in a tangle....

I’m pulling forwards a question from my previous blog post - there’s something niggling me about considering ‘knowledge’ as a thing that might be gained, accessed or generated in the experiential intersections between art and science, and I’m not sure what it is. 

Do I actually mean ‘knowledge’ or is there a more useful word here?

WARNING - this blog post draws no useful conclusions. It is a peek into being in the confused and deep tangle state of research and thinking and somewhat goes round in circles….. any comments or insights are very welcome!

OK. So the study of knowledge is weighty stuff - in the realms of sophisticated academic research and discourse. I’ve been disappearing down wormholes of epistemology, relativism, different types of realism, critical theory. I’ve been getting inspired and then swimming off out of my depth in the thrilling confluence of quantum physics and social theory with Karen Barad’s agential realism.  

Thank goodness for this overview from Moon and Blackman’s Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists 2014 - or I’d be constantly looking up every other word in every other sentence that I’m reading at the moment.

All this reading matter makes me marvel at what the human mind can individually and collectively understand, categorise, codify….but somehow it leaves me wondering what this actually means for my creative practice - for anyone’s - in designing meaningful experiences for other humans, in making society a more equal place to be, where we can all share ideas? 

I can sense a tantalising almost graspable Something in Barad’s agential realism - in the excellently named Meeting the Universe Halfway.  It’s probably a spark I’ve made from my non academic reading of it that might be missing some nuance, or plain wrong….but I think that’s OK - if something generates a useful thought in this developmental, research phase for me, then that’s all I need.  And you know, when I discovered that Barad is working at the intersection of theoretical particle physics, quantum theory, queer politics, social justice, how could I NOT find something interesting in there…

The almost tangible Something, is in the notion of everything being entangled - quite literally as physics tells us it is, humans and non-humans all being made of the very same entangled particles of matter.  What I took from reading about Barad’s approach, is that we make meaning of sorts, by making a ‘cut’ into the ever unfolding ‘intra-actions’ between everything.  In this philosophy, an experience of knowing something ’real’ is a sort of momentary performance of a phenomenon, entangled with its audience and everything else.  And there’s no hierarchy of meaning making in this, between the humans and non-human things. Which is great. 

But then it all slips away from me again when I think about how all the observing and evaluation of exhibit and gallery design, shows that most people need something to hang on to, some scaffold to support their experience of meaning making. Or is this because we’re trying to fix the output, ensure a consistency or quality of experience? We design for the diversity of our neurology, our bodies, our access needs - this is why human-centred design exists, why UX is a thing - that seems important, or am I just stuck in the old Western philosophies of the world that Barad is resetting? Are these things even in opposition?

Is there such a thing as entangled experience design? Should there be - is that a THING to explore? 

More questions! 

Back to the question I started this with - is ‘knowledge’ what all my thinking should be revolving around? 

I’m not sure yet. I think the thing about this might be particular to idea and information seeking in our digital age, and in the more entangled experiences that are not bound by current institutional frameworks. An interaction with ideas that a museum object or an art installation in a gallery can sometimes squish within our inherited modes of presentation and interpretation. It’s beyond the often very specific didactic intentions of an interactive science centre exhibit and sadly, mostly outside of the school curriculum. It is about the ideas and questions that don’t have easily google-able answers. It’s something about the constantly evolving entanglement Barad talks about. Ideas in motion, experiences that don’t try to fix an idea and you into positions relative to each other.

It feels like that points to storytelling and theatre, and then that brings up questions about the temporality of a series of encounters in an experience space, in an un-museum, that you can choose the pace and number of yourself?

I’ll keep thinking….