. In other words true thinking does not operate from an ‘image of thought’, it tries to take thought beyond any of its determined images (Deleuze 1994, p. 276).  By this we may transform the present into a truly new future.

So, we are advocating a way of thinking philosophically that get us out of the trap of fixing meaning. We promote a thinking that opens up previously unthought questions without seeking “true” or definite answers. Accordingly we try to think with theory as an attempt to open up, rather than foreclose, meaning. We try to work against the desire to create a coherent and interesting narrative where "life as we know it" is presented. We try to use theory and to be brave in our effort to further explore the relations and practices of gaze and vision as well as different forces at work when something strikes attention and thus is made accountable for, perhaps as a "happening" in classrooms and/or in research. 

“…is in vain that we say what we see; what we see never resides in what we say" (Foucault, p. 9, 1994).
 
 

The relation of language to what we see, an image or in an observation of a classroom is an infinite relation. Foucalt (1994) explains that it is “not that words are imperfect, or that, when confronted by the visible, they prove insuperably inadequate” (p. 9). Starting to give proper names to what we observe would form useful landmarks and may avoid ambiguous designations and the words would tell us what the observer (the researcher) is looking at. It is in vain though that we attempt to show, by the use of images, metaphors, or similes, what we are saying. The space where for example a classroom is acting, becomes only something defined by a sequential elements of syntax. That is not what deployed attention and was perceived by our/the researcher eyes. Language is merely an artifice: it gives us a finger to point with, in other words, we cannot pass the space from where one speaks to the space where one looks, that is to fold one over the other as though they were equivalents. 

 

Instead we would like to spotlight the understanding of how researcher’s, student’s, teacher’s (and others) attentiveness/attention may emerge, is directed, focused and aligned in classroom practices (and elsewhere). In other words our effort is to give focus to the materiality of articulation, percept(ion), affect(ion), attraction and (content and expression). We argue that these concepts all in different ways “hook into” material-semiotic processes of classrooms and theory and produce these as observable or not. In the particular excerpt that follows, the attention and the actions produced in the classroom seems to be bound to particular simultaneousness of all these concepts and power. 

Lektionen startar med att en projektor projekterar en ljusbild på tavlan. Tavelväggen artikulerar ordbilder som interagerar med eleverna. Det framgår av tavelväggens artikulation att lektionen handlar om elektrisk och mekanisk energi och uppgiften beskrivs av de projicerade/artikulerande orden. Bredvid datorprojektors ljusprojicering/artikulation skriver pennhandläraren. Bokstäverna på tavlan artikulerar fler och fler olika formler angående energi. Handansikten gnids, stolkroppar skruvas och några datorhänder skriver med hjälp av tangenttryckningar. 

 Pennhanden ritar också på tavlan där den blå pennfärghanden ritar en rektangel och där den röda pennfärghanden ritar streck runt rektangeln. På så sätt verkar tavlan interaga med blickarna som fäst på den samma, där också datorprojektorn visar en animering av en generators uppbyggnad och funktion. Några pennhänder antecknar vad som händer liksom några datorhänder. 

 

Datoranimeringen slutar att projicera på tavlan och artikulationerna upphör. Då flyger en amperemeterhand framför tavlan. Samtidigt släcker en handelkontakt ljuset i klassrummet och en ny ljusdatorprojektion artikulerar på tavlan. Många ögon växlar fästpunkter mellan tavlans/projektorns artikulationer och de ganska intensiva handrörelser som förekommer framför tavlan. Då dessa rörelser avlutas börjar många stolkroppar att röra på sig. Handelkontakten tänder samtidigt ljuset i klassrummet igen, ljusprojektionen/artikulationen kan endast uppfattas svagt. Många olika handföremål börjar göra små förflyttningar. 

What[LS1]  is in the frame (the visual image) at the start of the excerpt is a micro sequence of lesson about energy or here rather explained as the motional articulation of voice, where the lightboard articulation of the content of the lesson can be viewed as a speech less image that also can be seen as a variation of voice, telling the story of energy. An articulation in this case is not a property of human speech; it overarches the division between subject and object (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Articulations should here be understood as relational movements of bodies and expressions in the classroom. As for example when the amperemeterhand flies in front of the whiteboard attracting the gazes in the room. These noiseless voices/images can according to Mazzei and Jackson (2012) function as out of field sounds – signifying a shift in power relationships and thereby pulling the actors/students/researcher into a different grid of intelligibility. However, not all of these articulations or noiseless voices come to matter even if they are within the frame of the students or the observing researcher. 

To “hear” such voices or to describe how an articulation becomes observed (observable?) is neither simple nor conclusive. In our efforts we like to plug in the concepts of affect and attraction. MacLure et. al (2010) suggest in their article that the obstructive energies from silent voices have the power to affect us because they exceed the limits of the spoken word. An example of such articulation and affect is shown by the excerpt when the light is turned off in the classroom. This shift in brightness affect the students/teachers/researcher and by that shift it is possible to perceive the articulations from the board more clear. The eyes are attracted to the board and the gazes gets temporarily fixed positions at the board. At the same time the intensively “flying amperemeterhand” attracts the gazes as it is moving rapidly up and down. Attraction is a power, a power that connects the articulations and the gazes. In turn the power of the attraction from these two silent voices make other articulations more shadowed. 

 

Instead the shifts by light/darkness and movement increase the attraction between the board and the gazes which can be viewed as a relational attraction. At the same time this happens it generates affect in the classroom. What distinguishes attraction from affect is its connectivity and relation to another object (for instance, an observer). It is a power that pulls objects towards one another. Whereas affect is independent of any observer or other object, attraction is defined by reciprocity. As Deleuze (1997) noted, affect is the response prompted by an experience, as in this case by shifts in light and by movement that is perceived by the observers. Affect is the capacity to move, the power or the force of articulations. 

·          [LS1]the percetion and affect of image/sound/light (ljuset släcks)·         the relational attraction of gaze (ögonrörelser)·         the motional articulation of voice (ljustavlans artikulation /en amperemeterhand flyger...diskutera vidare bredden i "voice") 

 

 

When going through the field notes, this specific sentence caught our interest and provoked several questions: If nothing happened, how was it even observed? Is it ever possible to see what happens? What does saying that something happens mean, and what can we say about happenings that are not visible?

 

The more we thought about it and discussed it, the whole sentence seemed to be produced by a quite conventional observational research practice where research subjects and research object can be separated. On the other hand, we also realized the sentence in itself did also blur these borders, tying them together into each other again.  Because, when writing “nothing happens here that is visible” there is in deed a series of relations and practices that enable this observational note appearing on that piece of paper, that later on left the classroom.  

 

This triggered us to seek to further explore these relations and practices of gaze and vision as well as different forces at work when something strikes attention and thus is made accountable for, perhaps as a "happening" in classrooms and/or in research. 

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 Patti Lather & Elizabeth A. St. Pierre (2013) Post-qualitative research, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26:6, 629-633, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2013.788752 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788752 

Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. (A. M. S. Smith, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1966). 

Spivak, G. C. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

St. Pierre, E. (2011). Post-qualitative research: The critique and the coming after. In N. Denzin
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