[Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects

[mike cole]

Hi Lubomir -- Could you elaborate on the following from your earlier note?

I would suggest that only individual consciousness is a place maker.
Exception – the collective consciousness, but this is another aspect.

Specifically, this phrasing put me in mind of the circumstance that
consciousness is
so - znanie, co-knowing.

Is this the other aspect you are referring to?

mike

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 7:33 AM, Lubomir Savov Popov <lspopov@bgsu.edu>
wrote:

>  Hi Rolf,
>
>
>
> You mention in your previous mail:
>
> Lubomir, you asked - *“who are the placemakers -- the architects or the
> USERS of designed/created/socially produced spaces?” *I think this is
> difficult to answer because both architect and user play a role in the
> place-making process. The architects embed possible meanings (if place and
> meaning are analogous than perhaps these might be considered ‘place
> potentials’) that only emerge through the activity of the users. I’m only
> thinking through this now, so feel free to elaborate or to disagree!
>
> I would suggest that only individual consciousness is a place maker.
> Exception – the collective consciousness, but this is another aspect.
> Architects can only facilitate that process, but they are not the main
> factors. They believe they imbed particular meanings of the environment
> through the process of design. My positions is that they only believe. What
> they embed as a meaningful physical component or a sign can be and is
> interpreted very differently by the building users. In one case, the
> architects tried to design a space-age café with build of dozens of
> sculptured modules. The local hippies called it “the funeral home” because
> the modules reminds them of coffins. So much about placemaking. However,
> the café became a place for the hippies – they started using it as a
> meeting place because of its location and affordable prices; it became a
> locality where they can find support, share their problems, make fun, get
> excited, and so on; they endowed the physical entity with their own
> meaning, and so on.
>
> Placemaking is an intimate personal process. Even the ugliest environment
> can make a wonderful place for the individuals that feel at home there,
> that draw strength from that environment, and really enjoy it.
>
> What are your thoughts about this? I am already confronting the architects
> with this conceptualization. I need to see how this way of thinking is
> perceived by social scientists.
>
> Best
>
>
>
> Lubomir
>
>
>
> *From:* rolfsteier@gmail.com [mailto:rolfsteier@gmail.com] *On Behalf Of *Rolf
> Steier
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 15, 2015 6:58 AM
> *To:* Alfredo Jornet Gil
> *Cc:* Lubomir Savov Popov; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; mike cole;
> lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu; lpscholar2@gmail.com
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
>
>
> Thank you for your thoughts Larry,
>
> I wanted to pick up on your suggestion of the table metaphor because I
> think that’s really interesting. I believe you are proposing the shared
> meal as analogous to the kind of orientation work (or perhaps Leigh Star
> might consider this translation or pre-translation work?) that precedes the
> task at hand (in the case of our study, the task is design). Excerpt 3 from
> our study might be relevant here, when in turn 6, the curator turns to the
> researcher, leans in, and points in order to create a shared visual field.
> The curator and the researcher can now orient towards the existing gallery
> in order to imagine future, possible changes in the gallery. The curator is
> in a sense extending an invitation to sit down at the same table to be able
> to share his vision for the gallery.
>
> This shared meal might of course also be considered designed. Ingold (
> *Making*) actually uses this same table metaphor to demonstrate the
> facilitation of activity as an aspect of design - *“Everyday design
> catches the narrative and pins it down, establishing a kind of choreography
> for the ensuing permanence that allows it to proceed from the moment you
> sit down to eat. In such a straightforward task as laying the table - in
> enrolling into your relation bowl and spoon, milk jug and cereal box - you
> are designing breakfast.”*
>
> There is an improvisational quality to the bodily/performative orientation
> work that is maybe not captured by the shared expectations of sitting down
> to a meal. But at the same time, we can also consider the workspace of the
> multidisciplinary design team as designed in the same way that the meal is
> designed in order to support the objective of the meeting. That is, the,
> design team must first engage in a place-making activity for their
> collaborative setting in order to attend to the design of the exhibition
> space. The designers set the table with a white board, sketches and design
> ideas, perhaps some coffee... etc., before turning to the task of imagining
> the future exhibition.
>
> Lubomir, you asked - *“who are the placemakers -- the architects or the
> USERS of designed/created/socially produced spaces?” *I think this is
> difficult to answer because both architect and user play a role in the
> place-making process. The architects embed possible meanings (if place and
> meaning are analogous than perhaps these might be considered ‘place
> potentials’) that only emerge through the activity of the users. I’m only
> thinking through this now, so feel free to elaborate or to disagree!
>
> Rolf
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 11:28 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> Thanks a lot, Lubomir!
>
> On to your question, I am tempted to stretch a bit across frameworks and
> answer that, the difference between the process of performing an activity
> in space and developing a sense of place would be akin to the difference
> between an operation and an action as per Activity theory.
>
> Again, we must be careful on the distinction between space as a sort of
> objective geometrical coordinate, or space as not becoming a part of "an"
> experience (in Dewey's sense). In the first sense, the sentence "performing
> an activity in space" makes only sense when talking about geometrical
> practices, for example; one may think that in some engineering practices,
> it is possible to orient to space as space, as a coordinate. BUT still, the
> experience of being doing such practice, if it has import to further
> development in the person, it must be refracted through the person's
> experience; there must be involvement, and therefore placemaking. In the
> second case, we might think of us performing some activity within taking
> much of it, without noticing we are doing. It is in this sense that I do
> the bridge with operations versus actions.
>
> I would not have many problems in associating place with meaning and
> placemaking with meaning-making, although I personally would be careful if
> doing so, emphasizing the situational and distributed nature of the process
> that placemaking attempts to capture.
>
> Hope this helps
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: Lubomir Savov Popov <lspopov@bgsu.edu>
> Sent: 14 July 2015 23:06
> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil; Rolf Steier; eXtended Mind, Culture,    Activity
> Cc: mike cole; lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>
> Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
> Thank you Alfredo,
>
> By the way, I should have started my mail with an appreciation for your
> article and Mike's choice to bring it to our attention.
>
> Now it is almost clear how you use the word and conceptualize the
> phenomenon. I would respectfully ask you for a few more things: what is the
> difference between the process of performing an activity in space and
> developing a sense of place. I personally interpret place in terms of
> appropriation of space in the process of human activity and the subsequent
> meaning making which has existential importance for the individual. The
> phenomenon of place is on par with the phenomenon of meaning and
> placemaking is a process on par with meaning making. How do you position
> yourself regarding such conceptualization?
>
> On a similar note, who are the placemakers -- the architects or the USERS
> of designed/created/socially produced spaces?
>
> By the way, I might be stretching too much the part on place and
> distracting from other aspects of your wonderful article.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Lubomir
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil [mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 4:31 PM
> To: Lubomir Savov Popov; Rolf Steier; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Cc: mike cole; lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
> Dear Lubomir,
>
> thanks for your questions. I agree that the notion of place has been
> around in different forms during at least the last 20 years or so, from
> geography with Tuan, technology with Dourish, to the so-called place-based
> education. I must also admit that we did not work with a carefully
> operationalized definition when using the term in the paper, but I can of
> course share my view on the issue and how I understand it.
>
> For me, as in most of the cases mentioned above, place is a way of
> emphasizing the experiential in what comes to be socially or humanly
> relevant. Most simply, and this most of you probably know, is about the
> difference between a rationalistic, geometrical conception of space versus
> a more phenomenological one. I read Streek (2010) citing Cresswell about
> place: "Place is about stopping and resting and becoming involved". This is
> precisely what we aimed to emphasize in our paper, that whatever practices
> were involved in getting things done together in an interdisciplinary
> group, they involved a process of becoming involved, experientially,
> emotionally, bodily, with the materials and currents going on in a given
> situation.
>
> I also read Ingold (2011) warning against the difference between space and
> place in terms of space being a reality substance and place being
> constituted by subsequent level of abstractions. In my view, experience is
> not about abstraction, but about involvement. And place is about space as
> it is refracted in intelligible experience; not about an abstraction over
> an objective field, but more related to a perezhivanie in Vygotsky's sense.
>
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: Lubomir Savov Popov <lspopov@bgsu.edu>
> Sent: 14 July 2015 21:55
> To: Rolf Steier; eXtended Mind, Culture,        Activity; Alfredo Jornet
> Gil
> Cc: mike cole; lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
> Dear Rolf and Alfredo,
>
> What is your definition for place? How is place different from space? I
> ask because people use the words place and peacemaking in dozens of
> different ways; it is just mindboggling.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lubomir
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+lspopov=bgsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces+lspopov=bgsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Rolf Steier
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 2:44 PM
> To: Alfredo Jornet Gil
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; mike cole; lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Emergence of Boundary Objects
>
> Hello All,
>
> I also want to thank everyone for participating in this discussion, and
> I'm looking forward to developing some of the ideas from our text. I think
> that Alfredo did a nice job of introducing the context of our study, so I
> don't have much to add. The two aspects that Mike brings up are also very
> much of interest to me, and I think quite closely related. I think we treat
> 'distributed imagination' in this instance as a form of place-making for a
> space that doesn't exist yet (the museum exhibition). At the same time, the
> place where this design work is occurring is also undergoing a
> transformation from space to place as the participants construct
> representations and begin to collaborate. Alfredo and I were playing with
> an illustration of these trajectories as merging, though we weren't able to
> bring it together - so maybe this discussion can allow us to flesh out
> these thoughts.
>
> I'm looking forward to the discussion!
> Rolf
>
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 7:38 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> >  Hi Mike and all,
> >
> >
> >  thanks for recommending our article for discussion, and thanks to
> > anyone who wishes to participate. We really appreciate it! I can try
> > to say a bit about the article.
> >
> > Rolf and I did our PhD as part of two different projects that had a
> > science museum and an art museum as settings for the design of
> > technology-enhanced learning environments. Early on in the PhD, we
> > begun talking about notions of space as central in our respective
> > projects. During the last year, we shared office and had much more
> > time to discuss. We had always wanted to write something together and
> > the MCA special issue on Leigh Star seemed the perfect occasion.
> >
> > The design meetings involved many participants from different
> > backgrounds, from education to architecture and software engineering,
> > and sometimes it was difficult for the teams to advance towards
> > definite solutions. I remember watching the videos from the first
> > months of design work, hoping to find something for writing a first
> > paper. I found different interesting issues to pursue, but one episode
> > clearly stood out from the rest. It was a design meeting, after many
> > meetings with lots of disagreements and dead ends, in which a
> > discussion that concerned a wall in the museum space unexpectedly
> > appeared to trigger lots of good ideas in the design team. It stroke
> > me that something as banal and simple as a wall had been important in
> > making it possible for the participants to achieve shared perspectives
> > on the task and go on. I remembered then to have read something about
> > boundary objects, and it was then that the figure of Leigh Star begun to
> be relevant.
> >
> > In this paper, the aim was to consider boundary "objects"  from the
> > perspective of the participants' "bodies," which stood out in our
> > analyses as particularly relevant for the achievement of co-operation
> > despite lack of substantive agreement. Rather than shared substantive
> > understandings, what seemed to allow the participants to proceed was
> > being able to orient towards and perform specific situations that were
> > lived-in (experienced, gone through). We recur to the notions of
> > place-making and place-imagining to emphasize this per-formative
> > aspect that has to do with inhabiting a place and finding one's ways
> around it.
> >
> > We wrote the paper as we were finishing our respective
> > theses/defenses, and we wanted to do something that should feel fun
> > and free. We felt that Star's work was broad and were encouraged to
> > connect different ideas from different scholars. The schedule was
> > tight, and, although I think we managed to put together some ideas, we
> > may have taken many risks in bridging across the different frameworks.
> > I hope that those risks taken may now open space for
> > questions/comments to emerge in the discussion, and I look forward to
> learn a lot from them.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Alfredo
> >
> >
> >  ------------------------------
> > *From:* lchcmike@gmail.com <lchcmike@gmail.com> on behalf of mike cole
> > < mcole@ucsd.edu>
> > *Sent:* 14 July 2015 19:17
> > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > *Cc:* Rolf Steier; Alfredo Jornet Gil; lchc-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > *Subject:* The Emergence of Boundary Objects
> >
> >   If my information is correct, both Alfredo and Rolf have some time
> > in the upcoming period to discuss their article on the emergence of
> > boundary objects.
> >
> >  So, to start the discussion.
> >
> >  I am finding this article enormously generative of ways to think
> > about some perennial issues that have recently been on my mind. The
> > entire discussion leading up to the formulation of transforming spaces
> > into places (and recreating spaces in the process) locks in directly
> > with our current work on the 5th Dimension, which i have been writing
> > about for some time as a tertiary artifact and an idioculture, but
> > which most certainly fits the concept of a boundary object.
> >
> >  Secondly, I have become really interested in "practices of imagination"
> > and that is just how Alfredo and Rolf characterize their two
> > installations and the professional teams that cooperate to create them.
> > And they make a new linkage by referring to distributed imagination,
> > which is most certainly going to require imagination to fill in the
> > ineluctable gaps, and provide us with some insight insight into the
> processes involved.
> >
> >  Those are my issues for starters. What strikes others?
> >
> >  mike
> >
> >  PS--
> > For those of you who missed this topic, the article is attached.
> >
> >
> >
> >  --
> >
> > Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
> > ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
> > Ecological Niche, 2008)
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>



-- 

Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
Ecological Niche, 2008)