Framing Everyday Experience: Blogging as Art

Between 2005 and 2010, I worked on a PhD at Deakin University. It was a practice-based research thesis which involved the creation of two major projects, Bilateral Kellerberrin and Bilateral Petersham, and the writing of a 45,000 word exegesis whose insights emerged from those projects.

In 2011, the thesis was awarded the Alfred Deakin Medal for Best Doctoral Thesis in the humanities and social sciences. (More info here).

The PhD exegesis is available here.

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Below is the abstract at the start of the exegesis, which gives a brief outline as to what it’s all about.


In his 1934 book Art as Experience, John Dewey called for the reintegration of art with the processes of everyday life. According to Dewey, since the industrialisation of western society, art has become a compartmentalised sphere set apart from ordinary culture. This thesis asks, ‘what might the reintegration of art and life look like, in the early twenty-first century in Australia?’

Utilising a practice-based research approach, I have developed and refined a new method of art practice: “bilateral blogging” which works within the rhythms and spaces of everyday life. Inspired by the ‘blurring of art and life’ carried out by artists such as Allan Kaprow, the projects developed in this thesis – Bilateral Kellerberrin and Bilateral Petersham – extend twentieth century avant-garde art practice into the existing spaces of Australian neighbourhoods. This thesis shows how artworks like these, comprised of localised social relations, might also begin to document the specific interactive experiences which go into their own making.

I demonstrate that as a form of art practice, blogging can deepen engagement with everyday experience. It can produce a more dialogical relationship between artist and audience, and, importantly, it is able to generate rich documentation of situated experiences. Blogging is thus a research tool with the potential to bring to light aspects of everyday life which normally go unnoticed.

Through close reflection on the processes and outcomes of my own blog artworks, I have also developed a new way of identifying some of the aesthetic qualities of the experiences from which my relational art projects are made. Building on the work of William James, John Dewey and Allan Kaprow, I propose that attention plays a crucial role in transforming social interactions into aesthetic experience. The method of bilateral blogging developed in this thesis uses attention as a framing device, catalysing seemingly incoherent events into an intelligible, expansive structure.

This thesis thus makes three substantial contributions: a new method for making relational artworks; the production of an experiential document of the particular environments in which these artworks are situated; and a new approach to understanding the functioning of aesthetic experience. Taken together, these contributions bring a fresh perspective to discussions around the blurring of art and life, and the use of art as a mode of enquiry.