[-empyre-] seeing yourself as a mountain - the limits of open source

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all:

not sure where the discussion is heading (into academia?) and whether we have looked at a range of domains in which the function or value of prototyping matters, in terns of  (1) iteration (iterative design process to improve functionality or aesthetics or pleasure of use), (2) participation (particpatory design) and completion (dissemination),  from industrial design and commercial sectors like IT to the medical field, from clothes or food to science research and art/performance, and, then again, into what Gabriel called "laboratorial isolation" in his first posting. 

In the non-isolationist (non academic) context, Gabriel spoke of  dynamics of design and production coming closer to each other, 

>>but they also become mingled into the everyday use of the objects as well. One of the fields in which this can be more clearly perceived is software engineering, which demands the testing of prototypes by a large number of users. Following the “release early, release often” free software motto, beta versions are public released as soon as possible, so that they can be debugged in the wild>>

In my experience of industrial design, say for example cars, such 'open development' in the wild is of course not the rule, is it ?(nor in most other cases of consumer products released)  and beta testing and open development would probably need to be examined in terms of how "testing' is understood and how user usage and accumulated knowledge about applications (and new add ons) are disseminated or made useful (is use useful for the user only or also for larger communities (how?) and how is such knowledge shared and when does user knowledge become a consensus  driver? when is it iedologically manipulated for profit and is it always subject to profit dynamics? (saleability?) (the saleability of research, its "application" and "impact" now common place imperative in universities too).  

The same is true for relatively important everyday user objects, such as cell phones: next month when my contract comes up, i may be able to choose between two Sony  Ericssons (for free) or I pay for an expensive Blackberry, but my choices are as limited as my input for their design. Companies such as Nokia or Ericisson employ user experience architects who investigate user's satisfaction and feed their findings back to the design teams.  I get calls on occasion asking me whether i am happy.  i am not.

This did become a new phenomenon in the arts (not happiness, but user satisfaction at least), largely due to the increase in  interactive installations which required or desired user input and behaviors (designed into the interactional environments); and one would think architects who design buildings and work spaces, or leisure and art spaces (didn't the director of Tate Modern resign because he felt too much concern was given to expanding the building's attractivenss rather than its contents) would take into account the occupants' affective responses. Art objects conventionally did not have to be 'designed" that way, but interestingly, aspects of contingency as well as duration/ephemerality, visibility (siting) or invisibility (privacy), and user values now enter the discourse (inflected by decades of conceptual art).  

Tehching Hsieh's one year performances come to mind here (if you are performing an artwork for such a long period of time, you are not prototyping isolated moments/installments, nor are you prototyping the "self" as an artifact; nor offering a primitive form ["prototypon"];   Hsieh  refered to his actions as "dealing with life," but of course the actions were consciously composed and a certain form of autodocumentary did ensue and was archived, we now discover), as a fascinating counter point to Marina Abramovic's dissemination of her earlier live art work under the label of "reperformance," and her current séance in MOMA ("the artist is present" and, we read, wants to "be like a mountain").  She is performing a stunt, yes?  or a metaphysical gamble?   Both artists, in a sense, are now also cashing in, selling the photodocumentations or newly constructed collectors items (unique series), notwithstanding the joke on serialism and Warhol. 


i like the definitions Christopher suggested:

>>
best case scenario: . a prototype in is an object, or behavior, that is an
experimental attempt to work towards a best case scenario of application,
validity, or volatility of an idea, or thing. there must be a concrete need,
for the prototype to be valuable.

>>
Worst case scenario: a replacement or guinea-pig for a genuine article, so to
make the person experiencing or using this thing, or thought system. feel that
they are negotiating a known object or experience: a dopple ganger or facsimile
of the real. a placebo: a stunt man.

>>

I'd suggest it's hard to define prototype generally for all categories;  art is a particularly cumbersome variant of "object"/"behavior", or valuable, 
and if you now think of bio- art, there probably is no "concrete need" for tissue culture self -experimentation;
 so it wouldnt come under your best case scenario even if, in some cases, bio art may indeed contest or work towards volatility of an idea, an ethics, a scientific method, an ideology. 


regards
Johannes


Johannes Birringer
DAP Lab
School of Arts 
Brunel University
West London 
UB8 3PH   
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap



Gabriel Menotti wrote: 

>society' but also the implications for our ways of thinking about the
'prototype' as
>that which ties the old debate between 'synthetic' and 'natural' (Sonia
Matos)

In that sense, one could also say that prototyping also ties creationism and
evolutionism as complimentary ideas of /genesis/ - the feedback cycles of
correction leading to a qualitative leap ('creation') and emergence of the
final object?


>It is in this process of constant re-design that knowledge shifts,
encounters new subaltern meanings. (SM)

Precisely. But shouldn't we go as far as to say that that's the only place
where subaltern meanings can become manifest - after all, if they prevail
over prototyping and become standards, how can they still be considered
subaltern? I think I echo Davin's concern:


>As a thought experiment, I think there is much value to thinking
>about our everyday practices as "prototyping." On the other hand,
>I think we do lose something if we embrace this metaphor with
>too much enthusiasm. (Davin Heckman)

I think the idea of prototype is particularly fruitful because of the
special place prototyping occupy in the technical topology of the industrial
age, and how it is ressignified by the present paradigm shift in modes of
production and material culture. But I also wonder if it will remain
meaningful as we get into different cycles (of marketing, of manufacturing).

Best!
Menotti