Politics of Measurement

The research project »Towards (Im)measurability of Art and Life« by Miya Yoshida (Art & Civic Media, Innovation Incubator, Lüneburg) addresses the ambivalence of measurement and measurability in contemporary realities and questions the apparent tendency to increasingly classify more and more dimensions of our life and to translate them into numbers and predefined categories.

As part of the research project three events have been scheduled for December 2013 and January 2014 at Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg. For each event, one artist and one scientist are invited to give a presentation about their work which will lead into a discussion. The aim is to intersect two different approaches and ideas on measurement and measurability.

The first discussion by Chihiro Minato and Sophie Houdart is on »Politics of Measurement«. Minato is a professor at Tama Art University, Tokyo and a photographer with in-depth knowledge on anthropology. Sophie Houdart is an ethnologist at the Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology, Center for Scientific Research, Paris. In the past she worked at the Centre de sociologie de l’innovation, directed by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. Accordingly she is renowned in science and labaratory studies as well as in research on non-humains. She is currently conducting research on measuring risk.

Chihiro Minato and Sophie Houdart will present their research and will discuss the measurement hype, particularly in relation to the catastrophe in Fukushima in 2011.

The events are based on a cooperation of the research project »Art & Civic Media« of Innovation Incubator of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Heidelberger Kunstverein, and Institut français.

The Innovation Incubator is an EU major project, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and by the federal state of Lower Saxony.