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NOTES 13.10.2020

New members:

Agnes Bakk (MOME) her research focuses on immersive media, theatre and VR. 
Ester (TU Dublin) research on Narratives of the Internet  
Michael Haldrup (Roskilde) – Replacing Connie. Performance Design.

Countdown to the end of the project (31 Aug 2022): 
– 22 months 
– 98 weeks
– 686 days 


News: 

– Tracking of working hours needs attention.  Make sure you write down the hours you spend developing content for the IO but also register the hours spent on things that are beneficial to the project (your daily projects that can contribute to the project).
– First report draft was submitted successfully. It takes up to 6 weeks for it to be evaluated so the feedback will be shared during our next bi-monthly meeting (Dec 8th)
– NEW! Monthly meetings with the Project Board will be scheduled monthly for 45 mins. (Project board members: Roger, Liesbeth, Noel, Patrick, Michael and Daniel)

– The budget cannot be used to pay external parties. 

Advances per IO: 

IO4:

– Collecting Transdisciplinary examples from different institutions. 
– Working on a transdisciplinary module of 6EC.

– IO4 will join forces with IO1 to prepare the student workshop in February. 

IO3:

– Teacher training program. Currently focusing on practical issues.

– Online event, 3 days long, in spring. 

– Discussing the agenda, what do we want to achieve and how to structure it?

IO2: 
– Michael will be replacing Connie (since Connie got a new job) Connie will continue to participate in some of our group meetings.
– Exploring the notion of care as something that we can try to think of design and address when collaborating with different institutes. 

– Action task: Each institute to submit their Code of Conduct to Michael or Connie. 

IO1:
– Trying to collect case studies from all different institutes to see what kind of transdisciplinary work is currently going on. 

– Discussing the current experiences in the RASL minor. (https://growingsyllabi.hotglue.me )
– Glenn presented his project “What is an Island”

Project Board meeting: 
The representatives of the project board will meet monthly to take a closer look at each IO to avoid repetitive content and inform each IO team on the advances. 
– Each intellectual output has 4 tasks. I’ll attach them as an annexe for each iO team to use as references. 

General conclusions: 

The idea to ask students why they would like to join the student workshop and what would they find interesting to learn within the workshop.

Check within the participating institutes who’s teaching using transdisciplinary teaching methods. Find new ways of collaborating for the workshop in February and later on. 

4 tasks per Intellectual Output

IO1:

Tasks 1.1 Content discussion (all partners) (Sep. 2019)
The IO leader, EUR, in collaboration with WdKA and Codarts to ensure the A&S composition, presents first ideas on which methods to develop during the Kick-of Meeting (September 2019). These ideas will be prepared based on a literature study, international best practices and on the experiences and expertise of the partners that have shared previous knowledge and experience before the start of the project. During the meeting, four transdisciplinary education methods will be selected. 

Task 1.2: First draft (EUR, ZHdK, WdKA (Sept. 2019 – June 2020).
A first draft of the methods will prepared by EUR, ZHdK and WdKA. After the kick-off meeting, all partners have to provide detailed input from their experience to the IO leader, which will be used to prepare the first draft. The first draft of the methods will be tested during the first Intensive Study Programme (C1, June 2020). Feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and other participants. 

Task 1.3: Updated version (EUR, ZHdK, WdKA) (June 2020 – June 2021)
Using the feedback from teachers, students and participants (minimally using questionnaires and interviews), the first draft will be improved and a second draft will be prepared. The second draft of the methods will be tested during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, June 2021). Again, feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and participants. 

Task 1.4: Final version (EUR, ZHdK, WdKA) (July 2021 – July. 2022) 

The final version of the methods will be prepared using the feedback received from teachers, students and stakeholders during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2,). The final version of the methods will be presented by EUR at the Final Conference (ME1, June 2022) and will be made available online (amongst others through publication at the RASL Hybrid Publications Platform). 

IO2:
Tasks 2.1 Content discussion (all partners) (Sep. 2019)
The IO leader, Codarts, presents first ideas on the content of the Stakeholders Code of Conduct to develop during the Kick-of Meeting (September 2019). These ideas will be prepared based on a literature study, international best practices and on the experiences and expertise of the partners that have shared previous to the start of the project. During the meeting, agreement on the content of the code of conduct will be pursued.

Task 2.2: First draft (Codarts, RUC) (Oct. 2019 – June 2020)
A first draft of the stakeholders code of conduct will prepared by Codarts and RUC. After the kick-off meeting, all partners have to provide detailed input from their experience to the IO leader, which will be used to prepare the first draft. The first draft of the code of conduct will be tested during the first Intensive Study Programme (C1, June 2020). Feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders.

Task 2.3: Updated version (Codarts, RUC) (July 2020 – June 2021)
Using the feedback from teachers, students and stakeholders (minimally using questionnaires and interviews), the first draft will be improved and a second draft will be prepared. The second draft of the code of conduct will be tested during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, June 2021). Again, feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders.

Task 2.4: Final version (Codarts, RUC) (July 2021 – Aug. 2022)
The final version of the stakeholder code of conduct will be prepared using the feedback received from teachers, students and stakeholders during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, XXX). The final version of the code of conduct will be presented by Codarts at the Final Conference (ME1, June 2022) and will be made available online (amongst others through publication at the RASL Hybrid Publications Platform). 

IO3:

Tasks 3.1 Content discussion (all partners) (Sep. 2019)
The IO leader, TUD, presents first ideas on the content of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme during the kick-off meeting (September 2019). These ideas will be prepared based on a literature study, international best practices and on the experiences and expertise of the partners that have shared previous to the start of the project. During the meeting, agreement on the content of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme will be pursued.

Task 3.2: First draft (TUD, EUR and Codarts) (Oct. 2019 – June 2020)
A first draft of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme will prepared by TUD, EUR and Codarts. After the kick-off meeting, all partners had to provide detailed input from their experience to the IO leader, which will be used to prepare the first draft. The first draft of the teacher programme will be tested during the first Intensive Study Programme (C1, June 2020). Feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders.

Task 3.3: Updated version (TUD, EUR, Codarts) (July 2020 – June 2021) 

Using the feedback from teachers, students and stakeholders (minimally using questionnaires and interviews), the first draft will be improved and a second draft will be prepared. The second draft of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme will be tested during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, June 2021). Again, feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders. 

Task 3.4: Final version (TUD, EUR, Codarts) (July 2021 – Aug. 2022)
The final version of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme will be prepared using the feedback received from teachers, students and stakeholders during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, June 2021). The final version of the Transdisciplinary Teacher Programme will be presented by TUD at the Final Conference (ME1, June 2022) and will be made available online (amongst others through publication at the RASL Hybrid Publication Platform). 

IO4:

Tasks 4.1 Content discussion (all partners) (Sep. 2019)
The IO leader, MOME, presents first ideas on the content of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme during the Kick-of Meeting (September 2019). These ideas will be prepared based on a literature study, international best practices and on the experiences and expertise of the partners that have shared previous to the start of the project. During the meeting, agreement on the content of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme will be pursued.

Task 4.2: First draft (MOME, WdKA, EUR) (Oct. 2019 – June 2020)
A first draft of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme will prepared by MOME, WdKA and EUR. After the kick-off meeting, all partners had to provide detailed input from their experience to the IO leader, which will be used to prepare the first draft. The first draft of the student programme will be tested during the first Intensive Study Programme (C1, June 2020). Feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders.

Task 4.3: Updated version (MOME, WdKA, EUR) (July 2020 – June 2021)
Using the feedback from teachers, students and stakeholders (minimally using questionnaires and interviews), the first draft will be improved and a second draft will be prepared. The second draft of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme will be tested during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, June 2021). Again, feedback will be obtained from teachers, students and stakeholders.

Task 4.4: Final version (MOME, WdKA, EUR) (July 2021 – Aug. 2022)
The final version of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme will be prepared using the feedback received from teachers, students and stakeholders during the second Intensive Study Programme (C2, XXX). The final version of the Transdisciplinary Student Programme will be presented by MOME at the Final Conference (ME1, June 2022) and will be made available online (amongst others through publication at the RASL Hybrid Publication Platform). 

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Contributors

Ágnes Karolina Bakk

Ágnes Karolina Bakk (1986), PhD-researcher (MOME), conference founder, producer and curator. She is the founder of the immersive storytelling conference entitled Zip-Scene (zip-scene.com), that will take place for the third time in March 2021. She is the cofounder of Random Error Studio, a lab that supports various VR productions and is currently the curator of Vektor VR section in the frame of the Verzio Film festival. She is teaching escape room design, immersive&VR- storytelling and speculative design at MOME. She presented her research on immersive theatre and VR at various conferences and platforms from Moscow (CILECT, 2019) to Montreal (SQUET, 2019).  

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Exploring Transdisciplinary Education combining Arts & Sciences

BACKGROUND
There is a strong need for 21st-century education to be recalibrated to be able to address the complex problems of current and future times such as the climate crisis, migration, the shift to clean energy, blockchain, and growing inequalities.

A radical new approach is required, and we believe that teaching a transdisciplinary approach will provide students with the right set of skills and competences needed to redefine and solve the 21st-century wicked problems.

Our objective is to design innovative, transdisciplinary education methods in which the imaginative and the transferrable, the sensory and the non-sensory, co-inhabit, collaborate and compose new perspectives and futures by using scientific knowledge, as well as visual and embodied experiences. The combination of arts and sciences will provide new forms of knowledge and solutions to complex problems in society. On the long term, we aim to contribute to a systemic transformation of higher education.

Partner Organisations
– Erasmus University Rotterdam https://www.eur.nl/en
– TU Dublin https://www.dit.ie
– Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design https://mome.hu/en
– Stichting Hogeschool Rotterdam https://www.hogeschoolrotterdam.nl
– Roskilde University https://ruc.dk/en
– Codarts Rotterdam https://www.codarts.nl/en/

Associate partner:
Zurich University of the Arts https://www.zhdk.ch/en/zurich-university-of-the-arts-1


This project is funded by Erasmus+

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Sami Hammana

A picture of me playing bingo (photograph by Florian Cramer)

“The ‘-’ in theory-fiction denotes not a merging but a dissolution of the two categories. Fiction doesn’t just ‘contain’ theory, but produces it”

Fisher, Mark (1999) Flatline constructs : Gothic materialism and cybernetic theory-fiction. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

The dissolution of categories is perhaps the most important, albeit abstract, guiding line in my work, as both an artist and an educator. Be it the act of dissolving disciplinary-, discourse-, methodological- or epistemic-related  categories, it is undoubtedly present in many practical outputs of my work. In regards to the elephant in the room; I guess I relate more to the prefix ‘trans-’, than to the root word ‘ -discipline’, or as it is defined: “across,” “beyond,” “through,” “changing thoroughly,” “transverse,”. And by extension, applying these movements to the limits of our surroundings. Simply because of the conviction that this ‘trans-‘ movement ought to be applied to more than just the domain of disciplines.

“The line between social reality and science fiction is an optical illusion”

Akomfrah, John (1996) The Last Angel of History.

Are these dividing-lines even real? One could ask with a slightly rhetorical tone… Or, are these lines nothing more than mere optical illusions?

In my work as a coordinator and teacher in the Willem de Kooning Academy’s Honours Programme, we set out to re-formulate and engage with these aforementioned questions.

For example, in our course ‘Theory-F[r]iction’ (which I taught together with Sonia de Jager), that ran from September – December in 2019, the students developed what they call a ‘Punctionary’ (a portmanteau neologism, consisting of the terms ‘pun’ and ‘dictionary’). This Punctionary consists of hundreds of words that the students developed themselves, as a kind of sincere gesture in finding multiple unexplored connections through the mechanism of a ‘pun’ (click here to see the project). Essentially, stretching the possibilities of meaning, insight and ramifications.

Book launch of Punctionary at FKAWDW (2019)

Similarly, in my own artistic practice, I approach the limits of epistemology, aesthetics and inference as a latent opportunity of renegotiating the integrity of these limits. Or in other words, to constantly ask: how to make sense of that which can’t be (phenomenologically) sensed? For examples of how this research-interest is mobilised in my work, see schizoaesthetics.

After that little rambling about my interests, my courses and my own work, I guess I should conclude with some sort of standard bio:

Sami holds a BA Honours in Product Design from the Willem de Kooning Academie and a MA with distinction in Research Architecture at the department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London. Sami has been teaching in, and coordinating, the Honours Programme at the Willem de Kooning Academie since 2019.

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Codes of Conduct

CoCoCo Methodology

CoCoCo Methodology: Practice-based Research-Creation


The production of the CoCoCoDesign for Collaboration is at the cutting edge of the methodological field of practice-based research, as it plays itself out in the emerging forms of research-creation, artistic research, arts-based research, performance as research and more established qualitative traditions such as ethnography, autoethnography and performative writing.

The design is an institutional production; made with the specific context of the ERASMUS+ RASL project, its partners, students and collaborators in mind. The design is also an independent and dialogical work of research; an exploration of the convergences between the personal, poetic, performative and philosophical in transdisciplinary research and education. The IO2 team consisting of Dieuwke Boersma and Connie Svabo collectively work with playful mingles and mangles of research-creation; hanging out together in digital and conceptual sandboxes, playing with associative, desiring-productive schizzes, incorporating post it notes, bonobos, elven ears, antennae, digital choirs and virtual backgrounds.

The CoCoCo Methodology is practice-based research-creation; doing hybridized knowledge production across media and disciplines.

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Codes of Conduct

CoCoCode of Conduct

RASL Code of Conduct

CoCoCo Designs for Collaboration

The IO2 team consisting of Diewke Boersma and Connie Svabo are prototyping a Code of Conduct. The CoCoCo Design for Collaboration includes specific examples of ‘codexes’ – highlighted from participating institutions, relates the RASL code of conduct to literature in the field of transdisciplinary studies and integrates approaches from posthumanist and new materialist philosophy and science and technology studies into this field.

The initial starting point of the project is that a code of conduct is a necessary and relevant way of navigating in complex, transdisciplinary learning situations – with many participants, many disciplinary and professional backgrounds and many institutional actors. The CoCoCo Design for Collaboration, however, also amplifies and distorts the code of conduct, so it also becomes a code of conflict and a code of care. How are conflicts handled? How is care taken?


At present the CoCoCo Design for Collaboration product is envisioned to consist of a booklet, design components for an immersive audiovisual environment, and two process designs, as well as a box: The magic box of bewilderment.

The magic box of bewilderment is a transdisciplinary apparatus that invites and enables one to study together with others. Its aim is to engender ethical cosmopolitical gestures that make alternative futures, worlds and relations happen from ones underbelly. In other words, the magic box of bewilderment can be seen as a new set or framework of coming together that sets a different time making machine into working.

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Codes of Conduct

Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct for Non-hierarchy and Co-creation

Transdisciplinary research and education has an ideal of participation, non-hierarchy and co-creation. The idea is to involve those, who are affected by the research topic, and to do this in a way, where a non-hierarchical and collaborative learning space is created.

This implies working with citizens who bring situatedness and specifics to the transdisciplinary project – and makes it necessary to interrogate issues of ownership. For this reason, a hope is that a code of conduct can help establish non-hierarchy and co-creation: 

“Non-hierarchy and co-creation are key aspects which need to be established in the code of conduct. Citizens participate with the intention to enrich the learning environment by becoming co-learners.” (ERASMUS+ project description)

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Student Programme

Testing Transdisciplinary Approaches

In Conversation with the RASL Minor Tutors

By Çağlar Köseoğlu, Dieuwke Boersma, Josue Amador, Sami Hammana and Renée Turner

See full article on our public publication platform.

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Codes of Conduct

Example Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct from Roskilde University

Roskilde University (RUC) is based on problem based project learning (at RUC this is called ‘problem oriented project learning’. 50% of the students’ ECTS are achieved via project work in groups. The university promotes that students collaborate with companies, organizations and others in this project work. It is most common that this starts when the students are on their 4th semester of the bachelor’s programme and continues towards graduation. The basic idea is that the students engage with ‘real-world problems’ and that this provides beneficial learning experiences for them.

On the university intranet, there is a section devoted to student project work, carried out with an organisation / company. The page exists in both Danish and English (for international students), with approximately the same information in both languages. The intranet site includes an example of a project with an organisation as well as ‘how to’ resource pages and a suggested timeline.

The How to indicates that the students should start by discussing in the group which topic they would like to write about, then find a company to collaborate with, arrange the first meeting, agree on the framework for cooperation (a template for cooperation agreement is provided – called CO-OPERATION AGREEMENT ) and finally present their results for the company and remember to get feedback from the company (a template for feedback is provided – called FEEDBACK FORM).

Furthermore, the intranet page mentions that students in some special cases may need to make a special confidentiality agreement. Two templates are provided for this: a non-disclosure agreement and a cooperative agreement (another kind than the one mentioned above).

The CO-OPERATION AGREEMENT is a word document with a two column table. It includes 5 sections: Problem area – Empirical data – Co-operation – Results – Feedback.

Each section has guiding questions.

E.g for the section on Feedback: Agreement for how the organisation will give the students feedback. Will the organisation give a form of feedback to the students? (E.g. a recommendation on LinkedIn) – Will the organisation give oral or written feedback?

E..g for the section on Co-operation: How will the group and organisation work together and communicate?  Where, when and how many times will the project group and organisation wish to meet? How will the parties communicate (e.g. written or verbal)?  Who is contact person for the project group and the organisation?

https://intra.ruc.dk/nc/en/students/student-hub/student-hub/ruc-studie-og-karrierevejledning/project-and-project-work/write-your-project-with-an-organisationcompany/#c137933

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Jana Thierfelder

Since I encountered transdisciplinarity it questioned me in the most productive ways and helped me to look at phenomena of the world from perspectives I wouldn’t have come across otherwise. Transdisciplinarity is a mode of thinking, doing and working that I love to practice in my projects and together with students.

Disciplined in what?!

I was disciplined with a BA in Visual Communication Design at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart that I graduated from in 2012. This first education was followed by an MA in Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) where I received the tools of transdisciplinary working and thinking. A further MA training in Social Anthropology at the University of Bern helped me to deepen the empirical and especially ethnographic methods that became important to me during my projects in transdisciplinarity. Since 2017 I am doing a doctorate in Studies in the Arts (SINTA) at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, called Challenging interfaces. The epistemic role of design in evolutionary biological knowledge production.

Throughout my education the question of the diverse forms of knowledge that can be performed through and by means of design accompanied me. My conviction of the potential of transdisciplinarity did not guide me into design research as it may seem obvious but rather into the field of Science and Technology Studies. However, not entirely ignoring design research, combining it with STS enables me to bring together and question various forms of knowledge, beyond design.

Since 2015 I am collaborating with biologists. In field and lab studies I shed light on their knowledge production methods and their engagement with aesthetic practices. What role do the tools and media they employ during their fieldwork and processing for data play? What role does this aesthetic surplus play in the formalization and representation of knowledge about phenomena in nature? What modes of observation can be encountered among the actors in the field? How can individual relationships between the human and non-human be represented and lead to a form of objectivity that is more truthful to the real world (Haraway 2016) and allows to question the governance between the human and non-human?

Since the start of this project, I am part of the research staff at the Master of Transdisciplinary Studies in the Arts, which allowed me to combine my research topics with the curriculum of this MA program. I, thus, focus especially on art and science collaborations that I facilitate. Particularly topics of ethnographic practices as part of artistic practice as well as the theoretical framework of Science and Technology Studies are the core of my teaching. With regard to situated objectivity, I am also particularly interested in the analysis of the use of language, such as the development of metaphors or narratives, as a way of doing cultural analysis and science studies.

Who teaches who?

In transdisciplinary teaching, I regularly encounter myself, my co-lecturers and students in various roles that do not always correspond with the one of a lecturer or a student. The roles are shifting depending on expertise and experience and often students and lecturers swap them. The more heterogeneous the group of lecturers and students is, the more expertise that comes together, the more the hierarchies seem to disappear and the role of the lecturers often becomes the role of a facilitator or mediator, sometimes also one of a student, rather than an expert. I am interested in these diverse roles in transdisciplinary teaching settings and how they can be made productive as an educational practice.

Besides this, when it comes to practice within transdisciplinary courses different approaches to tasks can be observed. This can be an approach by (1) conversations or dialogues, by (2) defining a common language, by (3) setting rules or methods of work, by (4) finding a common boundary object that can be approached from the various expertise that comes together or by (5) starting from the existing material, resources or skills. These settings are usually highly shaped by the togetherness of the students, their exchange, discussion and require high awareness of responsibility for each other as well as care. I am interested in these approaches that I have observed over my time as a lecturer and how these can be facilitated and practised more consciously as transdisciplinary teaching and learning methods.

The Master in Transdisciplinarity Studies in the Arts is a course that supports highly individualised teaching and learning by offering one-to-one mentoring sessions in addition to the curriculum to each student. Particularly through this close collaboration between students and teachers, the curriculum can be developed based on the student’s demands and trending interests. It also allows lecturers to engage their interests and topics into the curriculum. This I consider a great opportunity to learn from each other in non-hierarchical teaching settings where dichotomies such as student-master, lay-expert, theory-practice can be questioned and overcome.

Since 2017 I am doing the Faculty Visits, a program offered by ZHdK for further education for lecturers in higher education. In the context of this I deal with the different roles of actors in transdisciplinary teaching and learning settings. In 2017 and 2018 I was part of the Recherche and Interventiongroup (RIG) of the Merz Akademie where we conducted a recherché and a symposium about historical and current models of teaching. In this context we reflected on future perspectives of education, teaching and knowledge production.
In the project RASL Transdisciplinary Research I am employed as scientific staff and am excited about further exchange in regard to these topics and to meet people with similar questions and interests.