Science outside Academia, BRCP Meeting Potsdam 30 Nov - 1 Dez 2019

The owl of Minerva spreads its wings to leave the grim forest of established academia.

In direct succession to the symposium “History in Physics: Quantum Gravity” held in Potsdam and organised by BRCP members we set up a small-scale, two-day meeting on the topic of possible pathways for pursuing research in the domain of natural sciences outside of traditional institutions. Especially the natural sciences are usually envisioned as something 'independent' and 'free', yet inquiries into these domains are practically always socially (economically, politically) conditioned. It is not our objective to 'liberate' science, but to find models that partly resolve this discrepancy by rather liberating the scientist. The focused sessions will thus include discussions about vagabond science, nomadic thinking, rhizomatic structures of knowledge, and community-based publishing.

Rough schedule:
Meeting time: Sat 13:30
Slot 1: Sat 15:00-17:00 “processes in research”
Slot 2: Sat 18:00-20:00 “biographies in science”
Slot 3: sat 20:00-open end “dinner and bar visit in Potsdam”
Slot 4: Sun 12:00-15:00 “arts as science, science as arts”
concluding session: 15:00-16:00+

Venue: Rechenzentrum Potsdam

Participants from BRCP:

  1. Markus
  2. Florian
  3. Leonard (remote contribution from Hamburg)
  4. Bernadette
  5. Robin (Saturday until 7)
  6. Flavio (Saturday until 5)
  7. Guilherme (Saturday until 5)
  8. Wilhelm (Sunday)

Guests:

  1. Pedro (physicist, both days, quit academia 9y ago, heard from BRCP through affiliations on two papers)
  2. Maria (physicist, participant of History of Science symposium, Saturday until 5)
  3. Julia (physicist, friend of Maria, Saturday until 5)
  4. Mona (conceptual artist, friend of Florian, Saturday until 5)
  5. Richard (from Xenorama collective, Saturday from 4 until end)
  6. Philip (free theatre director, Sunday)

With this very diverse and motivated group of people, we had an extraordinary weekend of discussions that had roughly 4 parts. Please see the according documentation in the following

Introduction

Session 1 - Processes in Research – examples for process documentation

Session 2 - Biographies in Science

Session 3 - Arts as Science, Science as Arts

Summary