Research paper (M.A.) -- Cardinal Stritch College -- Milwaukee, 1981. / A research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education (Special Education). Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-60).

This thesis takes a theoretical framework constructed for transdisciplinary research within different natural science disciplines and investigates what kind of new knowledge is produced when this framework is applied to projects at the interface of art and natural science. The main case study is “Sauti ya Wakulima – The Voice of the Farmers”, which involves collaboration with another intervention artist, and with natural scientists and farmers. This is a collaborative knowledge project with small-scale urban as well as rural farmers in Tanzania who have created an online community archive of their farming practices by using mobile phones to upload images and sounds onto a website. The research uses an open-ended participatory methodology that gives the participants as much creative agency as possible within the given power structures and practical and technical parameters. A second work examined is the Climate Hope Garden, an installation by the author in collaboration with ecologists and climate scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich (ETHZ). The installation consisted of a garden grown in climate-controlled chambers based on the climatic conditions proposed by IPCC climate scenarios. The project aimed to enact these scenarios on a spatial and temporal scale to which visitors could relate. Transdisciplinary research has become a key reference point in funding proposals. Despite many references in the literature, and calls for research involving both the natural sciences and humanities to solve complex world problems such as adaptation to climate change, there seems to be little consensus about exactly what kind of knowledge might be produced from such projects, and how transdisciplinary research proposals might be evaluated, especially those at the interface of art and the natural sciences. Several theoretical frameworks have been suggested for designing transdisciplinary research between and within scientific disciplines, or between the natural and social sciences and humanities. The present study applies the framework proposed by Christian Pohl and Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn (2007) to a real-world transdisciplinary art-science project in a development context in order to examine the balance between the collective, locally embodied experience and the nomothetic knowledge that arises from it. This thesis found that transdisciplinarity is a different question from that of types of knowledge on the nomothetic-idiographic scale. Transdisciplinarity is a pragmatic question of definitions and inherited boundaries of disciplines. The framework categories do not differentiate between nomothetic and idiographic, just to which part of the problem-solving puzzle they fit. This is perfectly valid for goal-oriented, problem-solving research and can be applied to art-science research, but there are other ways of describing this work, such as using a philosophical description of the knowing process which comes closer to encompassing the richness of the knowledge produced. It is in this sense that the new type of knowledge generated by the transdisciplinary projects required an expansion of the given theoretical framework.

Comment la mise en œuvre de processus biologiques et techniques, dialoguant au sein d’un dispositif artistique, contribue t-elle « en pratique » à l’élaboration d’un « milieu associé » nécessaire dans notre contexte technoscientifique actuel ?Notre identité, qui se définit dans une double expérience biologique et culturelle du monde (E. Morin), semble aujourd’hui mise en tension par l’existence d’un « milieu dis-socié » (B. Stiegler) fragilisant l’élaboration individuelle et collective. Dans son approche du vivant et de la technique, le contexte technoscientifique actuel favorise ce sentiment de discontinuité : malgré une proximité physique grandissante, les opérations qui rassemblent ces deux entités semblent en effet occulter l’expérience sensible et significative qu’elles suscitent. S’appuyant sur une pratique personnelle, mise en regard d’un état de l’art, cette thèse d’artiste envisage de soigner cette relation, en la mettant « à l’œuvre » au cœur du dispositif artistique : le « médium » artistique sera envisagé comme un « milieu associé » (G. Simondon) capable de lier forme et structure, éléments naturels et techniques, expériences physique et psychique.Par sa qualité à concilier action, matérialité, perceptibilité et signification, l’approche artistique du processus s’offre comme hypothèse de recherche choisie : Les œuvres-processus instaurent ainsi un dialogue opératoire et significatif entre des processus vitaux et techniques, constituant un corpus d’œuvres et de projets interdisciplinaires dans lesquelles scientifiques, ingénieurs et artistes collaborent. Parmi eux, une expérience d’apprentissage épigénétique intitulée Éducation à la danse pour 8 plantes Télégraphe, une recherche autour des stromatholites qui explore le caractère mythologique de la biominéralisation et l’esthétique du geste technique ; ou encore le Temporium, une sculpture-laboratoire créant des images vivantes et qui cristallise plusieurs aspects de ce travail de recherche : le passage de la recherche à l’œuvre, les contraintes d’un matériau vivant, le double défi technique et esthétique du projet et l’autonomie de l’œuvre en exposition. La description et l’analyse de cette recherche « par la pratique » serviront de terreau pour répondre à notre problématique, sous une forme plus théorique, abordant autant les enjeux esthétiques de l’œuvre-processus que les potentiels du contexte de recherche en art qui accompagne sa création.Par son esthétique du devenir, sa qualité de milieu physico-symbolique, l’œuvre-processus déploie une activité relationnelle qui contribue non-seulement à une expérience esthétique associante, mais ouvre aussi le lieu d’exposition à un nouveau rôle sociétal. Si elle apparaît initialement comme une contrainte, la technicité de l’œuvre-processus pourra être source d’individuation pour son praticien. Cette dimension instrumentale ouvre également des pistes de valorisation hors du champ artistique, aidée par le caractère interdisciplinaire des projets. Sur un plan plus immatériel, cet écosystème de recherche pluriel contribue aussi à l’expression d’une « singularité collective » et à l’élaboration d’une « fabrique du commun ». Néanmoins ponctuée d’échecs, cette recherche pointe ses fragilités en révélant certaines limites de l’artiste-chercheur face aux contraintes du milieu artistique actuel.Ce constat nous mènera à prendre en compte l’ « écologie » de ce projet, l’œuvre-processus apparaissant comme un support privilégié pour la création d’un système, visant à travailler ensemble les dimensions mentales, environnementales et sociales qui caractérisent l’expérience humaine. / How does the implementation of biological and technical processes, dialoguing in the context of an art 'dispositif', contribute in practice to the elaboration of an 'associated milieu' necessary to our current technoscientific context? Our identity, defined by both a biological and a cultural experience of the world (E. Morin) is today called into question with the existence of a 'dissociated milieu' (B. Stiegler) disrupting the individual and the collective construct. In it’s approach to the living and technology, the current technoscientific context favours a feeling of discontinuity. Despite a growing physical proximity, the process that brings together these two entities appears to be masking the sense and significant experiences they also provoke. Grounded within my artistic practice and put into the perspective of the state of the Arts, this artist doctoral thesis has as goal to heal this relationship, putting it “at work” at the heart of the artistic context: the artistic 'medium' will therefore be considered as an 'associated milieu' (G. Simondon) able to connect shape and form, natural and technical elements, mental and physical experiences.Thanks to its capacity to draw action, materiality, perceptibility and signification together, the artistic approach of the 'processus' is a research hypothesis of choice: the 'œuvres-processus' establish an operative and meaningful dialogue between life and technical processes, thus composing a corpus of interdisciplinary projects and works, in which scientists, engineers and artists collaborate. Among them, a learning experience based on epigenetics called 'Teaching Dance to 8 Telegraph Plants'; a research on the topic of stromatolites that explores the mythological aspect of biomineralization and the aesthetics of the technical gesture; or furthermore the 'Temporium', a sculpture-laboratory which creates living images and also brings together several aspects of this research: the transition from the research to the artwork, the constraints of a living material, the technical and aesthetic challenges of the project, and the autonomy of the exhibited work. The description and analysis of this practice-based research will serve as groundwork to tackle the issue raised here —in a more theoretical manner— meanwhile equally addressing the aesthetic stakes of the 'process-work' and the potentials of the research context in art that comes with its creation.Through its aesthetic of the becoming, its quality as a physical and symbolical medium, the 'process-work' unfolds a relational activity that contributes not only to an associating aesthetic experience, but also opens the exhibition space to a new societal role. Initially appearing as a constraint, the technicality of the work-process may become a source of individuation for its practitioner. This instrumental aspect opens additionally onto new opportunities outside the artistic field, eased by the interdisciplinary nature of the projects. On a more intangible level, this pluralistic research ecosystem also contributes to the expression of a 'collective singularity' and to the elaboration of a 'fabric of the common'. Nevertheless punctuated by unavoidable failures, this research uncovers as well its own weaknesses, by revealing certain limits the artist-researcher has when faced with the constraints the current artistic context presents.This analysis reveals the necessity to take into account the 'ecological’ aspect of this project, the 'process-work' appearing as a support of choice for the creation of a system, aiming to work together the mental, environmental and social dimensions that characterize the human experience.

Contemporary cultural practices sometimes appear dispassionate, distant and clinical—committed to conceptualism or formalism. Yet works by Jacques Roubaud and Jacques Jouet (both members of the Oulipo, a group of experimental writers in France that use formal and mathematical constraints to generate new literary forms) suggest a complex relationship between epistemology and affect. This thesis argues that contemporary literary and artistic projects that appropriate the tropes of clinical procedure and experimental constraint, suggest alternative forms of knowledge that implicate the body and emotions of the experiencing subject. In these projects, affect and emotion travel through reason, logic, system and constraint and are transformed in the process. Therefore any analysis of forms of affect in these works must also consider the procedural and scientific aspect, that which makes them "projects". My research, drawing on recent work that places emphasis on affect, considers these projects as test cases often mediating between a series of dichotomies such as reason/emotion and mathematics/poetry. Curiously it is in the encounter with epistemological systems that the value of affect, embodiment and subjectivity is underscored, and this thesis interrogates the various ways that contemporary projects articulate affect almost despite themselves. By passing through a scientific impulse to inquire about and test the validity of epistemological systems, these projects underscore the role of affect in producing knowledge. This thesis insists on the continued importance of the Oulipo in contemporary culture and seeks to provide a larger, interdisciplinary context for oulipian experimentation by analysing similar works in the visual arts. This thesis has four chapters, each based on the materials that the projects themselves investigate: 1) numbers and mathematics, 2) lists, collection, and census-data, 3) itineraries and travel, 4) weather and meteorology. Projects bear witness to what the poet Lyn Hejinian has called the romance of science: its rigor, patience, thoroughness and speculative imagination (Mirage, 1983, 24) In so doing, these projects reveal forms of affect that only emerge through this 'weird science' as literary and artistic experiments.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 40).

Tomando os conhecimentos sobre o cérebro como mote organizador, esta tese buscou problematizar a intersecção entre o campo da ciência e o das artes. Para tanto, foi criada a ação artística “Reverberações do Corpo”, que objetivou a produção de uma obra de arte sobre o cérebro e representou um modo de articulação entre os campos do saber. Constituída como uma forma de arte política, envolvendo a participação do outro na confecção de uma obra sobre o cérebro, a ação foi composta pelos trabalhos artísticos produzidos durante a pesquisa e pelos artefatos culturais criados por profissionais de diferentes áreas acadêmicas. Os participantes foram convidados por meio de uma Carta-Convite, que teve origem a partir das problematizações acerca do cérebro e das criações artísticas da pesquisadora, geradas pela dissertação de mestrado, além de questionamentos sobre essa temática que circulam na cultura. A análise dos materiais considerou as reflexões provocadas pelos artefatos culturais e a perspectiva dos profissionais participantes, o encontro entre esses artefatos e a reverberação formada pelas suas reflexões, tanto em relação à produção artística da pesquisadora quanto às próprias análises que compõem a tese. Foram problematizados os discursos contemporâneos sobre o cérebro presentes nos artefatos criados, entre os quais se encontram os conhecimentos produzidos pelas descobertas da neurociência, que têm sido amplamente divulgados na mídia e que fazem parte do repertório cultural da população, a noção de que o cérebro define quem somos, os discursos sobre a plasticidade cerebral e o uso de imagens da neurociência em diferentes contextos, incluindo a compreensão da anatomia e funcionamento cerebral, o diagnóstico e tratamento de doenças, além de sua utilização em áreas híbridas, como o neuromarketing e a neuroeducação. O conceito de reverberação foi utilizado como forma de tensionamento da intersecção proposta nesta pesquisa, produzindo outro tipo de conhecimento, na fronteira entre a arte e a ciência. / Taking knowledge about the brain as an organizing motive, this thesis sought to discuss the intersection between the science and arts fields. For that purpose, an artistic action, "Reverberações do corpo" (Reverberations of the body), was created. It intended to produce a work of art about the brain and represented a connection between these two fields of knowledge. Conceived as a form of political art and comprising the engagement of the other in the making of a work about the brain, the action comprehended the artistic works presented throughout the research process and the cultural artefacts produced by professionals from different academic fields. Participants were brought on by means of an invitation letter originated from discussions about the brain and the researcher's own artistic creations which derive from her master's dissertation in addition to related topics that populate the cultural sphere. Assesment of the material took into account the reflections stirred by these cultural artefacts and the viewpoint of the participants, the meeting point of these artefacts and the reverberations caused by their reflection concerning the researcher's artistic production as well as the analyses within the thesis. We examine the contemporary discourses about the brain in these works. Those comprise knowledge produced by the new findings in neuroscience highly publicized in the media which are part of the general cultural repertoire, the notion that brain defines who we are, discourses about brain plasticity and usage of neuroscience images in various contexts including the comprehension of anatomy and brain function, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and also its usage in hybrid fields like neuromarketing and neuroeducation. The reverberation concept was used as a way of stretching and tightening the intersection proposed in this research work, generating another kind of knowledge, on the limits of art and science.

Tomando os conhecimentos sobre o cérebro como mote organizador, esta tese buscou problematizar a intersecção entre o campo da ciência e o das artes. Para tanto, foi criada a ação artística “Reverberações do Corpo”, que objetivou a produção de uma obra de arte sobre o cérebro e representou um modo de articulação entre os campos do saber. Constituída como uma forma de arte política, envolvendo a participação do outro na confecção de uma obra sobre o cérebro, a ação foi composta pelos trabalhos artísticos produzidos durante a pesquisa e pelos artefatos culturais criados por profissionais de diferentes áreas acadêmicas. Os participantes foram convidados por meio de uma Carta-Convite, que teve origem a partir das problematizações acerca do cérebro e das criações artísticas da pesquisadora, geradas pela dissertação de mestrado, além de questionamentos sobre essa temática que circulam na cultura. A análise dos materiais considerou as reflexões provocadas pelos artefatos culturais e a perspectiva dos profissionais participantes, o encontro entre esses artefatos e a reverberação formada pelas suas reflexões, tanto em relação à produção artística da pesquisadora quanto às próprias análises que compõem a tese. Foram problematizados os discursos contemporâneos sobre o cérebro presentes nos artefatos criados, entre os quais se encontram os conhecimentos produzidos pelas descobertas da neurociência, que têm sido amplamente divulgados na mídia e que fazem parte do repertório cultural da população, a noção de que o cérebro define quem somos, os discursos sobre a plasticidade cerebral e o uso de imagens da neurociência em diferentes contextos, incluindo a compreensão da anatomia e funcionamento cerebral, o diagnóstico e tratamento de doenças, além de sua utilização em áreas híbridas, como o neuromarketing e a neuroeducação. O conceito de reverberação foi utilizado como forma de tensionamento da intersecção proposta nesta pesquisa, produzindo outro tipo de conhecimento, na fronteira entre a arte e a ciência. / Taking knowledge about the brain as an organizing motive, this thesis sought to discuss the intersection between the science and arts fields. For that purpose, an artistic action, "Reverberações do corpo" (Reverberations of the body), was created. It intended to produce a work of art about the brain and represented a connection between these two fields of knowledge. Conceived as a form of political art and comprising the engagement of the other in the making of a work about the brain, the action comprehended the artistic works presented throughout the research process and the cultural artefacts produced by professionals from different academic fields. Participants were brought on by means of an invitation letter originated from discussions about the brain and the researcher's own artistic creations which derive from her master's dissertation in addition to related topics that populate the cultural sphere. Assesment of the material took into account the reflections stirred by these cultural artefacts and the viewpoint of the participants, the meeting point of these artefacts and the reverberations caused by their reflection concerning the researcher's artistic production as well as the analyses within the thesis. We examine the contemporary discourses about the brain in these works. Those comprise knowledge produced by the new findings in neuroscience highly publicized in the media which are part of the general cultural repertoire, the notion that brain defines who we are, discourses about brain plasticity and usage of neuroscience images in various contexts including the comprehension of anatomy and brain function, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and also its usage in hybrid fields like neuromarketing and neuroeducation. The reverberation concept was used as a way of stretching and tightening the intersection proposed in this research work, generating another kind of knowledge, on the limits of art and science.

Tomando os conhecimentos sobre o cérebro como mote organizador, esta tese buscou problematizar a intersecção entre o campo da ciência e o das artes. Para tanto, foi criada a ação artística “Reverberações do Corpo”, que objetivou a produção de uma obra de arte sobre o cérebro e representou um modo de articulação entre os campos do saber. Constituída como uma forma de arte política, envolvendo a participação do outro na confecção de uma obra sobre o cérebro, a ação foi composta pelos trabalhos artísticos produzidos durante a pesquisa e pelos artefatos culturais criados por profissionais de diferentes áreas acadêmicas. Os participantes foram convidados por meio de uma Carta-Convite, que teve origem a partir das problematizações acerca do cérebro e das criações artísticas da pesquisadora, geradas pela dissertação de mestrado, além de questionamentos sobre essa temática que circulam na cultura. A análise dos materiais considerou as reflexões provocadas pelos artefatos culturais e a perspectiva dos profissionais participantes, o encontro entre esses artefatos e a reverberação formada pelas suas reflexões, tanto em relação à produção artística da pesquisadora quanto às próprias análises que compõem a tese. Foram problematizados os discursos contemporâneos sobre o cérebro presentes nos artefatos criados, entre os quais se encontram os conhecimentos produzidos pelas descobertas da neurociência, que têm sido amplamente divulgados na mídia e que fazem parte do repertório cultural da população, a noção de que o cérebro define quem somos, os discursos sobre a plasticidade cerebral e o uso de imagens da neurociência em diferentes contextos, incluindo a compreensão da anatomia e funcionamento cerebral, o diagnóstico e tratamento de doenças, além de sua utilização em áreas híbridas, como o neuromarketing e a neuroeducação. O conceito de reverberação foi utilizado como forma de tensionamento da intersecção proposta nesta pesquisa, produzindo outro tipo de conhecimento, na fronteira entre a arte e a ciência. / Taking knowledge about the brain as an organizing motive, this thesis sought to discuss the intersection between the science and arts fields. For that purpose, an artistic action, "Reverberações do corpo" (Reverberations of the body), was created. It intended to produce a work of art about the brain and represented a connection between these two fields of knowledge. Conceived as a form of political art and comprising the engagement of the other in the making of a work about the brain, the action comprehended the artistic works presented throughout the research process and the cultural artefacts produced by professionals from different academic fields. Participants were brought on by means of an invitation letter originated from discussions about the brain and the researcher's own artistic creations which derive from her master's dissertation in addition to related topics that populate the cultural sphere. Assesment of the material took into account the reflections stirred by these cultural artefacts and the viewpoint of the participants, the meeting point of these artefacts and the reverberations caused by their reflection concerning the researcher's artistic production as well as the analyses within the thesis. We examine the contemporary discourses about the brain in these works. Those comprise knowledge produced by the new findings in neuroscience highly publicized in the media which are part of the general cultural repertoire, the notion that brain defines who we are, discourses about brain plasticity and usage of neuroscience images in various contexts including the comprehension of anatomy and brain function, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and also its usage in hybrid fields like neuromarketing and neuroeducation. The reverberation concept was used as a way of stretching and tightening the intersection proposed in this research work, generating another kind of knowledge, on the limits of art and science.

Entre la première photographie jamais prise de la Lune en 1840 par J.W. Draper et la première photographie prise depuis le sol de notre satellite en 1969 par la mission Apollo 11, l’aventure spatiale occidentale a donné lieu à une vaste production d’images. Toutes ont cherché à comprendre, capturer et communiquer au plus grand nombre l’aspect du cosmos. Absorbé comme une évidence par la culture collective, ce corpus hétérogène, protéiforme et aux délimitations complexes, relève d’une histoire culturelle qui reste difficile à classer, entre histoire des sciences et histoire des images. Les visualisations qui en résultent, marquées par les traditions de l’histoire de la représentation et fabriquées en parallèle des évolutions technologiques de l’astronomie et de ses moyens d’observation, ont tout autant façonné le regard de l’astronomie physique et la culture visuelle de ses observateurs néophytes. L’analyse de la formation et de l’épanouissement de l’Art spatial au XXe siècle nous ouvre ainsi les yeux sur un corpus visuel où la coalescence entre science et style est une condition nécessaire à son existence. A l’épreuve de l’histoire de l’histoire de l’art et des études visuelles, ce dernier trouve également toute sa place dans une analyse qui vise à dévoiler la puissance et la qualité performative des images. Qu’il s’agisse d’une imagerie vulgarisant le savoir savant à des fins didactiques, d’une volonté de saisir l’image du cosmos pour le découvrir ou d’une dissémination culturelle au cœur des grands mythes du siècle, l’exploration spatiale fut aussi une entreprise du regard qu’il nous incombe d’observer. / Between the first photograph taken from the moon in 1840 by J.W. Draper and the first photograph taken from our satellite’s ground in 1969 by Apollo 11’s mission, western space odyssey led to a wide range of images. They all had the common goal of understanding, apprehending and sharing the aspect of cosmos with as many people as possible. Evidently absorbed by a collective culture, this heterogeneous and multifaceted corpus with many complex boundaries is based on a cultural history, which remains hard to classify, between science history and images history. The resulting visualizations, heavily influenced by the traditions of the history of representation and made in parallel of the technical evolutions of astronomy and its means of observation, have equally shaped the look of physical astronomy and of the visual culture of its neophyte observers. The analysis of the creation and the fulfilment of Space Art in the twentieth century make us open our eyes on a visual corpus where the coalescence between science and style is a necessary condition to its really existence. Confronted to History of Arts and to visual studies, this corpus finds its place within an analysis, which pursues to disclose the power and the performative quality of images. Whether it be an imagery popularizing the deepest knowledge for teaching purposes, a will of grabbing the image of cosmos in order to discover it or a cultural dissemination at the heart of the most important myths of the century, spatial exploration was also an experience of the look we need to observe.

This is a study of the creation and negotiation of different forms of knowledge about dengue fever. I explore how anthropology, in collaboration with ideas and practices drawn from science and art, may transform public understandings of dengue. Dengue is a vector-borne disease transmitted to humans by the bite of a mosquito which is infected with the dengue virus. Mosquito-borne diseases have normally been treated through vector control and the elimination of breeding sites. Until 1960, the use of the pesticide DDT allowed the virtual eradication of Aedes aegypti (Ae. aegypti) in many places of the world. DDT was banned in most of the world by 1970 and by 1980 the focus on vector-control was replaced by a discourse of sanitation, in which health authorities tried to ‘educate’ populations and ‘teach’ proper hygienic habits to avoid mosquito-human contact. At present, these practices are changing again. The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that dengue incidence could be reduced at least 50% by 2020 through applying health campaigns and social interventions that involve having people participating in the control of dengue outbreaks. In this thesis I explore how WHO guidelines are applied in the control of dengue in Medellín, and how we can think about the concepts of ‘knowledge’, ‘education’ and public health campaigns through ethnographic methods. My project has been about looking at how different understandings – or different forms of knowledge – are part of interactions of different ‘publics’, non-expert citizens, virologists, entomologists and artists. My argument is that health campaigns should be re-designed – privileging relations and stimulating debate – by focusing on experience and moving towards managing the disease and living with the mosquito. Contrary to the different models enacted in health campaigns – which neglect the value of everyday experiences – I advocate for interdisciplinary collaboration as a relational art strategy that can generate an intersubjective exchange of experiences.