Some thoughts on interdisciplinary research: the constellation as co-operative form

The Bleanserchan Project employs an interdisciplinary framework, deliberately challenging the academic silos that frequently subordinate the aesthetic to the scientific or philosophical. In this inquiry, art and the aesthetic are afforded epistemological parity with philosophy and the sciences (encompassing sociology, history, and geography, for example). Rather than viewing these fields as disparate, this project posits that their collaboration is essential for generating new insights that bridge the gap between rational-material and imaginative-speculative knowledge.

Central to this approach is the methodology of the ‘constellation’. This framework integrates historical experience: specifically the author’s own auto-ethnographical perspective, personal experience as a subjective prism through which objective historical forces are filtered. But, and this is crucial, it is experience, as an object of knowledge, that interacts with other elements of the constellation. Consequently, within this arrangement knowledge is produced not as a static possession of its object or a final synthesis, but as a dynamic, egalitarian idea in constant motion (resisting the coercive force of identity thinking, in Theodor Adorno’s terms or, put more prosaically, not attempting to force everything into one neat academic box). The methodology draws upon, in many ways, Walter Benjamin’s concept of knowledge as redemption, this research does not seek a closed conclusion; rather, it functions as a heuristic key to unlock unexpected connections across diverse fields of experience.

Within this project, the aesthetic functions not only as a source of experiential objects for the constellation, but also as a binding force that enables its elements to enter into relation: at times collaboratively, at times antagonistically. In this sense, the aesthetic acts as a form of connective tissue (in Benjamin’s parlance: the paste that binds the mosaic together), sustaining the constellation in motion and preserving it as an idea: an imaginative construction rather than a merely empirical or demonstrative object. Aesthetic objects are therefore not illustrative supplements but epistemically active components of the research. They will be drawn from a range of artistic practices, including photography, writing, film, sculpture, and the tradition of objet trouvé, each contributing distinct modes of perception, material engagement, and historical resonance.