HAK.io: becoming scicurious together
This 3 hour SWISP Lab x SGB Carbon Mediator workshop explored data in the middles; working as artists, scientists, re-searchers, inquirers, practitioners, makers, creators, playmakers and curators in a Science Gallery Network Mediator laboratory. Working within our enabling constraints of space and time, we walked, data collected, carefully coded, analysed and presented responses to being scicurious, Dear Data, Data Justice and Careful Coding. Rather than attempting to ‘represent’ or report on what lies in the middles, we engaged in these interstitial spaces to propel further thought, and create something new – new concepts, new ethico-political concerns, new problems – using Prince and Felder’s (2007) definition of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) that begins by “presenting students with a specific challenge, such as experimental data to interpret, a case study to analyze, or a complex real-world problem to solve” (p. 14).
We worked with the expansive idea that ‘doing data’ is learning to pay attention. We did this by data mapping a walk as an embodied, site specific inquiry (See PlayTank Collective, et al, 2022). This involved the SBG Mediators forming a protocol for recording data in a 20-minute walk (sounds, sights, smells, feelings, daydreams, prayers, intrusive thoughts, and…what ever else may be co-located in the research site). The HAK walking method card (pictured below) framed our collective data mapping in / on / around campus of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, Karnataka, where SBG is located until the Gallery opens later in 2023.
Walking differently … introducing data mapping
Sarah documented Puja’s data mapping protocol through a series of 10 second video clips, starting a new recording every time something changed (e.g., if Puja started drawing or changed directions or walked off). These were cut into 3 seconds and spliced together to produce a 2 minute video called “Becoming scircurious together: Somewhere in between” (below). It is a window into how data is created in the infrathin and well worth the watch.
The resulting data maps (pictured above) were generated as we walked on and listened carefully to the built and natural environment and all that occupies this place. These data maps (and mapping) can also be understood as a type of a/r/tographic inquiry exploring human-land relationships as collective expression grounded in movement of thought (theory) and body (practices). It is through the movement of thoughts and bodies in space and place that SGB Carbon mediators are becoming scicurious together while troubling middles. With a good dose of scicuriosity we played with concepts that problematise mediating art-science collisions in relation to Carbon as well as how to traverse disciplinary boundaries.
The Carbon Mediators formed pairs to code their walking data (see above), analysing them using personalised careful coding and practice of democratic caring (Meng, et al, 2019). Then, together, everybody set about creating an exhaustive list of words that resonated with their data maps and mapping (pictured below).
From the exhaustive list of data we took an idea for a walk toward Carbon and wrote a short text of 100 hundreds in length of any genre (e.g., speculative fiction, satire, letter, poetic inquiry, theoretical, conceptual … ).
As a prompt for our Hundreds we asked: Can we do data and data analysis that doesn’t rely on super compute?
This 100 hundred is written by Carbon Mediator, Parvathy.
Chained
Life’s a chain of chaotic moments strung together,
Like little carbon atoms bonded,
With no sense of structure or form,
Or no discernment of an end.
With a yearning to connect to those like themselves,
They go –
//-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-//
Is this an end? Or is this the beginning of something new?
The 3 hour SWISP Lab Carbon Mediator workshop at SGB was designed to maximise interdisciplinary perspectives and learning outcomes consistent with Science Gallery’s mission and know-how. The Science Gallery Network includes nodes on four continents. The nodes share a common mission to ignite curiosity where art and science collide and all are aligned to a local university partner. Using an inquiry and democratic approach to exhibition and program development the Science Gallery Network works with young people, as well as emerging and established artists, creative thinkers and scientists to develop speculative and experimental approaches to content. This democratic and iterative methodology was applied to the SGB Mediator workshop, enabling the Carbon Mediators to experience a Science Gallery program from within through multiple perspectives including: artist, maker, curator, content generator, designer and researcher.
References
Coleman, K. (2020). The hundreds: being and becoming scicurious. University of Melbourne. Presentation. https://doi.org/10.26188/13042007.v1
Coleman, K. (2020). Identity, Community and Social Participation: What do these have to do with the Art and Science of Practicing Together? A study with SciCurious Science Gallery Melbourne. University of Melbourne. Presentation. https://doi.org/10.26188/13041980.v1
Coleman, K., Healy, S., Wouters, N., Martin, J., Campbell, L., Peck, S., Belton, A., & Hiscock, R. (2020). Scicurious as method: Learning from GLAM young people living in a pandemic about cultivating digital co-research-creation spaces that ignite curiosity and creativity. http://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18dvt3x.15.
Healy, S., Coleman, K., Ward-Davies, A. & Nguyen-Robertson, C. (2020). Speculative zine co-research: being scicurious. University of Melbourne. Media. https://doi.org/10.26188/13042034.v1
PlayTank Collective, Healy, S., Mayes, E., Flynn, A. & Edwards, A. Entering into Sympogogies. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 14 (1), pp.166-188. https://doi.org/10.18733/cpi29658.