In this paper, I present the ongoing art-research documentary project SPOOL. SPOOL evolves across two entangled levels. On the one hand, it is a film that explores the intersection of the temporalities of everyday life with Parkinson’s disease and the temporalities of basic stem cell research into the brain. As such, SPOOL is a practice of public science communication. Communication of stem cell research is often aimed at teaching ‘the public’ what stem cells are, mirroring a broader movement in science communication practices, in which social scientists and artists are enlisted to translate technoscientific developments (Calvert, 2024). SPOOL aims, instead, to develop alternative narratives of chronic illness experiences and scientific advances, contributing to dissemination events that foster open, empathic conversations about the challenges and hopes of living with chronic conditions while awaiting new treatments. On the other hand, SPOOL is embedded within a qualitative research project and brings together people living with Parkinson’s disease, dance instructors, and natural and social scientists. In this sense, SPOOL becomes a research methodology itself—becoming a “dialogic site” for gathering people who might not otherwise meet, to explore temporalities of Parkinson’s.

Whether considered as science communication, research practice, or both, filmmaking in SPOOL can be understood as enacting certain worlds and politics (Verstappen & Davies, 2024). SPOOL’s practice invites, therefore, reflective critical analysis of the values and ideals that underpin its dissemination and research dimensions. I explore how SPOOL can be theorized as an art-research practice centered around local, experimental collaborations (Estalella & Criado, 2018). I do so in part to explore how concepts from critical psychological theories and science and technology studies (STS) can be brought into dialogue to theorize collaborative practices that explore and represent science in public venues.

Bibliography

Calvert, J. (2024). A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14594.001.0001

Estalella, A., & Criado, T. S. (Eds.). (2018). Experimental Collaborations: Ethnography through Fieldwork Devices (1st ed.). Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw04cwb

Verstappen, S., & Davies, S. R. (2024). Ethnographic film as world‐making: Connecting visual anthropology with Science and Technology Studies. Visual Anthropology Review, var.12338. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12338