Imagination
MC: 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.
LSP: …I am referring in my previous mail, as you said, to so–znanie , actually
soznanie…a Historical Materialist concept that is difficult to translate.
… Soznanie is not exactly “consciousness” or “mind” but it is somewhere there.
…opposite or complementary to soznanie is podsoznanite (under-consciousness). …
Soznanie is…human ability to create ideal/mental images…of the material world by the
individual, including the mechanisms of this reflection…. In a different way…the
subjective perezhivanie of and reflection on the external world by the individual….
… In psychology they emphasize the psychological activity regarding creating mental
images of reality as well as building plans for action. In sociology the emphasis is more
on the mental life of society….
…Soznanie is a major category of Historical Materialism….adages of Marx is that the
Being/Living/Existance…produces/shapes Soznanie.
RS: …One issue seems to be this tension between the designer's or architect's role in
informing the experience of the user, and the level of intentionality they are able to
impart. Are the decisions of the designers introducing affordances to a setting?
constraints? meaning potentials?
A second theme is about the social practices of orientation, "inclusion," and perhaps the
ongoing nature of these shared performances….
In relation to this first issue...I largely agree. That is, that designers cannot impose
particular experiences on users - that unintended affordances emerge and are inevitable.
However, I don't think that this is inconsistent with the possibility that a designer can
influence the possible experiences of users in meaningful ways. … At the same time, we
could perhaps imagine these designers intending to build a place that supports personal
reflection at a more general level (by controlling the sound, lighting, physical
configurations of the artifacts, etc). The actual "placemaking" is still not realized until the
users actually inhabit this space, but I view the designers as a
fundamental part of this development.
I view the role of designers as more imaginative than predictive. They are imagining
possible experiences, and then building the spaces that hopefully (but not necessarily)
support those experiences.
AGJ: In any case, and as Rolf emphasizes, what the designers in our study indeed do is
to IMAGINE ways of being in the museum. Imagination versus prediction may be an
interesting topic emerging here for further inquiry into design work.
RS: …in our paper, we identified particular kinds of episodes in which participants from
different disciplines seek coherence and continuity of shared representations through
bodily action. These actions include gesture, movement and physical performance linking
the present material artifacts to objects of design. Most of these episodes seem to involve
some form of improvisation, resourcefulness or creativity…. the participants seem to be
searching for the best words or material representation to convey a particular intention when this becomes problematic or limiting - they almost fall back on what is available these improvised bodily performances - as a way of maintaining continuity, and of
inviting co-participants into a shared and imagined space. These bodily actions don't
seem to begin the proposals, but are in a sense *discovered* by the participants.
…there is something really fascinating about this kind of creativity and resourcefulness in
interaction that could be explored more deeply – and that I'm having trouble articulating.
Maybe some of you have some thoughts on this?...
AGJ: …[this is] a question about creativity, which we, focusing on boundary objects and
cooperation, might not have directly addressed in the paper. To me, one of the most
fascinating aspects…is precisely that those gestures, movements, and physical
performances that you mention are, as you say, both produced and *discovered* by the
designers. There is intention, but also improvisation. So, how can I *do* something that I
don't yet know? How can I conceive what I have never thought about before? And, how
can I go about designing for this not-yet-known thing along with others that do not
think/know as I do?
We begin our paper with a quotation about experience: “To experience, to undergo, is to
be certain. To hear of someone else’s experience is to be uncertain.” I think that
experience has been a recurrent topic in this xmca discussion, and has become clearer and
clearer that Dewey's notion of *an* experience addresses much of what we are asking
about: those gestures, movements, and physical performances have (or rather achieve)
both intentional and receptive import precisely because they are moments of one single
experience that, in its unfolding, unites what otherwise may had been random, inchoate
gestures, movements, and performances. When people have gone through an experience,
and only after the fact, can reflect upon what they have just done/gone through and thus
keep on building on, in a process of place-making, or of form-making (of per-forming?).
…[I]n our paper we accomplish a little of this project of specifying the relation between
doing and undergoing in interdisciplinary design work, and how, by being able to refer
back to a history of shared performances (rather than to prior knowledge or shared
concepts), goes on despite lack of substantive agreement.
But we have not yet asked the questions in terms of creativity…. Mike Cole's recent
work about imagination and creativity…may be of help here. They distinguish between
Imagination and Creativity, which are related, but point to different aspects of the
individual/collective relation: whereas imagination is about individual development,
creativity is about cultural change. …I think there is something about cultural change that
we are leaving unaddressed, or rather remains tacit in our paper, and which may shed
light beyond the issue of experience.
So, I will try another question: What else (if anything) is there to experience that does not
come in/from experience? And how does that relate to human design/artistry/innovation?
In our paper we suggest that there is a mutual constitution between material
configurations and bodily orientations and dispositions; and that materials become
infrastructure because of a history of such orientations and dispositions that become a
sort of habit. But, is that all? When I read about cultural-historical literature, and find
such notions such as object of activity, or projects, I always wonder how something that
is not yet in the participants' experience nonetheless is assumed to be part of the
explanation of how and why people is doing what they are doing. Does this have relation
with the distinction between imagination and creativity?
RS: I also wanted to follow up on a suggestion…in [an]other thread…[that] we look at
David McNeill's…work on gesture, but after doing a bit of reading…I found his concept
of 'unexpected metaphors' potentially useful….
( http://mcneilllab.uchicago.edu/pdfs/unexpected_metaphors.pdf )
Here is a relevant quote describing unexpected metaphors as a form of
gesture:
*The logic is that unexpected metaphors arise from the need to create images when the
culture does not have them readily at hand. These images join linguistic content as
growth points and differentiate what Vygotsky (1987) called psychological predicates, or
points of contrast in the immediate ongoing context of speaking. Unexpected metaphors,
precisely because they are outside the conventions of language and culture, can capture
abstractions in novel ways and provide the fluidity of thought and language that is the
essence of ongoing discourse.*
LP: Here is how McNeill summarizes the way he is structuring or organizing the features
of his theory. (see page 5)
"The metaphoricity of the gesture was in this way an ESSENTIAL feature of speech and
thought, and the linkage of both to context."
Does McNeil "adequately" convince that THIS way of organizing the features
(metaphoricity, gesture, speech, thought, context) describes the continuing way we move
together as place making (meaning).
THIS micro analysis of the features of place making as capturing a feature ( the
metaphoricity of gesture that is ESSENTIAL) means that if this feature is missing then
place making does not come into being/form.
The bringing into form /structure the image-speech dialetic depends on the NECESSITY
of the metaphoricity of gesture.
RS: …I interpreted *metaphoricity* in McNeill's analysis to be an essential feature
linking speech and thought only in situations that include such metaphorical gestures
(both expected and unexpected as he refers to them). If you are challenging the idea that
this is an essential feature linking *all* speech and thought, then I agree with you
completely.
I have to admit, I was attending more to the 'unexpected' aspect of the concept rather than
the metaphorical aspect, as a way of describing the creative introduction of new signs
into interaction.
… there may be a lack of concepts allowing us to discuss place making activities at both
a micro-interactional level, and at the level characterized by An Experience emerging in
the other thread….
LP: …Is the place of "narratives" in the process a phase of this process?
The notion of "representations" of the experience as an aspect (can we say mode?) of the
ongoing "construction" OF (upon which) this experience unfolds. Is the place of
narratives "about" the completion of a phase of this process (bringing into materiality as
Rolf uses the term materiality) what "was" preceded by a "felt experience" that was preconceptual (as a bodily experience). In other words as Gendlin says was the narrative
"about" a means of placing before the others a "felt experience" and in this act of
materiality inviting the others to "perceive" (as Dewey uses this term in contrast to
recognition).
… is there a "felt sense" that already exists and has been undergone prior to the
presentation OF this "felt" experience AS a " representation/materiality/act/ that brings
the "felt experience" as bodily manifestation to the fore PRIOR to representing or
bringing into materiality the "about" process that completes the bodily process when the
other person undergoes the experience that has been articulated through the narrative and
"perceives" the "felt experience" (already undergone bodily) MORE clearly.
When he/she says "yes I see what you mean" that is another phase - the "perceived"
phase of becoming clearer- after the fact (observable) of the materiality/representation
OF the bodily "felt experience" that preceded the "about" narrative of the "felt
experience".
…I am trying to be clear on the relations of " bodily experience" gestures/language as the
materiality of bringing into "form" as an act of bringing to the "fore" what was in the
"back" (using these bodily metaphors) and the "I see/perceive" gestalt as that imaginal
moment when the "construction" (representation of the felt bodily experience undergone)
is "realized/completed".
I am attempting to become clearer on the place of "narratives" as one of the "means" that
brings bodily experience materially to the "fore" IN ORDER TO facilitate the "aha, now
I see what you mean!" experience as "an" experience happening in phases.
…Where to place the "construction/materiality phase (that bring "things/processes" to the
"fore") with the notion of "felt experience or "mood" (that is the background bodily living
through).
I know that other theories say that ALL experience "is" conceptual and what I am
referring to as "felt experience" is adding an aspect that is a mis-representation of
experience that to "have an experience" always is a construction and "felt experience" is
no exception to this truth.
The performance of presentation and representation and the space transforming to place.
The place of "means of materiality" in relation to " felt experience". Is the "gestalt" a
process of "construction" or is this presenting "representations of" having an experience
an aspect of bringing to the "fore" IN ORDER TO have the other share in our having an
experience by assisting the other to "perceive" ( becoming clearer or revealing). The
"therefore" is a phase assisting the other to have "an" experience (in common) as we
undergo THIS shared experience.
LP: This "confusing struggle of different meanings" is of course nothing other than
activity. That is how signs and situations acquire psychological meanings.
…I will share Vygotsky's own words on what a concept is:
"A real concept is an IMAGE of an objective thing in all its complexity. Only when we
recognize the thing in all its connections and relations, only when this diversity is
synthesized in a word in an INTEGRAL IMAGE through a multitude of determinations,
do we develop a concept. According to the teaching of dialectical logic, a concept
INCLUDES not only the general but also the individual and particular.
In contrast to contemplation, to direct knowledge of an object, a
concept is filled with definitions of the object; it is the RESULT of
rational processing of our existence AND it is mediated knowledge of the object. To
think of some object with the help of a concept MEANS TO INCLUDE the GIVEN
object in a complex SYSTEM of mediating connection and relations DISCLOSED in
determinations of the concept"
[Vygotsky, The Collected Works, Volume 5, Child Psychology, page 53]
I felt my struggle I am going through may be relevant to others. In
particular "when we recognize the thing in all its connections and
relations .... THROUGH a multitude of DETERMINATIONS". THIS [thing] is
synthesized "in a word" IN AN INTEGRAL IMAGE".
AB: …I am not the only one who insists that a concept is a unity of individual, universal
and particular!
The thing is, Larry, if we think of the concept of "game", how does the child come to use
"game" in a way that adults will understand and in turn be able to react when adults use
it? This is of course a protracted process but it is through actions. In Thinking and
Speech, Vygotsky explains concept formation only in terms of actions, not any kind of
hypothetical mental images or dictionaries or mental filing systems or whatever. It is all
actions which are in one way or another organised around some artefact, and in particular
a word. …But it is in the whole bundle of actions around the word “game” that a child or
an adult learns to use the word correctly, to utter the word meaningfully and coordinate
their own actions with respect to the word. The words on their own are nothing. They
acquire meaning only through their use in collaborative activity in which the learner
participates in some way. The problem is, of course, that not everyone in the world uses
the word in a uniform, consistent way.
David Kellogg: I think that the word Vygotsky uses here is not so much "image" as
"imagination" or perhaps "construal". Or rather, it is "image" but it isn't image in the
sense of a photographic image but more in the sense of a Russian icon. That's why you
can have an image of a game, and it's also why it is really only half true to say that the
concept is built through actions. Painting isn't reducible to actions, and in a very
important sense the ideal image of the painting exists long before any action at all is
taken.
LP: This answer to my struggle shifts or slants everything.
If we cannot "reduce" or "abstract" actions from "having an experience" then to be
explicit and clear we must also include some other factor that is "beyond" reducing
having "an" experience to just actions. This other factor is "construal" or "imaginal"
phenomena. Having an experience is an INTEGRAL EXPERIENCE including both the
imaginal and actions.
David the other relation is the unity of "construing" and "disclosing"/"undergoing" an
experience (as a unity or integral phenomena.)
The relation(s) of the imaginal to action and the slant from which we approach THIS
unity (that cannot be reduced or abstracted) from having an experience.
How we understand THIS integral phenomena that is extending "beyond" actions but
must necessarily INCLUDE actions.