Fergus JordanDave LoderAndrew MolloyMirjami Schuppert

20th September - 4th October

Opening Culture Night Belfast: Friday 20th September

University GalleryUniversity of UlsterYork StreetBelfastBT15 1ED

A Pattern Language

Mirjami Schuppert

Peer groups are inclusive. Everyone is part of something, some sort of group or another. And yes, indeed, loneliness does exist, there are people who have no friends, but aren’t they also part of one group or another, one that might be defined by their social background, age, race, hometown, education etc. On a more specific notion, aren’t we all also part of a peer group, and thus participate in a system of peer review, even if not aware of it, nor willing to be its participants.

But what is the position, the role of an individual in the systems? Who defines, in the end, the place of the individual in the system? No matter how I try to think about peerage, what comes to my mind is a circle, a circle that is at the same time inclusive and exclusive. But even if I visualise the group, the peer group, it does not help me much in locating the peer, finding the individual’s place within the system. Is the member of the peer group inside the circle, or are they the circle itself? A circle that is, or is not, connected to other circles. A closed, yet at the same time open circle.

In this circular form, the ought-to-be democratic form of evaluation, a high level of selectivity takes place. Isn’t it, behind the illusion of objectivity, which is perceived through system of peer review, at the same time horribly subjective? The very system of peer review is commonly questioned in scientific context, and the ethics of peer review system challenged. Isn’t the system occasionally merely an excuse to include some, while at the same time excluding others?

It might seem that every peer group and every situation in which they exist is distinct and with their own individual character. However, the (unwritten) rules of peerage seem to move from one circle to the other rather unchanged. A certain pattern appears to be common to different peer groups – the pattern of self-regulation. The practice of peer review which is at the very core of the system – either as conscious or unconscious – is organised around self-regulation. Self-regulation holds the group together; the system of peer review completely relies on it. It is the pattern of self-regulation that makes the system with the peer transferable, the move from the legal system, and indeed the royal family, to the academia, art world and the playgrounds. The pattern becomes transferrable and applicable to any social group and profession. The peers can find their place, whether it be inside the circle or the circle itself.

The In/Exclusive Circle

However, even if the pattern as such stays the same, each interpretation thereof is, by necessity, different. The peers must negotiate their way into the circle, to become part of the – at the same time inclusive and exclusive – system. We must agree to the rules, to sign an unwritten civil contract when we enter the group. Through personal experience and (in)voluntary participation in the activities of a peer group, we become part of it. By saying yes, we agree to patterns of peer review that give form to the peer groups. The choice to enter is free, yet once we are in, the civil contract binds us. The only way out is by completely dropping out and becoming an outcast.

But interpretations are different; each group makes their own rules. By acting out, trying and testing, the pattern is revised. The pattern is adaptable and must be actualised and individualised for the use at each new application. Although there is a pattern, a transferable pattern, unavoidable negotiations change the essence, and the purpose of the pattern of self-regulation and the way it functions. It is the users, the peers – us – who collectively make up our own rules and upon that decide how the game is played. The way we walk through a park, by not using the pathways designed by the city planners, we create new paths that alter from the planned ones. After a while, those paths turn into patterns that others will follow, a new set of rules has been created upon which other peers act, and inform parallel peer groups. Through repetition a casual act turns into a norm – a norm that must be followed by others. Through negotiations and making the rules a peer group defines their place in relation to other groups.

Peer groups are not only inclusive, they also are exclusive. No judgement is possible to pass from the outside. To outsiders, the rules of peer review which are practiced inside the circle are not transparent, and the rationale behind them stays obscure. Also, the objectivity of process may be questionable; that is, to the ones looking from the outside. Even if there is a desire to join the peer group, access may not be granted if criteria are not fulfilled, and thus the threshold remains impenetrable.

From the outside, the decisions which are made on the inside appear uniform, unchallenged and unchallengeable. However, once we are in, the cracks, the nearly invisible movement, the almost inaudible hum that is created by deviance of individual members, start to appear. The individuality of each action which occurs within the peer group, even if it appears to follow same rules and norms of behaviour, it is not quite identical. Each walk, no matter how similar it may seem, is individual, and differs from the other ones. The roads are there, to guide us in ways to walk and talk. However, it is by walking, by using those nearly same steps that others have taken, we rebel against the rules yet at the same time obey them.

A fine balance between belonging to the circle, yet rebelling against the rules, creates the hum that might eventually crack the circle. It is through the subtle changes in the course, the individual footsteps that walk slightly off the course, the planned and built road, that negotiate each peer’s individual place in the system. We come to realise that the peer group is not a closed circle, nor is it an open one, but is it the web of relations between the peers that form the peer group. Individual members within the group make a difference, the web of relationships between the individuals makes the peer group, it creates its dynamics, and eventually gives it its form.

Locating the individual in the system, however, does not make the rules and the pattern any more transparent, or visible to the public. The cracking, the opening and the breaking of the system from the inside through individual actions, through choosing a different path, hardly makes the system disappear altogether. Through locating the peer in the system, and admitting some individual and even revolutionary power to the peer, to us as individual beings, cannot solve the problem of the inside and outside, of inclusivity and exclusivity. Yet, let us come back to the pattern of peer review that is organised around self-regulation. It is this very pattern that secures a balance within the circle, a balance that in its subjectivity can be understood as quasi objective, based on the system of self-regulation. Even those on the outside ought to be able to rely on this very system, even if they cannot participate in the peer group, even if the internal rules stay invisible.

A Pattern Language is a research initiative to investigate the character, architecture and topographic identity of the ‘peer’. The research probes the territorial disposition of the ‘peer’ and seeks to cartographically reveal relations of culture and knowledge in artistic, academic and legal environments. The enquiry is presented as a multi-disciplinary installation and includes video, photography and graphics. Two new works have been commissioned for the exhibition: Dave Loder’s Occupation/occupation, Andrew Molloy’s Tanto Quid. Also presented works from Fergus Jordan’s series Garden Estate.

Special thanks to: John Barry (Queens University Belfast), Charlotte Bosenquet (Prime Artists Collective) and Fabian Schuppert (Queens University Belfast).

Fergus Jordan is an Irish artist based in Belfast. He completed a PhD in Photography at the Research Centre of Art, Design and the Built Environment, University of Ulster (2012). His work with photography investigates the conflict between darkness, night and artificial light, city in photography and the study of post-conflict societies. Fergus is currently a member of the Belfast Exposed Engagement Team, set as part of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation ‘Our Museum’ project.

Dave Loder is an artist, writer and researcher based in Belfast, currently undertaking a doctoral project at the University of Ulster entitled ‘Stammers & Echoes: a manifesto’. His research interests are concerned with the politics of language and ontological processes of territorialisation. Through working in text, sound, film and installation, his artistic practice seeks to expose and untangle complexities of the subjective and temporal experience of the institution of language. Loder has recently finished editing Skin of the Goat, a book concerning NY artist Robin Kahn’s The Art of Sahrawi Cooking project at dOCUMENTA(13), which will be jointly published by GradCAM (Dublin) and Make Art with Purpose (Dallas) and distributed by Autonomedia (New York).

Andrew Molloy is an architect and doctoral researcher based at the University of Ulster, Belfast. His research is concerned with the re-evaluation of the architectural project in the light of a theoretical model devised from the ideas of phenomenological philosophy and the potentially paradigm shifting fields of social neuroscience and reflexive methodology. Andrew seeks to commodify this potentially dense and abstract theory and apply it to the vital yet professionally overlooked aspect of urban cartography as a means of understanding the city as place rather than space. Molloy is a regular contributor to the PLACE blog, the LSE Review of Books and local arts magazine ‘The Ulster Folk’ as well as maintaining his own research blog. He is also an occasional psycho-geographer while maintaining a healthy cynicism of pseudo-psychology.

Mirjami Schuppert is a curator based in Belfast. Having graduated with an MPhil in Cultural History from University of Turku in 2008, she is now pursuing a practice-based PhD, funded by the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Scholarship, at the University of Ulster, Belfast. Her research explores the curator’s role in facilitating artistic interventions into photographic archives. In her practice she deploys dialogical curatorial strategies and is interested in the concept of the curatorial as an open, slowly evolving process. Schuppert has curated internationally, including exhibitions ‘Contacts from the archive’ (Belfast Exposed, Belfast, 2010), ‘World’s End’ (OKK|Raum29, Berlin, 2013) and ‘Virtual Documentaries and Actual Fictions’ (Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, 2014). She has co-edited as well as contributed to art publications. She is a co-founder of EGFK.

The Ulster Research Salon is an independent initiative by current and past doctoral researchers from the Art, Design & Architecture faculty at the University of Ulster, Belfast. Our primary aim is to promote and discuss artistic and trans-disciplinary research practice within academic and extra-academic settings throughout Northern Ireland and beyond.

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