3.2 collaborative practice and knowledge development
Cultural-historical activity theory

3.2.1 Three theoretical generations of Activity Theory

3.2.2 Multi-voicedness

3.2.3 Object and outcome

3.2.4 Contradictions

According to Engeström contradictions are not the same as problems or conflicts:

"Contradictions are historically accumulating structural tensions within and between activity systems. (...) When an activity system adopts a new element from the outside, it often leads to an aggravated secondary contradiction where some old element collides with the new one. Such contradictions generate disturbance and conflicts, but also innovative attempts to change the activity" (2001:137).

Contradicting artifacts and tools are central to the following consideration of contradictions in Extended. The concept “artifact” and the interlinked concept “tools” are covered briefly before contradictions within the performance activity and contradictions within the research activity are covered, in that order.

Artifact and tool
According to philosopher Marx Wartofsky, human knowledge is achieved by means of representation. By contrast with nonhuman animals “human beings create the means of their own cognition” (1979:xv). Echoing Wartofsky´s notion of representation and means, a basic assumption in activity theory is that individuals do not have a direct and uninterpreted acquisition to their environment. “The relation between individuals and environment is considered mediated, established and developed through physical and intellectual tools” (Säljö 2000:81). Notions of tools are closely connected to the concept of artifact in activity theory as both concepts are central for studies of practice. Put simply, artifacts refer to items created or resulting from human action and activity, i.e. an object of culture, and the tools are the means to create it (e.g. Dias-Kommonen 2004).

Tools and artefacts are understood in a dialectic relationship in activity theory. A tool is in most cases also an artifact, and an artifact is in most cases a tool. An animation, which is an artifact created by human practice, is also a tool applied to create a multimodal dance performance. Hence artifact, defined as both object of culture and tool, can be both conceptual (symbol, reasoning, “agony”) and material (physical movements, computer key-board). Related to Extended, artifacts can be both tacit knowledge like creative or collaborative skills, articulated theoretical knowledge, verbal language (Norwegian, Swedish, English), cultural references (Jewish, Scandinavian, Southern African) and material artefacts like digital tools, moving physical bodies and cables. The choreographers` mediating artifacts in Extended were primarily tacit, practice-based knowledge and the physical moving body. The media students mediating artifacts were primarily articulated media theory and digital media, made and controlled through diverse digital interfaces.

The concept artifact is applied in various theoretical traditions outside activity theory (e.g. computer science, archaeology) and will be discussed more closely in Section 4.4 “Artifacts of Expression and Expressive Artifact. Exploring theory through practice”, as notions of artifact and surrounding apparatus might be fruitful in order to conceptualise the interplay between practice and theory in practice-based method, referring here to my second research question “How may the interplay between practice and theory be conceptualised?

However, it may be helpful to introduce the separation “artifacts of expression” and “expressive artifacts” briefly at this point. The separation is derived, for my part, from Lily Dias-Kommonen´s attempt to inform art and design research with notions of artifact. She is herself placed within information technology research, but part of a research group working on notions of artifact that can accommodate multidisciplinary perspectives common to design research problems. In “Expressive artifacts and artifacts of expression”, the concept expressive artifact refers to “artifacts that in many cases were intended to communicate” - as autonomous wholes to interpret, while the twin-concept artifacts of expression is acknowledging how art consists of materials or media that support, convey, allow or carry through an act of expression (Dias-Kommonen 2004).

Contradictions within the performance activity
Through the collaborative interdisciplinary production Extended we adopted new elements to a live performance activity and artistic institutional context. The main contradictory inclusion was digital media and media theory as tools or artifacts of expression. Secondly, the academic context of the media-students participation represented an additional object for the performance activity: media-education and research. We wanted to explore digital media through practice in, for us, interesting ways not necessarily in preeminently, artistic ways.

These contradictory inclusions aggravated secondary contradictions, for instance within the division of labour altering the traditional roles of artistically responsible choreographer and technical assistant/observing researcher into an interdisciplinary creative collaboration. In Extended, the role of observing media-student/researcher where partly converted into the role of digital designer, which in turn involved artistic responsibilities shared with the traditionally sovereign choreographer. The altered division of labour generated conflicts and disturbance throughout the production process, but created also most of the innovative attempts, artisticaly as well as technically.

Contradictions within the research activity
Engeström´s notion of contradiction (2001:137) reveal a crucial factor behind the innovations in the performance activity. Driving factors behind the “innovations” in the research activity may be exposed in the same way: Through the collaborative interdisciplinary production Extended we adopted a performance-element to a research activity within an analytic, rather than practice-based, institutional context. The main contradictory contribution was collaborative and performative practice as research method, and a growing object for the activity - artistic ambitions.

These contradictory inclusions aggravated secondary contradictions like academic conventions, altering the traditional separation of the practitioner and researcher to elaborate our knowledge of digital media. Through the practice based and collaborative activity, we were able to analyse and better understand digital media, not only as expressive and communicative artifacts but as artifacts of artistic expression, thereby revealing potentials and limitations of digital communication technology.

To continue my previous example from the collaboration with Makurumbandi, the media students where confronted with the challenge of making digital animations based on traditional visual material in a dynamic and, what we termed, "organic" way. A main challenge for us was to use the traditional material respectfully in accordance with the sincere spiritual journey performed in this piece. With our rapidly acquired knowledge of the applied software (Macromedia Flash) it was easier to make comic and pixelated rather than organic expressions on a computer. This may be one reason why many multimedia performances (including most of the Extended pieces) display either abstract visual forms, or reproduce content like image, text, video in edited montages in a pixelated shape appropriate to express modern fragmented culture.




This mere assumption of preferred styles of the multimedia performance art form, combined with our difficulties of making organic forms on a computer, might indicate one of the limitations of digital media. This is of course not irrespective of available production-time or technical abilities. In a subsequent work, called Extended + (a remake of Makurumbandis work performed in Madrid and Barcelona), the animations where redesigned. Because of less time pressure, improved technical skills and inclusion of a second media designer with creative ideas and critical view (Skjulstad), these redesigned animations were considerably improved. Although I would still claim that the computer as creative tool supports a particular digital aesthetic, these animations where nevertheless a more successful attempt at making an organic expression. see comparison:




The example shows how artifacts of expression include both the material digital tools and the immaterial knowledge about them. As pointed out by Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy in “Activity Theory as a Framework for Designing Constructivist Learning Environments”: “The tools alter the activity and are, in turn, altered by the activity” (1999:63). The application Flash and our previous knowledge of this software for dynamic and interactive web-applications, influenced the creative process of Extended, but as animation-tool. To use Flash as an animation-tool developed, in turn, our knowledge of the software in innovative ways that our previous web-publication use had not.

Refering to Engeström´s notion of contradictions, the new context of multimedia performance “collided” in many ways with our artifacts like digital media, digital aesthetic and more “web-related practical skills”. These “contradictions” generated some disturbance , but also innovative attempts and, in turn, developed skills and refined knowledge of digital media. The following section will cover more systematicly what issues and features of digital media that were raised, explored and made use of creatively in the making of the four performance-pieces.