AustLit

'Play evades and escapes our attempts to define and delimit. It has variously been positioned as benign, crucial, intractable, frivolous, developmental, wasteful and subversive. While it may occur ‘between the cracks of ordinary life’ (Henricks 2006: 1) and be denoted by a ‘feeling of Otherwise’ (Shields 2015: 300), it is the very everydayness of playful engagement that captures our attention in this issue of Axon. As the papers and works brought together here attest, it is hard to imagine creativity without play. Play infiltrates and enlivens creative practice research. It allows us to think and to be otherwise in the academy.' (Introduction)

'There are many resonances and references in the process of cutting and weaving my handwriting. The content is disrupted, leading to the sign becoming merely a line, or stammer; that of asemic writing. William Burroughs’ cutting-up of language is echoed, but rather than language being a virus to disrupt, the disruption is to question voice and readership—who is being read or heard, and what is being listened to? Also, that I do not want this work to be read suggests a needed privacy, though the writing comes from personal journaling and one of the contexti packets has the title ‘love letter’.' (Introduction)

'In mid-August 2016, I found myself standing on a chair in my studio with a helmet-like headset strapped to my face, reaching up into the air with a plastic Virtual Reality (VR) controller in either hand. I had no way of viewing the so-called ‘real world’, and had no visual reference points to guide or orient me while in the mad creative throes of crafting a ‘sketchsculpt’ (not exactly a term that rolls right off the tongue), a type of cross between a sculpture and a sketch, one that at present can only be created via a set of Virtual Reality tools.' (Introduction)

'Applying a ‘native ethnographer’ model to interviews collected as part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, Understanding Creative Excellence: A case study in poetry, reveals that for poets, play is an end itself. The poets play for play. Using incidental aspects of the interview form, interviewer and interviewee, within the context of the interview occasion, undertake play as an end in itself. ' (Introduction)

'This deliberately playful article explores the work of cognitive psychologist Lev Vygotsky, in particular the anecdote he shares in his 1933 essay on play and the development of the child, in which two sisters play at being sisters. Vygotsky uses the anecdote to reflect on the role of rules—and their absence—in playful becoming and conditioned social behaviour. Here, I revisit Vygotsky’s anecdote to re-cast it into the research and creative practice context in the contemporary university setting. How might we think about the play of rules and their absence in relation to doing and/or becoming research and creative practice academics? In this article I complement the Vygotsky anecodote with a consideration of the Glasgow series of paintings of two sisters by British artist Joan Eardley. I unearth what we know about Eardley’s creative process in the production of her series of portraits of the Sampson children during the 1940s, and explore the ways in which that process or practice can be said to reveal something about the importance of immersive repetition, playful re-working, and the constant casting off (and on again) of rules. The article also draws on some recent qualitative research by the author on the role of play in contemporary Australian research practice. ' (Introduction)

'Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn reminds us ‘the world is irregular and confused [and] understanding this is where any inquiry into the nature of things has to begin’ (2006: 37). A conference panel, such as the one that we (the authors) arranged ourselves into in late 2015, would appear to resist such irregularity and confusion. Presenters speak (as we did) in a predetermined order, observing a time limit and, where possible, aiming for coherence in theme, content or field. As creative practice researchers, knee-deep in our doctoral projects, each of us spoke of our recent experiences in different immersive writing environments – residencies, labs and boot camps – proposing there might be such a thing as ‘living in the research project’. Our session was lively and well received. Within our different approaches was room for playfulness and spontaneity. These spilled out into the presentation as a whole: with no prior consultation, we were surprised and delighted by unexpected connections. The residency, lab and, yes, even ‘thesis boot camp’ had playful elements in and of themselves, and perhaps these were the uniting factor. We were encouraged to publish together, expand on the ideas discussed. But, as Francesca Rendle-Short has written, ‘We are too often obsessed with content, the “what” [rather than the “how”]’ (2014: 92). We wondered if there was something further to mine. Had the panel itself become its own playroom? Three HDR candidates decided to assume the role of ‘panel beaters’, slip on some overalls, and find out.' (Introduction)