A Critical Approach to Transdisciplinarity The definition and the practice of 'thought' has always been altered parallel to what is contextually based on in it's history. This is one of the reasons different readings of history exist.
At the very beginning of the 21st century we are the witnesses of the urgent and inevitable changing of re-theorising 'thought' and its development.

From the very beginning of the history of thought till producing and observing the theories has been altering its form as well as its essence.
The specialisation of the various sub-disciplines under the general idea of thought has been formed with all these alterations.

The transformation of the disciplines is perceptible from the ancient procedure of producing all the subdivisions of knowledge together by one philosopher, rather than with the enlightenment dividing all the fields of science in terms of proficiency, later on during the 19th and 20th century having more and more fields, than the idea of the 'interdisciplinarity' and 'multidisciplinarity' (among all these processes the ideologies) and now the urgent need of the 'transdisciplinarity'. In the first World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, (Convento da Arrabida, Portugal, November 2-6. 1994) the keystone of the transdisciplinarity is defined as 'semantic and practical unification of the meanings that traverse and lay beyond different disciplines'*1. In the same congress, it is emphasised that 'in comparison with interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity is multirefererential and multidimensional. Whilst taking account of the various approaches to time and history, transdisciplinarity does not exclude a transhistorical horizon'*2.

Paraphrasing Ron Burnett, the interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity remain linked to the framework of disciplinary research unlike transdisciplinarity, however transdisciplinary research has 'immediate links to a particular set of subjects or disciplines'*3. This link which constitutes the bridge between the gulf of the disciplines was created during the history of 'thought' and separates the multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity from the transdisciplinarity. According to Edgar Morin*4 'it's not enough to value the links between experiences, disciplines, creativity and ideas. One has to develop methods, strategies and practices that will transform those links to the real connections'*5

Transdisciplinary research is becoming increasingly important as the result of the growth of research concentrated throughout its vast arena. The technological advances within media and the World Wide Web have had a profound impact on the way in which our culture views knowledge and locates and sustains change at this level. This has led to a massive change in communications and distribution systems, which have, in turn 'affected the definitions and explanations that we make of the disciplines that do research, that create and sustain the technology they invent and try to explain.'*6

Consequently, these 'networks of communication' have changed the way we perceive information, redefining our cultural models, our notions of time and space and our ability to integrate media and images into every aspect of our daily lives. All of these changes have had a profound impact on the arts and our understanding of them.

The borders of the disciplines become more metaphorical with the transition of some other factors. It is commonly believed that an artwork acquires its meaning from the artist and the observer as well as from its own self image, but in today's understanding of art it is inseparable from its sponsor, curator, exhibitor or art critic. These contributions to the art works are not just influential in presenting or understanding the artwork but also from the very beginning point of its creation process they are impacted on the idea and the meaning that it has. Thus the curator or art critic becomes a part of the artwork as well as or even more than the artist does. There cannot be such a severe line drawn between the artist and the curator in terms of producing the artwork. Bruce Ferguson defines the curatorship as a job and emphasises that 'everyone can be a curator in contemporary art' *7.

If the validity of this statement is to be believed then it must equally apply to the possibility of everyone being an artist. 'Producing' is the key word here in the concept of the transdisciplinarity. As long as the artistic process relies on the idea of the work more than constructing it then the process of curation itself must be counted as an artwork.

Art criticism is also another process of the production and reproduction of art. Then art becomes an instrument of social science rather than an aesthetic phenomenon. In this process the function of the artist, curator, critic and observer transforms and the process itself transforms into transdisciplinary research. In this process the 'artist' does not lose his/her identity but his location of being privileged subject, instead s/he undertakes a higher responsibility in the context of the art.

There is this connection between the curator and the editor as well as the artist and the author. The editor engineers the structure of the book. This process need not be defined as merely ordering the pre-existing essays, instead, this is the process of producing the work, co-production with other authors from other disciplines that also transform their writings into their instruments which cooperate in a totality. In this co-operation the 'author' as well as the artist are not lost but re-exist in the concept of co-production.

The necessity of this co-production has emerged within scientific and technological progress. Since the Enlightenment, the idea of division between every little field of knowledge has created borders as well as proficiency within the disciplines. In the era of the 21st century where transdisciplinarity is the foremost discipline linking these disparate ideas, it is necessary to recognise the urgency of their formulation. In order to question our recent approaches to all-encompassing disciplines we must allow these disciplines to co-converse up until the point of the transdisciplinary. In other words multidisciplinary issues within social sciences such as the fusion of technology with media have made it necessary for us to expand as well as contract our socio-psychological experience within every disciplinary field. The continual shift of our understanding of the disciplinary causes us to re-evaluate all that has come before. Instead of fragmenting the disciplines as in the past we must now assimilate the vast genres with in these interrelated disciplines. In order to do this we must realise that each sub-genre includes concise detailed analyses of the information within its own discipline.

As Ron Burnett concludes in his essay on transdisciplinarity and the social sciences: '…..this desire for convergence is also a recognition of diversity and difference. It will only be possible to move from specialised and closed approaches to these phenomena if we recognise that their relatedness allows us to select what needs to come together while celebrating separateness, locality and community.

In the same way, our major disciplines have long ago ceased to be effective as separate, have in fact searched for ways of coming together '*8