Our abstract for the Internationales Graduiertenkolleg "InterArt"International Research Training Group "Interart Studies"Freie Universität Berlin 16-18 November 2009:

I would describe the Phi books project as generating knowledge for reflexive action, with all the problems that the word reflexive entails, it still feels like its been a constructive, dynamic and expansive practice. Phi Books Research Journal, November 2009, available at :
http://phibooksland.blogspot.com/

Phi books is a collaborative project between Alexandra Antonopoulou, a designer and children’s book writer-illustrator, and Eleanor Dare, a computer artist. The Phi books use the house as a metaphor for interdisciplinary collaboration. The two researcher-artists use narrative, making and performance to explore how borders, walls and doors facilitate collaboration. The paper interrogates the difficulties and pleasures of collaboration between different disciplines working within the same research field. The project uses, stories, theory, drawings, maps, charts, found objects, photographs, dreams, spies, keys, overheard conversations and meta-critical observations.The artists have written papers based on their interpretations of the project, chracterising their joint work as a paradigm for joining individual practices, leading to a result that celebrates both collaboration and individuality.The project is a response to the inadequacy of historical models for both theorizing and practicing creative research collaboration, and to an apparent lack of theoretical mobility across diverse disciplines. Both papers emphasize the co-constitution of theory and practice.