#intra-action

Though some misunderstood the principle of the experiment as a kind of “blurring,” Schrödinger’s experiment instead suggested the presence of an unclear or contradictory reality, according to Barad (2007, pp. 275-278). Barad suggested that this unclear or contradictory reality did not mean that the cat was either: alive or dead; alive and dead; or partly alive and partly dead. To perceive the cat paradox in this way would be to engage in a binary affair. Instead, the cat’s fate was literally in an entangled state: the fate of the cat was entangled with the fate of the atom.

Further, what Barad (2007) found “most disturbing” (p. 280) about the cat paradox experiment was that it illustrated the nature of the transition of the state of the cat during the process of observation. The value of the object, therefore, was no longer one thing or another, but rather what Colebrook (2007) called “a becoming” (p. 78). When one can liberate lived experience from concept, reality becomes less about time and more about iterative transformation (p. 78).

This understanding of transformation in relation to time, reality, and being is an excellent way to think about and transcend the binary affairs in lyme studies. The issue of serological testing is one binary affair that can subsequently lead people down a rabbit trail of other binary affairs, such as diagnosis, treatment protocols, and the issue of chronicity. Focusing on testing for now, serological tests look for antibodies, which is considered to be a sign of active infection. Therefore, some members of the lyme community interpret a negative test result to indicate that no active infection exists (Lantos, 2011, p. 790). To many in lyme studies, the case would be closed and patients “crying lyme” are actually suffering from another illness. However, physicians who disagree with the conclusion of these negative results may go ahead and diagnose and treat lyme disease anyway. They cite uncontrolled studies with high reporting biases for the reason why they cannot exclude the possibility that patients have lyme disease (Lantos et al., 2010a, pp. 3-4; Johnson & Stricker, 2010a, p. 1109). Ironically, those who interpret negative test results to be not-lyme point to those same studies as sufficient evidence—despite simultaneously believing case studies, anecdotes, and patient testimonials are sloppy and unscientific practices.

In any case, what many members of the lyme community from both sides of the issue of serological testing may fail to remember is that lyme disease in itself is untidy. For instance, consider one of the main sticking points surrounding diagnosis: active infection. Recalling Schrödinger’s cat paradox experiment, imagine that the cat is the lyme body and the radiation atom is a lyme pathogen. If the fate of the lyme body is entangled with the fate of the pathogen, naturally many questions arise: What exactly is active infection? How does active infection manifest or not manifest as observable sickness? Do the contents of a vial of blood drawn at one particular minute of one particular hour of one particular day indicate a definitive presence or absence of infection? Moreover, what is one to do with evidence that indicates that different labs yielded different results from the same specimen (Luger & Krauss, 1990, p. 762)? And what is one to do about evidence that showed the same lab can yield drastically different results from the same specimen (Bakken et al., 1997, p. 537)? Also, how do experiences, traumas, medical treatments, naturally aging biological bodies, sex, geographic location, environmental factors, and so forth, intra-act with the lyme pathogen over time? Like the cat in the box, at any given moment, the fate of the lyme body is in an entangled state with the fate of the infection.

To help flesh this out a bit more, it helps to explore one aspect of quantum physics known as a “quantum leap.” These leaps are not jumps in the sense that an electron moves from one orbit to another on one continuous trajectory; the electron does not move from a here-now to a there-then, as Barad (2007) put it. Instead, what makes the quantum leap “queer” (p. 182) is that no determinacy exists as to when and where the electron jumps, which makes “continuity and discontinuity . . . crucial to the open-ended becoming of the world,” Barad said (p. 182). In this way, lyme studies would flourish if it kept an open-ended attitude towards the lyme body and even the pathogens that infect it. Though technology and observation will help mysteries emerge, the body will always be there to lead the way through and make sense of them.

For instance, if one were to take a clinical history of a typical lyme body, one would often find a history of symptomatic flare-ups (U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 1993, p. 37). In my observations, many lyme sufferers experience on average about 10 years of illness with many flare-ups scattered throughout that time. Because the symptoms vary in intensity and length and appear as other diseases or illnesses, both medical practitioners and sufferers tend not to perceive all those episodes being part of a single disease. Usually, around the 10-year mark, these sufferers no longer have episodes of perhaps a week or maybe a month or more. Instead, their flare-ups become one, long continuous bout of symptoms. Having exhausted all other possible etiologies, bank accounts, physical strength, and relational capital, somehow they find the last-known person who seems to listen to what their body is communicating: the lyme-literate doctor.

In conclusion, transformation and quantum leaps in spacetimematter challenges the expectations about the certainty of lyme knowledge. As such, that a person can be suffering from lyme disease in spite of the pre-arranged script determined 40 years ago should be all the validation one needs for the insufficiency of current lyme knowledge.

References

Bakken, L. L., Callister, S. M., Wand, P. J., & Schell, R. F. (1997). Interlaboratory comparison of test results for detection of Lyme disease by 516 participants in the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene/College of American Pathologists Proficiency Testing Program. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 35(3), 537-543.

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Colebrook, C. (2008). On not becoming man: The materialist politics of unactualized potential. In S. Alaimo & S. Hekman (Eds.), Material feminisms (pp. 52-84). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Johnson, L., & Stricker, R. B. (2010a). Final report of the Lyme disease review panel of the Infectious Diseases Society of America: A pyrrhic victory? Clinical Infectious Diseases, 51(9), 1108-1009. doi:10.1086/656690

Lantos, P. M., Charini, W. A., Medoff, G., Moro, M. H., Mushatt, D. M., Parsonnet, J., . . . Baker, C. J. (2010a). Final report of the Lyme disease review panel of the Infectious Disease Society of America. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 51(1), 1-5. doi:10.1086/654809

Lantos, P. M. (2011). Chronic Lyme disease: The controversies and the science. Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy, 9(7), 787-797. doi:10.1586/ERI.11.63

Lindley, D. (2007). Introduction. In W. Heisenberg, Physics and philosophy: The revolution of modern science (pp. vii-xxi). New York: Harper Perennial.

Luger, S. W., & Krauss, E. (1990). Serologic tests for Lyme disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 150, 761-763.

Schrödinger, E. (1983). The present situation in quantum mechanics (J. D. Trimmer, Trans.). In J. Wheeler & W. H. Zurek (Eds.), Quantum theory and measurement (pp. 152-167). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Reprinted from 1980, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 124, 323-338)

Women working in art, archives and activism in Vancouver came together on June 13th, 2016 to engage in a critical discussion around the absence of female cultural producers within the archive. The event, Reactivating: Art and Archives was hosted by the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery and consisted of an “open-space” discussion where participants generated topics and broke into groups to discuss issues surrounding feminism, documentation and community.

One of these discussions developed between the intersection of “cross-generational” and “mentorship” as ways to dismantle systems of patriarchy within the art community. The discussion brought up examples of misrepresentation in archival holdings such as Kate Craig’s, “who documented the action at the Western Front but was never considered an author or creator of it”. [1]  Mentorship can contribute to the archive by enabling young women with the knowledge and resources to participate and reflect on the construction and understanding of it. The conversation questioned the hierarchical structure of mentorship by asking participants whether or not the word mentorship carries the reciprocal characteristics that participants had experienced in cross-generational relationships; the group shared several encounters where they learned from students while teaching or advising them. One of the participants attributed this to feminist theorist Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action in Meeting the Universe Halfway where she explained Barad’s concept of intra-action as “the idea that things do not exist until they come into action with one another” and related it to how “new things come into being” through the exchange that happens in a mentoring relationship. [2] Barad mirrors this description as “ the ongoing practice of being open and alive to each meeting, each intra-action, so that we might use our ability to respond, our responsibility, to help awaken, to breathe life into ever new possibilities for living justly”. [3] Another participant connected this exchange to Helen Molesworth’s metaphor in How to Install Art as a Feminist where the sibling/cousin relationship holds the most significance because of its horizontal nature rather than the traditional father/son or master/apprentice relationship. [4] With these concepts in mind the group concluded with a collection of ideas on how to enact and create spaces for these reciprocal cross-generational relationships to develop and encourage women in the community to engage with the archive in an effort to re-contextualize it.

Reactivating: Art and the Archive is going to continue this dialogue with a second event on Wednesday, October 5th from 2:30- 5:00pm at VIVO Media Arts Centre.

Notes/Sources:

[1] Reactivating: Art and Archives. July 13, 2016. Vancouver. Taken from transcription.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway. Durham: Duke University Press (2007): p.x.

[4] Helen Molesworth, “How to Install Art as a Feminist”. Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art. Ed. Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz. New York: Museum of Modern Art (2010): p. 507.

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