Experimentation: An Exploratory Workshop
Alison Annunziata
UCHRI
Participants
Karen Barad
Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness
UC Santa Cruz
Liat Berdugo
Art and Architecture
University of San Francisco
Lisa Cartwright
Visual Arts
UC San Diego
Shanna Dobson
Mathematics
UC Los Angeles
Maria Faini
Comparative Ethnic Studies and Critical Theory
UC Berkeley
Gary Fox
Architectural History
UC Los Angeles
Rosa-Linda Fregoso
Latin American & Latino Studies
UC Santa Cruz
Anirban Gupta-Nigam
Visual Studies
UC Irvine
Melody Jue
English
UC Santa Barbara
Tommy Lott
Philosophy
San José State University
Simon Penny
Art
UC Irvine
Dorothy Santos
Film and Digital Media
UC Santa Cruz
Gabi Schaffzin
Art History, Theory, and Criticism
UC San Diego
Avery Trufelman
Journalist
99% Invisible
Elia Vargas
Film and Digital Media
UC Santa Cruz
Kalindi Vora
Cultural Studies
UC Davis
Jiayi Young
Design
UC Davis
On May 1st 2018, at Southern Exposure in San Francisco, UCHRI hosted an exploratory all-day workshop on the topic of experimentation and the humanities. The aim of this workshop was to explore innovative agendas, develop partnerships, and formulate ideas for new methodologies that advance multidisciplinary, multimodal examinations of the topic. The workshop looked broadly at the topic of experimentation to include innovative practices; the “experimental” in both historical and contemporary frames; explorations of trial, error, and the scientific method; and cross-disciplinary dialectics.
In an effort to build a workshop faithful to its title—Experimentation—we devised an agenda that diverged from the workshop norm. Each session—PARAMETER, COMPOSITE, and IMPLOSION—was designed specifically to help us unpack this theme from the perspective of method.
The exploratory workshop brought together UC faculty and graduate students, journalists, artists, and other public scholars for one day of networking, sharing research ideas, and to begin thinking about building an interdisciplinary research team on a new topic. Promising research collaborations that emerge from this workshop will be considered for a longer-term research working group as part of UCHRI’s Horizon of the Humanities Initiative in order to conduct a year-long Experimentation Studio. Studio groups will design interdisciplinary projects as well as one public program in conjunction with their project, which the team will carry out with administrative support from their UCHRI collaboration.
