Things as Co-Ethnographers: Implications of a Thing Perspective for Design and Anthropology

Giaccardi, Elisa; Speed, Chris; Cila, Nazlı; Caldwell, Melissa L.

doi:10.4324/9781003085188-19

Cited by 32 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…[28]. The philosophical developments in OOO and speculative realism discussed above, have directly inspired the development of thing ethnography, that explores the use of things as co-ethnographers that give a new perspective into human behaviour [19,20]. Data collected through sensors and cameras attached to domestic products, can help develop an understanding of the minutiae of people's engagements [12,19,20].…”

Section: Contemporary Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Entangled Ethnography: Towards a collective future understanding

Murray-Rust

Gorkovenko

Burnett

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019

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In this work, we develop a vision for entangled ethnography, where constellations of people, artefacts, algorithms and data come together to collectively make sense of the relations between people and objects. This is grounded in New Materialism's picture of a world understood through entanglement, through resonant constellations, through a multiplicity of unique individual viewpoints and their relationships. These perspectives are especially relevant for design ethnography, in particular for research around smart connected products, which collect data about their environment, the networks they are a part of, and the ways they are used. However, we are concerned about the current trend of many connected systems towards surveillance capitalism, as data is colonised, machinations are hidden, and a narrow definition of value is extracted. There is a key tension that while design, particularly of networked objects, attempts to go beyond human centeredness, the infrastructures that support it are moving towards a less than human perspective in their race to accumulate and dispossess. Our work tries to imagine the situations where participants in networked systems are richly engaged, rather than exploited. We hope for a future where human agency is central to a respectful and acceptable collaborative development of understanding. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI).

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Section: Contemporary Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Entangled Ethnography: Towards a collective future understanding

Murray-Rust

Gorkovenko

Burnett

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019

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“…Using the maps and videos as records of what was happening at the back-end of the delivery service, Davoli and Redstrom were able to obtain unique stories of the distribution journeys and how work seemed to be organized. In the Thing Tank project [27,30], Giaccardi and colleagues instrumented ecologies of objects of everyday use with intelligent cameras and sensors. By using instrumented objects as coethnographers with access to unique fields and trajectories, Giaccardi and colleagues were able to generate insights in the types of temporal and spatial attributes and dynamics that inhere among things, and among things and people, within and across specific use practices.…”

Section: Exploring Agency Through An Orchestration Of Roles Between Hmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Performances of artefacts are not determined by decisions made in the design process only, although some frames and trajectories are shaped by these decisions. As suggested by Giaccardi et al [30] performances of computational artifacts expose forms of practice that is difficult to express in terms of just design or use (on the role of artefacts in research and design see also [5,19,64]). Artefacts reveal trajectories and frames that are to a greater or lesser extent open to modification, especially by more skilled everyday designers [13,88].…”

Section: Designing For Recursiveness Between Professional Design Pracmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we argue that the opposite is also risky, where technologies are discussed too much in human terms (e.g., as smart) and create unrealistic expectations. By developing a co-performance vocabulary that explores the possibilities of (future) technologies to complement people's capabilities in new and rich forms of everyday practice, the concept of co-performance shows potential to promote "ways of framing and solving problems collaboratively" with computational artifacts which capitalize on their different capabilities [28,30]. If computational artefacts can be designed to complement humans by taking on roles that suit their unique capabilities, then new and emerging technologies offer possibilities for new co-performances and forms of practice.…”

Section: Designing For Recursiveness Between Professional Design Pracmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Co-performance

Kuijer

Giaccardi

2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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This paper introduces the notion of co-performance, with the aim to offer Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners a new perspective on the role of artificial agency in everyday life, from automated systems to autonomous devices. In contrast to 'smartness,' which focuses on a supposed autonomy of artifacts, coperformance considers artifacts as capable of learning and performing next to people. This shifts the locus of design from matters of distributions of agency at design time, to matters of embodied learning in everyday practice for both human and artificial performers. From this perspective, coperformance acknowledges the dynamic differences in capabilities between humans and artifacts, and highlights the fundamentally recursive relation between professional design and use. Implications for HCI design practice are unpacked through reflections on smart thermostat design in light of historic changes in roles between humans and heating systems, and changing ideas of appropriateness in everyday practices of domestic heating.

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“…To found out what insights might be learned by looking at the world through the "eyes" of these sensor-enhanced objects in a typical day, we conducted a series of studies that we refer to as "thing ethnography." [3][4][5][6] By studying the use of things collectively and in pairs, we sought to discover previously unknown facts-for example, how the use of a coffee cup might reveal insights about use of the kettle, how the use of the kettle might do the same for the fridge, and how together they might reveal unanticipated practices such as the disposing of trash.…”

Section: Green Open Access Added To Tu Delft Institutional Repositorymentioning

confidence: 99%