Let me first take the fork-as-mediating-artifact and
lasagna-as-Object-of-activity in the basic sense of the Subject satisfying
her hunger by a nourishing meal -- a good old activity from the
re-productive sphere.
In eating my lasagna I would (from the analyst's perspective) be
*inter-acting* with it by means of the fork, in the sense that lasagna
responds to each operation by me-using-fork in a dialogue where the "moves"
of the lasagna cannot always be anticipated -- such a layered dish may be
dry-hard-resistant in places, tough-elastic-resistant in places and
squeezy-creamy-sloshy in places, as we know.
Like Bateson's man-axe-tree the woman-fork-lasagna constitute a system. On
the other hand, to the inter//intra distinction I'm trying out here the
lasagna-as-Object is "opposite" to me-with-fork (Gegenstand,
counterprocess). Thus the "inter". While the *with* of me-with-fork is what
motivates the "intra".
So, let the analyst keep the system in this process of lasagna being forked
up from the plate, while moving analytic attention to the *use* of the fork
by the woman eating. Again at the level of operations, as that is where the
little shifts may be observed, within this fork-mediated action of
scooping-up-food within the activity of eating supper... Anyway, the
analyst may see me shift my grip on the fork according to the contingencies
in the interaction with the lasagna Object -- these little adaptive
movements would be "intra" to the fork-expanded hand, wouldn't they? (I
really don't know if this little distinction is a "use"ful tool for the
analyst: it just spun off my fingers yesterday when I wanted to make the
distinction between use-of-tool and interaction-with-Object.)
Then, of course, as Bill sketched the other day, the lasagna on the fork
may be the Object of joint attention, which is where this example explodes
into a multiplicity of potential meanings: people together (as well as
people on their own) may perform a lot of different actions with
lasagna-on-a-fork, for a variety of motives, within an assortment of
activities. I'm just not novelist enough to conjure them all up. But here,
when the example is no longer an example to illustrate the basic structure,
but the potential multiplicities of the simple act of scooping up and
transporting lasagna with a fork, is where the analyst may discover that
the lasagna, for some purposes, slides from the position as Object into the
position as mediating artifact: imagine all the relations between people
that may be mediated through an offer of lasagna -- the child is
socialized, the lover seduced, the inept cook humiliated, the brother is
teased by the fork being pulled away at the last moment...
In fork-lasagna situations that are not just made-up examples there are SO
many things going on at once. And when it comes to computer use, boundaries
may be even less clear?
Eva
PS Bill, I get the feeling that you wanted to reserve "interaction" for
between-people situations, is that so?