Hello my name is Charlotte Nordmoen and I will be presenting my paper Making space for
material Entanglements a diffractive analysis of woodwork and the practice of making an
interactive system on behalf of my co-author Andrew McPherson.
We have seen a growing shift towards more-than-human concerns in HCI in the last few years.
on a large scale through complex systems with multiple stakeholders, both human
and non-human. And, additionally, on a more internal approach through
first-person perspectives of intimate entanglements with technology.
We take inspiration from Ingold's 'correspondence' between maker and material. Karen Barad’s
'material-discursive' practice and Law and Lien’s argument that "realities
are enacted through practice," Specifically, we apply a diffractive method
for analysing our data from visits to four wood workshops and a first-person account
of making an interactive system, Brad proposes diffraction as "a tool for analysis
for attending to and responding to effects of difference"
We read the practice of woodworking and making an apparatus through one another to create
these diffraction patterns, focusing on the 'what' and 'how' of the practices and the
realities they create, rather than the outcome. I will introduce you to the woodworkers.
I spent a day at each of four workshops, interviewing and observing the woodworkers.
The hand carver has 40 years of carving experience.
He works predominantly with antique hand tools. He was working on a pair of rams heads for
a client when I visited. The sculptor comes from a fine art and set
building background. He works with various materials, and wood is his favourite. He was
finishing up some carved armrests for a bench commission during my visit.
The green woodworker works in the forest he owns and manages. Greenwood refers to recently
felled trees with a high moisture content well suited for hand tools. He demonstrated
greenwood tools such as the drawknife and the shave horse, a foot-operated vice.
The furniture workshop specialises in sustainably sourced British hardwood. Each of the makers
is given autonomy to complete a project from start to finish. The makers were finishing
up a large cabinet order when I visited, alongside individual work.
Now for my practice of making a research apparatus. The purpose of the apparatus is to investigate
the material experience of hand carvers in fine detail. I won't go into more details
about its purpose here. Instead, I will briefly explain what the apparatus is and my practice
of making it. I took an exploratory approach to developing
the apparatus - not knowing exactly what the resulting experience should feel like other
than creating a feeling of unfamiliarity to my research participants.
The apparatus is made from plywood. The base
houses electronic components such as a microprocessor and amplifiers for the four load cells - more
of those shortly. A carving platform holds down the materials
for carving. Four load cells raises this carving platform,
and measures the pressure put on it. A custom-built tool with an actuator inside
provides haptic feedback.
I will present a series of diffraction patterns as vignettes of woodworking practice
and my practice of making a research apparatus juxtaposed together to create new meaning.
The green woodworker uses his body as a jig. He lifts the adze and releases it into
the wood. The cut is shaped by the fibres of the tree, the shape of the tool and his
motion and energy. He tells me this specific timber is elm from Scotland.
It has gone extinct in England because rising temperatures create liveable conditions
for the pests that threaten this species of trees. The climate emergency substantially
impacts his practice, both as a green woodworker and as a forester.
I bought the load cells from a random shop on Amazon.
The signals are noisy and different across the four load cells, and they change when
I tighten or loosen the screws that secure the carving platform on the apparatus.
They provide a signal of changes in the strain of the wood and the metal in relation to how
they're mounted. I can't make sense of this relationship. The 'intra-action' is lost on
me, and I ignore it as a result.
Material discursive practises are boundary-making, meaning they create a distinction between
the subject and the object. These boundaries are not fixed but continuously enacted.
When observing the woodworkers, I felt a clear distinction between the tool, the maker and
the material, with each actor bringing their knowledge to the practice. The hand carver
explained that the tool makes the cut. He complained about the wood being
too spongy as he was working here. The fibres collapse when cut - the tree was most likely
forced to grow quick. These boundaries allow us to trace accountability and responsibility.
I spent a long time trying to imagine other
woods or 'more-than-wood' - a half digital half physical material that would feel unfamiliar
to the hand carvers. Then, I realised
that the material experience cannot be separated from the tools. Neither has an individual
agency. It is only through 'intra-action' the material is known.
Seeing the woodworking practice as 'intra-action' reveals shifting structures. The green woodworker
introduced me to the pole lathe. The balance between creating a rhythm by pedalling my
foot and removing material with the tools feels awkward at first. If I think too much,
it all falls apart. It's a felt sense in the body, and I experience a few moments where
everything comes together. There are no clear boundaries between the gouge, the spinning
material and me, my body.
For the woodworkers is crucial to know where the precision matters and where it doesn't. The
sculptor uses digital and manual callipers, depending on what he's working on.
In my practice, I take precision as given. The load cell signals are noisy when I first
encounter them, the noise gets filtered out, and I add a button to calibrate the signals,
thereby fixing the problems. I am encouraged to make the visual feedback
less linear, but I don't know how to achieve that. The particular sensor I'm working with
could have offered a tacit opportunity to accomplish this.
Instead, I see the quirks as problems that need to be fixed. I'm no longer working with
the material in front of me; rather, it becomes a symbol shaped by cultural expectations of
the material.
Through abstractions and representation, the intangible sensor material becomes knowable
to me. However, I do not pay attention to the material unfolding when it does not align
with what I'm working towards.
Abstractions manifest as explicit knowledge
in the wood workshop—a theoretical understanding of wood species and their suitability.
The furniture workshop uses as much timber as possible to reduce waste. Walnut, a classic
wood long esteemed for its dark colour becomes a timber with light and dark colour variations,
knots and splits in the hands of the furniture makers. These abstractions don't intervene
with their moment by moment response to the material in front of them.
I do not work in the present moment as such. Only when the code is compiled can I interact with
the system in real-time. I'm not sensitised to the materials they work with. I try in
vain to extrapolate what I know from my background in textiles and other material-based practices.
What does all this mean? We have seen that woodworkers are situated
in a larger ecology where toolmakers, clients and customers, forest management, milling
practice, and climate emergency impact their practice in ways that the woodworkers themselves
cannot control. The woodworkers correspond with the material. Seeing
their practices as material-discursive, agency is no longer attributed to an individual living
being, as Ingold claims. Instead, it emerges through intra-action. How we draw the boundaries
between subjects and objects creates accountability and responsibility in the larger ecologies.
On a local level, the woodworker practices are inseparable from the tools and materials
they work with. Attentiveness to detail is a vital part of
moving beyond representationalism to perceiving the performative unfolding of the situation
or material. The materials I work with were treated as symbols and problems that needed
fixing rather than attending to what was happening in the moment - despite having a background
in material sensitive practice. Only through this diffractive analysis do
these assumptions emerge. We can see new opportunities for making space for material in our practice,
noticing what is happening with materials as we work with them openly and curiously
while resisting the preconceptions of what should be. This requires practise and constant
effort.