2.2.5.2. Connecting approach: Interdisciplinary context
The connecting approach in the interdisciplinary setting directs us to Marcos Novak’s concept of transvergence as a separate space or entity located between the disciplines.
‘While convergence and divergence are allied to epistemologies of continuity, transvergence is epistemologically closer to logics of incompleteness, to complexity, chaos, and catastrophe theories, dynamical systems, emergence, and artificial life. While convergence and divergence contain the hidden assumption that the true, in either a cultural or an objective sense, is a continuous land-mass, transvergence recognizes true statements to be islands in an alien archipelago, sometimes only accessible by leaps, flights, and voyages on vessels of artifice.’
‘Central to transvergence is speciation. We want to draw proposals that constitute new species of effort and expression and that both enact and reflect on our construction of new species of cultural reality -- not by being merely novel mutations within known areas, but by boldly challenging known areas and yet being potentially viable to the point of becoming autonomous entities -- not dancing about architecture or architecture about dancing, for instance, but dancing architecture... or, better still, something else, as yet alien and unnamable, but alive and growing.’ (M.Novak)[169]
The artist in the role of the processpatcher thus refers to the mediation in this in-between space that provides room for the free style of putting together knowledge and concepts from the near disciplines. The processpatcher’s main objective in these situations is to realise a novel artistic concept, an experience or an interactive process. The innovation arises from the way methods, themes and techniques are put together or combined in new compositions. The invention of new techniques or approaches could possibly come along during the process of art making, and in turn, this could lead to renewal or re-definition of the art practice. This will be investigated in more detail in the case studies in chapter 3.
Several contributions in ‘Explorations in Art and Technology’ also point us to the artistic method, although this mainly refers to the way people work together in interdisciplinary settings. Dave Everitt[170] refers to his practice being primarily concerned with working with different kinds of information, and the combination of knowledge, issues, digital methods and so on, without a central concept. He refers to the iterative, explorative way of connecting different pieces and methods relevant for his digital artwork. Candy and Edmonds bring practice-based action research forward as a suitable method for interactive works developed by interdisciplinary teams. This method draws from Human Machine Interaction design, and relates directly to design practice. They consider the rapid turnover, direct feedback from the end-users or participants, and the integration of research and practice as the core advantages of this approach. The research Candy and Edmonds refer to is constituted from multiple views: the analysis of the user interaction by the collaborating parties, the participant and the external observer. This method was also used in the art and technology research programme Creativity & Cognition Research Studios, at Loughborough University (UK), run by Candy and Edmonds to obtain more generic insights in the art and technology practice. Their description provides us insight into combining practice with research, and the evaluation process that is done by the different parties while stepping back from the event to evaluate it. Although it mainly reads as a way to embed artistic research in a scientific environment, Candy and Edmonds do not refer to one specific artistic method. Their aim is to facilitate the creative process and let the artists be treated as equally as the technologists. To facilitate the communication among collaborators with different backgrounds, they work with drawing as a boundary object (see also later in this chapter).
After these literature investigations, we still lack information about a large part of today’s methods applied by artists working in interdisciplinary collaborations. The few resources suggest a certain direction, but none is outspoken about the method(s) itself. One needs to take into consideration that the problem of representation of the artist is further complicated by the (recent) blurred disciplinary borders in the creative field, where an increasing number of artists work in different practices. These combined professions make it even more difficult to be exact about the role of the artists in collaboration teams with designers, engineers and computer scientists. It seems therefore relevant to study the research themes where interaction among art, science and technology most frequently takes place.
In a general sense, literature and practice direct us to the field of Human Computer Interaction as the main topic of overlap and shared interest among those working in art, technology and science teams. This field encapsulates a range of emerging subfields, such as human machine interfacing, system design, artificial intelligence, artificial life and affective computing. Below the most relevant literature available is discussed, and it deals with research and development methods in some of these subfields.
