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 crawling 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 - Potsdam at Night

Session 4 - Arts as Science, Science as Arts

Summary:
We asked the at remaining people at the end of the workshop to shortly warp up, what they took from this workshop. We want to let this be the summary.

Berna:

• Processes and practices in science:
  • Further develop understanding
  • New inspiration for already started project about arxiv with Leo (WEBSITE?): Who are the people behind these papers. New emphasis maybe on how did this paper evolve?
  • The other topic about a new institution should be the topic of a further meeting and an upcoming article.

Pedro:

• First BRCP meeting, very happy to meet people with a similar mind-set
• One-year ago with 2 fellow academia renegades he had a very similar idea like the BRCP and a independent institute.
• Emphasizes the difference science/art: constrained/free, and also sees analogies
• Likes very much the idea of including the history of the research in a publication. Also the failures, which he considers very important, would have place here.
• Art can be very helpful for scientific outreach to make it more appealing and dynamical. Also to give the audience more opportunities for interaction. He did not think about this before in this way.

Markus:

• Great inputs for a personal science-art project “Butterfly Collection”
• The story of changing opinions and arguments would be a good test for mapping a process, maybe this can be tried in an isolated case with some form of mapping technique.

Florian:

• Very interesting to see how diverse the opinions are even in such a special group like the BRCP (see factions in the first session), e.g. that there is a discussion about the validity of process or the science/art difference.
• Strengthened in his wish to pursue more collaborations between arts and science, especially related to scientific reflection and research process
• The institute idea was really inspiring!

Willi:

• new ideas for imagination of the N-dimensional space. Very inspiring!

Philip:

• Grateful for the gathering and the possibility of exchange
• There are many more connection between arts and science than thought before. He sees a lot of possibilities here!
• Very fond of the idea of the new institute! Maybe connect arts and science from the beginning? This would mean working with their common basis, i.e. similarities and common needs. Find theory for institutions from the 70s/80s: Luhmann and Habermas. The arts free-scene he sees as successful in the last 30 years but now also institutionalized–why not merge with state institutions?
• Very grateful for the term outreach!
• Sees himself as a researcher because he doesn't know where his processes are going to (open outcome). However, actual researchers suffer a lot from having to clear goals and not being able to let things evolve freely. Fond of storytelling about the research process (example Einstein).
• He is further very interested in a collaborative, open development process about new institutions with its own forms of effectiveness, creativity, diverse input, self-reflection, collective leadership models etc.; the society in Europe is still democratic and diverse enough to make something like that happen. [Markus: that's why such a thing must be political.]
• He is also grateful for the PR term 'outreach', like 'picking an apple'