Cycles of <em>Dispositions–Unfoldings</em>. A Retro-ANT View of Practices

Alvise Mattozzi

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/9483

Authors

Alvise Mattozzi Free University of Bozen-Bolzano http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7917-3099
Alvise Mattozzi is assistant professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. He works at the intersection between Science and Technology Studies and Design Studies, using Actor-Network Theory as general framework and semiotics as descriptive-analytical methodology. His research has mainly a methodological character, investigating how to account for the mediation of artifacts. He has carried out also more specific researches related to the Italian raw milk alternative food network (together with Tiziana Piccioni) and to design practices (together with Laura Lucia Parolin). At present, he is working, on the one hand, on the recovery and rearticulation of “domestication theory”, on the other, on the role of design in interdisciplinary practices (together with Andreas Metzner-Szigeth and Roberta Raffaetà). Together with Kris Krois, he founded the Master in Eco-Social Design at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/9483

Keywords:

Actor-Network Theory, Actualization, Design, Script, Structuralism, Virtuality

Abstract

The present contribution intends to probe a view of practices as cycles of disposition and unfoldings or, which is the same, of virtualities and actualizations, and to show how such view allows not only to take artifacts into account, but also to account for their contribution to the unfolding of practices. A specific practice, related to squeezing oranges in a sink by using Juicy Salif, the (in)famous Philippe Starck’s squeezer, is exploited as empirical ground for exemplification. In order to probe the proposed view of practices as cycles of disposition and unfoldings, the present contribution engages in an epistemological and in a methodological reflection. On the one hand, it investigates the role of dispositions-virtualities in past and present approaches to practices. On the other, it recovers the disused Actor-Network Theory’s notion of “script” as a way to describe-analyze artifacts’ dispositions or virtualities and thus accounting for their contribution to practices. In the end, the paper, by investigating the role of dispositions-virtualities, recovers the structuralist legacy to the reflection on practices, showing how Actor-Network Theory can be considered a “distributed structuralism”.

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Cycles of Dispositions–Unfoldings. A Retro-ANT View of Practices

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