UC Berkeley Recent Work

UC Berkeley Recent Work Title Strange and Unstable Fabrication Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/40z5g3sz Author Devendorf, Laura K Publication Date 2016-10-01 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Strange and Unstable Fabrication by Laura Kay Devendorf A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management and Systems and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kimiko Ryokai, Chair Professor Jenna Burrell Professor Rosemary Joyce Fall 2016 Copyright 2016 by Laura Kay Devendorf ABSTRACT Strange and Unstable Fabrication by Laura Kay Devendorf Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management and Systems and the Designated Emphasis in New Media University of California, Berkeley Professor Kimiko Ryokai, Chair In the 1950’s a group of artists led by experimental composer John Cage actively engaged chance as a means to limit their control over the artworks they produced. These artists described a world filled with active and lively forces, from the sounds of rain to blemishes in paper, that could be harnessed in creative production to give rise to new aesthetics and cultivate new sensitivities to the everyday. This approach to making was not simply act of creative expression but active attempt at creative expansion—a way of submitting to a world of creative forces beyond the self for the sake of seeing, hearing, or feeling things anew. I use these practices as a lens to reflect on the way human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers think about and design for making, specifically as it relates to the present day “maker movement.” I focus on how the design of digital fabrication systems, like 3D printers, could make room for creative forces beyond the maker and why such modes of making are worth considering in HCI research. Since digital fabrication technologies have catalyzed the maker movement and are often described as key instruments for “democratizing” manufacturing, this project joins broader efforts to reflect on values in maker technology as a means of expanding the design space of digital fabrication in ways that could potentially increase the diversity of participants associated with the movement. By weaving through post-anthropocentric theories of the new materialisms, design practice, art history, and HCI, I contribute a theory of making that accounts for the creative capacity of nonhumans as well as design tactics to make room for nonhuman forces in the design of digital fabrication systems. I argue that nonhumans exert material-semiotic forces upon makers that shape their perspectives on stuff and culture in tandem. I then suggest that tools that are both strange and unstable create a space for makers to perceive and work with these forces in ways that honor the unique life and agency of nonhuman matter. As a whole, this work adds dimensionality to HCI’s existing focus on making as a process of self-expression by suggesting new design territories in fabrication design, crossings between critical reflection and creative production. I close this work by speculating on how tools that trade control, mastery, and predictability for chance, compromise, labor, and risk could become valuable within a broader landscape of making. 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgements iii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Becoming Sensitive to Vibrant Things 1 The Role Tools can play in Sensing and Working with Vibrant Things 3 Experimental Art Practice as a Model for Creative Expansion 3 Anthropocentrism and Expression in Fabrication Tools 5 Engaging Nonhuman Forces for Creative Expression 6 Engaging Nonhuman Forces for Creative Expansion 7 Creative Expansion and the Design of Tools for Fabrication 9 Chapter 2 Weaving Theory and Practice 11 Reflecting on Making through Tool Design 11 A Chronology of my Research Process 12 Designing Tools as Probes 13 Gleaning Insights from Tools as Probes 14 Communicating Insights 15 Chapter 3 Making and Being Made through Material-Semiotic Inquiry 17 Inquiry Embraces Active Materials 18 Perception and Action with Active Materials 19 Inquiry is Morphogenetic 21 Inquiry happens through Correspondence with Active Materials 23 Broadening Correspondence to Include Material-Semiotic Forces 24 What to do with Dualist Semiotics 28 How Including the Force of Signs Reconfigures Correspondence 28 Corresponding with Material-Semiotic Forces 30 Towards Tools for Creative Expansion 32 Chapter 4 Designing Strange Tools to Work Against Habit 33 AnyType 33 Motivation 34 Implementation 34 Study Design 36 Findings 38 What it means to Work Against Habit 44 Resonance with Pedagogical Art Exercises 45 Working Against Habit vs. Defamiliarization 47 i Strange and Unstable Fabrication Contents Contextualizing AnyType among other Tools that Target Perception 48 Expanding the Benefits of Working Against Habit to Fabrication Technologies 50 Chapter 5 Designing Unstable Tools to Provoke Experimentation 52 Redeform 50 Implementation 54 Study Design 57 Patterns of Engaging Material-Semiotic Forces in Making 59 Connecting Instability and Experimentation 65 Stability and Diversity 65 Destabilizing Goal-Based Workflows with the Single Dot 66 Destabilizing Common Use with Unlikely Human-Machine Relationship 67 Designer Subjectivity in Tool Design 68 Chapter 6 Reflections and Aspirations for Tools for Creative Expansion 69 Crossing Strangeness and Instability 69 AnyType as an Unstable Tool 69 Redeform as a Strange Tool 70 Exploring the Nature of Tools for Creative Expansion 71 Tools for Creative Expansion are Subversive 71 Tools for Creative Expansion Tend to Margins 71 Tools for Creative Expansion Support Craft 72 Tools for Creative Expansion are Meta-Tools 73 Evaluating Tools for Creative Expansion 73 Assessing how a Tool Balances Chance and Control 74 Evaluating the Quality of Ideas above Objects 74 Long-term Studies and Self-Use 75 Speculating on Futures for Creative Expansion in Design 79 References 82 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation represents a journey that draws from the insights, thoughtfulness, and generosity of so many. At Berkeley, I have been truly lucky to work with inspiring professors and an amazing cohort of students. My dissertation committee—Kimiko Ryokai, Jenna Burrell, and Rosemary Joyce—have supported me and my work as it has formed and reformed and have always offered thoughtful feedback on new avenues to explore along the way. I am particularly thankful for the academic and institutional support offered by Kimiko Ryokai, whose poetic imagination, amazing attention to detail, and suggestion that there is always one more revision, design improvement, or practice talk to do has pushed me creatively and intellectually. I have also had the pleasure and benefit of having a foot in many different academic groups including the School of Information, Berkeley Institute of Design, Hybrid Ecologies Lab, and Berkeley Center for New Media. The School of Information has always been home and I have been incredibly lucky to be mentored by, work with, and otherwise chat with my fellow I School students. I own a particular debt of gratitude to Daniela Rosner, Elizabeth Goodman, Elisa Oreglia, Ashwin Matthew, Sarah Van Wars, Nick Doty, Richmond Wong, and Noura Howell. Another debt is owned to Paul Duguid, Nancy Van House, and Coye Cheshire who all went out of their way to support our unique academic community with their amazing ability to listen and enthusiasm for such a wide range of interests and ideas. I thank Björn Hartman and Eric Paulos for welcoming me into broader design communities on campus, helping develop my research, and supporting formal and informal collaborations with their students, particularly Cesar Torres, James Pierce, Joanne Lo, Pablo Parades, Rundong (Kevin) Tian, Shiry Ginosar, Valkyrie Savage, and Tim Campbell (whose spirit, kindness, and strength I miss and will never forget). The Berkeley Center for New Media and broader campus network offered yet another cross-section of inspirational colleagues who were kind enough to work with me throughout this journey. I am particularly thankful for my collaborations with Greg Niemeyer, Abigail De Kosnik, Marcia Linn, and Ron Real whose kindness, guidance, and vision will serve as a model for my own academic career. A very special thank you is also due to Chris Myers for his never ending focus on making prototypes more beautiful and who, along with Noura Howell, I can never thank enough for picking up the soldering jobs that I was too pregnant to complete. Family has also played an important role in shaping my experiences as a graduate student. I am also deeply thankful for my Mom who (very literally) demonstrated the courage, determination, and commitment required jump over walls that get in the way of her goals and my Grandma Nadine who instilled her creative, can-do, and thrifty spirit in me from a very young age. If it were not for the support, wisdom, inspiration and laughter of my husband, August Black, this work would not have been possible. iii To Marjory and Frances, Thank you for showing me the beauty in uncertainty iv INTRODUCTION The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities (Suzuki et al. 2011) Within the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), programs of research on creative practice often describe making as a process of growth through expression. This growth is framed as linear progress that is put in motion by a maker’s desire to know more, do more, and attain mastery within domains as diverse as pottery and electronics. This dissertation presents an alternative framing of making as creative expansion and locates growth in a maker’s active attempts to become a beginner and un-know the familiar or undo the habitual as a means to see, feel, and work with the world as though it is being encountered for the first time.

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