Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World (Bruno Latour)

In this study year we will be working around the topic of Measuring Nature. Following Voltaire’s dialogue between a philosopher and nature, we want to update and re-enact this conversation. We will also look into ideas of measuring and how through measurement we discovered, changed or created nature / knowledge / our being and making together.

https://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volnatur.html

How are we going to do this? The semesters will be structured around monthly walks. We will simply walk but also meet practitioners. We will see different possibilities of how such dialogue with and about nature could be led and what methods lie behind it. 

The BA CDC Application Lab is developed and run with the whole CDS faculty team. As we work on year-long projects, individually or in groups, we bring in knowledge from different CDS courses into the Lab and  speculate on possible connections, entanglements, conflicts. Through various working, discussion formats and critical conversation we will analyze and draft new connections as well as develop proposals in different media of how cross-disciplinary practices might look like. Focus on one vof CDS's study areas (project tracks) is expected and encouraged.

The CDCLab is a safe space for experimentation and critical cross-generational theoretical and practical exchange. Students are encouraged and supported by faculty and visiting coaches from a variety of disciplines in developing an independent, cross-disciplinary practice, whether individually or in teams, through the use of various media and forms of expression.

More information about the CDCLab will be shared in the first meeting, the term card, and in the handbook.

Project support by Adnan Balcinovic, Aurianne Chevandier, Fabian Fischer, Andrea Schaffar & Astrid Wagner.

The final grade of each semester of the CDCLab is based on the recommendations of the project supervisors and the students themselves. In the CDCLab, the focus is on the individual learning process and self-reflection on individual skills, learning experiences and insights.

During the semester, students accompany and reflect on their work process and recommend a grade according to previously consensually agreed criteria. The supervisors make a recommendation according to the criteria described in the respective project track. If the recommendations do not correspond, a feedback session can take place to discuss the different views and make a decision.