Key events and methods
We used a number of methods and approaches to gather data to reveal and decode the situation. These drew on anthropology, sociology, computer science, design, site-specific art practice and management among other disciplines. Alongside an in-depth literature and project search we implemented many participatory and action-based research methods including activities such as
connecting with local community groups, walk-talks with local farmers, mapping places people shop, visiting local food suppliers, hanging out at the market, learning to cook new meals with in season foods, climbing trees, exchanging darning needles for a wooly hat, interviewing academic experts, asking people to recommend local beers, providing services for a local potato day and mapping local food. (Helen, December 2010)
Interviews
In order to inform the project the team draw on interviews with mentors assigned to the group project. Primary research was collected through interviews with key stakeholders, and other people with relevant experience.
Within this next section we highlight some of the key methods in our process which led to a deeper understanding of the problem, progressed our ideas or enabled us to work better together.
Site Specific Approach
In the early stage of the process we attended a local gathering of the Lancaster Transition movement. The importance of working on a local scale with real life people was identified. The following team discussions in link with additional reading and research led us to focus on the issue of agricultural production practices and local food supply chains. A second meeting with a key representative of the Transition movement helped to identify the relevance of mapping local supply chains. (Jenkins, 2010)
This allowed the team to appreciate a site-specific approach and to utilise a variety of Design Research methods. Thus we approached the complex problem of ensuring environmental sustainability through a process of revealing and decoding layers of complexity within the local system. As architectural historian Miwon Kwon explains,
“to be specific to a site is in turn, to decode and/or recode the conventions so as to expose hidden yet motivated operations and to make apparent the imbricated relationship to the broader socioeconomic and political processes of the day.” (Kwon, 2004)
Having developed this central shared vision to our project, we set off to create further research experiences in which meaning was gathered through a situated experience. One of these was a visit to a local farmer Phil Wilcox.
On Sunday we visited Phil Wilcox at his pig farm, we spent two hours there in the winter sunlight. We walked with Phil, through his farm. Starting at the house he told stories of his childhood and his decision to move back to farming. Phil said it was so important to get consumers onto farms or at least for consumers and farmers to reconnect, at that moment I was experiencing that possibility, we all were and we left with a shared view on the power of provenance. (Helen, Monday 29th November, 2010)
Walking around the farm allowed us to view it from multiple perspectives, the importance of which was twofold. Firstly, the activity of walking through the different zones of Phil’s farms triggered, different responses which flowed between his past, present and future desires for his farm and the farming community. As we drifted through the farm we talk/walked through the relationships of the overlapping arenas of social, economic, political to farming. This aware-drifting through spatial areas is a process is similar to one of the basic Situationist practices, the derive;
a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll. (Debord 1958)
The farm-dérive highlighted the lack of opportunity for consumers to step onto farms. We reflected how the lack of connection between farmers and consumers was symptomatic of the wider disconnect between consumers and a sense of place and belonging.
It also helped in understanding how spatial & narrative relationships between food and consumer could be a powerful provenance tool through digital and physical mapping. Rather than starting at a point of givens, the walk-talk approach enabled us to build up meaning through research, bringing together facts and experiences. John Dewey describes knowledge gained from experience as “arising” through active adaptation of the human organism to its environment. (Dewey,1934, p. 36). Knowledge arises from the experience which is a “flow is from something to something” As one part leads into another and as one part carries on what went before, each gains distinctness in itself. (ibid.) During the walk-talk there was a flow of relations between “things” between people, language, environment, machines, animals, which revealed the parts of Phil’s farming system which otherwise would not have been revealed.
Outside Knowledge
In closer collaboration with Adrian we also came to lay out the technical details of our scheme. For some time we struggled to communicate our ideas to each other and we had different understandings of how a potential system may look like. After all, many discussion we had were rooted in the fact the our understanding of what an embedded device differed quite substantially from person to person. (Seb, 2010)
Working closely with mentors and experts was vital to introduce new ideas and reinvigorate our group dialogue and resolve. We arranged additional mentoring opportunities which maintained a knowledge flow between inside and outside perspectives. As a result we were able to see new possibilities and take action. For example we hadn’t considered using QR tags until a meeting with Leon Cruickshank in which he suggested them as a cheap and viable alternative to RFID tags. This led to a further wave of research in the area of QR marketing and the subsequent implementation of the QR tags within our system. Establishing a dialogue between the knowledge “inside” and “outside” has the potential to bring information to help the group understand what they can achieve. (Wenger, 2002).
Quick and Dirty Prototyping
I like to draw things out on paper, it helps ideas to flow, I think of things quickly when I get into something and a computer slows that process down, it’s quicker and more natural isn’t it? I think people like to draw, we’ve done it since the stone age haven’t we? It’s easy too and anyone can do it. I understand concepts better when I see how they work, rather than saying how they work. (Keith, 2010)
Prototyping on paper and whiteboard helped to clarify and test ideas, although using cardboard and junk for 3D prototyping allowed us to consider the embedded device in a new way. Design firm IDEO describe this type of prototyping as quick and dirty as it allows visions to be shared and ideas to be made tangible faster. The sooner this happens, the sooner you can evaluate, refine and zero in on the best solution (Brown 2009). With physical prototyping we began to consider specific design factors relating to the handheld device, such as balancing the hardware elements which we had outlined to go inside the device (microcontroller, wifi-shield, thermal printer etc) alongside the need for functionality in the given environment which demanded an attention to durability, portability and ergonomics.
Activity Analysis
Using tools which could ‘carry’ accumulated knowledge were an important resource in the process. The use of activity analysis or “the exploration of the typical contexts, demands and potential meanings that could be ascribed to activity” (Crepau, 2003, p.191) enabled us to identify difficulties and problems which might be experienced by the individual in activities. We were able to focus on potential problems within the system and make modifications to resolve them. One particular problem we identified was the difficulty of providing a second device for the sellers in the initial stage of implementation. Through having an overview of the activities and sharing them with mentors we recognised that adding a further level of complexity at the initial stage might cause the system to fail. Etienne Wenger sees these types of tools as important resources to communicate implicit and explicit knowledge, values and processes. These ‘carriers’ allow ideas to flow, between people therefore facilitating innovation through the sharing of knowledge. (Wenger 1997)
