{"id":439,"date":"2012-10-30T14:17:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T14:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cocreationcamp.com\/cocreation\/?page_id=439"},"modified":"2012-10-30T14:17:35","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T14:17:35","slug":"modes-of-existence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.cocreationcamp.com\/cocreation\/ccc\/2012-ccc\/creative-wallonia\/modes-of-existence\/","title":{"rendered":"Modes of Existence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cherchez la technique, trouvez le truc<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his new project, An inquiry into modes of existence, Anthropology of the Moderns<\/em> (AIME), Bruno Latour brings together the results of a twenty five-year inquiry. AIME is the extension of the question posed negatively in the 1991, with publication We have never been modern<\/em>: if we<\/em> have never been modern, what have we<\/em> been?<\/p>\n

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In order to answer such questions, an innovative research protocol has been developed. It is very different from the Actor-Network Theory<\/em>. The scope is no longer following the networks<\/em> to redefine the social<\/em> but understanding the different types of practices providing the social<\/em> with a specific form<\/em>. The different possible forms have been dubbed modes of existence<\/em>. In this sense a mode of existence accounts for the many different experiences we encounter with law, science, politics, art, religion and so on.<\/p>\n

By the means of empirical philosophy and an open collective inquiry, the project is aimed at portraying the modes and at describing their interactions: for example, when Bach\u2019s music was labeled too artful for serving religious purposes, which esthetic judgments (the mode called [FIC]tion) were colliding with the religious conceptions (the mode called [REL]igion)? When Ernst Haeckel\u2019s scientific community contested his drawings, which artistic and scientific (the mode named [REF]erences) criteria were conflicting? By collecting the empirical traces and evidences of these conflicts, the project has the ambition to create a space for a possible negotiation between them.<\/p>\n

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So far the project has identified fifteen modes of existence, but it is clear that such an undertaking has no chance of succeeding if pursued by one solitary author. The only way is to provide a set up for a collaborative work for empirical traces collection and emendation. In this sense the collaborative nature of the project is firstly aimed at knowing if the values we have identified correspond, or not, to commons\u2019 experiences and if it is not\u2014which is very likely\u2014how we can change it, and on the basis of what\u00a0research data<\/em>. \u00a0Roughly we call research data any document pointing out where two modes clash. The AIME\u2019s team has collected many of these clashes. Part of these data have been borrowed from contexts external to the project and repurposed. Other contributions will be produced asking photographers, video-makers and artists and, in this workshop, designers to capture through their specific\u00a0savoir-faire<\/em>\u00a0the subtle nuances of some of the modal conflicts. Here lies the collective and collaborative nature of AIME.<\/p>\n

Every time somebody concerned with the project, the so called we call\u00a0co-inquirer<\/em>, will present an experience (by way of a text, a film, a radio program, an image), then is data. In this sense the project is conceived as a laboratory meant to provide the\u00a0co-inquirer<\/em>\u00a0with a space where to conduct experiments, by using these data, in building\u00a0scenographies<\/em>\u00a0of philosophical arguments.<\/p>\n

During the CoCreationCamp we will try to make a live experience of this philosophical and collective laboratory. We choose a particular mode of existence called [TEC]hnique. This is the one where we foresee that most of the design and designer experiences fall into. We will propose a first set of data about the essence of a technique as the mediation of the relations between human and non-human being.<\/p>\n

We will use as trigger a mixture of visual objects:<\/p>\n