Where do experiments end?

摘要

The prevailing definition of 'Experiment' as a repeatable recurring fixed event which gives rise to repeatable consistent reading [...] cannot take account for the variability of all events between the readings' (The Office of Experiments, 2010, Principles and Articles).rnThis is the last of three editorials written as board member for Ceoforum. These have provided a welcome opportunity for theoretical speculation, which overspills research papers, and experimental exploration with alternative sites of critical intervention. Although unplanned, the editorials have addressed similar themes, evoking interpretative tactics from the borderland, positioning humour and monsters as biopolitical tropes in the unfolding transformations of nature, science and society (Davies, 2003, 2007). Given this is the last editorial; it is perhaps fitting to talk about endings. In this final commentary, I examine emerging questions around where experiments end. I want to return one final time to questions about the constitution of borders and the turbulence of boundaries, this time between the laboratory and the landscape, experimental objects and experimental subjects, and communities of aesthetic and scientific practice, using these to explore the changing nature and scope of experimentation.