Paper summary - An In Vivo Analysis of Crafts Practices And Creativity - Why Affordances Provide a Productive Lens, by Michael Kimmel and Camilla Groth

What I read

In this paper, Kimmel and Groth explore the idea of affordances in the context of creative activities related to craft, and use an example of a ceramicist throwing a pot to explore, or show, their ideas in action. In the abstract, the authors define Affordances as “recognizable pointers to action opportunities in the ecology.”

In the introduction, the authors explain how the vase throwing will be used to show creativity in action, and how creative decisions are made during the activity rather than entirely before the activity begins. Schön’s “reflective conversation with materials” is mentioned as a way of expressing this. The authors explain that they will extend these ideas by exploring affordances in the creative process.

Kimmel and Groth begin by citing Gibson’s initial view of affordances as things that “designate opportunities for action that can be detected in the environment by an organism by virtue of it being attuned the former.” This is about a person finding their way through the world around them. Learning is about people becoming more attuned to these external affordances.

The authors begin the next sub-section by defining creativity: “To qualify as creative, an action must be afforded in the ecology, but in addition must also be useful and to some extent out of the ordinary…” Creativity is positioned as happening in the external world, not just inside of someone’s head. Causality comes from external stimulus, and creativity depends on attunement to the stimuli. Some of these external stimuli as affordances don’t yet exist, and are invented or generated during the creative process. Engagement with material, and unconventional responses to the environment, “widen” the responsiveness someone has with the environment during the creative process.

Glăveanu is continually cited as describing how there is a creative system made up of the artist, the people watching it, the things made, and the affordances, and they are all in interplay. “Fiddling” is a way of bringing forth new affordances, or in spotting existing but relatively ignored affordances.

Next, the authors describe existing views of affordance. “Traditional Gibsonian” views of affordances view them as things that exist and are used, but not created, during a creative process. Realism is juxtaposed to constructivism, as one finds solutions and the others create them.

Kimmel and Groth then describe the methodology of their experimental work focusing on ceramics; they introduce a “micro-genetic focus.” This focuses on very small or very quick perceptual activities, which are only viewed with an acute eye (at a “sub-second scale.”) Others have used this approach, and some subtleties of the approach are described, primarily through interviews. The authors cite themselves in another paper, that focused on this approach with a dancer. They also describe that Glăveanu has used a combination of interviews, think-aloud protocol, and head mounted cameras in order to generate a more holistic view of a creative activities.

Before describing the making of the vase (the primary observational data), the authors again discuss affordances, this time in their own view. First, they make a distinction between affordances and actions and decisions. The affordance provides options, but isn’t the act of using those options. The use of affordances also doesn’t entirely explain agency in the creator, and why they pick or ignore some affordances. They also describe that the context of creativity emerges quickly, and affordances are changed based on that context changing. Finally, the authors explain that there are multiple and sometimes parallel ways in which creativity is considered or manipulated.

The next section describes how the field of wheel-thrown ceramics works, first through an introduction to craft itself; it is described that “…the aim is to produce an aesthetic, artistic and/or functional object, similar to the fine arts, architecture or design.” Crafting has a physical logic, and procedure. The outcome of crafting is usually defined ahead of time, but changes based on the use of materials and “material conversations.” The use of tools is “fundamental” in crafting, and the use of the “right” tools unlocks the affordances or makes them visible for use.

Next, the authors focus on ceramics specifically, rather than crafting generally. They briefly describe that the goal of the ceramicist that will be studied was to “find an interesting shape” in the process of engaging with the clay, rather than developing a particular design idea beforehand.” They then describe how the wheel-throwing process works, generally, and the specific choices the artists makes for each part of that process. This includes the material selection of porcelain, the initial form of the base as narrow (leading to a different initial centering approach), the height of the vase, and so-on. As the general and specific approach is explained, the authors include quotes from the verbal protocol as the artist explains what they will do, and what they are feeling and changing as the process evolves.

During the process, the artist observes something that wasn’t intended in the clay. She decides to leave that part of the design because she feels it is a “happy accident.”

The authors describe the give and take of the artist and the material, as she makes decisions about the form based on what she observes happening. She makes intentional decisions, and then also responds to the way the clay is emerging—which leads her to then make “serendipitous” decisions. The artist ends the process because she feels that the material is becoming unworkable and may lead to a problem.

Next, the authors describe the “affordance layers” that were present during the process of throwing the vase. First, the authors describe the use of “macro-scale affordances” related to how the materials and tools work. They also describe how affordances at a “meso-scale” helped the artist understand when it might be ready to move to another action. “Micro-scale” affordances led her to make decisions related to hand movement and fine motor control.

The authors then go on to explore creativity as a whole during the process. They explain that “In traditional crafts in existence as long as wheel throwing most functional variants have already been discovered; hence the more interesting space for creative development is that of aesthetic choices.” What they call “routing points” are used by the artist to make decisions, all related to the way the form looked. The decisions and stages of the form giving worked in a larger picture, which can be viewed as a “gestalt effect.”

Now, the authors move to their discussion of the work and the implications of it. First, they briefly discuss how skill is important in craft creativity. They explain how the artist viewed the relationship between criteria for creative decision making, and how the criteria interacted with one-another (and how the artist made compromises and trade-offs.) This is most evident when balancing the goal of a creative decision with the technical constraints that may lead to failure.

They explain that affordances come from the material itself, where some of this is required for success and some is based on the goal of the artist (for example, if they want to create a form that was defined ahead of time, as compared to letting a form emerge.)

Last, the authors describe their goal of the work, in “developing a semantics of affordance-mediating mechanisms in a creative craft process.” They offer a “spectrum” of micro functions, shown as five types of Affordance usage. These include:

• Finding and exploiting affordances that are present in the medium
• Searching for affordances on purpose
• Creating and shaping affordances to then be used
• Stimulating affordances, sometimes by “perturbing” the system on purpose
• Enabling affordances that are generic rather than specific

The authors conclude the work by explaining their intention of the paper:

“Our present intention was to clarify the relation of material affordances to creativity, both as regards moments of ‘following’ the material and of ‘leading’ it, and particularly with technical aspects in view. Specifically, we attempted to demonstrate that a comprehensive ‘in-vivo’ process analysis with a high zoom factor can advance the debate and elucidate the multiple roles that affordances play in the texture of an aesthetic and creative process.”

They draw a conclusion that a creative process depends less on any one affordance and more on how they all work together.

What I learned and what I think

First, I’m exhausted. My reaction to this paper as I was reading it, and now in retrospect, was that either I’m extraordinarily stupid, or the emperor wears no clothes—not necessarily in relationship to the work itself (although I have some issues with that), but with the writing. I can’t believe how unnecessary and over the top the writing feels! Here are some examples:

• Affordances designate opportunities for action that can be detected in the environment by an organism by virtue of it being attuned to the former.
• This interaction and embodiment-oriented paradigm disagrees with traditional views on a central point: it recognizes that acting in the world and receiving feedback from the world operate integrally with creative cognition.1 The senses are not anymore seen as mere delivery system for a centralized thinking device, nor are action systems mere actuators of solutions that are just passed on from this device. This claim gives a fully embodied and physical character to earlier views which emphasize that creative processes involve recursive movements between exploration and idea generation (Finke et al., 1992; Ward et al., 1998) or “reflection in action” (Schön, 1991).
• It has been rightly said that affordances are dynamically responsive to continuous interaction (Chemero, 2009), an emphasis that dovetails with creativity scholars stressing the importance of temporally extended engagement. Fluid interactions with external resources produce shifting affordance configurations (Vallée-Tourangeau, 2014). Therefore, a person’s creative intent can crystallize through continued engagement, when the evolving affordance constellation hints at new possibilities for action (Baber, 2015). Embodied probing, manipulation or perspective switches can render salient new affordance, specifying information or suggest new exploratory moves.

I read some of these paragraphs, and a number of the others, three or four or five times, and still have no idea what they mean. It really may be me, that either I’m not trained in understanding academic writing, or that I’m not bright enough to understand these things. Or, it may be that over-the-top language is being used where simple words and phrases would be fine. Either way, I don’t understand why this can’t be so much simpler. If the authors want to have their work used by other people, I would think they would want it to be accessible by other people. I know a lot of craftspeople; I can’t think of one that would make it through this, even though the work might actually be useful to them.

So, that aside, here’s what I gathered.

First, methodologically, it looks “acceptable” to use a first person account as content suitable for publication, and an n-value of one to draw conclusions or stand up a framework. I didn’t know either were legitimate in publishing, but the paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal, so there we are. It certainly seems operationally convenient, but something about it feels weird to me.

Next, and I think I’m extraordinarily qualified to make this point, given that I studied ceramics for upwards of 15 years and am fucking great at it, there are so, so many assertions about craft that are made definitively, that are just plain wrong to state with such sweeping assertion.

• “Crafting requires a multi-stage process, in which the aim is to produce an aesthetic, artistic and/or functional object, similar to the fine arts, architecture or design.” Sure, sometimes. Sometimes the aim is to blow off steam. Sometimes the aim is to get better at the craft.
• “Actions must be performed in a requisite general order, with a constrained duration, and relative timing of each action.” I have pots in my kiln that have been sitting there for about eight years now. What’s the relative timing on that? Does that not “count”?
• “What can be generalized about crafts is that possibilities are typically more narrowly constrained than in free improvisation domains like dance or music.” What? Dance and music have a medium like any other; they have constraints and limitations in that medium, and they aren’t “more” or “less.”
• “Sheer inventiveness is of but little value if the outcome fails to meet expected standards in form, e.g., if the object is deformed or breaks.” No, absolutely not. Alec’s glaze recipes came from sheer inventiveness over a refined course of upwards of fifty years. Things broke. Over and over.
• “For example, everything created on a potter’s wheel will be round.” Oof. Sure, when it’s turning around. What about…. the hours after?

That’s in the first six pages; I can go on and on. Maybe I’m a pissed off artist here, but if it was important for the authors to make these points, then it’s probably important for me to reject them if they don't make sense to me.

Last, the affordance topic. I’m out of my depth with the background literature, but not with the tangible way these manifest. I don’t understand the use of the word affordance, or why it’s valuable here. I know of these ideas almost all as constraints; it’s Charles Eames in action. But the word aside, I agree with a lot of the ideas that are presented. Affordances do emerge in the creative process as it itself emerges, and the back and forth that’s mostly under the surface is real and pretty critical. “Talent” may be the ability to see these affordances subconsciously (maybe that’s the wrong word), and to react to them immediately. The material used in craft is so important in constraining what is made and how it’s made, and so is the artist’s ability to push that material well beyond its “intention”. I have a strong, visceral and negative reaction to the idea of “happy accidents”, but I don’t know why, and I need to think about that some more.

I also wonder about production pottery, or production craft. It’s a thing, and affordances are clearly a part of the process of it, but the rote and repeated nature of something like throwing off the hump or making 500 pots that are all the same has to reduce those affordances to tacit. It just is. Over and over.

Last, I feel like I have a strong understanding and confidence in this subject matter (language and academic precedent aside, of which I’m really naïve), but I don’t have a well-formed view of how this plays out with a novice. I want to learn more about that.

This was rough. I need a mental break.