Author: Jenny L. Davis
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262044110
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective. Technological affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. The concept of affordances, which migrated from psychology to design with Donald Norman's influential 1988 book, The Design of Everyday Things, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies—but, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses. The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from what objects afford to how objects afford, for whom, and under what circumstances. Davis shows that through this framework, analyses can account for the power and politics of technological artifacts. She situates the framework within a critical approach that views technology as materialized action. She explains how request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, and allow are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions—perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy. Putting the framework into action, Davis identifies existing methodological approaches that complement it, including critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA), app feature analysis, and adversarial design. In today's rapidly changing sociotechnical landscape, the stakes of affordance analyses are high. Davis's mechanisms and conditions framework offers a timely theoretical reboot, providing tools for the crucial tasks of both analysis and design.
Author: Caitlin Hamilton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100050557X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 109
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Book Description
This book examines everyday artefacts of world politics: the things that everyday people make that tell stories about how the world works. The author argues that people engage in a unique form of multimodal storytelling about the world, their place in the world, and the world they want to live in through the artefacts that they make. Introducing a novel approach to artefactual analysis, the book explores textiles, jewellery, and pottery, and urges scholars of global politics to take these artefacts seriously. Based on original research, this book is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on concepts and approaches from across the humanities and social sciences, including archaeology, history, sociology, world politics, anthropology, and material studies. It will therefore be of interest to a wide range of readers.
Author: Henry Petroski
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307773051
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
How did the table fork acquire a fourth tine? What advantage does the Phillips-head screw have over its single-grooved predecessor? Why does the paper clip look the way it does? What makes Scotch tape Scotch? In this delightful book Henry, Petroski takes a microscopic look at artifacts that most of us count on but rarely contemplate, including such icons of the everyday as pins, Post-its, and fast-food "clamshell" containers. At the same time, he offers a convincing new theory of technological innovation as a response to the perceived failures of existing products—suggesting that irritation, and not necessity, is the mother of invention.
Author: Yuriko Saito
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019160853X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues.
Author: Alice Walker
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813520766
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Presents the text of Alice Walker's story "Everyday Use"; contains background essays that provide insight into the story; and features a selection of critical response. Includes a chronology and an interview with the author.
Author: Chris Wilson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520229617
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
A collection of seventeen essays examining the field of American cultural landscapes past and present. The role of J. B. Jackson and his influence on the field is a explored in many of them.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 582
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Leddy
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770483071
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
This book explores the aesthetics of the objects and environments we encounter in daily life. Thomas Leddy stresses the close relationship between everyday aesthetics and the aesthetics of art, but places special emphasis on neglected aesthetic terms such as ‘neat,’ ‘messy,’ ‘pretty,’ ‘lovely,’ ‘cute,’ and ‘pleasant.’ The author advances a general theory of aesthetic experience that can account for our appreciation of art, nature, and the everyday.
Author: Richard Moyer
Publisher: NSTA Press
ISBN: 1936137194
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 130
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Book Description
Articles previously published in Science scope.
Author: Vladimir Arkhipov
Publisher: Fuel
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
This book features highlights from Russian artist Vladimir Arkhipov's collection of unique inventions. These objects were made by ordinary Russians, at a time when the Soviet Union was in a state of collapse, often inspired by a lack of instant access to manufactured goods.
