Nonhuman Participation: a materialist perspective on execution from agency of things, vibrancy of matter and code materiality

Nonhuman Participation: a materialist perspective on execution from agency of things,

vibrancy of matter and code materiality

Winnie Soon 2015 @ PIT

What is participation?Why do we have to look into nonhumans?

Participatory Design

• Design processes and decisions that made by participants

• Participation through IT IT as a supporting role

• What counts as participation?

What is participation?

Google image search as of 21 Apr 2015

What is participation?

Google image search as of 21 Apr 2015

an act or instance of participatingthe fact of taking part, as in some action or attempt

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/participation

Have we equally and seriously considered nonhumans as participants?

Nonhuman Participation

Actor Network Theory

Actor Network Theory

- See things as connections and associations, dissolving the dichotomy of inside/outside, big/small, far/close.

- it does not limit itself to human individual actors, but extend the word actor -or- actant- to nonhuman, non individual entities.

(Latour 1996:5-8)

ANT: Actant

Implies no special motivation of human individual actors, nor of humans in general. An actant can literally be anything provided it is granted to be the source of an action.

* Not a fixed entity but regards as flow, as circulating objects* Action is not done under the full control of consciousness

(Latour 1996:5-6; 2005:44)

ANT: black box

(Latour 1987:2-3)

ANT: translation

• Changes relationship• Becomes someone, something else• Creates mixtures between entirely new types

of beings, hybrids of nature and culture• Consists of displacing…one program of action

into another program of action

(Latour 1991:125; 1999:180-182; 1993:10)

Actant: a source of action that can be either human or nonhuman; it is that which has efficacy, can do things, has sufficient coherence to make a difference, produce effects, alter the course of events.

(Bennett 2010:viii)

Vibrant materialityVitality of matter

Thing-power

material powers, which can aid or destroy,

enrich or disable, ennoble or degrade us,in any case call for our attentiveness, or even ‘respect’

(Bennett 2010:ix)

Vibrant materialityVitality of matter

Thing-power

How could we know the thing-power without understanding the thing?

[what are things?]

Code materiality

Computer code is not solely technical though, and must be understood with respect to both the 'cultures of software' that

produce it, but also the cultures of consumption that surround it

(Berry 2011:17)

Code materiality

I reject so-called ‘immateriality” of software and draw attention to the concrete thing-in-the-world-ness of software so that we can ‘see what it is, what it does, and

what it can be coupled with’ (Fuller, 2008:3)

(Berry 2011:10)

Code materiality

Close reading of code

How the code is created/tested/maintained/run?

Code materiality

Code

DataNetwork

Socio-technical networkTriangular relation of code execution

By bringing in the concept of agency, thing-power and the culture of computation, how might this materialist perspective reconfigures our

understanding of “participation” in the field of PD?