Feb 28
eldonepistemology, materiality, mode and modalities, suitable quotations inter-modal tension, lemke
excerpt from: Lemke, Jay: Material sign processes and Emergent Ecosocial Organization: Downward causation and the levels paradigm
[accessed November 2000]
The reductionist trick was predicated on the assumption that the
different ‘pieces’ or views from different perspectives could always somehow
be neatly fit together. But we now know that material processes cannot be
comprehended, cannot be exhaustively described within any one single
self-consistent formal discourse. They always overflow the limited
possibilities of our semiotic models of them. It is only by building more
and more semiotic-discursive models, each internally self-consistent, but
not limited by requirements of mutual consistency with each other, that we
can, by adding together such ‘complementary’ views, attain to the most
complete possible account of material phenomena, including semiosis itself.
Thus we still come back to a version of ‘assemblage’ but hopefully a more
sophisticated one, one that takes into account our own role and perspective
as observers, as well as the material means by which we observe, compare,
and assemble — the material mediation of our semiotic practices.
…..
every process of semiosis is not just a social and
cultural practice, but also a material activity in which not just humans but
also non-human elements of the ecosytem participate.
May 27
eldonmode and modalities affordances, inter-modal tension
[my first essay-post, a model post, a filibuster, a gem]
Materiality is the main factor relating to the differences in affordances between screen and page.
Reading online is becoming quite common in academia and elsewhere, and is actually required for many research projects, especially so for distance students but also for students attending university alike . Dissertations submitted for marking at many universities are done electronically and sent to markers in PDF form. Amazon has been offering books in Kindle format for some time. Yet paper-based books continue to be published and sold.
‘Materiality’ here pertains to the discrete object which is the tactile and separate artefact having printed text and diagrams on the surface of separate pages. It is distinct from the published or written or graphic work which can be saved in a file in a computer and edited in some form. Although laptops and computer hardware in general are artefacts and material objects that can be transported, their affordances lie in the amount or quantity of files and texts which can be stored on the one hard drive. At the time of writing these are still somewhat heavy and unwieldy so that they are difficult to read in bed or put in one’s pocket for example. However, even with advances in technology that allow small lightweight personal readers such as Kindle and the iPad to be manufactured and thus easily transported, there are still differences in the affordances of each modality that lend the book and paper magazine their continuing allure.
Apple released what they called their iSlate, a small transportable mobile phone enhanced reader – and one might also guess (or hope) that it will become further enhanced with the capabilities that Han earlier introduced (2006) in a video-recorded lecture, that is to say, touch screen interfacing (see netdynam post to view this TED creation, and several others more recent in related comments to the post/video ).
However, this writer believes that there will still be a market for the traditional, materially-based paper-dependent, leafy object called book. That is because people like me actually prefer to use books over reading or looking at the same things on a screen, and because of a concurrent belief that the human unit is in itself a material object, bounded by skin, phenotype, and yea, genotype which prevents us from evolving into a form which makes the reading of copy on a screen more pleasurable and as convenient as flipping the pages of a book. I had a recent discussion with media know-all Frank Rapport on the reasons for my preferences for hard copy over the word on the screen, and how it is that I plump for materiality. This in turn motivated a clarification of the nature of such preferences, and a devising of a taxonomy of the differences in affordances that the hard copy offers in comparison to a screen version of the same copy. Of course, each modality has its own affordances, and there is precious little that can be argued for or against either in terms of objective differences. But, as a starting point, I have proposed a set of categories for discussing these differences.
In this sense, then, the “Materiality” of the printed page may be said to afford ease of the following four features:
-Transportability
-Scannability
-Inscriptability
-Eye-easability
I now address each of these affordances in turn and expand on the reasons for my preference of the book over the screen.
–Transportability.
Nothing beats the ease of slipping a book into one’s pocket or bag. I generally go about with a notebook and pencil in order to jot things down when travelling. These items weigh much less than a laptop, and since I can afford only one laptop, there will not be (at the present time at least) a dedicated miniature one purchased especially for fitting into a handbag or shoulder-bag for many people, including myself. Already the bag is chock-a-block with many objects vying to be misplaced, and there are those who are quick to point out that at least a mobile phone is not amongst my own loseable items in my bag. Of course, the loss of a book is sad, but generally they are easily replace-able. It is not so easy to replace the laptop – or the enhanced mobile phone either for that matter – and certainly the more one transports things hither and yon, the higher the possibility for loss. Weight and wieldy-ness issues also mean that books win hands down when one wants to adopt a lying down position, and thus there are plenty of books stacked up bedside, but no laptop.
–Scannability
This affordance pertains to the ease with which one can scan through a whole book, or the leaves thereof. All of the pages of the whole book are there in one place and the position of various sections may be remembered or marked for ease of retrieval. One is able to flip through the book and scan for various elements, such as chapter headings, diagrams, plates, and so on. One is also quickly able to see a page at a time in toto, and this affordance is one of the most useful pertaining to the materiality of books – as distinct from the need to scroll, by whatever means, to take in all the words on a page, or to having a very large computer screen so that all a page can be seen with the letters big enough to read comfortably. While the new hand-held readers are made in a portrait-style format so that the whole page can be easily accommodated, the letters are still nevertheless rather small. This is a feature also related to the matter of ‘eye-easability’ addressed further below. Jumping from one page to another is also possible on the screen, but this is not the same as being able to flip through the book and recognise the page number, or know how far along or back the searched-for feature appears in the book itself. Search facilities notwithstanding, a book can be searched by visual means which is sometimes more profitable – and more conveniently efficient – than using a computational engine.
–Inscriptability
By ‘inscriptability’ I refer to the ability one has to write directly into the leaves of a book. With PDF files, one is able to insert comments on the fly or make editing comments below the text on the screen, but these need to be ‘inserted’ by means of directions to the software and typing in the comments. The ease of finding comments is also differently arranged. Once inscribed, a visual search can be performed on the book with ease. This is not the same with a computerised file, due to the affordances related to scannability mentioned above. Paper tags are also possible with the leaves of a book, and this overlapping of text, and the affordance of being able to visually see the tags without even opening the book is one of its conveniences.
–Eye-easability
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is eye-easability. Everyone knows that editing can be done much more efficiently with hard copy. Typos and other mistakes one did not notice on the screen become glaringly obvious on the printed page. This is likely to do with dpi, or pixels per square (inch/centimetre). In this regard, the printed page again wins out, and this at least can be measured and compared – the screen’s resolution is no match for that of the page, and thus, reading is easier and the eye does not become as tired as quickly when reading a book or printed matter. When Apple produces a back-lit reading tablet that not only is lightweight, can be read-writable and have as a high a resolution as a printed page, then my preferences may change and books relegated to museums along the way.
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