Research culture: a Cultural Object Unidentified Last December I was in Barcelona at a conference organized by the platform Zzzinc
for the purpose of analysis and a plan collective what we mean by "research culture" . I took some notes which I reproduce below, for themselves and the community, with a warning. I write now is the result of a translation exercise twice: translation of what was said on that day around that table and translation from what I understand now from the notes I took then. All this of course peppered with my own opinions (as we will not pretend at this point that there is some semblance of objectivity). 
The starting point is the existence of a certain type of heterogeneous initiatives, we could identify as an "emergent phenomenon" and the common denominator would be given the centrality they attach to the research dimension. are not (only) festivals, there are (only) exposures are not (only) art projects are somewhat different. To clarify what we mean we rely on some nearby examples: the festival Zemos98, collective work or medialab Platoniq Hangar, projects Bestiary, Critical Mass or Straddle, the recent exhibition on the Baroque and the myth of the Hispanic curated by Jorge Luis Marzo and Teresa Badia for my project CCCB Soft Power. In these cases we can deduce that it is a practice varied and eclectic: sometimes more descriptive or applied, others more conceptual or discourse analysis, which sometimes takes the form of an event, other's software, a communication device or a participatory project, whose theme, moreover, do not always correspond with what is often identified as an area of \u200b\u200barts and culture.
empirical observation (and informal and intuitive) tells us that research on culture is not a recognized practice, or conceptualized, and analyzed systematically. Such practices are a little UFOs, or rather, OCNIs: Unidentified Cultural Objects, or from cultural theory strict sense, or from public policy or institutional programs, or from the current language. Then the research culture ... Is it a mixed bag in which to place all of hybrid practices or lack of a specific nature? Is it (only) the result of a paradigm shift in the art that moves the focus from the object to the process? Is it a way to point out everything that is not just "production"? Is it an area more research (academic) except that crossed through the center of "culture"? Is it a specific area of \u200b\u200bknowledge production? Is it a territory of "mindless without performance standards? Is it a place from which to think and act on what contemporary culture? And if so, what methods work, what operating protocols and whose idea of \u200b\u200bculture behind it?
spent considerable time discussing the reasons why the research culture does not fit the parameters of academic research. Reasons may have to do with differences in the ways of finance, in terms of methodology or process for evaluating results in terms of the channels through which pass over and over, or as to the collective dimension of research involving culture and not often seen in the academic. But here are opinions. Some believe that any of the above projects could have been done since college. I personally feel that neither of joke (and I admit it: I am a burn from the academy because, despite my vocation ratichuela library, there is no way to find accommodation in those areas of knowledge rotten hierarchy and discipline of the old regime and that diplomitas that I have to stop a freight train, close parenthesis). Other, more diplomatic move suggests the question: if projects and might well have arisen in academia, why not in fact occur? Some suggest that an added difference is that while academic research looks to the past (its dependence on a certain methodology of analysis of existing and legitimacy based on legitimate sources previously), research on work culture "from this and the view on the future "(with a high degree of speculation, therefore) and without pre-imposed methodologies (from a freestyler bastard and so openly.)
The research culture is also not strictly "cultural production" as understood by the institutions. While cultural production is more oriented to the logic of the event (show are, consumable, quantifiable in terms of audience), Research in culture require a more leisurely work of nature, experimental and informal. In practice, the dynamics of the production function rather as a container and as a limit to the research culture. Pick a phrase that, in my opinion, clearly reflects the problem: "We coined a hypothesis and organized the festival to accommodate projects that illustrate and explain it." In these cases, research is, in itself, a form of cultural production, however, must be made with some discretion because it is not the purpose for which, speaking clearly, you are given money. In the absence of aid specifically for research on culture, if you want to take forward a project of this type, you plegarte to the demands of production, ie that your browser delusions contemporary take the form of something recognizable, which in most cases it will be an event, with times of rapid consumption, criteria visibility and its novelty and uniqueness.
Nor, finally, traceable to cultural research projects understood as cultural management research: public policy analysis, optimization of equipment, study or innovation financing schemes applied to the cultural sector in all aspects and fields of action.
But why investigate? Or more specifically: Is there, in research on culture, something like an intention might be called "politics"? All this, and the inner motivation of this day, in my opinion is permeated by this question, it is worth making even lead us to places that often do not know return. At this point the organizers of the day, we propose a slide that reads as follows: "Should not the research culture is a process of knowledge production that works openly and generate resources to access, and domain public? " . If there is a singularity in the research culture, this would fall so in the realm of what we identify as commons, understanding production by such forms of knowledge, resources, materials or content, one way or another, to revert to the public domain. The final production of a particular idea society governed by the paradigm of "what belongs to everyone because there is nobody." And this is not nothing but a political model. I like the idea and I align my heart with her without hesitation, although it is true that the head (assuming that there is a difference between one and another) recognize the pertiencia of the question then arises: if research on culture is production of commons, why not simply talking about knowledge production and ready? There are many more things to add, many lines of flight, notes, footnotes, cross questions, paradoxical responses depending on the field of knowledge from which we place ourselves, different conclusions depending on the purpose for we address this issue (because we can not deny that all this has a "why" that perhaps should be the core of the debate: I mean a position, a position that does not have to be the result of a dialectical process, but amply legitimized from pure subjectivity). At the moment I leave here. Will no doubt continue.
* The image comes from one of the meetings Anti_Gen, a group that have mounted against the gentrification of Neukölln.
To commit a great folly, it takes two large nuts. A bottle of vodka and rum. Although sometimes I wonder if you're crazy too. Because if this, or you are, not know what to expect . And then it will be chaos. I will start to fly in less than two kisses. To you I give you only four eyes. No more. And rain. you'll see. And after just a few hours to hold you if you forget. and are dedicated to seeing us from afar, or in the classroom, or wherever, as we do now. Or, stay and we take something and tell me a bit about your life. O , I say! You give me cuddles in some corner of the classroom or hallway, or anywhere. Or find by inadvertently street, you know. But for now, do not be proud, and play a while to get carried away . For more crazy than you, there are none. And you know that men do not seduce complicated with simple pleasures. And do not deny it, you in the background are not so complicated .... .. 
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