Reflecting on Natasha's reflection and regarding the Sciences & Arts &
Humanities (S.A.H) discussion, maybe studying Yasmin might be a great
way to start organizing knowledge around these topics. The social
network of its members might be well inclined to the humanities in
addition to be composed of artists and scientists (or both, or the
three). Starting from this terrain might be fruitful...
I remember that the Mailing List empyre (http://www.subtle.net/
empyre/ ) social network was visualised by Marcos Weskamp ( Social
Circles http://blog.mememapper.com/?p=17 ). I am not sure it is the
best approach (SNA itself i useless) but a systematic enquiry of the
content spinned by Yasmin and its contributors/inhabitants could be a
good start (and maybe also of interest for Yasminers:)). For instance,
archiving in an organised website, public place some references
concerning art, sciences, humanities conferences, projects, ressources
in say Creative Commons or better Free licensing and why not with some
kind of a feed to share the content in a structured manner (for people
interested in doing visualisation, computational analysis of this
corpus) could be of great interest.
Mailing lists are mines and like their physical counterpart,
excavation is often difficult. For instance, I recall the netiquette
of my young internet days in the 90's where I would risk kick/ban for
not looking into the archives of a list when commenting on topic that
was already discussed. Two decades of entropy later, I feel that
already so much things are accumulated but now the problem is to be
able to find it, a challenge that Human Scientists (!) are so good at,
this is why artists and scientists and their friends designers,
engineers and architects need humanities, to celebrate their works,
not only to criticize it - a french delight i must admit :]
I feel that sociologists, ethnologists, ethnographs, historians,
ethnomethodologists, philosophers, anthropologists, epistemologists,
wissenshafttheorists, documentarists, sustain a complex relationship
with their terrain and the people that live there. This emotional,
counter-transferential and reflective stance in the systematic context
of their methods and practices give an opportunity to artists and
scientists to see in return their posture from a renewed perspective.
As an apprentice humanist, I follow with interest the current crisis
in antagonistic research ( Latour, Mouffe, Stengers, etc) and the many
invitations by its proponents to invent new models for understanding
and representing complex practices such as Art+Sci collaborations
(composition, heteronomy, dissensus). I am specifically interested in
how new epistemological practices ( i try to cultivate an intellectual
practice so i decided not to write papers nor books but only to meet
researchers ) could lead to new forms of documentation and sharing of
research practices in any field, especially when this field is
different than mine, in its otherness, or to borrow a Levinas concept,
in its alterity.
Maybe mailinglists are a terrain for alterity this since they usually
invite to go further than tolerance of the arguments of others, and to
embrace the other in its limitations, conceptual and cultural trends,
and posture (usually the one of the lurker, more rarely the lurker-
participant, even more seldom the mailinglist creator like Trebor
Scholtz, Geert Lovink, Roger Malina, etc). Celebrating Yasmin content
would be superb, maybe through re-presenting it, performing it with
incarnated bodies and not only techno-enhanced or techno-mediated
enhanced bodies... Yasmin conference/performance around S.A.H somebody ?
In addition, Arts & Sciences invites us also to think of Aesthetics &
Epistemology, a philosophic duo that show how much even in the
Humanities things are specialized (philosophy of sciences and
philosophy of arts like history of art and history of sciences are in
different departments, buildings, cities ((like ministries of sciences
and ministries of art btw)). Yasmin, the Imera, Medialab Prado,
Mediamatic and some rare places sustain a discussion that bridges
these distant territories, any other places that I missed ? Where is
the Sciences & Art & Humanities discussion embodied ? I want to meet
it :]
Cheers,
Jb
--
Some traces of recent meetings to share and remix (in CC-SH-BY) http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanbaptisteparis/sets/
On Jun 2, 2010, at 5:51 PM, natasha@natasha.cc wrote:
> Reflecting on this thread, and agreeing with much of what has been
> discussed, I thought about behaviors/personalities of artists and
> scientists and others in the humanities. It is true that sometimes
> I personally am not as rigorous as a scientist in scientific
> pursuits, but not always. Having collaborated with scientists and
> philosophers for a while now, I'll say that I simply do not have a
> problem. In fact, I have found more emotional and logic-based gaps
> in working with technologists. But putting that aside, I'd like to
> mention a smart project called "Arts & Sciences" which brought
> together artists and scientists for a week-long collaboration. It
> was a surprising and enormously satisfying affair:
>
> "Arts & Sciences: Telluride
>
> In September 1979, I [Richard Lowenberg] organized a ten day "Arts &
> Sciences" workshop/retreat in Telluride and Alta Lakes, Colorado.
> The program was supported in part by the National Endowment for the
> Arts, the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities and the
> Zoline Foundation.
>
> The invited participants and presentations included Ed Bryant
> (science fiction); Harold Cohen, UCSD (artificial intelligence and
> the arts; Aaron drawing system); August Coppola, SFSU (thermographic
> film); Margaret Fisher and Robert Hughes (music/dance performance,
> "Gli Insetti"); Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (satellite arts
> projects); John Lifton and Pamela Zoline (computer music and
> Mountain Village planning); Stephen Gregory, MIT (Aspen interactive
> video disc); Peter Crown, Hampshire College (physiological
> psychology and video art); Will Walter, Polaroid Research Labs
> (large 'pleine aire' holography); Elliott Levinthal, Stanford U.
> ("Mars in 3D", film produced by the Viking Lander and JPL); Jim
> Wiseman (video synthesis), William Fetter, Boeing Aerospace (digital
> human figure rendering and motion studies); Natasha Vita-More (Art
> Concepts); Richard Lowenberg (Bio-Arts projects); Grant Johnson
> (video documentation).
>
> The programs presentations, set amid the colorful Fall splendor of
> surrounding 13,000' peaks, group hikes, and hot spring soaks, were a
> catalyst for wide ranging discussions, some arguments, and a number
> of resulting arts, sciences and technology collaborations over the
> following years."
>
> Natasha Vita-More
>
>
>
>
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--
http://web.media.mit.edu/~labrune/
Jean-Baptiste LABRUNE
Tangible Media Group
MIT Media Lab
20 Ames St E14-464C
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: click on the link to the list you wish to subscribe to. In the page that will appear ("info page"), enter e-mail address, name, and password in the fields found further down the page.
HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: on the info page, scroll all the way down and enter your e-mail address in the last field. Enter password if asked. Click on the unsubscribe button on the page that will appear ("options page").
HOW TO ENABLE / DISABLE DIGEST MODE: in the options page, find the "Set Digest Mode" option and set it to either on or off.
