Tim Jones has just posted a video of a new science engagement technique he’s working on over at his blog Zoonomian. I was so impressed with the result that I asked his permission to post it here also.
Before explaining what this is, take a look at the video – it’s ten minutes long, but well worth watching in its entirety:
The Exquisite Corpse of Science from Tim Jones on Vimeo…
Tim and colleagues adapted the Exquisite Corpse techniques developed by the Surrealist movement to mesh together drawings of what four very different people thought about science and its impact and relevance. He describes the process here.
I love the result. It has an openness and honesty that draws you in, and provides far more insight into what each of the contributors are thinking than interviews alone would. And the end result is visually stunning.
It also engages viewers as well as participants in thinking about science from their perspective, as they see it visualized through the eyes of others.
It just goes to show that, sometimes, effective science and engagement just needs a Sharpie [felt tip pen to any Brits reading this], a drawing pad, and a bit of imagination!
[If, as me, you liked this - spread the word. It would be great to see what others do with the technique]
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I really enjoyed Tim Jones’ (and colleagues) video. The amazing thing about communicating science is that, many times, you just need to encourage people themselves to convey *their* ideas. And then your mission, a difficult one, is to frame them elegantly.
The beauty here, I believe, rests in the way those very ideas are embroidered one to another. Sewing ideas is to produce meaning. As humans, we are keen on gathering what is scattered, on pretending our intimate collection is a whole.
But let me go back to the ideas of science. Since they are represented in words *and* drawings, we also get closer to the ways by which each interviewee grasps the world. As if we were probing their thoughts in progress. We don’t feel likely to judge their choices. We just grasp their differences or similarities and accept them as a whole. A whole heterogeneous.
Thanks Andréia,
I’m constantly surprised at how sophisticated most people’s grasp of what is important to them is – we tend to talk about things like science literacy and science communication, but the art of tapping into a person’s inner perceptions and really listening to them is rarely mentioned. I think that’s one thing that drew me to this technique.
Absolutely, Andrew. I couldn’t find a better way to describe it: “the art of tapping into a person’s inner perceptions and really listening to them”.