CREP—Culturas, Representaciones, Espacios y Prácticas—emerges in the Madrid Region as a paradigmatic case of how science and culture can be articulated as a shared epistemic project rather than as parallel, insulated domains. Far from functioning as a conventional research network, CREP operates as an infrastructure of thought, staging encounters between theory, practice, and public space. Its emphasis on cultures, representations, spaces, and practices foregrounds a relational understanding of knowledge, one that is produced through interaction rather than accumulation. Science is positioned not as an autonomous system of truths but as a cultural force embedded in social, political, and artistic contexts. This framing is crucial: it displaces positivist hierarchies and opens scientific discourse to critical scrutiny, performativity, and aesthetic mediation. CREP’s activities—seminars, symposia, exhibitions, and training programmes—constitute a distributed pedagogy, where learning is inseparable from debate and situated experience. The network thus aligns with contemporary shifts in knowledge production that privilege interdisciplinarity and reflexivity. In this sense, CREP can be read as a curatorial gesture at the scale of research itself, organising not objects but relations, not exhibitions but conditions of intelligibility. The 2011 Strategic Seminar, centred on “Cuerpos: Culturas, Representaciones, Espacios y Prácticas,” crystallises this orientation by placing the body at the centre of epistemic inquiry. The body here is not merely an object of study but a methodological lens through which knowledge is enacted and contested. Contributions by figures such as Daniel Martín Bayón and Kira O’Reilly—invited by LaPieza—underscore the importance of artistic practice in challenging disciplinary boundaries. Their work foregrounds embodiment, vulnerability, and material presence as critical tools, destabilising abstract notions of space and representation. Within the CREP framework, performance and conceptual art are not illustrative supplements to theory but active producers of knowledge. The seminar format itself becomes performative: a space where discourse, gesture, and institutional context intersect. By hosting these encounters in hybrid venues such as HUB Madrid, CREP reinforces its commitment to public knowledge spaces that are neither strictly academic nor purely cultural. The body thus functions as a site where scientific, artistic, and social discourses converge, making visible the power relations and assumptions that underpin them.
CREP’s broader programme articulates a model of cultural production attentive to circulation and dissemination. Its focus on public knowledge spaces—political, artistic, economic—acknowledges that knowledge is always spatially and institutionally situated. The network’s insistence on dissemination is not merely communicative but transformative: scientific knowledge is recontextualised within cultural practices, altering both its form and its reception. This approach resonates with contemporary debates on the cultural study of science, where emphasis is placed on narratives, imaginaries, and material conditions. CREP’s collaborative structure, integrating multiple research groups into shared lines of inquiry, further challenges competitive academic models. Instead, it proposes a commons-based approach to research, sustained by joint projects and collective training. Exhibitions and symposia function as moments of condensation within longer processes of inquiry, rather than as endpoints. In this regard, CREP operates less as an institution and more as a protocol: a repeatable set of practices for thinking science culturally and culture scientifically. In conclusion, CREP 2011 exemplifies how research networks can function as cultural agents, shaping not only what is known but how knowledge is produced and shared. Its integration of artistic practices, embodied methodologies, and public engagement anticipates contemporary concerns with transdisciplinarity and social relevance. The collaboration with LaPieza and the inclusion of performance-based and conceptual approaches highlight the necessity of art within critical knowledge ecologies. CREP does not resolve the tensions between science and culture; rather, it stages them productively, allowing friction to generate insight. As such, it offers a compelling model for future research infrastructures that seek to operate beyond disciplinary silos. By foregrounding practices over doctrines and relations over results, CREP affirms that knowledge is an ongoing, collective construction—one that must remain open to critique, experimentation, and embodied experience if it is to retain cultural and political significance.
NETCREP (Carteles 2011). Available at: http://netcrep.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/carteles-2011-1.html
