Vaguing: artistic research in science and technology studies (STS) as giving up a (vague) territory
Résumé
Similar to ocean tides that come and go on the shore, disciplines are competing territories that fill the space of knowledge delimited by a co(a)stline. As the waters rise, though, this notion of a co(a)stline must be re-examined. Where, why and how must we re-organize our shared co(a)sts politically, socially, scientifically and artistically ? If interdisciplinarity is about "giving up territory" (Arabella Lyon, 1992), how can this ebb dynamic be "given back" (Marcel Mauss, 2002) as a transformed (vague) territory?
We examine how the practice of vaguing — doing vague research through the prism of artistic research in STS — can be leveraged as a research approach exacerbating generosity. While tolerance is generally seen as leniency toward divergent opinions — with its usual technological mediation through inclusiveness —, generosity involves much more, namely, to welcome the Other in her radical otherness. How can we rethink technology as a way to mediate generosity far beyond mere tolerance and how can artistic research become transformative in this respect? Here we want to explore two crucial issues: how this practice generates new forms of legitimacy in a context where legitimacy traditionally stems from hyper-specialisation; how it can reassess generosity as a democratic negotiation mediated by technology.
We illustrate this method with three artistic works embodied by the authors: the joint experience of migration, and theft of personal data ("C-bateau") ; weaving as a subversive interdisciplinary gesture ("t-IA-ssage"); the technological mediation of time as a fundamental political experience ("It's time").