Don't Leave the Kitchen. Incubations as a New Method for Intervention

Abstract

In this paper we present a recipe for cultural interventions as a stew. It illustratesan approach we have developed in several research and exhibition projects that we call“incubation“. An incubation is a socio-technical device that forms new objects and interactionsproduced under situational, social and time-based pressure via the use of knowledge, interactions andobjects. An incubation consists of a range of ingredients - media, methods, theories - mixed togetherto both describe and intervene in a given situation. It challenges the opposition of actionversus description, and political versus scientific, as limited. Because an incubation is not aprocess of debunking but of assembly, any method is always supposed to represent, interveneand transform. We use several examples to illustrate our argument, among them a long-termstudy with vegetative state patients, an exhibition project with researchers that are asylumseekers, a betting office for genetically doped mice and a laboratory to measure ideas of prevention