Situated Computations: Bridging Craft and Computation in the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival
No. 27 (2020-07-01)Author(s)
-
Vernelle A. A. NoelGeorgia Institute of Technology vernelle.noel@design.gatech.edu
Abstract
Hand crafts, and the people who practice them, are typically seen as opposite to digital technologies. This paper challenges this split, and proposes eight principles for developing computational design tools that facilitate productive interactions across hand crafts and computational media. I derive these principles from my ethnographic and design studies of the wire-bending craft, which has been practiced in the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival since the 1930s, as well as from my development of an experimental digital design tool to build 3-D lines in space, informed by these studies. The tool, which enables users to generate linear designs and fabricate them using linear materials such as wire, is presented as an instrument to codify, reflect upon, and extend the Trinidadian wire-bending tradition. This paper acknowledges the Trinidad Carnival as a contested design space, political arena, and creative outlet through which individuals and communities express their imagination, innovation, and craftsmanship. Building on scholarship in computational design, science and technology studies (STS), and human-computer interaction (HCI), the paper delineates ‘Situated Computations’ as an approach to computational design tool-making that grounds these technologies in the social world by acknowledging the historical, cultural, and material contexts of designing and making.
References
Bailey, Albert. Personal Interview by Vernelle Noel, 2013.
Benjamin, Ruha. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. 1st edition. Medford, MA: Polity, 2019.
Brown, Ernest D. “Carnival, Calypso, and Steelband in Trinidad.” The Black Perspective in Music 18 no. 1/2 (1990): 81–100. https://doi.org/10.2307/1214859.
Brown, John Seely and PaulDuguid. The Social Life of Information. 1st edition. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2000.
Cardoso Llach, Daniel. Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design. 1st edition. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015.
Carpo, Mario. The Alphabet and the Algorithm. 1st edition. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2011.
Crowley, Daniel J. “The Traditional Masques of Carnival.” Caribbean Quarterly 4 no. 3/4 (1956): 194–223.
Derek, Stephen. Personal Interview by Vernelle Noel, 2013.
DiSalvo, Carl. Adversarial Design. Reprint edition. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2015.
Eglash, Ron. “Anti-Racist Technoscience: A Generative Tradition.” In Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life, edited by RuhaBenjamin, 227–51. Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2019.
Eglash, Ron, AudreyBennett, CaseyO’donnell, SybillynJennings and MargaretCintorino. “Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom.” American Anthropologist 108 no. 2 (2006): 347–62. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2006.108.2.347.
Frauenfelder, Liselle. Personal Interview by Vernelle Noel, 2013.
Frederick, Robert. Interview by Vernelle NoelPersonal Interview, 2012.
Gregory, Derek, RonJohnston, GeraldinePratt, MichaelWatts and SarahWhatmore (Editors) The Dictionary of Human Geography. 5th edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14 no. 3 1988: 575–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066.
Jacobs, Jennifer and AmitZoran. “Hybrid Practice in the Kalahari: Design Collaboration Through Digital Tools and Hunter-Gatherer Craft.” In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 619–628. CHI ’15. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702362.
Jonassen, David H. and LuciaRohrer-Murphy. “Activity Theory as a Framework for Designing Constructivist Learning Environments.” Educational Technology Research and Development 47 no. 1 (1999): 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299477.
Knight, T. W. “Shape Grammars and Color Grammars in Design.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 21 no. 6 (1994): 705–735. https://doi.org/10.1068/b210705.
Liverpool, Hollis. Rituals of Power and Rebellion: The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1763-1962. Chicago: Frontline Distribution International, 2001.
Liverpool, Hollis Urban. “Origins of Rituals and Customs in the Trinidad Carnival: African or European?” TDR (1988-) 42 no. 3 (1998): 24–37.
Martin, Carol. “Trinidad Carnival Glossary.” TDR (1988-) 42 no. 3 (1998): 220–35.
Mendez-Franco, Janine. “A Trinidad & Tobago Carnival Band Is Accused of Trivialising the Trauma of Slavery, Global Voices.” Global Voices (blog). October 25, 2016. https://globalvoices.org/2016/10/25/a-trinidad-tobago-carnival-band-is-accused-of-trivialising-the-trauma-of-slavery/.
Miller, Robert. Personal Interview by Vernelle Noel, 2013.
Noel, Vernelle. “Design Computation and Restoring Craftsmanship: The Bailey-Derek Grammar in Wire-Bending.” In “Hello, Culture!”, edited by Ji-HyunLee, 18th International Conference, CAAD Futures 2019, Proceedings, Daejeon, Korea, CUMINCAD, 506-525, 2019. http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/cf2019_065.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “Trinidad Carnival: Improving Design through Computation and Digital Technology.” Master’s Thesis, Cambridge, Mass: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “The Bailey-Derek Grammar: Recording the Craft of Wire-Bending in the Trinidad Carnival.” Leonardo 48 no. 4 (2015): 357–65. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01089.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “Crafting as Inquiry into Computation - Exploring Wire-Bending in Traditional Practice and Design Education.” In Complexity & Simplicity - Proceedings of the 34th ECAADe Conference - Volume 1, edited by AulikkiHerneoja, ToniÖsterlund, and PiiaMarkkanen, 311-320. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland, 22-26 August 2016. http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/Show?_id=ecaade2016_075.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “From Costuming and Dancing Sculptures to Architecture: The Corporeal and Computational in Design and Fabrication of Lightweight Mobile Structures.” In Future Trajectories of Computations in Design. CAAD FUTURES 2017, TASKISLA Campus, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “A Framework for Repairing Craft: A Case Study on Wire-Bending in Trinidad & Tobago.” Pennsylvania State University, 2019a.
Noel, Vernelle A. A. “Beyond the Computational: The Social in Wire-Bending in Trinidad & Tobago.” Presented at the 4S: Society for the Social Studies of Science, New Orleans. LA, September, 2019b. https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ssss/4s19/index.php?program_focus=view_session&selected_session_id=1547850&cmd=online_program_direct_link&sub_action=online_program.
Rosenberger, Robert. “How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away.” The Atlantic. June 19, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/.
Rosner, Daniela K. Critical Fabulations: Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2018.
Schechner, Richard. “Carnival (Theory) after Bakhtin.” In Carnival: Culture in Action—the Trinidad Experience. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Sengers, Phoebe, KirstenBoehner, ShayDavid and Joseph ‘Jofish’Kaye. “Reflective Design.” In Proceedings of the 4th Decennial Conference on Critical Computing: Between Sense and Sensibility, 49–58. ACM, 2005. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1094569.
Sinclair, Kamal. “In Summary: Making a New Reality.” Medium. September 2, 2018. https://makinganewreality.org/making-a-new-reality-summary-3fc8741595ef.
St. George, Roland. Personal Interview by Vernelle Noel. 2013.
Stiny, G. “Introduction to Shape and Shape Grammars.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 7 no. 3 (1980): 343–351. https://doi.org/10.1068/b070343.
Suchman, Lucy. “Working Relations of Technology Production and Use.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work 2 no. 1 (1993): 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00749282.
Suchman, Lucy A. “Practice-Based Design of Information Systems: Notes from the Hyperdeveloped World.” The Information Society 18 no. 2 (2002): 139–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972240290075066.
Teelucksingh, Jerome. “Conclusion.” In Ideology, Politics, and Radicalism of the Afro-Caribbean, edited by JeromeTeelucksingh, 207–9. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94866-6_10.
Vertesi, Janet, DavidRibes, LauraForlano, YanniLoukissas and Marisa LeavittCohn. “Chp. 6: Engaging, Designing, and Making Digital Systems.” In The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, 4th edition, 169–93. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 2016.
Winner, Langdon. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Daedalus, 121–136, 1980.