Hi Fil,
If you permit, I will respond to the question you posed Carl:
>Could you suggest some examples of "real-life situations" that would be
participants in their own existences?<
Actually, I can think of quite a few…
Certainly organizations are a good example here. Organizations depend on people working together for a common purpose, thus participating in their own existence. Their participation (*actions*) in the organization- using resources in accordance with established procedures to pursue that purpose– creates and sustains the context in which and through which people go about their tasks. If the services of an organization are inaccessible to those who depend on them (think of government agencies) then the organization presents an active context in that it denies or makes it difficult for people to get the services they are entitled to. For example, right after Katrina, FEMA insisted on sending application packages for Federal Emergency Assistance to a regular mail address in an area where 60 percent of the houses were six feet under water.
Context presents itself as active agent in everyday life when people are encouraged or discouraged, enabled or disabled from accomplishing a particular task. Think of a father who is trying to change his baby son's diaper and cannot access a changing table (because it is installed in the lady's room); A city that is dark at night and thus perceived as more dangerous.
Though I always enjoy your posts, I disagree with your notion that contexts are necessarily models when for many people, contexts have real-life consequences.
Best,
Sabine
> Carl,
>
> There's nothing stopping us from agreeing that context can be dynamic
> and/or active.
>
> However, I would suggest we keep clear that a context is a *model* of
> something. We can make the model be whatever we need it to be, to be the
> best possible model of -- something. For me, a context is a model of a
> 'situation'.
>
> Although it sounds a bit antiseptic even to my engineering ears, I like
> "design agent" exactly because it doesn't necessarily tie one to thinking
> of humans as the only agents of design.
>
> And I have nothing against contexts being dynamic -- if that suits one's
> purposes. I can see cases where it could be beneficial to take a context
> as a 'snapshot' model (i.e. static) of some fluid/dynamic "real-life"
> situation, just as easily as I can see the need for dynamic contexts to
> represent those dynamic aspects of a situation. Since contexts are
> models, we can have different contexts representing the same situation.
>
> However, I'm not sure about *active* contexts - i.e. making the context an
> agent of some kind. I cannot think of a "real-life situation" that I
> would think of as a participant in the situation itself. Indeed, since I
> tend to prefer logical structures (my shortcoming, I guess), I'm always
> concerned about these kinds of self-referential entities. Especially as I
> can't see the benefit in it.
>
> Could you suggest some examples of "real-life situations" that would be
> participants in their own existences?
>
> Cheers. Fil
>
> disalvo wrote:
>> Filippo,
>>
>> I would actually like to retain the sense that context is an active
>> participant in the design process and not a static thing.
>>
>> In your example below, it seems all of the agency resides in "design
>> agents", by which I assume you mean designers. But in fact the capacity
>> to cause change may be considered to reside in many other places
>> within a given context. Not the least in other people who might not (or
>> might not want to) be characterized as design agents. Of course, we
>> could also (productively) entertain the notion that nonhuman elements of
>> a given context also either possess or exhibit agency thus, should be
>> considered as active.
>>
>> In fact, context only seems to be a static thing in laboratory
>> experiments, even then its is arguably not a static thing, rather the
>> structure of the experiment requires that context be treated as such.
>>
>> Carl
>>
>>
>>
>> --On Monday, November 7, 2005 1:46 PM -0500 "Filippo A. Salustri"
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> While I see Todd's point, I prefer a different description.
>>>
>>> I don't like "Context can guide design decisions" because it might
>>> give some the sense that 'context' is an active participant.
>>>
>>> A context, as I think of it, is a model of a situation that some
>>> design agents are motivated to change. The agents usually can't
>>> change the situation extensively, but rather change some particular
>>> part of it, usually by designing some new product, system, or process
>>> that is 'inserted' into the situation. The systems nature of the
>>> interactions between the situation and the thing inserted by the
>>> designers brings about a change in the situation.
>>>
>>> Put another way, the situation is the operating environment into
>>> which the designers add some artefact, for the sake of causing a
>>> change in that environment.
>>>
>>> As such, the context is a static thing.
>>>
>>> So I'd rephrase what Todd wrote as: Context can influence design
>>> decision-makers.
>>>
>>> ...maybe just hair-splitting. Cheers. Fil
>
>
> -- Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng. Department of Mechanical and
> Industrial Engineering Ryerson University Tel:
> 416/979-5000 x7749 350 Victoria St. Fax:
> 416/979-5265 Toronto, ON email:
> [log in to unmask] M5B 2K3 Canada
> http://deed.ryerson.ca/~fil/
>
>
Sabine
°·..·••
Sabine Junginger
PhD Candidate
School of Design
Carnegie Mellon
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