Bridging  Chasms

A Preliminary Report on Bridging Chasms Event One

September 21-23, 2018
Conrad Prebys Music Center, Department of Music
University of California San Diego

Prepared by Kari Zacharias in consultation with Roger Reynolds

Event One Participants

Amy Childress, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California

Tara Javidi, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California San Diego

Charles Kennel, Emeritus Professor of Climate, Atmospheric Sciences, and Physical Oceanography, University of California San Diego

Nancy Kwak, Associate Professor of History, University of California San Diego Mark Reddington, Partner, LMN Architects

Thanassis Rikakis, Professor of Bioengineering and of Performing Arts, Virginia Tech

Lisa Wymore, Associate Professor, Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies,
University of California Berkeley

Bridging Chasms Steering Committee
Edmund Campion, Professor of Composition, University of California Berkeley

Olivia A. Graeve, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San
Diego

R. Benjamin Knapp, Professor of Computer Science, Virginia Tech

Stephen McAdams, Professor, Schulich School of Music, McGill University

Scott E. Page, Leonid Hurwitz Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and
Economics, University of Michigan

Roger Reynolds, University Professor of Composition, Department of Music, University of
California San Diego*

Oumelbanine Zhiri, Professor of French Literature, University of California San Diego*

Bridging Chasms Ethnographer
Kari Zacharias, Assistant Professor, Centre for Engineering in Society, Concordia University*

*also present at Event One

Event One Outline

Introductory Dinner:
Friday evening, 6:00
All Participants and Observers

Session 1: An Encounter between two Participants, with a Guide
Saturday morning, 22 September 2018
Participants: Amy Childress & Lisa Wymore
Guide: Thanassis Rikakis

Session 2: An Encounter between two Participants, without Guide
Saturday afternoon, 22 September 2018
Participants: Nancy Kwak & Charles Kennel

Session 3: Three Contextualizing Musical Performances
Saturday evening, 22 September 2018
All Participants and Observers

Session 4: An Encounter between three Participants
Sunday morning, 23 September 2018
Participants: Thanassis Rikakis, Mark Reddington, & Tara Javidi
Session 5: Concluding Discussion
Sunday afternoon, 23 September 2018
All Participants and Observers

All Participants were also present during the Encounters in which they did not present. All Encounters were observed by Roger Reynolds, Oumelbanine Zhiri, and Kari Zacharias.

Observations of Tools and Strategies for Cross-Disciplinary Communication

Throughout the Event, Participants used many approaches to facilitate cross-disciplinary communication. Observed tools and strategies are listed below, categorized by coordinating themes. Each category includes specific examples of Participants’ use of these tools and strategies.

These preliminary observations were prepared based on the observers’ notes from the Event, Participants’ written feedback, and the concluding group discussion from the final session of the weekend. More detailed analysis, and citations to specific examples, will be possible once transcripts and recordings of the Event have been made available.

1. Focus and intentionality while speaking and listening.

Preparation on the part of the speakers was an important aspect of the Encounters. All Participants engaged in a back-and-forth process with Roger prior to the Event via email, Skype, or in-person conversations. The object of these pre-Event exchanges was to specify the content that each Participant would bring to his or her Encounter. As a result, all Participants were focused on conveying one important aspect of their expertise, and intentional in pursuing this communicative “goal” throughout the Encounter. This applied across Encounters and Participants, even though the amount of time spent actively preparing presentation materials varied between Participants, as did the form and content of the presentations.

Participants also noted the importance of being an engaged and intentional listener. It was important for discussion partners to “work to think of questions” and attend to their own “inner dialogue,” rather than simply experience the interaction as a performance or a normal conversation. Those who observed Encounters, too, were active listeners, often taking notes even when they were not one of the presenters.

Importantly, a speaker’s focus and intention need not always be directed towards an audience, nor even necessarily towards a discussion partner. Nancy noted that she, as an observer, was most engaged in the Encounters when the speaker “cared the least about [her]” and was focused in their own thought or practice. Other Participants echoed this sentiment.

Examples and specifically observed instances include:

• Investing in the moment with full attention, whether imparting or receiving information (e.g. Amy and Lisa’s exchange, which was characterized by full and focused attentiveness). • Seeking a balance between presenting, receiving, and interacting (demonstrated and experienced by all Participants).
• Exhibiting patience by letting the message unfold rather than pressing a presenter early on (particularly evident in Nancy’s response to Charlie’s presentation, and in Amy’s response to Lisa’s).
• Allowing and appreciating communicative moments in which the presenter is temporarily “self-engaged” (e.g. Lisa rising from her seat to dance; Charlie’s distracted moments of perplexity regarding why transmitting the importance of global warming to the public remained so difficult; Mark’s efforts to explain being inside and looking “out” through a glass wall).

2. Recognizing your interlocutors’ expertise.

Much of the success of the Encounters was built on the Participants’ mutual respect, and their recognition of one another’s knowledge and experience as valuable. This was evident throughout both the Encounters themselves and the Participants’ informal interactions. In addition to aiding in the process of community-building (see #6), the mutual recognition of expertise allowed Participants to ask critical questions and push back on a discussion partner’s statements in a manner that did not cause offense (see #4).

It is notable that there was little to no conflict during the Encounters (which is not to say that this lack of conflict was necessary, or even necessarily beneficial, to communication). When minor discord did occur, e.g. during an exchange between Thanassis and Tara, it was respectful, and based in disagreement about the premise of a Participant’s argument. Recognition and respect were also observable in some of the communicative devices that Participants used (see #5), many of which relied on expectations of audience members’ knowledge, experience, and commitment to understanding.

It is important to note that the Participants shared several characteristics that likely contributed to the ease with which they established mutual respect and recognition. All were highly educated; all but one worked in academia; most had previous experience with interdisciplinary work; and all were accustomed to speaking about their work in front of a variety of audiences. Other commonalities also served as points of connection: most Participants shared similar political views, had children, and lived or had spent significant time in California.
Examples and specifically observed instances include:

• Recognizing and addressing factors that may be in opposition to what one is saying, to prevent the build-up of resistance or confusion among listeners (e.g. Mark observing that the acoustics of a space may not support visual expressivity; Thanassis mentioning assertions that perhaps, “if we are more inclusive, we lower standards,” before disputing these claims himself.)
• Asking questions with the assumption that the answer is known/expected, and contrasting these questions with other queries that invite more open responses (e.g. Mark’s ability to compress and frame questions so as to make them relevant and extendable; Amy asking Lisa whether water “inspired” her).

3. Naming and defining your terms, but limiting terminology to what is most necessary.

Several Participants named and provided clear definitions for terms that were vital to their work, but which may have been unfamiliar to their discussion partners and/or the observers (e.g. Nancy with “informality”; Tara with “bit pipe” and “capacity”). Naming and definition sometimes took the form of ordered points or repeated key ideas. These practices of naming and defining seemed to be helpful for the other Participants, and sometimes served as jumping-off points for conversation or clarifying questions.

Participants were generally careful to avoid the use of acronyms, field-specific jargon that was not absolutely necessary to their presentations, and explicit citation of external references. Avoidance of these things was a prescribed aspect of the Encounters that Participants had been made aware of prior to the Event, and with which they occasionally expressed discomfort. Nevertheless, Participants were usually able to introduce comprehensible sources of authority without resorting to any of these techniques.

Examples or specifically observed instances include:

• Introducing and repeating key ideas in a focused and ordered way, but occasionally altering both the specifics of the ideas and their order (e.g. Mark introducing functional needs, technical needs, and expressive aims, and later moving back and forth between these ideas; Tara reiterating references to Claude Shannon’s paper on information processing). • Establishing understandable and creditable sources of authority, without resorting to sources or standards that are not themselves shared with the audience (e.g. Nancy discussing two ways of thinking about terms, through dictionary references or through local historical context; several Participants’ use of visualizations).
• Naming things or concepts to give them intentionality.

4. Willingness to disrupt or intervene during a discussion, and openness to these disruptions and interventions from
others.

Encounters that involved little disruption/intervention on the part of a Participant or moderator often failed to reach the deeper level of understanding that other conversations achieved. Several Participants noted the importance of interrupting and asking questions, and helpful interventions on the parts of Participants and the unofficial moderator (Roger) were observed on multiple occasions.

These interventions took several forms. The simplest variety often included requesting definition or clarification (e.g. Amy’s question to Lisa about the meaning of “gesture”). However, these simple interventions sometimes became more complex exchanges, as in the above exchange between Amy and Lisa. After Lisa provided a somewhat complex description of “gesture,” Amy attempted to condense the definition into a single sentence. Lisa then resisted this attempt to simplify the meaning of an important concept, insisting on maintaining the complexity of the term and using movement and speech to convey a more appropriate definition. Similarly, Tara’s playing “devil’s advocate” and asking seemingly simple questions during Thanassis’s presentation led him to discuss a specific case (his stroke research project) that seemed to clarify his argument and terminology for the other Participants and observers.

Several Participants also cited “moments of misunderstanding” and moments where the speaker was pushed to “go outside” their immediate subject as useful.

Examples and specifically observed instances include:

• Being alert to moments of misunderstanding that may provide valuable portals to alternative interpretations (e.g. Amy interrupting Lisa after she started dancing to re-establish the oneon- one conversation).
• Asking questions even when the questions broke the presenter’s flow (numerous examples). • Listeners reframing or restating a presenter’s argument, producing a “test” of the clarity of the listener’s understanding and allowing for course correction on the part of the presenter if necessary (numerous examples, particularly during Amy and Lisa’s exchange and Thanassis’s presentation to Tara and Mark).
• Enlisting an observer not immediately engaged in the discussion at hand for a fresh perspective (referenced by numerous presenters as something they engage in when conducting work with new/interdisciplinary partners).

5. Using communicative devices and materials to simplify concepts without erasing their complexity.

During the Encounters, there were many instances of Participants using communicative devices – rhetorical, visual, and sometimes physical – to illustrate information. These devices served to simplify concepts, terminology, arguments, or ideas enough that other Participants could understand them, but not so much as to detract from their value.

Examples and specifically observed instances include:

• Metaphor (e.g. Charlie’s references to the “vital signs of the earth”) • Analogy, or otherwise quotidian parallels to more complex points (e.g. Amy’s allusion to “bio-film” on one’s teeth in the morning)
• Socratic questioning or other forms of sustained interrogation (e.g. Charlie’s opening series of questions re: understandings of temperature)
• Successive approximation: initially describing an issue in an easily shareable way, before gradually refining the subject with greater detail and complexity (e.g. Charlie: “The chasm is a larger framing that attracts a wider and more diverse set of observers and therefore, more potential solutions”).
• Gesture (e.g. Lisa’s presentation and the subsequent, more limited use of gesture by most other Participants)
• Photographs/renderings (e.g. Mark’s building plans; Nancy’s images)
• Charts/diagrams (e.g. Tara’s simplified network diagrams; Thanassis’s charts)

The use of visuals is a complex subject that requires additional consideration. While the above listed instances all seemed to help communication, use of images in other cases sometimes distracted the audience, unintentionally misled them, shifted the focus of the group, or eased the speaker into a more didactic mode of communication.

6. Building on shared experiences and understandings.

The group developed familiarity with each other over the course of the Event, and this familiarity changed the ways in which they were able to communicate.

This occurred on a larger scale among all Participants, over the entire duration of the Event. However, it also happened on a smaller scale in the course of a single Encounter. Participants could borrow one another’s tactics: Lisa’s reliance on gesture and movement in her presentation (the first of the Event) rendered other Participants’ subsequent use of gesture more noticeable. Amy used gesture when describing her own work in conversation with Lisa, which other members of the group noticed and remarked upon.

The Participants’ shared vocabulary and set of references was particularly noticeable during the third Encounter, when Thanassis and later other Participants referred to specific words and occurrences from the morning and the previous day’s Encounter.

Examples and specifically observed instances include:

• Borrowing one another’s tactics as an interaction develops (e.g. Amy’s use of gesture following Lisa’s presentation; Nancy’s continuation of the medical analogy that Charlie had introduced).
• Displaying one’s own joy in making a discovery, which seemed to build empathy as well as propel others toward unexpected observations (e.g. Amy recounting the moment when she understood that she “could do this [listen to or experience moving water] for the rest of my life”).

Reflections on Process and Event Structure

The first Bridging Chasms Event resulted in observations on the part of Participants and organizers related to the structure and process of the Event itself, in addition to the primary findings related to tools and strategies for cross-disciplinary communication. These process-based reflections are an important outcome in their own right, particularly for the organizers of subsequent Bridging Chasms Events.

Process-based outcomes cannot truly be separated from strategy-based results, as the format of an Encounter will necessarily impact the nature and success of its Participants’ communication. In this sense, a distinction between process and strategy-related outcomes is somewhat artificial. Nevertheless, some specific reflections on process are listed here, and are intended as both a starting point for future organizers and Participants and as a way of providing additional context for the tools and strategies described elsewhere in this report.

Reflections are listed below in the form of questions posed to organizers of future Bridging Chasms Events or similar initiatives. Each question is a synthesis or a direct representation of questions raised by Participants, organizers, or observers during and after the Event. Below each question are potential answers, ways forward, or useful observations based on participants’ and observers’ experiences at the first Event.

1. To what extent should organizers communicate the specific goal(s) of an Event to Participants in advance?

Several Participants commented that the goals of the Event were unclear to them, even following the conclusion of what felt to all like a successful weekend. As an effort to better understand the techniques and strategies that facilitate cross-disciplinary communication, the initial Event had demonstrated successes, and its general purpose was clear to all involved. However, some Participants were left feeling confused as to the Event’s specific goals and the intentions of the different Encounters. Additionally, several Participants from different Encounters were convinced that they had prepared their presentations incorrectly, or that the conversation they had participated in was somehow outside the intended bounds of the workshop.

A central element of confusion was the question of what the individual Encounters were intended to achieve. While all Participants were instructed to focus on communicating specific concepts within their own expertise, the resulting Encounters took different forms. Some Participants, notably Lisa and Amy, focused on communicating a basic understanding of the methods and motivations of their work. Others, including Nancy and Charlie, communicated specific information that was central to their research (e.g. the meaning of global temperature within and outside of the climate science community). Only during the exchange between Thanassis and Tara in the third Encounter did a presenter attempt to convince other Participants of something that they did not immediately seem to accept. All three of these modes of dialogue provided opportunity to study Participants’ techniques for cross-disciplinary communication. It remains an open question whether future Events should focus on one, two, or all three of these modes, or even explore other alternatives (see #2).


Additional questions include if, how, and in what ways the specific intentions of an Event or Encounter should be conveyed to Participants in advance. Prior knowledge of the focus might help Participants prepare and alleviate their discomfort, but it could also reduce the spontaneity of the interactions. In the case of the first Event, there was considerable preparatory interaction between the principal organizer (Roger) and each individual Participant, including time spent discussing and honing an appropriate subject for each presentation. Considering this preparation, the fact that Participants noted curiosity, discomfort, and confusion with regard to the purpose of their individual presentations and the overall intentions of the Event is worthy of further reflection.

2. What format/structure should Encounters take?

The first Event featured three different formats for Encounters between Participants. The first Encounter included two Participants, each of whom presented their work and asked clarifying questions of the other, as well as a “guide,” whose intended role was to facilitate the discussion and intervene when necessary. The second Encounter included two Participants but no guide. The third Encounter featured three Participants presenting in turn, again with no guide.

We did not identify a single “best” format for an Encounter, and several Participants suggested the possibility of continuing to vary Encounter formats during future Events. However, we did find that sustained one-on-one engagement was the most productive pathway to substantive communication. The guide in the first Encounter had a limited effect on the proceedings (see #3), and the three-person Encounter proceeded more as a series of one-on-one conversations than a sustained discussion between three equal stakeholders.

Some general conclusions about format applied to all three Encounters. First, the prompts that were provided as “on-ramps” (or, in the case of the third Encounter, prepared but never provided) proved unnecessary. These prompts were intended to aid Participants in beginning their discussion and in identifying common themes between subject areas. In practice, perhaps as a result of the preparation that Participants had done, and the fact that the prompts were provided immediately prior to the beginning of an Encounter, the conversation seemed to initiate and flow without a need for the prompt. During the first Encounter, the only one in which the prompt was provided as planned, before the discussion began, Participants struggled to incorporate references to the prompt with their prepared materials.

Second, the order of the presentations matters, both within an Encounter and throughout the Event. Within individual Encounters, Participants incorporated the references and techniques of their interlocutors into their own subsequent presentations. This was most evident during the first Encounter, as Amy used gesture to describe membrane fouling, following Lisa’s deep discussion and demonstration of gesture in dance. Throughout the weekend, Participants began to develop a shared understanding and vocabulary, which they built during the Encounters as well as during shared meals and casual conversations. During the third and final Encounter, Participants made frequent and repeated references to their counterparts’ work and ideas. The early presentations set the tone for the Event, and produced the foundations of the group’s shared understanding.

3. What is the role of a moderator?

As discussed above, the initial one-on-one Encounter also featured a third Participant who took on the role of a “guide.” Neither of the other two Encounters were intended to involve any speakers other than the central Participants who were themselves presenting and asking questions (at least during the initial phases). However, the guide during the initial Encounter did not make significant interventions. Instead, during all three Encounters but most notably during the second, Roger acted as an unofficial moderator. He stepped in to halt or reorient the conversation when he felt that the discussion was heading off track, or decided that the Participants were not asking fruitful questions. These interventions were unplanned, and not part of the original conception of the Encounters.

In light of this, questions about the role of the moderator arose during the group discussion at the conclusion of the Event. Overall, we found that the interventions made by an unofficial moderator were useful, and that there is a potentially important role for an “external” moderator in future Events. As the primary organizer of Bridging Chasms, Roger had the strongest idea of how the conversations should proceed, as well as an authority over the Event (as conceiver, convener, and budgetary officer) that the Participants did not possess. As an observer of the Encounters who was also physically removed from the table at which Participants sat, he was less personally invested in the conversation and could more easily steer the discussion when he did intervene. Interruptions from an external moderator did disrupt the flow of the discussion, but in most cases Participants were able to continue in a productive direction following the disruption. As one Participant noted with regard to moderation, “it is no use to ignore the artificiality of [this] experiment” in communication. The presence of a moderator is artificial, but there is little, if anything, about the Bridging Chasms Encounters that is “natural” to begin with.

4. What are the roles of the Participants during an Encounter in which they do not present?

Open discussion time following a one-on-one exchange provided important space for participants to reflect on and analyze the Encounters. The first and second Encounters included considerable time – roughly one hour, equivalent to one third of the total time allotted – for open discussion among all Participants. The third Encounter was intended to include this open discussion time as well; however, this aspect of the Encounter was cut short due to unexpected time constraints on the final day of the Event. While some Participants expressed frustration at not being “allowed” to intervene earlier, restricting the group discussion to the latter stages of an Encounter seemed to push the presenters to engage deeply in their one-on-one exchanges, and gave the other Participants time to synthesize their own observations.

Participants who did not present during an Encounter were often able to identify communication strategies used by their peers, and bring them up during the group discussion. For example, Nancy noted several different ways in which Lisa and Amy tried to build connections: through an “artificial” reference to water; through discussing institutional processes, and through metaphor. Similarly, Tara remarked on both Participants’ careful use of body language during the same Encounter. The third Encounter suffered from the absence of this time for synthesis and analysis. Several Participants attempted to create space for an open discussion of the third Encounter during the final wrap-up discussion, but time pressures prevented a substantive discussion of this type.

Participants also commented that they found it unnatural or difficult to focus on an interaction with one or two people while seated among a larger group. At times, Participants were unsure of how loudly they should speak and where they should direct their eye contact. Some suggested potential formats for future Encounters with no “additional” Participants, or with some degree of physical separation between central and non-central Participants. This remains an open question for the organizers of future Events. Restricting the Encounters to the central Participants has the potential to improve one-on-one engagement, but it may do so at the expense of group reflection or community building.

5. Should visual materials be used during an Encounter? If so, how?

The role of visual materials, including PowerPoint presentations and printed handouts, in Encounters is complex and worthy of future consideration. The set-up of the first Event included three screens, one large and two small, arranged at one side and both ends of a table (see #6). Four of the Participants showed slides on all three screens during their presentations. Of the three Participants who did not use slides, one (Amy) brought printed materials that she showed to the other Participants – though only after the bulk of her presentation was complete. The other two (Lisa and Charlie) used no visual materials, though Lisa relied heavily on her own gesture and physicality as a form of visual presentation.

The use of images on screens shifted the Participants’ focus away from the presenter and onto the screens themselves. This finding is perhaps unsurprising, but it is important to note especially in conjunction with reflections about the purpose of the Event (see #1). If the intention of an interaction is to communicate information, or convince an audience of a particular argument, this shift in focus may not be detrimental. However, if the purpose is to build shared understanding or empathy, it may not be beneficial to remove focus from the speaker for extended periods of time.

At times, use of images provided new avenues for discussion. During Mark’s presentation as well as Nancy’s, the images on the screens sometimes served as jumping-off points for discussion, almost independent of information that speakers had conveyed verbally. Of course, it is also important to note the power and authority of images to convey meanings that the presenter does not always intend. Following Nancy’s presentation, Participants noted the apparent peace and tranquility of the government-built housing settlements that she described. They had gathered this information from a photograph, when in fact Nancy intended to convey the deep unhappiness that most residents of these settlements felt regarding their displacement from the city.

6. What physical arrangements (of rooms, Participants, tables, observers, screens, etc.) should be used during an Encounter?

All Encounters took place on the stage of the Conrad Prebys Music Center, a large, windowless, and geometrically novel space. The seven Participants sat around a large rectangular table, while the organizers and ethnographer sat adjacent to the main table, also on the stage but physically removed from the Participants and from the lighting used to illuminate the table. The central Participants (those manifesting an Encounter) initially sat close to each other at one corner of the table, each occupying a different side. One large screen and two small screens were located on the stage along the length of the table, between the Participants and the (unoccupied) audience seating.

Benefits of this physical arrangement included the absence of distraction from outside sources and the beauty and uniqueness of the space, both of which led to the feeling that Participants were engaged in a “special occasion.” In practical terms, the room and the technical set-up of the stage area also allowed the Encounters to be appropriately lit and recorded. Meals and breaks occurred elsewhere in the building, and the stage area facilitated a quiet, focused atmosphere during Encounters. Participants and observers understood the space as one in which they should be engaged and working, and responded to it accordingly.

Challenges of the set-up included the lack of natural light, which some Participants found especially difficult during the later discussions, and uncertainty about how the Participants should arrange themselves at the table. Participants commented on the exhaustion that they felt following a day of Encounters, attributing this partly to the disconnect from the outside world that they felt while on the stage. Alongside its positive attributes, the stage set-up contributed to a feeling of orchestration during the Encounters. Several Participants expressed a desire to hold the Encounters in the conference room that was used for meals, which featured natural light and views of the campus.

Participants were also unsure of how to situate themselves during an Encounter. Following the initial placement of presenter and listener at corners of the short end of the table, organizers experimented with placing them instead towards the middle of a long side of the table. This second arrangement resulted in the central Participants speaking with a more “public voice,” and also drew their attention away from their specific interlocutor and towards the rest of the audience. During the wrap-up discussion, Participants suggested potential future arrangements including a circular arrangement and a separate, smaller space for the central Participants. These alternative physical arrangements were often proposed in conjunction with alternative Encounter formats (see #2).

7. What are the logistical potentials and limitations of a single Event? (Duration? Number of Participants? Number of Encounters?)

In addition to debating the potential format and physical set-up of future Encounters, Participants and organizers discussed the overall structure of the Event during the final wrap-up discussion. Participants agreed that the duration of the first Event (Friday evening through Sunday afternoon) was an upper limit for the type of sustained focus that the experience demanded. Participants took all of their meals together, and had little unscheduled time during the weekend. This was very helpful for building shared understanding, but it was also demanding and required significant energy and buy-in from Participants. Similarly, the number of Participants at the first Event (seven, plus three observers) was appropriate for its format and duration. The group was large enough to include a variety of viewpoints and experiences, yet small enough to allow for the development of a strong group dynamic over the course of the weekend.

We can imagine a variety of logistical possibilities for future Events, including changes in format and number of Participants. One Event cannot yield enough data to determine the potential range of these variables. However, based on our experiences we can recommend that organizers carefully consider logistical factors in connection with one another. The number of Participants, format of Encounters, physical set-up, and Event duration are not independent from one another, and the success of future Events will depend on identifying combinations that work.