What the Jeweller’s Hand Tells the Jeweller’s Brain: Tool Use, Creativity and Embodied Cognition

Abstract

The notion that human activity can be characterised in terms of dynamic systems is a well-established alternative to motor schema approaches. Key to a dynamic systems approach is the idea that a system seeks to achieve stable states in the face of perturbation. While such an approach can apply to physical activity, it can be challenging to accept that dynamic systems also describe cognitive activity. In this paper, we argue that creativity, which could be construed as a 'cognitive' activity par excellence, arises from the dynamic systems involved in jewellery making. Knowing whether an action has been completed to a 'good' standard is a significant issue in considering acts in creative disciplines. When making a piece of jewellery, there a several criteria which can define 'good'. These are not only the aesthetics of the finished piece but also the impact of earlier actions on subsequent ones. This suggests that the manner in which an action is coordinated is influenced by the criteria by which the product is judged. We see these criteria as indicating states for the system, e.g. in terms of a space of 'good' outcomes and a complementary space of 'bad' outcomes. The skill of the craftworker is to navigate this space of available states in such a way as to minimise risk, effort and other costs and maximise benefit and quality of the outcome. In terms of postphenomonology, this paper explores Ihde's humantechnology relations and relates these to the concepts developed here.Philos. Technol.

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“…Design creativity has also been examined as a type of improvisational performance between actor and materials of a creative situation (Schön, 1983; Pereira and Tschimmel, 2012; Choi and DiPaola, 2013; Rietveld and Brouwers, 2017; Baber et al, 2019). Baber et al (2019) used a RECS framework to study jewelry design.…”

“…Design creativity has also been examined as a type of improvisational performance between actor and materials of a creative situation (Schön, 1983; Pereira and Tschimmel, 2012; Choi and DiPaola, 2013; Rietveld and Brouwers, 2017; Baber et al, 2019). Baber et al (2019) used a RECS framework to study jewelry design. They analyzed data from interviews, motion capture, and sensors fitted to tools to understand how artifacts (tools, equipment, materials, and workplace) shape creative activity, finding jewelry design involves more technological reasoning than abstract reasoning.…”

“…Baber et al (2019) propose that designers instantiate events by creating ideation sketches. Chemero (2000), Chemero et al (2003) defines events as “changes in the layout of affordances” in the actor-environment system.…”

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“…The use of recurrent and historically acquired patterns needing constant adjustments to deal with new circumstances takes place in all sorts of bodily practices. Baber et al (2019) for instance, describe how goldsmiths need to constantly adjust and adapt previously acquired techniques, in light of the type of “responses” the material sends back to their bodily actions. This dynamic process of re-adaptation involves a continual re-interpretation of the space of available affordances, one that keeps changing insofar as the process of making jewelry continues.…”

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“…Anthropologists, cognitive archaeologists, human factors engineers, and designers are keenly aware of the role of artefacts in supporting and transforming thinking (e.g. Baber, Chemero, & Hall, 2017;Hutchins, 1995;Kirsh, 2013;Malafouris, 2014;Norman, 1993;Toon, 2011). Recently, the systemic thinking model (SysTM, Vallée-Tourangeau, Abadie, & Vallée-Tourangeau, 2015;Vallée-Tourangeau & Vallée-Tourangeau, 2017) was developed to account for interactivity, defined as the processes involved when thinking and problem solving take place in environments where people and things exert a reciprocal influence upon one another.…”