From art-science to art-science-in-the-making: transcending boundaries in higher education by (de)constructing them

Abstract

In Latour’s book Science in Action, readers are encouraged to use science-in-the-making as an entry point for understanding science instead of reinforcing the stable reality of ready made science. Building on his work, this study employs an art-science-in-the-making approach to trace how a new art-science initiative is helped into being. The ethnographic work centers on the development of an interinstitutional dual degree program between two art schools and a university in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which mundane, bureaucratic practices feed into the stabilization of the new art-science initiative. Too often, these practices remain outside scholarly discussions on art-science. This article argues that being attentive to the practices of “paper shufflers”, to borrow Latour’s terminology, aids our thinking through encounters across difference. The modus operandi of holding the new intersection together is conceptualized as a mode of syncretism of continuous repair. This modality of being together points to the tendency not to avoid disruptions or threats, but to continuously attend to them anew.