Paper short abstract:

Putting vagueness at the very heart of artistic research makes it possible to reconsider how technology, far from being content with fostering tolerance, can mediate true generosity and be transformative by seizing rich democratic stakes.

Paper long abstract:

Similar to ocean tides that come and go on the shore, disciplines are competing territories that fill the space of knowledge delimited by a co(a)stline. As the waters rise, though, this notion of a co(a)stline must be re-examined. Where, why and how must we re-organize our shared co(a)sts politically, socially, scientifically and artistically ? If interdisciplinarity is about "giving up territory" (Arabella Lyon, 1992), how can this ebb dynamic be "given back" (Marcel Mauss, 2002) as a transformed (vague) territory?

We examine how the practice of vaguing — doing vague research through the prism of artistic research in STS — can be leveraged as a research approach exacerbating generosity. While tolerance is generally seen as leniency toward divergent opinions — with its usual technological mediation through inclusiveness —, generosity involves much more, namely, to welcome the Other in her radical otherness. How can we rethink technology as a way to mediate generosity far beyond mere tolerance and how can artistic research become transformative in this respect? Here we want to explore two crucial issues: how this practice generates new forms of legitimacy in a context where legitimacy traditionally stems from hyper-specialisation; how it can reassess generosity as a democratic negotiation mediated by technology.

We illustrate this method with three artistic works embodied by the authors: the joint experience of migration, and theft of personal data ("C-bateau") ; weaving as a subversive interdisciplinary gesture ("t-IA-ssage"); the technological mediation of time as a fundamental political experience ("It's time").