General Exam

Responses & Reflections

Blair Subbaraman
University of Washington
May 24, 2023

Concentration

Agency and Expertise in Digital Fabrication Systems

Understanding Agency

  • Practitioners have agency

  • Computational compensation increases agency

  • Agency can be evaluated a priori

Understanding Agency

  • Practitioners have agency

  • Computational compensation increases agency

  • Agency can be evaluated a priori
  • Practitioners + systems together produce different capacities for action

  • Agency emerges in practice

  • Agency changes over time

"To Create is to be Creative"

End-to-End Systems Occlude Practitioner Agency

Personal Fabrication, Baudisch & Mueller
Revomaker, Gao et al.

Seizing Control

Prioritizing Practitioner Engagement

FreeD, Zoran et al.
Interactive Fabrication, Willis et al.

Ceding Control

Prioritizing Material Agency

"As practitioners, the builder, the gardener, the cook, the alchemist and the painter are not so much imposing form on matter as bringing together diverse materials and combining or redirecting their flow in the anticipation of what might emerge."
- Ingold, The Textility of Making
Post-Anthropocentric 3D Printing, Devendorf et al.

Editable Agencies & Practitioner Expertise

Cardboard Machine Kit, Peek et al.
Dynamic Brushes, Jacobs et al.
LINC, Li et al.
Fabrication from a CAD Enviroment, Fossdal et al.

Further Provocations

Machine Precision for Material Exploration
Abstract Correspondences (Source: Making, Ingold)

“Design success rests on the extent and efficacy of one’s analysis of specific environments of devices and working practices, finding a place for one’s own technology within them.”

- Suchman, Located Accountabilities in Technology Production
Evaluation Timescales
Expanding the Bounds of the System

Craft as Making's Foil

Craft

  • Low Tech

  • Embodied Skill

  • Autographic

Making

  • High Tech

  • Computational Skill

  • Allographic
The Technical Nature of Craft & Craft Sensibilities of Making
Craftspeople as Technical Collaborators, Devendorf et al.
p5.fab, Subbaraman & Peek

A Rubric to Evaluate Digital Fabrication Systems for Creative Practice

Modalities of Interaction How do practitioners engage the system?
Material Engagement What materials can be used with the system?
System-Material Interdependencies What is foregrounded, interactions with the system or with the materials?
Contextualization in a Workflow Where are we in a broader workflow?
Visual Mappings What is the mapping between software variables and machine parameters– if any?
Evaluation Can we make artifacts that we like more or less?
Audience Who is intended to use the system? Who actually is? Who is excluded?

Methods

Systems Design and Empirical Methods in Digital Fabrication Research

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Individual Practice
  • Evaluation methods

  • Interpretive Flexibility: Technology can be continuously reinterpreted, used in new ways

  • Domain-Specific Insights

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Communities of Practitioners

  • New Empirical Settings: Online Maker Communities

  • Comparison with In-Person Contexts

  • Domain-Specific Insights

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 1: Pliable Machine Control

Systems Design

  • Programmatic control of AxiDraw, PotterBot

  • Domain-specific features

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 1: Pliable Machine Control

Systems Design

  • Programmatic control of AxiDraw, PotterBot

  • Domain-specific features

Empirical Study

  • Month-long study with domain experts

  • Interviews, code sketches, fabricated objects

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 2: Sharing & Reusing 3D Printing Workflows

Systems Design

  • Social platform

  • Project write-ups

  • Public remix graphs

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 2: Sharing & Reusing 3D Printing Workflows

Systems Design

  • Social platform

  • Project write-ups

  • Public remix graphs

Empirical Study

  • Month-long study with domain experts

  • Interviews, code sketches, fabricated objects, remix graphs

Theory

Theorizing With and Through the Body + Historical Contexts

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Embodied Knowledge

  • Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (1966)

  • Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968)

  • Sennett, The Craftsman (2008)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Embodied Knowledge

  • Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (1966)

  • Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968)

  • Sennett, The Craftsman (2008)

Materiality

  • Orlikowski, Sociomaterial Practices (2007)

  • Ingold, Materials against Materiality (2007)

  • Rosner, The Material Practices of Collaboration (2012)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Connections to Digital Fabrication



  • Industrial Legacies


  • Embodied Practice
Forces of Production, Noble

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

More Work for Makers

  • Limits on Tools vs. Limits of Tools

  • Work Processes of Digital Fabrication

  • Tools to Support Work Process

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

More Work for Makers

  • Limits on Tools vs. Limits of Tools

  • Work Processes of Digital Fabrication

  • Tools to Support Work Process

Interpersonal Fabrication

  • Storytelling as Knowledge Distribution

  • Beyond Directive Documentation

  • Machine Maintenance & Community Care

The Elasticity of 'Control'

"The term planning, in other words, exhibits an elastic quality: as a technical proposition it refers to a quite specific and circumscribed set of functionalities and algorithms, but as an empirical proposition it refers to anything at all that can plausibly be glossed with the term."
- Agre, Towards a Critical Technical Practice
generals

General Exam

Responses & Reflections

Blair Subbaraman
University of Washington
May 24, 2023

Concentration

Agency and Expertise in Digital Fabrication Systems

Understanding Agency

  • Practitioners have agency

  • Computational compensation increases agency

  • Agency can be evaluated a priori

Understanding Agency

  • Practitioners have agency

  • Computational compensation increases agency

  • Agency can be evaluated a priori
  • Practitioners + systems together produce different capacities for action

  • Agency emerges in practice

  • Agency changes over time

"To Create is to be Creative"

End-to-End Systems Occlude Practitioner Agency

Personal Fabrication, Baudisch & Mueller
Revomaker, Gao et al.

Seizing Control

Prioritizing Practitioner Engagement

FreeD, Zoran et al.
Interactive Fabrication, Willis et al.

Ceding Control

Prioritizing Material Agency

"As practitioners, the builder, the gardener, the cook, the alchemist and the painter are not so much imposing form on matter as bringing together diverse materials and combining or redirecting their flow in the anticipation of what might emerge."
- Ingold, The Textility of Making
Post-Anthropocentric 3D Printing, Devendorf et al.

Editable Agencies & Practitioner Expertise

Cardboard Machine Kit, Peek et al.
Dynamic Brushes, Jacobs et al.
LINC, Li et al.
Fabrication from a CAD Enviroment, Fossdal et al.

Further Provocations

Machine Precision for Material Exploration
Abstract Correspondences (Source: Making, Ingold)

“Design success rests on the extent and efficacy of one’s analysis of specific environments of devices and working practices, finding a place for one’s own technology within them.”

- Suchman, Located Accountabilities in Technology Production
Evaluation Timescales
Expanding the Bounds of the System

Craft as Making's Foil

Craft

  • Low Tech

  • Embodied Skill

  • Autographic

Making

  • High Tech

  • Computational Skill

  • Allographic
The Technical Nature of Craft & Craft Sensibilities of Making
Craftspeople as Technical Collaborators, Devendorf et al.
p5.fab, Subbaraman & Peek

A Rubric to Evaluate Digital Fabrication Systems for Creative Practice

Modalities of Interaction How do practitioners engage the system?
Material Engagement What materials can be used with the system?
System-Material Interdependencies What is foregrounded, interactions with the system or with the materials?
Contextualization in a Workflow Where are we in a broader workflow?
Visual Mappings What is the mapping between software variables and machine parameters– if any?
Evaluation Can we make artifacts that we like more or less?
Audience Who is intended to use the system? Who actually is? Who is excluded?

Methods

Systems Design and Empirical Methods in Digital Fabrication Research

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Individual Practice
  • Evaluation methods

  • Interpretive Flexibility: Technology can be continuously reinterpreted, used in new ways

  • Domain-Specific Insights

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Communities of Practitioners

  • New Empirical Settings: Online Maker Communities

  • Comparison with In-Person Contexts

  • Domain-Specific Insights

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 1: Pliable Machine Control

Systems Design

  • Programmatic control of AxiDraw, PotterBot

  • Domain-specific features

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 1: Pliable Machine Control

Systems Design

  • Programmatic control of AxiDraw, PotterBot

  • Domain-specific features

Empirical Study

  • Month-long study with domain experts

  • Interviews, code sketches, fabricated objects

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 2: Sharing & Reusing 3D Printing Workflows

Systems Design

  • Social platform

  • Project write-ups

  • Public remix graphs

Systems Design & Empirical Research

Study 2: Sharing & Reusing 3D Printing Workflows

Systems Design

  • Social platform

  • Project write-ups

  • Public remix graphs

Empirical Study

  • Month-long study with domain experts

  • Interviews, code sketches, fabricated objects, remix graphs

Theory

Theorizing With and Through the Body + Historical Contexts

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Embodied Knowledge

  • Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (1966)

  • Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968)

  • Sennett, The Craftsman (2008)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Bodies

  • Simon, Science of the Artificial (1968)

  • Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (1987)

  • Dourish, Where the Action is (2001)

Embodied Knowledge

  • Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (1966)

  • Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968)

  • Sennett, The Craftsman (2008)

Materiality

  • Orlikowski, Sociomaterial Practices (2007)

  • Ingold, Materials against Materiality (2007)

  • Rosner, The Material Practices of Collaboration (2012)

Theorizing With & Through the Body

Connections to Digital Fabrication



  • Industrial Legacies


  • Embodied Practice
Forces of Production, Noble

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

More Work for Makers

  • Limits on Tools vs. Limits of Tools

  • Work Processes of Digital Fabrication

  • Tools to Support Work Process

Historical Contexts

Digital Fabrication Tools for Conviviality

  • Conviviality⇋Maker Culture

  • Obsolescence & Repair

  • Tools vs. Systems

More Work for Makers

  • Limits on Tools vs. Limits of Tools

  • Work Processes of Digital Fabrication

  • Tools to Support Work Process

Interpersonal Fabrication

  • Storytelling as Knowledge Distribution

  • Beyond Directive Documentation

  • Machine Maintenance & Community Care

The Elasticity of 'Control'

"The term planning, in other words, exhibits an elastic quality: as a technical proposition it refers to a quite specific and circumscribed set of functionalities and algorithms, but as an empirical proposition it refers to anything at all that can plausibly be glossed with the term."
- Agre, Towards a Critical Technisadfcal Practice