The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies

The Lab Book is a new approach to the study of laboratories that explores how they produce knowledge in a wide variety of ways,from "Big Science" to séance chambers to university media labs. It presents readers with the concept of the "hybrid lab" and offers an extended critical investigation of how labs have proliferated throughout culture.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 328 pages
Publication date: 09 May 2022
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

A groundbreaking new approach to the study of laboratories, offering a practical method for understanding labs in all walks of life

From the "Big Science" of Bell Laboratories to the enigmatic realm of séance chambers to university media labs to neighborhood makerspaces, places we call "labs" are ubiquitous—but how exactly do we account for the wide variety of ways that they produce knowledge?

More than mere imitations of science and engineering labs, many contemporary labs are hybrid forms that require a new methodological and theoretical toolkit to describe.

The Lab Book delves into these vital, creative spaces, presenting readers with the concept of the "hybrid lab" and offering an extended—and rare—critical investigation of how labs have proliferated throughout culture.

Organized by interpretive categories such as space, infrastructure, and imaginaries, The Lab Book employs both historical and contemporary examples to demonstrate how laboratories have become fundamentally interconnected to changes in the contemporary university. Its broad reach encompasses institutions like the MIT Media Lab, the Tuskegee Institutes Jesup Wagon, ACTLab, and the Media Archaeological Fundus.

The authors cover topics such as the evolution and delineation of lab-based communities, how labs' tools and technologies contribute to defining their space, and a glossary of key hybrid lab techniques.

Providing rich historical breadth and depth, The Lab Book brings into focus a critical, but often misunderstood, aspect of the contemporary arts and humanities.

Weight: 404g
Dimension: 215 x 139 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517902186