This thesis explores the implications for the social sciences of a thought that would loosen its ties to foundational beginnings or determinate ends, and instead seek to grasp things through the middle. Following in the wake of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, the thesis argues that to 'see things in the middle' requires the elaboration of a new image of thought, one that asserts the primacy of forces and processes of ontogenesis (or, a thought of the 'becoming of being') over the static abstractions of 'subject' and ' object' that define classical ontology. More specifically, the thesis explores the way in which theories of ontogenesis allow us to rethink a particular kind of middle gaining increasing visibility within social science and public discourse - the field of art-science collaborations - as a sites of encounter that generates new material relations of thought and bodies. To think art-science ontogenetically, I argue, is to foster a sharper orientation in thinking to the novel emergences, immanent experiences, and transversal encounters that play out prior to the bifurcation of 'Art' and 'Science' into the institutional forms that capture their creative energies and judge them according to criteria of the already-existing. Empirically, this argument is made through engagement with two contemporary examples of art-science encounter: the bioartistic practice of the SymbioticA artistic research laboratory and the Bristol-based nanoart collective danceroom Spectroscopy. This thesis is therefore an experiment in how thinking might inhabit the middle of art-science differently, and seeks to valorise those singular practices and encounters today that open potentials to exceed the ready-made channellings of disciplinary thought and practice in ways that activate other creative possibilities of life.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:683908 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Lapworth, Andrew Colin |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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