[Xmca-l] Re: Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hello all,

I would agree with you David Ki, but for Transdisciplinary, I'd say it is a discipline that doesn't quite fit anywhere because it bisects many different disciplines.

For example, in the arts we have painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, video, film, then there is multimedia which borrows from all the others, such as with conceptual art, which is attempting to use the other mediums for a particular purpose alongside the other mediums. I'd say this is analogous to cross-disciplinary.

However performance art is all and neither of these mediums because performance art transcends the others as it uses the human body along with the environment and it is time-based and usually temporary. Consider Joseph Beuys, for example, using a dead hare and himself. So this would be analogous to transdisciplinary.

I'd not call opera transdisciplinary, but multimedia, because it's more about the music, most of all, one can enjoy the opera without the stage or knowing who the performers are. The opera is recast and repurposed but it is always interpretive of the original score.

I'd suggest a discipline whose purpose is to eliminate itself would be possibly transdisciplinary. Or disciplines that incorporate activism, to take the knowledge out into the streets, possibly, perhaps peace studies. 

Kind regards,

Annalisa