We are pleased to announce our receipt of a SSHRC partnership grant for our new project
Immediations.
PREMISE: Research institutions internationally are reconsidering the role art and media-based creative practice play in the production and dissemination of knowledge. At the same time, the role of the university in the creative economy is itself under renegotiation. Innovative inquiry into the concept and methods of “research-creation” can play a key role in these re-evaluations. Theoretical explorations in research-creation that privilege the category of the event and the immediacy of lived experience (“immediation”) are best suited to frame that inquiry.
OBJECTIVES: To develop firm institutional partnerships across a network of academic institutions and non-academic partners to: provide a lasting international collaborative framework for the theoretical exploration of research-creation; develop models for research-creation practice and organisation; foster inter-institutional sharing of resources and expertise in this area; facilitate international student and faculty exchanges; create opportunities for students and scholars entering the field; develop curricula and teaching methods for use in the development of academic programs; innovate archiving and documenting practices research-creation; mobilise knowledge transfer to the public with respect to creative art/media practices; further develop partnerships with public-sector institutions for the arts and community-based organisations interested in exploring creative-design approaches to their public interest activities.
METHOD & RESULTS: The partnership will put research-creation principles into action in its own program of activities, approaching creative arts/media practice as an active laboratory for theoretical research. Research-creation brings making and thinking into active complementarity. It does so from within a shared field of inquiry, placing thinking and making in communication without subordinating one to the other. Platforms for reciprocal influence and active dialogue will be set in place to encourage a two-way movement of cross-fertilization, building on an 8-year history of such endeavors, spear-headed by the SenseLab (www.senselab.ca). The program of activities builds upon and formalises this existing network through a program of collaborative exchanges meshing local and online interaction; punctual research-creation events combining conceptual work and hands-on experimentation; mutually enriching interconnections between online journals already run by participating partners; and production of peer-reviewed journal and book publications. The program of activities will be accompanied by an ongoing methodological reflection on techniques of collaboration and the implications of an immediations approach.
RESEARCH TOPICS: The project will investigate the problematic of immediation from three intimately connected interdisciplinary angles of research fostering an “ecological” approach to media, art and event: 1) Recomposing Experience: how do new creative practices reorganise experience and perceptions, and with what social and political ramifications? 2) The Anarchive: what kinds of archiving and documentation practices are able to capture the innovative force of research-creation activities? 3) Event Ecologies: what can an expanded notion of the ecological bring to the domain of research-creation and the understanding of transdisciplinary knowledge practice in general? The research of the 7-project will be synthesized around this last topic, under the rubric of the “ecology of practices.” Our goal will be to become a leading voice in the definition of research-creation, bringing to the fore new ways of understanding how knowledge is crafted, as well as new forms of transdisciplinary collaboration for knowledge production and dissemination.
Book Series
editors: SenseLab (with Open Humanities Press)
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end,
when philosophic thought has done its best,
the wonder remains. – A.N. Whitehead
The aim of the Immediations book series is to prolong the wonder sustaining philosophic thought into transdisciplinary encounters. Its premise is that concepts are for the enacting: they must be experienced. Thought is lived, else it expires. It is most intensely lived at the crossroads of practices, and in the in-between of individuals and their singular endeavors: enlivened in the weave of a relational fabric. Co-composition.
“The smile spreads over the face, as the face fits itself onto the smile” (A. N. Whitehead)
Which practices enter into co-composition will be left an open question, to be answered by the Series authors. Art practice, aesthetic theory, political theory, movement practice, media theory, maker culture, science studies, architecture, philosophy … the range is free. We invite you to roam it.
Alongside single-author monographs, we are keen to encourage experiments in collective writing and new forms of co-composition. Co-composition is an intercession, not a mediation. Begin in the middle. Catch a thinking in the midst and compose with it. Curate thought in the thinking-doing. Reinvent the book.
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Éditeurs: SenseLab (avec Open Humanities Press)
La philosophie commence dans l’étonnement. Et, au terme,
quand la pensée philosophique a fait de son mieux,
l’étonnement persiste. (Alfred N. Whitehead)
La collection Immédiations a pour but de prolonger l’étonnement qui anime l’esprit philosophique au carrefour de ses rencontres pluri-disciplinaires. Elle affirme l’idée selon laquelle les concepts n’ont de vie que dans la dramatisation : ils n’ont de sens qu’expérimentés. La pensée est vécue, faute de quoi elle expire. Vécue d’autant mieux à la croisée des pratiques, dans l’entre-deux des individus et de leurs efforts singuliers : enthousiasmée par ce qui se noue dans le tissu relationnel. Co-composition.
“Le sourire s’étend sur le visage, de la même manière que le visage s’adapte au sourire” (A. N. Whitehead)
Quant à savoir quelles pratiques entreront en co-composition, c’est une question que nous laissons délibérément ouverte, et dont la réponse est à la discrétion de chaque auteur. Pratiques artistiques, théorie esthétique, théorie politique, arts de la performance, théorie des média, études scientifiques, mouvements d’autodétermination, architecture, philosophie… l’éventail est large. Nous vous invitons à zigzaguer entre les modes de penser-faire.
Outre les monographies individuelles, nous tenons à encourager les projets collaboratifs, ainsi que les nouvelles formes de co-composition. Nous insistons sur le fait que l’acte de co-composition est synonyme d’intercession, et non de médiation. Commencer par le milieu. Saisir au vol une pensée-en-acte et faire prise avec elle. Exposer la pensée alors même qu’elle s’active, alors même qu’elle pense et ensemence. Réinventer le livre.
International Hubs
AUSTRALIA:
The Australian hub of the Immediations project is made up of new and past collaborators on Senselab projects and events including: Lone Bertelsen, Grant Corbishley, Pia Ednie-Brown, Mike Hornblow, Lyndal Jones, Jondi Keane, Laura Lotti, Anna Munster, Andrew Murphie, Samantha Spurr. The co-applicants on the project represent the following tertiary institutions: National Institute for Experimental Arts (University of New South Wales, Sydney), The School of Architecture and Design, RMIT University (Melbourne), Deakin University (Victoria). Australian community partners currently include: The Fibreculture Journal(http://fibreculturejournal.org/), Open Humanities Press (http://openhumanitiespress.org/), Artspace, Sydney (http://www.artspace.org.au/ ), Critical Path, Sydney (http://www.criticalpath.org.au/ ), and Avoca House, Victoria (http://www.avocaproject.org/).
During 2014, the Australian hub will be activating and hosting a range of Immediations’ events from research-creation workshops for postgraduate students through to book sprints, exploded galleries and international residencies. In the lead up to this, the hub is currently mobilising around concepts of ‘minor’ that take flight from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s ‘toward a minor literature….’. Some emerging interests and concerns include: minor practices of art and the built environment; minor platforms for publishing and interaction; minor commons and major politics…
NORTH AMERICA:
coming soon
EUROPE:
coming soon
