Dear Lilly,
It's always nice to hear from you.
I think the mediation concept is somewhat rubbery. For whom does the speedbump mediate?
The driver knows she may ruin her car by driving too fast over an obstacle on the road.
She may also know that speedbumps are installed to slow the speed of traffic.
The speedbump has no clue what it is or what it mediates between its designer and driver.
You point out a key concept by asking who is responsible for the speedbump. The best way to find out is to trace the decisions that produced the speedbump. It rarely is a single designer who had the idea. Usually such ideas emerge in conversations among many stakeholders each of which would have be accountable for their contribution. The speedbump cannot be held accountable for the drivers’ misery.
The issue needs to be generalizable. Your living room has walls. An architectural firm specified them maybe long time ago. Would it make sense to say that the walls mediate between a long dead architect. I would say no.
The agency responsible for it is dead.
Best wishes
Klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Diaz-Kommonen Lily
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 8:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On Characterization of Agency - Was 'The Uselessness of Agency in Design Theory'
Dear Klaus, François, and others who are engaged in this most interesting post.
Following the example of the Bump… For someone who has a relational perspective regarding ontology, the bump mediates the trajectory and experience of the human. As François already pointed, a key question is not whether the object has agency, but when? In the end, of course it is still the human who designs (and is responsible) for the bumps, and the bullets).
BR. Lily
************************
Dr. Lily Diaz-Kommonen
Professor of New Media
Aalto University
School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Otakaari 1, Espoo 02150 Finland
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https://sysrep.aalto.fi
NEWS###############
ADAPTATION AND CONVERGENCE OF NEW MEDIA.
‘High’ Culture Intermediality versus Low Culture Intermediality Lily Díaz, Magda Dragu and Leena Eilitta (Editors) Aalto ARTS Books
Lee, J., Díaz-Kommonen, L., Yu X. 2019. “Applying Embodied Design Improvisation for Physical Interaction in Augmented and Virtual Reality”, in Archives of Design Research, Korean Society of Design, 32(2)5-17.
On 19 Jul 2020, at 14.43, Francois Nsenga <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear Klaus
Wouldn't it be helpful to conceive Agency - has it ever been conceived this way?? - as direct, and/or mediated? At occasions mediated through other humans and through non-humans, and very often through tools?!
It is in this latter sense - of Agency somehow modified through translation
- that I understood Latour's and Terry's concept of agency.
Wrong or right??
A commoner's thought!
Greetings,
François
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