Paper short abstract:

This paper develops the concept of methodological resonance in interdisciplinary practice-based research. We draw connections between physics and the social world, focusing on how methods amplify and productively interfere with one another as understandings are negotiated and performed collaboratively.

Paper long abstract:

Interdisciplinary research requires a methodological flexibility and a capacity to tune in to different ways of knowing. In this paper we develop a concept of resonance as an approach to practice-based research across three case studies. Resonance describes materialities and practices which amplify each other when they come together; consonance involves 'points of arrival, rest, and resolution' " (Kamien, p. 39); and dissonance describes instabilities that disrupt and become expressive of unevenness, provoking a further movement towards resolution. Drawn from the study of sound, each of these elements are explored as aspects of collaborative practice. Like Barad's work on diffraction, the concept of resonance draws connections between physics and the social world, operating as a way of rethinking our engagement with research practices by focusing on how different methods and disciplines amplify and productively interfere with one another as understandings are negotiated and performed collaboratively involving consonances and dissonances.

The three cases that we use to elaborate these ideas are informational disaster mobility futures, mobile and situated sound composition, and collaborative GPS technologies in transdisciplinary art practice. Each case combines making, whether artistic or design-oriented, and social research through resonant processes that require careful listening and the ability to 'play' ones' tune clearly. Through the mutual amplification of certain materialities and practices that are central to our research projects, resonance creates momentum and we participate in the emergence of the phenomena that we seek to study. This productive resonance between research and practice both defines and makes 'better' futures.