Making and Inquiry

Today the place of making in inquiry is becoming increasingly prominent, not only through the expansion of doctoral programs in art and design, but also in the growing trends of developing makerspaces as part of a general innovation network connecting makers to educational institutions and startup incubators. New interdisciplinary programs, whether mobilizing existing or producing new knowledge, are integrating the skillsets of art, design, engineering and computation toward new kinds of research in the academy, or products for the marketplace. Increasingly, there is a need for a first principles approach that can orient making and inquiry across any possible disciplinary and technical configuration, as existing models such as reflective practice, design thinking or art-based research do not fully capture the epistemological and discursive dimensions of developing a robust, reflective and critical R&D or prototyping program. New developments in understanding interdisciplinary collaboration, such as proposed by the concepts of 'trading zones' and 'interactional expertise, ' do not explicitly foreground making as a component of exchange amongst experts, beyond noting that artifacts can function as 'boundary objects.' In making, however, the artifact is not at the boundary but rather at the center of inquiry. It constellates its own multi-disciplinary character through the relevant methodological pivots.New disciplinary configurations call for new ways of integrating technical and domain knowledge, and combining creative, applied and commercial methodologies. The place of inquiry for making is also transforming degree programs in the expansion of practice-based doctorates, which often call for novel dissertation formats that redefine what constitutes scholarly contribution. Making and Inquiry develops a new framework called 'transdiscursive material practice' with the aim of addressing the ongoing hybridizations of making and inquiry in the academy.