Exaptation

Exaptive Innovation

and creative epistemology

Jb Labrune - 2010

Phd Work 2007

•Children and Creative Technologies, an exaptive phenomenon

•Answering the question: Why children rarely use objects according to the rules edicted by their designers ?

More questions

•What is the nature of creative re-configurations ?

•Are these modifications similar in digital and physical spaces ?

•How to help researchers to understand creative re-configurations ?

Empirical Study

• Grounded Theory ( Glaser and Strauss, 1967 )

• Situated Action (Suchman, 1987)

• SocioMaterial Reconfigurations (Orlikowski, 1987)

• Co-Adaptation, Triangulation (Mackay, 1990)

Triangulation• Mackay, 1997 (hci, design, natural

sciences)

• http://www.lri.fr/~mackay/pdffiles/DIS97.Triangulate.pdf

Terrains

Findings e1

Findings e2

Findings e3

Findings e4

Findings e5

Findings e6

ThesisChild-Machine Interaction is an exaptive phenomenon

Exaptation

•Flying is an exaptation

•A secondary adaptationfrom thermic regulationevolution

Examples

Gould, Vrba• A character, previously shaped by

natural selection for a particular function (an adaptation), is coopted for a new use—cooptation. (2) A character whose origin cannot be ascribed to the direct action of natural selection (a nonaptation), is coopted for a current use—cooptation.

Gould and Vrba (1982, Table 1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaptation

Spandrels

• Lewontin and Gould (1979)

• The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme

• http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/205/1161/581

• Gould (1997)

• The exaptive excellence of spandrels as a term and prototype

• http://www.pnas.org/content/94/20/10750.abstract?sid=c80b8cc0-4a00-4bb6-ae92-3e9897ef5da5

Spandrels•By-Product of Functional

evolution, or design iteration

•Morphogenetic By-Products

Dorsoventral Pattern Formation in Graphosoma Lineatum

Open Spaces

•Functions

•By-Products

•Ambiguity and Paradox of Openess

•Designing vs Non-design (and nature vs designer pace)

Epigenetic Landscape

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EpigeneticsConrad Hal Waddington - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Hal_Waddington

IdeaGarden 2010

http://web.media.mit.edu/~labrune/igarden/igarden-lg-final.ogv

Creative Documentation•Capturing Iterations vs capturing

context

•Reflecting on intention, capture and reflection itself

•Monitoring (Surveillance) vs Joint Attention

Inspiration •Reggio Emilia for adults

•New Tools for Creativitysupport but also for creative reflection on documentation process

•Debate, Co-Evolution, non-hegemonic process in design and its cultural context

Creativity Research Tools

•Specialised vs Context

•Visual documentation

•Visual Anthropology

• visual psychology ?

• visual epistemology ?• visual phenomenology ?Free Camera ? >>> free culture /

researchhttp://www.opencamera.cc/http://cinema.elphel.com/ >> anthropology.elphel ??

Open-source camera

• How to make (almost) anything 2009

• http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/863.09/people/labrune/index.html

• Fabbable

• programmable

• open-source

DIY Trend• Ubiquitous Kwnoledge (Digital, Citizen

science, Magazines, workshops, conferences)

• New places of production and understanding of knwoledge (Fablabs, Dorkbot, DIY communities around the world)

• DIY programming cultral probes, technological probes

References

• The Ambiguity of Play [Brian Sutton-Smith, 1997]

• CST: Creativity Support Tools [Shneiderman, 2005]

• Edith Ackermann "Perspective-Taking and Object-Construction” In Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World (Kafai, Y. & and Resnick, M. Eds.). Chap. 2, pp. 25-37. Northdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 1996.

• Gould, Stephen Jay, and Elizabeth S. Vrba (1982), "Exaptation — a missing term in the science of form," Paleobiology 8 (1): 4–15.