The blog

Thanks to our co-inquirers and especially to Vassilis for asking very relevant questions about where the AIME project is now heading.

First, the project in its official and European instantiation has not ended. We have received an extension from the ERC until June 2015 to rework the software behind the site -after many criticisms from users and designers- so that it is more durable, fast and user friendly. The German version is now out and the collective of co-inquirers keeps growing (Korean, Serbian and Romanian translations are in the works).

While the AIME staff - in fact the Sciences Po médialab - works behind the scenes, the principle of edited contributions continues as before even though we will, of course, be slower to respond since the staff is much smaller - and the queue of documents is large enough already to keep readers busy for quite a while…

The face to face encounters that we have organized over the last two years will not resume, as there is no longer any money for them. However, Bruno Latour and several mediators and co-inquirers will organize ad hoc meetings around many similar diplomatic issues (For instance, Patrice Maniglier is raising money to continue working on the crossing [FIC·ATT] and a lot of work is going on at the medialab on Gaïa). We will continue progressively uploading the documentation from those many face to face encounters to the site since they represent a treasure trove for the study of ontological diplomacy.

Now, the key question is how will we proceed with revising the original text as promised. The revision will come in several formats: first, we will include the mass of potential revisions that have been proposed over the last two years (especially, of course, in July) in the contributions, many of which have not been formatted in a way compatible with the site. Second, we will begin to plan an exhibition for 2016 at ZKM in Karlsruhe, a fourth instantiation of the project after the paper, face-to-face, and web versions.

This does not solve the problem of how to debrief the experience so far. It may still be too early to settle this issue. In terms of content, the author’s perspective is that the project has proved its usefulness by a few hundred co-inquirers making it their own project with their own goals without necessarily following the original script. In that sense, it is a success since the project was to start a collective inquiry along many different paths besides the one envisaged. This is especially true of all the developments on Gaia, on economics, on the theological political connection, etc.

Has the technical apparatus of the project been validated? It is hard to say for such a complex and esoteric project. The feedback from the published reviews has mainly been disappointing. Almost none of them has taken the enterprise on its own terms, and from the point of view of the author (admittedly biased!) what have been presented as “criticisms” are mainly misunderstandings that are easy to redress (much confusion came from ignorance that there was a website where most of the arguments have their roots). We have probably misinterpreted the gap between paper book and digital publications and imagined a dual use that was not so dual!

The responses from the face to face meetings have been much more helpful and, if taken together, they will lead to a complete rewriting of the original book! Much like what happened in 2007 after the first ten day “sprint” on an earlier manuscript, everything is up for grabs once again.

This is not necessarily because the contents were proven wrong, but because the book presents the issues upside down: it starts with modes (as if they were essences) whereas they have no other meaning except as summaries of what is learned from the crossings, themselves without any meaning except as what emerges from the situations traced in the field work. We asked the reader to go from the modes to the crossings (the new, much better entry of the site) and then, if they still have the courage, to go to the documents and learn how to follow a necessarily multimodal situation. Just the reverse of how to address the question. The AIME book as a book is no more digestible than a freeway crossover… With the planned exhibit and the catalog that will go with it, this is where we will best reorient the project and put it, for the reader and even more for the visitor, on its feet.

As for the digital instantiation of the AIME project, it is still too early to know and it is largely up to the Digital Humanities community to debrief our experiment. A Phd student, Robin de Mourat, is performing a thorough inquiry into the site and its use from the design community’s point of view.
Those thoughts are very tentative and we are still working on how to debrief the experiment for ourselves. Thanks to all the people who through mails, blog posts, and reviews have offered their criticisms.

Bruno Latour and the AIME team