9/23 - Affordances Class Exercise

"an action possibility available in the environment to an individual, independent of the individual's ability to perceive this possibility"

How do  you understand this definition/description of affordance? Please put into your own words.

 

Regardless of how an individual perceives action possibilities the object has them inherently.

 

 

What if anything may or may not be problematic about this interpretation of the notion of affordances?

 
The affordances of an object can be misinterpreted.

What might be the connection between affordance and evolution?

 As "animals" evolve they may perceive new affordances.

What is the difference between a niche and a habitat? Explain in your own words and give an example of each. What is your niche?

 If a habitat is a neighborhood, then the niche is the home. Niche is the specific while habitat is the general. 

Setareh - my bed, my Ikea-specific chair!

Erica - my studio

Ernie - in a band

 

An affordance cuts the dichotomy of subjective and objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. The affordances of the environment are facts of the environment, not appearances. But they are not on the other hand, facts at the level of physics concerned with matter and energy and animals left out.

Get into your groups and answer the following questions
Pick three aspects/environmental conditions of this room or the third floor of FAC. Describe each of these aspects as an affordance. What activity is implied by the material? What sorts of sensory input does this  condition/object offer the user? One way of doing this might be able to put yourself in the place of an alien. What about the object or condition compels you to act upon it in a particular way?

1. water fountain:
   drinking, filling, washing, refreshing, dumping, draining, bending over, hearing, tasting, cooling, pushing, dampening
2. trash can
   carrying, holding, dumping, lifting, rolling, sitting, standing, burning (for protest), hiding, percussing, stinking, seeing (it's full)
3. paper
   writing, rolling, telescoping, hitting, folding, cutting, burning, wading, funneling, reading, building, covering, washing, rubbing, displaying, binding (book), feeling, seeing 

What do you think is the difference between usefulness and utility with respect to affordances?

Utility with respect to affordances are the available actions of an object or environment, but the actual usefulness of the action is measurable.

What might be a false affordance? Create a situation other than that of the cat on the glass floor who is afraid to walk because the glass is transparent and there is a drop in floor? Think about how zoos keep animals in w/o cages or slapstick comedy.

Rip tide. Panda Bears. Lionfish.

Are we aware of all of the affordances of an object or a condition?  Do you think affordances are cultural? Are they different for people with disabilities? 

 

No. Yes. Yes.

Draw parallels between the idea of affordances and intentionality and art. What is the relationship between metaphor and affordances? I think this might be worth thinking about this.

 

The affordances of a made object should be apparent if your artwork is to be understood. This can be effected by art by magnifying, misdirecting, and interacting with affordance.

 

Metaphor substitutes perception so it suggests different affordances.