aparsons474

Affordances

RELATED TERMS: Actantiality; Disciplinary societies and Societies of control; Lifeworld – Lebenswelt – Umwelt; Methodology and Method; New Materialism; Phenomenology; The notion of affordance is important for design practices as it emphasises the active nature of perception; the importance of the moving body in perception; the co-constitution of the human, the environmental, the ecological and the economic;Continue reading “Affordances”

Actor-Network Theory

RELATED TERMS: Actant; Actantiality; Actantial model – Greimas; Human Actantiality; Agency; Theoretical practice; Ethnomethodology; Latour; Storyworld; Apparatus – Dispositif; Object-Oriented Ontology According to Jary and Jary (2000), actor-network theory combines post-structuralist insights with detailed empirical studies of scientific practices and technologies, organisations and social processes. It builds on the work of Bruno Latour, John Law and Michel Callon. TheContinue reading “Actor-Network Theory”

Actantiality

RELATED TERMS: Actant; Actantial model – Greimas; Actor; Actor-Network Theory; Affordances; Heterarchy; Human actantiality; Lack, Loss and User-Centred Design Practices “Why should you always have live things in stories? said the Professor. “Why don’t you have events, or circumstances?” “Oh, please invent a story like that!” cried Bruno. The Professor began fluently enough. “Once a coincidence was taking a walkContinue reading “Actantiality”

Actant

RELATED TERMS: Actantial Model – Greimas; Actantiality; Actor; Actor-network theory; Agency; Avatar; Human actantiality; Performance and Performativity Why actant? In order to develop a consistent approach in which the narrative, the environmental and the people dimensions of narrative environments are all understood to act, it is necessary to adopt a theory of action that is post-humanist inContinue reading “Actant”

Actantial Model – Greimas

RELATED TERMS: Actant; Actantiality; Actor-Network Theory; Semiotic Square; Human actantiality Joanna Kwiat (2008: 43) suggests that the actantial model of narrative structure proposed by Greimas (1983) drew on at least four theories: Levi-Strauss’ theory of opposition, which states that a given concept A is impossible to comprehend without the equal and opposite concept Not A, and how A necessarilyContinue reading “Actantial Model – Greimas”

Deixis and Deictic Acts

RELATED TERMS: Deictic Cascade; Diegetic Levels; Heterarchy; Metalepsis; Modes of Existence; Tangled Hierarchy and Strange Loop; Transgression Designs enact deictic cascades that frame their actions, or their actantiality, their potential for action, in the theoretical language adopted here. In practice, such hierarchical cascades of deixis form strange loops and heterarchies, giving shape to the shared,Continue reading “Deixis and Deictic Acts”