Institutional Travels: Spaces for Cultural Analysis

This chapter probes alternate spaces for practicing cultural
analysis, both materially and discursively. Departing from Clifford Geertz’s understanding of thick description, and following Lauren Berlant’s call for infrastructural analysis, I narrate my inter-institutional travels into an artistic research project in the emergency department of a major hospital in Amsterdam. Tracing the initial phases of the project, involving burnout, collaboration, administrative hassles, and conceptual translations, I underscore the lifeworlds of the project that do not necessarily resonate discursively. Attending to infrastructural protocols, concepts,
and practices that solidify forms of engagement in cultural analysis, I argue, are necessary in order to address the procedural as it takes shape and loosen up taxing or confining forms of investment.