Phenomenology: How Spaces give meaning to Objects
- May 8, 2018
- 4 min read
Phenomenology
(n) an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.
A branch of philosophy.
-Merriam Webster Dictionary.
Heidegger(a German philosopher) describes Phenomenology as -
The process of letting things manifest themselves.
To the people who "practice" it, the first aim of phenomenology is always, to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment.
The obey sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings.
One of the biggest and most prominent example of phenomenology has been the OBEY campaign.
The campaign was started as a joke by Shepard Fairey, an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist and illustrator.
The campaign became so successful it went on to become a clothing label called OBEY clothing.
Phenomenology is interesting in the way it examines
a. What is distinct in each person's experience
b. What is common to the experience of groups of people who have shared the same events or circumstances
In ordinary life, we "capture" and conceptualize everything, using our preconceptions to turn everything into something other than it actually is (also similar to how semiotics tends to function), one or two steps removed from direct unfiltered experience. Phenomenology strives to clarify our receiving abilities and rediscover the actuality of what is.
The Phenomenological Approach:
Says that we need to continually examine and reexamine our biases and presuppositions. The attitude is,
"I want to understand your world through your eyes and your experiences so far as possible, and together we can probe your experiences fully and understand them."
In this sharing of experiences, in this dialogue, is the "between-ness" we're looking at in phenomenology. It is based on the fact that the experience of others is somehow accessible to us.
We can enter into it, into an intimate dialogue.
A theme that runs through it is that of interconnected-ness.
There has been historic controversy in psychology whether the subject matter studied should be consciousness (the internal viewpoint) or behavior (the external viewpoint).
The example of the controversy between Structuralists and Behaviorists throws some light on this; William James (An American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to ever offer a psychology course in the United States) had his psychology department tied up with the department of philosophy, and himself remained unconvinced till the end, if psychology was even a distinct discipline. He wrote in his 1982 survey of his department, Psychology: Briefer Course
"This is no science; it is only the hope of a science" (p. 233)
This combined with the Structuralists methodology that implied that the elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It worked to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. , meanwhile the behaviorists viewed personal experience as so unreliable and variable that it wasn't even worth including in psychology. Some others viewed this as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Then around the turn of the century, Husserl designed phenomenology as a kind of philosophical foundation for all the scientists who had anything to say about what it means to be human. It involved paying attention to our own experience in such a way that you can describe it as fully and completely as possible. In phenomenology there is no rigid dichotomy. It sees both behavior and consciousness as necessary to psychology. Both are seen as different aspects of the same phenomenon--the world as lived by our subject.
This is a very different alternative to the modernist, positivist notion of science that most of us grew up with, namely that there are two ways to deal with anything, a subjective way (not worth much, in the positivist view), and an objective way (real truth, in the positivist view.)
The Obey sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. It attempted to make people see their surroundings clearly for the first time, notice things that were right before their eyes but obscured, things that are taken for granted due to abstract observation.
It is now one of the most widely recognized campaigns as well as clothing streetwear brand currently. Because the sticker had no meaning behind it, it meant different
things to everyone.
People who weren’t familiar with the sticker thought it nonsensical and derived straightforward visual pleasure from it.
People who were paranoid or conservative condemned it as an underground cult.
Some even removed it calling it an “eye sore” or “an act of petty vandalism.”
It made people frustrated, contemplative or eager to search for a meaning behind it.
For those who have been surrounded by the sticker, its familiarity and cultural resonance is comforting and owning a sticker provides a souvenir or keepsake, a memento; it has an aspirational value to it.
People have often demanded the sticker merely because they have seen it everywhere and possessing a sticker provides a sense of belonging. Because it is trendy.
Whether the reaction be positive or negative, the stickers existence is worthy as long as it serves the designers original purpose, that causes people to consider the details and meanings of their surroundings. In the name of fun and observation.
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