Interdisciplined

interdisciplined is a methodological experiment intended to explore and clarify what we mean when we talk about interdisciplinarity. What distinguishes it from approaches that fall back into disciplinary horizons, in(ter)corporeal entities, and the proprietary governance of technical and discursive forms? We are forced to ask these questions by the fact of an acutely polarized academic spectrum, within which we must attempt to mediate between absolutely unprecedented rates and scales of intellectual (re)productivity and the commensurately accelerating and severe pressure to maintain disciplinary continuity and integrity in accord with institutional (economic) standards, with all the difficulties that this entails.

These collusive forces of (institutional) culture simply increase commensurately with the accelerating increase in techno-productive capacities and efficiencies; a vicious cycle, which renders inevitable the periodic and historically evident ruptures and discontinuities of institutional failure, collapse, and recreation. So far this argument seems to repeat the same old revolutionary scenario of us against them. Such a schematic fails to recognize that the borders of institutions do not coincide with the borders between and among human lives and bodies. On the contrary, the former crosscut the latter unpredictably and nonlinearly. The situation can clearly no longer be stated in terms of 'we the people' vs. 'they the institutions' but must be rethought from the perspective that we are they; they are us. And this relationship is neither one of simple identity, but of nonlinear, mutual, and reciprocal causality; not an egalitarian stasis, but an evolving web of systemic networks. But these words are getting tired. What is interesting about these lines of thinking is that we as intellectuals, thinkers, workers, educators, parents, children, and citizens, in studying them, begin to apply them within the systemic and disciplinary institutions of which we are constitutive.  

By mixing and blending disciplinary techniques and discursive trajectories, can we begin to allow for the emergence of new forms of thought and action; new theories and methods?  One of our goals must be to highlight the possibility of this happening more or less spontaneously, i.e. without anyone having to explicitly demarcate it, govern it, or bring it under the control of a particular interpretive apparatus.  We see this as a kind of 'anti-discipline' required of us as facilitator-participants.  The discipline of avoiding discipline, in the sense of permanent or codified hierarchical structure and leadership.  Lets demonstrate the amazing potential that this kind of approach holds for us all today.