=2E..which was nice to hear, as I had, in roughly the same time slot, sent a
message saying something similar.
The related discussion of the two different problems of treating people as
computers and treating computers as people suddenly reminded me of an
exchange we had over the AT-seminar group alias a month or so ago (after
the end of the actual class, but before the group had let go of the
discussions). At the time we also planned to open up the xact list and get
it going as a listserver. Due to unexpected tragedies of personal health
among the tech staff this has not been done.
Instead some of the themes have emerged on the xmca.
In the following forwarded message you get my response to a message by
Mike, which I had included the whole relevant part of as a quote. Some
important information (like the reference) is at the end, in the quote from
a much earlier message to the seminar group.
Best wishes
Eva
***************************************************
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:07:27 +0100
To: xact who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
=46rom: Eva Ekeblad <eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se>
Subject: xact-Re: tool/object of desire
At 07.09 -0800 98-03-26, Mike Cole wrote:
>I think one of the most interesting ideas in the Engestrom and Escalante
>paper is the idea that the postal budydy-as-interactant was imagined as
>a friend, not a tool.
>
>As friend-object, the Postal Buddy remains a tool, but tool and desire
>with a different orientation are fused.
Yes, the observation that in the activity system of the Postal Buddy
Corporation the kiosk was construed as an artificial friend (object of
desire), while in the activity system of the customers at the local post
offices the kiosk was positioned as a supposedly versatile but in reality
not very efficient dispenser of merchandise (mundane tool) is interesting.
The observation that in the activity system of the US Postal Services the
Postal Buddy experiment coincided with (preceded?) the emergence of new
(and today realized) ideas about a separate section for retail and
merchandising in local post offices is also interesting, although it is not
developed speculatively far in the paper. In THAT system the Buddy seems to
have been degraded from a (potentially permenent)
tool-of-the-postal-business to a temporary tool- of-restructuring (a
meta-tool?)
One reflection: in the activity system(s) of design and marketing a tool
like the Postal Buddy IS the Object upon which the activity is ultimately
focused. At least in one sense it is functional, even necessary, to fall in
love with the Object in order to be able to conjure it into being (design
it) and propel it into the world (market it). But, as the paper shows very
neatly, the desires that serve to design and sell a product (which DID
succed in the PB case, to begin with) are not necessarily the same desires
that come into play when the product is to be consumed. Perhaps it is more
correct to say that it is in the rare case that these two fields of desire
(producer/ /end consumer) will coincide, although they would not always
have to clash as badly as in the PB case. Where love seems to have made
blind.
Now, Mike, a treatment of the 5thD in analogy with this analysis of
objects-of- desire would indeed be interesting: "Who's in love with the
Wizard?" Not that Engestrom and Escalante use the word "desire" but
doesn't this Walkerdinian, Foucaultian, Lacanian coupling:
"object-of-desire" give an interesting spin to Leontiev's
"motive-concretized-in-object"?
Eva
having read the paper at last
At 17.28 -0800 98-03-25, Cathrine Hasse wrote:
>As previously annonced we would like to follow up on the
>discussions in Yrjo' s class. Some of us met here at the lab last Friday
>and had a very lively discussion about objects, methods, genderstudies,
>childcare and parents (Katherine Brown made a fine demonstration of how
>Yrjos triangle can be used).
>Eva have some very interesting ideas about electronic prolongations of our
>discussions that will be announced later.
>We also planned to meet (face to face) to discuss in a very informal way:
>1) The object and the use we make of this analytical tool in our own
>projects
>2) Methodology and AT - examples from our own projects
>3) AT and how we see ATs connection to the other traditions we write in
>respectively.
>The first meeting has the object as theme and it will take place
>9.30 AM AT THE LAB, FRIDAY APRIL 3.
>For this session we will urge all who want to discuss object in connection
>with their own project to prepare a short informal presentation (5-10
>min.). We shall discuss object as a theme from these presentations, the
>general readings of Yrjos class and one new article that can be picked up
>in the lab:
>"The Mundane Tool or Object of Affection? The Rise and Fall of the Postal
>Buddy" by Y. Engestrom and V. Escalante. In Bonnie Nardie (ed) Context and
>Consiousness. AT and Computer Interaction. MIT Press, 1996.