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The Bridging Chasms Project Ethnographer is
Kari Zacharias
(Concordia University)
AGREED PARTICIPANTS
Rommie Amaro (UC San Diego Professor of Computational Chemistry and Biophysics)
Amy Childress (University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Tara Javidi (UC San Diego Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Founding Co-Director, Center for Machine-Integrated Computing and Security)
Charles Kennel (UC San Diego Emeritus Professor of Climate, Atmospheric Sciences, and Physical Oceanography)
Nancy Kwak (Associate Professor of History, UC San Diego)
V. Ramanathan (UC San Diego, SIO, Distinguished Professor, Atmospheric Studies, and Climate Change)
Mark Reddington (29-year-Partner, LMN Architects, Leader of the Design Team)
Thanassis Rikakis (Professor of Bioengineering and of Performing Arts; Founding Chair, Calhoun Honors Discovery Program and Calhoun Center for Higher Education Innovation)
Lisa Wymore (Associate Professor Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley: Choreography, Dance technique, Improvisation, Performance)
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The first in a planned series of weekend “EVENTS” under the auspices of the Bridging Chasms initiative occurred on the UC San Diego campus 21-23 September 2018. The second EVENT will take place in the Spring of 2019, hosted collaboratively by Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology and the Smithsonian Institution. The third EVENT has taken place at the University of California Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies as a one-day conference on 13 May 2023. TheBridging Chasms project was initiated by UC San Diego’s University Professor Roger Reynolds, and is overseen by a Steering Committee with representatives from UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, the University of Michigan, and McGill University.
What is an EVENT?
Each EVENT begins with an introductory dinner on Friday evening, and continues with three sessions on Saturday, and two more before closing on Sunday afternoon. The morning and afternoon Saturday sessions and that on Sunday morning feature three varieties of “ENCOUNTERS” between Participants:
a one-on-one ENCOUNTER with a third Participant acting as a “guide” or facilitator to the process, a second ENCOUNTER involving a one-on-one conversation with no assisting guide, and the third involving three Participants.
Participants prepare for these encounters by identifying a particular element within their disciplinary practice, a subject of central importance to what they do that is deeply imbedded in their disciplinary role, something with which another similarly accomplished individual from another discipline would not be familiar.
Each Participant’s task is to prepare a substantive representation of their selected subject element that they will then draw upon in an interactive presentation to another EVENT participant.
The Participants in each ENCOUNTER are decided upon by the Event host in cooperation with the Bridging Chasms Steering Committee. Their pairings in the EVENT's ENCOUNTERS are similary determined, but are only made known at the Introductory Dinner on Friday evening.
An ENCOUNTER is expected to consume roughly two hours (one for each presenter). Afterwards, those who spoke will comment on their experience: what they had anticipated, what they actually experienced during their exchange, both from the perspective of a presenter, and as a listener.
The other Participants, who had been silent observers of the ENCOUNTER, will then add their observations. At the afternoon session on Sunday, the group will collate and review all the observations noted after the three ENCOUNTERS, settle on a list of factors and considerations that had enabled communications and also factors that prevented communication.
Thus, the actual subject of the ENCOUNTERS, of the weekend EVENT, is not the apparent content of the Participant-prepared discussions, but rather the tools and strategies that are used in reaching outside disciplinary positions towards similarly accomplished individuals who do not share one's orientation or knowledge base.
The entire EVENT weekend includes catered meals and refreshments. Participants coming from out of town are comfortably housed.
All the five sessions will be recorded and videotaped (for archival and research purposes only) and all Participants have received an Informed Consent notice.
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