15.09.2017_15.12.2017
https://ptac.hypotheses.org/109
Within the framework of the "Mérimée" programme, which brings together the ALC (Arts, Letters and Communication) doctoral school of the University of Rennes 2 and the Doctoral School of the University of Barcelona and in accordance with the activities planned in our Research Plan, we carried out a research stay in Rennes for three months, from 15 September to 15 December 2017. We worked in an office located in the Maison de Science de l'Homme en Bretagne.
Our stay in Rennes allowed us to compare and work on the progress of the thesis with our co-director Nicolas Thély. From the tutorials with him, new guidelines and some modifications were generated regarding the order and the way in which the themes of the first chapter appear. As agreed tasks, our two directors, Nicolas Thély and Antònia Vilà, have resolved the following. Firstly, to reformulate the writing in the first chapter from a more neutral position, and leave the ethical-political positions for the more advanced and conclusive chapters. In short, not to take a critical position on the phenomenon of datafication for the moment, but to maintain, in this first part of the research, a more descriptive position on this phenomenon. In concrete terms, this translates, among other things, into changing the location of the section on the subjectivity of data and removing the last section referring to the centralization of data from the first chapter and reserving it for the final chapters.
Secondly, we have supported including a section where we focus on defining the relationship of datafication as a phenomenon that results from the implementation of new forms of external memory. In order to better understand the meaning and scope of the notion of recording and memory in human history, during these months in Rennes we have begun to work on a study published by the CNRS (2017), carried out by three scientists from different fields of knowledge, the physicist Michel Laguar, Denis Beaudouin, a specialist in the history of instrumentation, and George Chapouthier, a biologist and philosopher. This book, entitled The Invention of Memory. Writing, Recording, Digitalizing, is a record of all the forms of recording that have occurred throughout human evolution, a detailed history of the forms of memorization. Starting with the forms of material-cosmic and mineral memory, the authors then go on to explore the forms of biological memorization such as the human genome, to finally arrive at the real theme of the book: the different technical inventions of external memories, located outside the limits of the body.
Finally, during our stay we participated in the Rennes 2 doctoral seminar on October 12, where we presented the general lines of our research project.
