the idea of participation seems to come up fairly often in my thesis / other work & i would like to address this now, while i am procrastinating a bit on my thesis presentation [i like to think of it as 'multitasking', thankyouverymuch].
participation in design [or at least within the context of classes in this program, etc] tends to be involved with ideas of interactivity, of engagement, of people doing things alongside & with other people. participation for me, based on my crazy ideas, has more to do with things like this. or:
so, yes. owen barfield had a lot of crazy ideas but this one stuck with me. one interpretation of this state of mind / consciousness is to think about what it feels like to be utterly afraid: to simply know that an object or a being has this kind of immense power and control that is greater than you. then think about imagining that the whole world is like that. not necessarily that you are afraid of the whole world, as i was when i was much younger**, but that everything external to you is what has power, what has agency; that the whole of the self is external to what we now understand as the self.
this is an interpretation of what barfield calls 'original participation', which he argues is a developmental phase of human consciousness that we have evolved out of. but barfield also talks about 'final participation', which he argues is the next phase of the evolution of consciousness. it involves an understanding and awareness of original participation but not an attempt to emulate it; it's complicated & i feel like i have only a very base understanding of this. we were warned against attempting to finally-participate on a trip to greece i took with the professor who exposed me to all this nonsense.
but so my point here is that this is what i talk about when i talk about participation: i am talking about a shared understanding, a shared 'tapping into' something that is larger than either participant or participated thing [object, activity, etc]. when i talk in my thesis work about creating work that encourages users to participate in it or in a narrative, i am talking about the power that work or narrative has [or can have] to elevate the experience. that it gets at this external thing that i understand is something like final participation—though of course it isn't, it has nothing to do with that; the most i can hope for is a nudge in that direction, & that is what i am talking about. that direction.
& now i have to go finish this presentation.
* thanks, owen barfield! this is, as can be found on the above link, from his history, guilt and habit.
** though this has led to one very interesting folio project already
participation in design [or at least within the context of classes in this program, etc] tends to be involved with ideas of interactivity, of engagement, of people doing things alongside & with other people. participation for me, based on my crazy ideas, has more to do with things like this. or:
[{Original} Participation is] a kind of consciousness for which it was impossible to perceive unfiguratively. But what does one mean when one speaks of perceiving figuratively? One means a kind of consciousness which does not, which cannot, perceive the material merely as such, which in perceiving its environment, perceives at the same time an immaterial within or through, or expressed by it. . . . a kind of consciousness for which there is no such thing as a merely "outer" world".*
so, yes. owen barfield had a lot of crazy ideas but this one stuck with me. one interpretation of this state of mind / consciousness is to think about what it feels like to be utterly afraid: to simply know that an object or a being has this kind of immense power and control that is greater than you. then think about imagining that the whole world is like that. not necessarily that you are afraid of the whole world, as i was when i was much younger**, but that everything external to you is what has power, what has agency; that the whole of the self is external to what we now understand as the self.
this is an interpretation of what barfield calls 'original participation', which he argues is a developmental phase of human consciousness that we have evolved out of. but barfield also talks about 'final participation', which he argues is the next phase of the evolution of consciousness. it involves an understanding and awareness of original participation but not an attempt to emulate it; it's complicated & i feel like i have only a very base understanding of this. we were warned against attempting to finally-participate on a trip to greece i took with the professor who exposed me to all this nonsense.
but so my point here is that this is what i talk about when i talk about participation: i am talking about a shared understanding, a shared 'tapping into' something that is larger than either participant or participated thing [object, activity, etc]. when i talk in my thesis work about creating work that encourages users to participate in it or in a narrative, i am talking about the power that work or narrative has [or can have] to elevate the experience. that it gets at this external thing that i understand is something like final participation—though of course it isn't, it has nothing to do with that; the most i can hope for is a nudge in that direction, & that is what i am talking about. that direction.
& now i have to go finish this presentation.
* thanks, owen barfield! this is, as can be found on the above link, from his history, guilt and habit.
** though this has led to one very interesting folio project already
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