[Synapse elist] Situated Being

[Erika Lincoln]

I recently read Edwin Hutchins book "Cognition in the
Wild", while his book is not focused on bodies but
rather devices that are used/manipulated in order to
carry out tasks (his example is navigation on the
sea).  His main thesis being that cognition takes
place between people and devices--Distributed
Cognition.
Granted that Hutchins is not writing about devices
and/or prosthetics or dis/ability in the way people
have written about in this forum but I think there is
a connection.

In one case Hutchins writes about mediation, to
paraphrase devices do not stand in the way between
"user" and "task" but rather work with the "user"  to
"regulate behaviour" in order to create a state where
a "task" can take place. 

To take this into the realm of this discussion I would
have to say that devices are not barriers to
experience/life, 
augmentation is not correction.
As for regulated behaviour it is actions and gestures
that are done by everyone. 

Another term Hutchins uses is "situated seeing"
(derived I think from Charles Goodwin et Marjorie
Harness Goodwin's Seeing as a Situated Activity) where
in his example of an adelaide  where an internal
structure (compass rose) is projected onto an external
structure( landmark ) you look through the device both
structures are seen at the same time "giving meaning
to the thing seen (landmark) that goes beyond the
features of the thing itself."   Using the device does
not create a cognitive enhancement but a different
type of cognitive ability. 

In the context of the topic devices such as the ones
mentioned by JU, Brad, my own, and Stelarc's 
gravitate to these definitions, and maybe the term
"situated being" could be used again not an
amplification rather a different way of being in the world.

Erika Lincoln
Electronic Media Artist
Winnipeg/Manitoba/Canada
http://www.lincolnlab.net


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