The proliferation of the term 'experimental' in human geography has given rise to the question of how geographers experiment. Given the range of different examples -from explorations of sensory methods to attempts at transforming the role of publics in decision-making -it becomes clear that one cannot talk about a unified experimental geographical approach. While projects share common themes such as challenging methodological limitations or wishing to play a more active part in the 'production of space', they also show fundamental differences in their attitude towards knowledge-making and intervention in the world. A starting point for further research and debate, rather than a comprehensive survey, this article outlines themes, differences and productive tensions within the discourse, and highlights the need to examine the wider politics that experimental approaches are embedded in. Experimental GeographiesThe intrinsic complexity of living systems … does not impose a dramatic limit on any possibility of experimentation. What it imposes is the necessity for an intelligent experimentation, which assumes the risky responsibility of asking relevant questions. Isabelle Stengers (1997, p. 16)
The proposal of the 'Anthropocene' as a new geological epoch where humans represent the dominant natural force has renewed artistic interest in the 'geopoetic', which is mobilised by cultural producers to incite changes in personal and collective participation in planetary life and politics. This article draws attention to prior engagements with the geophysical and the political: the work of Simone Weil and of the editors of the Martinican cultural journal Tropiques, Suzanne and Aimé Césaire. Synthesizing the political and scientific shifts in human-world relationships of their time, both projects are set against oppressive or narcissistic materialisms and experiment with the image of the 'cosmic' to cultivate a preoccupation not (only) with a tangible materialism, but with an intangible one that emphasizes process and connectivity across wide spatial and temporal scales. The writers' movement between poetics and politics will be used to enquire what kind of socio-political work a contemporary geopoetic could potentially do.
Mutable Matter is an experimental public engagement pilot program that seeks to enable non-scientists to explore and co-imagine the future of nanotechnology. Located at the intersection of geography, science communication and art practice, Mutable Matter is intended as a starting point for examining playful sensory engagement methods bridging tangible public and intangible scientific spaces. The project both challenges the role of non-scientists as mere commentators on pre-decided innovation trajectories and draws attention to the way scientific information is creatively encountered in the public realm.
Both new and historical materialisms have attracted a reputation for leading to ‘bad politics’. Historical materialisms have been accused of reducing too much to material relations and their production, whereas new materialisms have been accused of avoiding politics completely. This article reads the critique directed at materialisms against Hannah Arendt’s exceptional distrust of matter. Focusing on her concept of ‘worldliness’, it grapples with the question ‘why do we need an attention to matter in the first place?’ The attempted re-reading takes place through a feminist and postcolonial lens that draws out the contributions and failures of Arendt’s (anti)materialist framework in its banishing of matter from politics. Arendt’s focus on the prevention of dehumanisation further serves as a means to discuss materialism’s risk in negotiating the tension between deindividuation and dehumanisation.
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