# Rusting through academic boundaries: Doing collaborative research by stirring things up > [!tip] Reference > Collaborative paper by the [RUSTlab](https://rustlab.ruhr-uni-bochum.de) for the panel *Diffraction, reflection and dissemination of/through academic disciplines* at [STS Hub 2025](https://sts-hub.de/25/), Berlin, March 11–14. ## Abstract Rust is often perceived as a disturbance – an unwanted intrusion that corrupts the sturdiness of everything solid, and as an indicator of decay. Seems ironic, given the fact that all three components involved in the corroding process – iron, oxygen, and water – are essential for most living beings on planet Earth. In this paper, we will propose rusting as an intra-active notion to think through. We’ll exemplify this with vignettes from our ongoing research at multiple field sites, from data centres to humanities research. With/in the RUSTlab, we mobilize rusting as a mode to fuse these research endeavours by restructuring local materialities and merging them into a different configuration: a fragile one that nonetheless resists the purifications of a capitalist world interested in stainlessness and eternal materials while producing never seen amounts to waste. Not unlike notions of ruins (Gupta 2018; Tsing 2021) or repair (Graham/Thrift 2007; Jackson 2014; Denis/Pontille 2019), rust emphasizes the continuous transformativity of what's already there and promotes a program of growth that counters traditional goals of value production. The information streams of digital capitalism are particularly determined to ignore such rusty relations. AI art knows no corrosion. Such data will never become a beautiful, if fragile, rust belt. ## Intro ![[rusting-intro.jpg]] Hi there! This talk is made by a group: the RUSTlab – a STS lab based at Ruhr-University Bochum. The lab is a room: filled with tables, books, coffee, plants, and group photos. The lab is online: A webpage, a runway of emails, a social media account and a chat group. Finally, the lab is what its members do: you hear more about this just now. We’ll report on our activities by telling a handful short stories. To connect these, we deploy *Rust* and *Rusting* as a device to reframe or diffract these stories. With this, we hope to contribute to the panel's theme of exploring "modes of diffracting critique". ## Rust between paper and metal ![[rusting-paper.jpg]] Let’s get into it with rust between paper and metal. In archives, museums and the like, metal is considered the enemy – at least when it comes in the shape of paper clips, staples, or tacks. Supposed to hold paper sheets together, metal does way more than that, according to a technician who gave an in situ talk about techniques of preserving collection items at the conservation room of an archive. Depending on their composition, those little pieces of metal can rust. If they decide to do so, not only do they endanger the paper that they are tied to; the rust eats away at its surroundings. Jumping from host to host, rust transforms the structure of the first sheet, then reshapes the next underneath it – even without direct contact. Contagious in nature, rust spreads. In the context of archives and museums, it poses a threat: it can corrupt evidence that is used for the production of knowledges. Rust is not necessarily synonymous with destruction, though. Rust doesn’t just destabilize stable matter, but rearranges environments. In this sense, *Rusting* can be considered a constructive process that resists human control, and thus makes for a valuable way to look at things. ## Gel between brains and electrodes ![[rusting-gel.jpg]] When you enter a biopsychological laboratory that studies memory practices through EEG and basically tries to find out the causes of diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer's, you will see boxes of gels and syringes around. Gels are an indispensable tool to measure the response of the human brain to a certain stimulus and to collect data with the EEG cap. Gel is injected into each of the 64 ports attached to silver chloride electrodes on the EEG cap with a syringe. The researcher takes the box labelled “fresh”, draws the gel into the syringe, and injects it into each of the 64 ports one by one. While the researcher injects gel into each port, we have our eyes on the computer screen: the researcher, the participant, and the ethnographer. On the screen of a software called Brain Vision, we can check whether all the ports are working. We are waiting for each port, the data transmitter, to turn from red to yellow and then green one by one. The gel should be just in the right amount to transfer data; no more, no less. And fresh, not dry. To stay fresh, it should always be kept with the lid closed. Gel is a mediator, an in-between material, such as rust. Like rust, the gel mediates interactions – in this case between brains and data transmitting electrodes. Thinking about practice through this object is a rusting practice, it is a process that enables connections and transformations. ## Rusting through research data ![[rusting-text.jpg]] Now, imagine an interdisciplinary research institution of the humanities – round about 50 scholars from media studies, art history, and medieval studies. Many of them work on contemporary topics, but it isn’t your typical digital humanities crowd. Their research data is Word files on cloud drives, PDFs in folders, and images of manuscripts. These digital and non-digital objects are treated as research date. They are meant to catch traces of meaning, communication, and thought. As research data, they are created and recreated in data practices like sorting, annotating, and analysing. By these practices, digital and material objects get marked up with colours and comments, dissected and fused by categories. This is where *Rusting* happens. At this site, practices of rusting through research data are little discussed, and therefore pretty dispersed and individualized. As a result, it is difficult to collaborate on this level. In this way, thinking through, rust points out the many moments of research data work in the humanities which offer opportunities for collaboration. More attention to rusting through research data, in this case, means more collaboration on the data layer. ## Re-turning metal to the earth ![[rusting-game.jpg]] Finally, a story from a video game: *Terra Nil*, a reverse city builder game, challenges players to turn toxic wastelands into blooming landscapes with biodiverse flora and fauna, while recycling all technology used in the process. A single monorail node up on a mountain makes you lose the game, if you don’t find a way to retrieve it. One possible solution for this problem, but not implemented in the game, is _Rusting_. Over time, intra-acting with oxygen and hydrogen, the metal would corrode, gradually disintegrating into powder and returning to the earth. Rusting isn’t merely decay. It is an interactive reconfiguration of matter, that can also be a solution. As such, *Rusting* is a symbol for reverse extractivism: returning iron to the earth, although not exactly the one it was taken from. For the RUSTlab, it can be a reminder against the extractivism of ideas, for a collaborative intra-action, that offers participation to fundamentally deconstruct and re-configure thoughts together. In this story, Rust emphasizes something that isn't in the game, that is, another mode of disintegration without the need for human intervention. ## Conclusion ![[rusting-lab.jpg]] Let’s summarize! The four stories we just told are some examples of the activities and interests of the RUSTlab. We heard about rust in archives, spreading wildly, even damaging knowledge. By compairing it to medical gel, we also became aware of the generative and connecting properties of rust, enabling connections and transformations. As such, rust reminds us of all kind of messy processes of mixing and merging things and ideas, like the creation and refinement of research data. Mobilizing rust as a speculative agent to multiply what is possible in the virtual worlds of games, *Rusting* lets us think about a reverse extractivism, which aims for restoration over depletion. Rust isn't always pretty. We struggle with collaboration. It is hard to make something like this paper a truly collaborative effort. But we are certainly happy, we tried. ![[rusting-cute.jpg]]