Prototypes as Arguments
Prototyping Practices
(a pad on methodology)
(specifically the methodology of prototype making)
(theory * practice)
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proto-
first in time (protohistory)
beginning : giving rise to (protoplanet)
capitalized : relating to or constituting the recorded or assumed language that is ancestral to a language or to a group of related languages or dialects
-type
as noun: a particular kind, class, or group
as verb: to produce (a character, a document, etc.) using a keyboard (as on a typewriter or computer)
[Merriam Webster]
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# How a Prototype Argues (2010)
Alan Galey & Stan Ruecker
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220675438_How_a_Prototype_Argues
In this article, we argue that, just as an edition of a book can be a means of reifying a theory about how books should be edited, so can the creation of an experimental digital prototype be understood as conveying an argument about designing interfaces. Building on this premise, we explore theoretical affinities shared by recent design and book history scholarship, and connect those theories to the emerging practice of peer-reviewing digital objects in scholarly contexts.
# Prospects and problems of prototype theory (2009)
Dirk Geerrearts
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1515/ling.1989.27.4.587
> on Prototype theory within Linguistics
The theory originated in the mid-1970s with Eleanor Rosch's research into the internal structure of categories.
From its psycholinguistic origins, prototype theory has moved mainly in two directions.
- On the one hand, Rosch's findings and proposals were taken up by formal psycholexicology (and more generally, information-processing psychology), which tries to devise formal models for human conceptual memory and its operation, and which thus, obviously, borders on AI.
- On the other hand, prototype theory has had a steadily growing success in linguistics since the early 1980s.
# Towards a Theory Of Prefigurative Practices (2017)
Valeria Graziano (is part of pirate.care)
https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:21418/datastreams/CONTENT/content (from page 176)
Ideas of prefiguration in political organizing
The notion of prefiguration first appeared to discuss the distinct way of doing politics invented by social justice movements in the 1960s and 1970s. It described the ways in which their everyday practices, including modes of organizing their sociality and reproduction, as well as the way they conceived direct actions, all appeared infused by an effort to embody the broader political goals that these movements wanted to achieve. This ethos of seeking congruence between the means and the ends of political action might be summarized clearly in famous expression “be the change you want to see”. Applied to collective scenarios then, prefiguration or prefigurative politics (the two term s have often been ased interchangeably by commentators) has appeared as a pragmatic principle of organizing social relations: either alongside or during political protests.
- page 181
# "Design studies"
(from an EU funding open call around infrastructure research)
https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2018-2020/main/h2020-wp1820-infrastructures_en.pdf page 7
Design studies should tackle all the key questions concerning the technical and conceptual feasibility of new or upgraded fully fledged user facilities (proposals considering just a component for research infrastructures are not targeted by this topic). A design study proposal should demonstrate the relevance and the advancement with respect to the state-of-art of the proposed infrastructure. It should indicate the gaps in the research infrastructure landscape the new facility will cover as well as the research challenges it will make possible to address. All fields of research are considered.
The main output of a design study will be the 'conceptual design report' for a new or upgraded research infrastructure, showing the maturity of the concept and forming the basis for identifying and constructing the next generation of Europe's and the world's leading research infrastructures.
# Idiotic Computing
is how David Benque frames his project: https://almanac.computer/
(notes from a presentation at XPUB, 8th of October 2020)
The project operates between the realm of astrology & machine learning, around forms of future predictions.
Showing the idiotic potential of computation ... (Question during the Q&A: What could be the next step in the direction of idiotic computation?)
David uses Jupyter notebooks to publish the code behind the different elements in the project.
The notebooks as "grabbing point" ("grip", "handle") to hold yourself onto something in this huge slippery field of data science.
The notebook also provides a space to manipulate materials (as artists are used to do).
The "idiot" as a figure (ref. to Isabelle Stengers) to position the project with.
Cross ref to the field of software art, where artists started to include the cultural concequences of crunching numbers.
Questions
How does the prototype operate differently in different contexts of media art/design and digital humanities/academics?
How does it "operate"? ("operationability", "performativity", ...)
# 4s Making & Doing sessions
https://www.4sonline.org/sts-resources/making-and-doing/sydney-2018/situated-knowledges/
# Create prototypes and understand how your audience interacts with them
https://quant-ux.com/
(Not interesting as a project in itself, but more to see how these UX GUI layout tools are made to design with; allowing prototyping with (some degree of) code.)
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# Performative Materiality and Theoretical Approaches to Interface (2013)
Johanna Drucker
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/7/1/000143/000143.html
& https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/performative-materiality
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