Framing the ambiguous wearable
Sarah Kettley · Nottingham Trent University's Institutional Repository (Nottingham Trent Repository) · 2004
This article takes the concept of ambiguity as presented by Gaver, Beaver & Benford [1] as a tool to discuss what has been described as ‘undecidables’ – conceptual art works in the domain of the wearable, which currently find themselves crossing the usual framing mechanisms of art, craft and design [2]. How practitioners choose to frame their work has implications for its interpretation. The physical object has a presence that can be hard to escape; it presents a reality already in existence, even as it suggests a possible future, and may even disallow the space between ‘looking at the work, and the prospect of using it’ [3]. Some of the tactics used by conceptual practitioners in interaction design and contemporary craft to get around this problem are illustrated with a view to expanding the tactics for ambiguity offered by Gaver et al’s original paper [1]. Background to ambiguity The primacy of explicit information in interaction design and HCI, which Richard Coyne identified as only one of several possible approaches to computational media [4], has recently been joined by rigorously argued cases for alternative and complementary methodologies and end goals. These include Coyne’s own framework of conservative, pragmatic, critical and radical approaches [4]; the investigation of seamfulness, as opposed to Mark Weiser’s seamlessness, by researchers at Glasgow University [5]; the ‘rhythm of reflection and transparency’ advocated by Bolter & Gromala [6], and of course, the concept of ambiguity as presented in Gaver et al’s 2003 paper at CHI [1]. Here the author concentrates on ambiguity, revisiting conceptual wearable works to identify at which point ambiguity might reside, and to consider the ramifications for interpretation of the mode of these works’ delivery. What is ambiguity? Occurring at different points in the interpretive relationship between viewer and object, ambiguity is shown to be an important resource for interaction design and HCI [1]. The framework suggests three different types of ambiguity – of information, in which a visual output, normally explicit, is blurred or scrambled; of context, in which a recognizable object with strong connotations is replaced within a new context, thus highlighting how we read objects through their framing; and of relationship, in which the viewer is asked to imagine their own extended interaction with the work in some way. For good