What is interacting with me?

Observations at the Papanek exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.

I saw different kinds of interaction. There were Installations, texts, pictures, paintings, illustrations, movies and sound. First thing I interacted with were other students and teachers. Then I entered the exhibition space, we get instructions on where to put our backpacks from the staff. Thy also handed out some stickers, which I put on my sweater. The stickers should help them identify who belongs to our group and have paid the entrance fee I guess. The interaction with the staff was limited as they told us to wait for our tour guide. As the tour guide welcomed us, all the attention was on her. Was it? Not necessarily. Of course, she gave us the tour through the exhibition and answered our questions. But at the same time, I was asking myself questions and made conclusions. She had a monologue. Our class and the teachers were the audience she was speaking to. From time to time there were questions. But it didn’t evolve in a conversation as the timeframe was tight and we always had to move on.

So, there was a constant listening, evaluating, dismissing or approvingprocess. Why that? I guess all the knowledge she presented is somehow getting evaluated.Because she was speaking about Papanek’s live I questioned myself where shegets her insights from? Did she know him? Did she carefully research the topicand so on? Of course, she was a professional and the exhibition was carefullyset up. But as soon as people interact with each other questions like that willpop up. Why? I think It is somehow in our nature to quickly evaluate things andpersons. Not only the question of relevance is coming up also we react on people’sappearance, behaviour, tonality and so on. We always compare the things we hearor see with our existing knowledge. This all are factors which could makeinteraction difficult. Some thoughts she presented about Papanek’s work I foundmore interesting, some less. Why couldn’t I listen to the things she said in amore objective way?

I think in communication it is always like this. People don’t get further if they can’t understand and react on each other. It would have been interesting to see if I would have happened if there would have been a discussion with the tour guide. If she would listen to my questions and reacting on them in a neutral way. But what means neutral and is this even possible?

Often Interaction is described by people as the action between people andgroups. I would also say, that it could be an interaction between an object andpeople. At the exhibition you could see that too. People tend to feel, smelland look and react to all kinds of stimuli. Is therefore the term ofinteraction broader then I thought?

JD