Posts filed under 'Conferences'
Nina and I recently attended the 4S – The society for the Social Studies of Science 2008 conference conference in Rotterdam. Nina exhibited objects and I gave a paper.
Nina’s objects first.
Two Tails
The companion species of Science and Technology Studies are proliferating. Here are two extracts – two tails of STS at this conference. The lion, appearing as a symbol of the Netherlands via the Rotterdam coat of arms, is reduced to a long stuffed tail. It is no longer threatening ‘Stronger Through Struggle’ – the motto of the Rotterdam lion – but rather has been reduced to being one end of a strange fabric entity made of only tails. Instead of a body, attached on the other end is a mass of fake coyote tail. In recognition of Donna Haraway’s formulation of ‘nature as coyote’, the coyote would surely appear on any coat of arms for 4S. Yet the coyote is most prized by hunters for its tail, shown as trophies and used to decorate hats. Here both tails are expanded, faked in synthetics, constructed so that they might almost function as cushions, or maybe allow a tug of war. They could perhaps be the remnants of a sewing class, now brought to be the new trophies for someone attempting to ‘act with’ STS metaphors.
My paper was on the role of mess in the making of WiFi.
The STS of visual representations in science, law and engineering clearly illustrate the sociological value of images and the practices that surround them. In these contexts, graphs, photos and sketches are seen as pivotal in understanding how practitioners construct knowledge, collaborate, reach consensus, recruit new members and do work. In essence, their persuasive power stems from the transformation of mess that occurs behind-the-scenes (raw materials, repetitive experiments and alternative interpretations) into finely honed, ordered, compatible and comparable visual accounts. The result is designed to omit the uncertainties and contingencies of everyday practice. Drawing on ethnographic observation and participation in a volunteer community wireless group in Australia I consider the visual methods members employ in the design of a wireless fidelity (WiFi) network. Specifically I focus on how they retain elements of multiplicity and unpredictability and show how they make WiFi because of uncertainty and ambiguity, not in spite of it. From this position I argue that mess is not a consequence of this fragile technology or the elastic nature of the volunteer community but a deliberate practice and core strength of the group, critical to how they innovate.
September 8th, 2008
I am really looking forward to this upcoming seminar hosted by CSISP at Goldsmiths. Although the topic in general is relevant to my work I am particularly excited to hear Albena Yaneva speak. Her ethnographic analysis of the role and importance of visual representations and practices in architecture has been very inspiring to me. If you haven’t already read it – Scaling Up and Down: Extraction Trials in Architectural Design, Social Studies of Science, 35/6(December 2005) 867–894
Friday 6 June | Room 137a, Richard Hoggart Building
Speakers:
Jane Bennett | Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
Matthew Fuller | Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths
Javier Lezaun | James Martin Institute, Oxford University
David Oswell | Sociology, Goldsmiths
Albena Yaneva | Architecture, Manchester University
Claire Waterton | Sociology, Lancaster University
Sarah Whatmore | Geography, Oxford University
Brian Wynne | Sociology, Lancaster University
Discussants:
Andrew Barry | Geography, Oxford University
Gail Davies | Geography, UCL
Kate Nash | Sociology, Goldsmiths
This one-day workshop will bring together social researchers and theorists who bring an interest in publicity and citizenship to the study of material and physical practices.
In fields like science and technology studies, it has long been acknowledged that non-human entities play an important role in the (un)making of social connections. However, everyday dealings with things, technologies, and nature are also increasingly recognized, and explicitly formatted, as occasions for ethical and political involvement. In engaging with these developments, authors in political theory, sociology and geography have begun to explore whether and how everyday practices may be understood as sites for the organisation of publics by socio-material means. This workshop aims to further explore this ‘object’ or material turn in the study of publics and citizenship. It is meant to provide a space for more detailed consideration of the kinds of practices, events and devices that this turn brings into view, from flood management to the art of sowing seeds. Within this context, the workshop will also engage broader conceptual questions about the type of politics, morality or ethics that a socio-material perspective on the public opens up. Thus, it will consider the implications of attempts to bring ‘democracy’ within the realm of embodied experience, including for the types of agency that are enabled and disabled by the repositioning of citizenship, and public involvement, as relations of material and physical entanglement.
May 25th, 2008
Nina is exhibiting piece of work at Lewisham Arthouse with fellow fine art students from Goldsmiths in an group exhibition. Go see it. It’s good. It closes soon.
[btw - the dog isn't part of the work but it was interesting to see the extra attraction of Nina's work to small children and dogs who wanted to stamp on it or eat it - it is made of icing, eggs, ash and glitter - which added an further layer of fragility and temporality to it].
UNHOMELY
Dates: 14 – 25 May 2008
Private View: Wednesday 14 May, 7-9pm
Aliceson Carter, Dorothea Magonet, Victoria Scott, Nina Wakeford
Despite the proliferation of virtual worlds, and the simulated realities of computer games, the home, and the capacity to be settled or at ease in a place of one’s own choosing, remains one of the most culturally important experiences of our time. In a period of migration and constant mobility, the home appears to provide a respite from the global forces as well as the local stresses that intrude on our intimate, private spaces. And yet the starting point of the four artists in this show is the need to reconsider experiences that, even though they make emerge from our domestic experiences, are distinctly unhomely.
Beginning with the literal translation of Freud’s concept of ‘Das Unheimliche’ as ‘The Unhomely’ the work in this show begins to comment on the lack of coherence of the contemporary home, either as a literal architectural space, or as a symbolic realm of promise and disappointment.
Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has written of the ‘vicious bacteria of domesticity’, a phrase which recalls the capacity of the home to be colonised by destructive forces. The phrase might well suggest that the only way to respond would be an equally ferocious cleansing. Yet the artists in this show use a range of strategies to explore the energies and experiences of the contemporary unhomely, including a restaging of the mundane domestic object or process, or an overlooked emotional experience. The work also questions the boundaries of the home, as work looks to architectures beyond the four walls of the conventional structure.
By acknowledging the contradictions within contemporary formations of the domestic, the show is far from a sullen treatise on the unhomely. New narratives are explored, and new emotional horizons suggested.
All four artists are currently studying fine art at Goldsmiths.
May 21st, 2008
A Workshop, 14 – 15th of December 2007, was a two day event organized by Celia Lury and Nina Wakeford (Sociology and INCITE, Goldsmiths), sponsored by Intel Research, CSISP and the Sociology Methods Lab.
… just a note to comment how much I enjoyed the two days of presentations – nicely alphabetically grouped in headings such as ‘Event’, ‘Experiment’, ‘Panic’, ‘Performance’. It was great to see speakers from such different disciplines come together – including cultural studies, (visual) art, sociology, anthropology and design. What seemed to me more like a mini conference then a workshop, took us through a rather unusual and exciting mix of presentation formats – from theoretical thought-excursions (Mariam Fraser, Luciana Parisi) to visual indulgences into old film footage (Rachel Moore), online curiosities (Goetz Bachmann), photography (Jennifer Bajorek, Vikki Bell), beautiful objects (Bill Gaver) and some excellent performances (Jackie Orr)…
“Contemporary social theory proposes that the social world is changing in complex ways. The nature and significance of such changes are widely disputed. This workshop is not intended to contribute directly to debates ‘for’ or ‘against’ the existence of the changes to the social world identified in theories of, for example, risk, globalisation, information and complexity. Instead, the workshop aims to explore a series of orientation devices by which researchers may be attuned to the empirical study of change. The devices include: event, archive, sound, panic, experiment, performance, network, pattern, probe, profile, list, anecdote, and population.
The term device is important here: it has multiple meanings, including an object, a method and a bomb (Cambridge University Dictionary). To describe an event, an archive or a biography as a device is thus to make explicit how the object and method of social research are linked to each other and with what potentially explosive effects. And the aim of the workshop will be to describe the possibilities and implications of selected devices for the conduct of social research without separating out method from object and in doing so, to act as a series of small bombs in the sociological imagination.
This is not to claim these devices are new; on the contrary, devices such as the experiment, the archive and the population have long and complex histories. Nor is there intended to be any necessary privileging of either quantitative or qualitative approaches. Network analysis, for example, may and does make use of both. Furthermore many of these terms have been developed across disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences and sometimes the natural sciences. An exploration of interdisciplinarity will thus be an essential part of the workshop.
While the devices are not new, the hope of the workshop is that the devices chosen for discussion have a particular relevance in relation to the investigation of the contemporary social world. The aim is to explore how these devices enable the happening of the social – that is, its ongoingness, relationality, sensuousness and multi-dimensionality – to be investigated.”
December 23rd, 2007
a very lazy susan on the lounge…. it didn’t move at all.
and the last train back….. it stopped at midnight, which was half way across town for us and we had to get a taxi!.
July 18th, 2007
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