Reading Circles / Empirica
In Empirica, theoretical discussions and experiential knowledge form the two pillars of our research practice. To build a shared understanding of art, design, and craft, we organize open discussions and reading circles.
In Empirica, theoretical discussions and experiential knowledge form the two pillars of our research practice. To build a shared understanding of art, design, and craft, we organize open discussions and reading circles.
Empirica Reading List
Books:
- The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action? by Donald Schön (1983)
- The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi (1966)
- The Craftsman by Richard Sennett (2008)
- The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of human understanding by Mark Johnson (2007)
- Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The reinvention of nature by Donna Harraway (1991)
- Art as Experience by John Dewey (1934)
Ongoing reading:
- A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1987)
Thematic Reading Circles
We also organize thematic circles catered to specific research interests or projects. The Matter reading circle (2018-19), for example, centered on materiality and material engagement theories.
Books:
- How Things Shape the Mind? A theory of material Engagement by Lambros Malafouris (2013)
- Making - Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture by Tim Ingold (2013)
Selected Articles and Book Chapters by Andrew Pickering:
- Article: The Mangle of Practice: Agency and Emergence in the Sociology of Science (1993)
- Book chapter, Practice and Posthumanism: Social theory and a history of agency (Chapter 11 in The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, 2005).
- Book chapter, Material culture and the dance of agency (Chapter 7 in Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, 2010).
Selected Chapters from Material Agency: Towards a non-anthropocentric approach, edited by Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris (2008):
- Introduction: Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris
- Chapter 1: Where Brain, Body and World Collide by Andy Clark
- Chapter 4: The Actor-Enacted: Cumbrian Sheep in 2001 by John Law and Annemarie Mol
- Chapter 12: Agency, Networks, Past and Future by Sander E. van der Leeuw
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Curly birch shines in Aalto University’s Wood Studio’s fresh perspectives at the Craft Museum of Finland’s summer exhibition.
When atoms begin to dance – At Aalto University, metallurgy became choreography
On the Dance Metallurgy pilot course, copper ions were given movement and a face. When a metal essential to the green transition stepped onto the dance floor, chemical phenomena that often seem intimidating opened up in an entirely new way.
Design at the start of the supply chain – Aalto University leads a major EU project to transform textile colouration practices
The EU Horizon-funded MELANGE project brings together design, technology and business to rethink colouration practices in the textile industry and accelerate the transition towards circular and sustainable textile systems.