[-empyre-] march discussion - the prototype perspective

[Gabriel Menotti]

Dear Rob and Adrian:

Thanks for the exciting contributions! Here are some comments to keep
the ball rolling:

Adrian: your critique on the positivist logic of prototyping casts
attention to the underlying authorities that direct it and define it
as teleology. As long as prototypes exist within an external value
system, there seems to be no fundamental changes when industrial logic
is substituted by a shared repository that normalizes creativity (or
the clearance of the app store). But I wonder if that is not natural
of design as a standardizing practice – i.e. the process of setting
parameters for /the other/ – and in the end every form of design that
is not intimate and personal would be directed towards a normalization
of uses. In that sense, the idea of an antiergonomy sounds very
intriguing. Would it consist in creating difficulties of use? Or of a
mode of use that depends on the ad-hoc production of ergonomy? Could
such object be shared with other people? Could you please expand on
that idea, and how it relates to teaching people produce their own
prototypes?

Rob: it is interesting how one of the most intimate objects (the
grandmother cup), which would traditionally be considered a useless
but valuable souvenir, gains an undeniable functionality in this
scenario of the scriptable reality. Makes me think of how objects
exist within different architectures, and the change of environment
provokes strong effects in their possibilities of use. However, as the
function of an object becomes more dependent of the pervasive
environment, and is therefore regulated by what you call “the heart of
the IT architecture of the system, its standards and protocols”, how
is it possible for the user to negotiate the function of an object if
he have no access to the environment? Doesn’t that intensify the
functionality of everything, casting out random innovation? And what
is the destiny of the objects that does not ‘ressonate’ with the
architecture?

Best!
Menotti