À Propos de «Scientific Humanities
2. Rumor Has It
This is one of four artworks commissioned by Bruno Latour, philosopher and professor at Sciences Po Paris, as a complement to his 2014 MOOC course about «Scientific Humanities». Aim of the course was to equip future citizens with the means to be at ease with many issues that straddle the distinctions between science, morality, politics and society.
The scrolls I designed were based on four different stories about contentious issues or pieces of news, and they were used by Latour and the students during the course.
This scroll is titled «Rumor Has It» and it introduces a discourse on utterances.
Here's an excerpt of Latour's lesson:
«Most of the utterances we exchange in the course of a day do not come out of anyone’s mouth in particular: Who said them? To whom? Under what circumstances? With what type of proof? Against whom? To what end? From what point of view? According to the principles of what profession? With what financing? And so on.
Often you don’t really know. You’re told, for example, that you should get vaccinated quickly for the swine flu, or that it’s going to be a frigid winter, or that there’s water on the moon, or that Macs are better that PCs, or that your boyfriend badmouthed you behind your back, or that the singer Johnny Hallyday is in an induced coma. Everything floats around like rumors, and you’d very much like to know where they come from».
