MoMA R&D
Salon 17 Hybridity - The space in between
Introduction: Paola Antonelli
Elijah Anderson
Eric de Broche des Combes
Jane Fulton Suri
Alexa Clay
Q&A
We are living in a time of unprecedented—and often gleeful—contaminations. Disciplinary boundaries are fluid, schools and workspheres are transdisciplinary, and cross-sector collaborations are commonplace. On a macro level, organizational hybridity has connected formerly separate compartments of knowledge and expertise, creating inclusive and innovative ecosystems. On a micro level, disciplinary misfits are allowed to straddle multiple fields to capitalize on their unique ways of synthesizing knowledge.
Neologisms have been coined with abandon to describe these “T-shaped” or “horizontal” individuals—the so-called “slash generation.” What distinguishes this contemporary legion of hybrids from polymaths, generalists, passionate amateurs, and career jugglers is their ability to embrace the liminal space between professions and disciplines.
This salon explored the sensibilities, motives, and conditions that drive individuals and companies to hybridity in states of being, working, producing, and thinking. With hybrid champions, hybridity experts, and scholars of life in public spaces we will ponder representations that fuse real and virtual; conditions conducive to interdisciplinary collaborations; the power of misfits and their role in the new economy; the perceptual spatial barriers that exist in contemporary society and cities, and the hybrid identities they engender. We will consider how a mixed and ambivalent approach might be beneficial to deal with urgent developments, not only in our immediate world of designing and making but also in relation to social disparities and unrest, economic imbalance, and geopolitical ruptures.
The salon took place on November 3rd, 2015 at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Speakers
-
Elijah Anderson
Elijah Anderson, the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale University, is a pioneering urban ethnographer who has explored the space of the city from a sociological perspective, focusing on race. He is the author of several books, including Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (1990), Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999), and A Place on the Corner (1978; second ed. 2003). His talk, focusing on “White Space,” is based on his most recent book, The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life (2012).
-
Eric de Broche des Combes
Eric de Broche des Combes is an architect and industrial designer, and a lecturer in landscape at Harvard Graduate School of Design. As head of the visualization studio Luxigon, based in Paris, he has produced architectural renderings for high-profile architecture firms including OMA, MVRDV, REX, and Oppenheim. He has lectured widely and recently launched a new visualization project called “Le Nirvalab.” He will talk about his renderings, which borrow from real and virtual imagery.
-
Jane Fulton Suri
Jane Fulton Suri has a background in architecture and psychology. In her role as a partner and chief creative officer at IDEO, she has pursued a “human-centered” approach to design, seeking innovation by looking at problems from the perspective of social science. With techniques such as “empathic observation” and “experience prototyping,” she has brought the methods of design beyond the physical object to services and the environmental. Suri’s talk will focus on a crucial part of this process: how to build community among designers in order to create an atmosphere that is conducive to collaboration.
-
Alexa Clay
Alexa Clay, who describes herself as a “culture-hacker” and “innovation specialist,” has a background in ethnography, history, philosophy of science, moral philosophy, and creative writing. She has specialized in research on underground activities in times of economic transition, and her recent book The Misfit Economy explores innovation among those who break the rules or operate in informal or illegal economies.
Reading Resources
Anderson, Elijah “The White Space” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (2015, Vol. I(I) 10-21)
Berezin, Robert Ray Kurzweil’s “Hybrid Thinking” Misunderstands the Brain Psychology Today (6.12.2014)
Bhabha, Homi Excerpt from Introduction to The Location of Culture Routledge (2004)
Bobrow, Martin Opinion: Animals with Human Material The Scientist (9.21.2011)
Carroll, Sean B. Hybrids May Thrive Where Parents Fear to Tread The New York Times (9.13.2010)
Clay, Alexa The Misfit Economy: Doing business on the fringes BA Business Life (7.1.2015)
Clay, Alexa The Power of Alter Egos Medium (12.2.2014)
Darwin, Charles The Origin of Species, Chapter 8 - Hybridism (1859-1872)
Daubner, Ernestine Manipulating genetic identities: the creation of chimeras, cyborgs and (cyber-)golems Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine (1.1.2002)
Fulton Suri, Jane “Poetic Observation: What Designers Make of What They See” in A.J. Clarke (ed.) Design Anthropology Springer (2010)
Haraway, Donna A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature Routledge (1994)
Jacobs, Jerry A Why the Disciplines Still Matter The Chronicle of Higher Education (5.27.2014)
Kapchan, Deborah A. and Turner Strong, Pauline Theorizing the Hybrid Journal of American Folklore (1.1999)
Kunzru, Hari You Are Cyborg Wired (2.1.1997)
Kurzweil, Ray Get Ready for Hybrid Thinking TED talk (3.2014)
Marikar, Sheila The Lives of Millennial Career Jugglers The New York Times (12.5.2014)
Mooney, H.A. and Cleland, E.E The Evolutionary Impact ofInvasive Species Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2001)
Mott, Maryann Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy National Geographic News (1.25.2005)
Maienschein, Jane Politics in Your DNA: How the realities of biology complicate the “personhood movement” Slate (6.10.2014)
Prabhu, Anjali Introduction: Hybridity in Contemporary Postcolonial Theory Hybridity: Limits, Transformations, Prospects, SUNY University Press (2007)
Rehman, Jalees The Courage to Venture Beyond: Of Polymaths and Multidisciplinarians Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings (6.30.2015)
Sabeti, Heerad The For-Benefit Enterprise Harvard Business Review (11.2011)
Surowiecki, James Companies with Benefits The New Yorker (8.4.2014)