Transmissions: critical tactics for making and communicating research

This edited collection focuses on transmissions, understood as the tactical combination of making (how theory, methods and data give shape to research) and communicating (how we show, share and entangle others in it). It is the research moment where invention meets dissemination. 15 interdisciplinary authors rethink critical tactics for making and communicating research, because we see them as integral to the kind of research we can do. Our collective curiosity is sparked by the critical relationship these combined components offer for doing research differently. Each chapter focuses on a different tactic of transmission - poetry, play, public engagement, sound, exhibition, creative writing, performance, catalogues and cards, interactive machines, century old costume, digital platforms and more. Some are site-specific while others shift shape in and between museums and catalogues, toilet cubicles and sewing studios, shops and blogs, stages and bodies, remote beaches and social media. Little attention in the past has been given to how the dissemination of research delimits what kind of research can be done. Focusing on transmissions in this way draws attention to a critically important part of the research process commonly overlooked and undervalued. This collection of risky, exciting and cutting-edge work directly this addresses this gap. We hope it stimulates and supports new kinds of experimental research that pushes at disciplinary edges and inspires unusual collaborations by revealing coherences in different practices that might otherwise slip by unnoticed