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Digital Sensemaking: Sensemaking as a Driver of
Transformation
Daniela Brill
Department of Communications Engineering
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
Claudia Schnugg*
Department of Communications Engineering
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
Christian Stary
Department of Communications Engineering
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
* Corresponding author
Abstract
This paper introduces the project “Digital Sensemaking” (DIGI-Sense) that tackles human
needs in the envisioned digital revolution (Industry4.0, humanoid robots, Internet of
Behaviours, Cyber-Physical-Systems) to enable meaningful transformation processes.
Psychologists of work argue that digitalization at the workplace can lead to an overflow of
information which challenges decision-making and sensemaking at work. Studies in
organizational research show that sensemaking is fundamental for meaningful work1
experience of individuals and organizations because it plays a central role to give meaning
to processes, shared experiences and to rationalize decisions and established routines. In
digital transformation processes, well-known work processes easily become alienated to
workers, embodied knowledge and material cornerstones are likely to become obsolete.
Therefore, DIGI-Sense explores sensemaking in digitalization processes that incorporate
tangible elements, digital twins, and robotics. As embodiment, materialities, movements,
and aesthetics are core to sensemaking, the methodological design of the empirical study
incorporates methods in social sciences and juxtaposes these more traditional approaches
1 We consider meaningful work as immersive perception and practice of doing where cognitive, social, and bodily
involvement is streamlined and thus, coherent for the actor(s) to perform activities according to their intention and
purpose.
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with methods from visual studies, arts-based initiatives and artscience collaboration in the
form of a series of experimentations with performance artists. This paper will introduce the
theoretical background and the development of the methodological approach applied in
this research project.
Keywords – Sensemaking, Digitalization, Digital twins, Performance, Artful articulation
Paper Type – Academic Paper
1 Introduction
The project “Digital Sensemaking” (DIGI-Sense) tackles human needs in the
envisioned digital revolution (Industry4.0, humanoid robots, Internet of
Behaviours, Cyber-Physical-Systems) to enable meaningful transformation
processes by focusing on embodiment of knowledge, embodied articulation, and
the role of sensemaking in attribution of meaning to work and organizational
processes. As studies in psychology of work show that digitalization at workplaces
challenges decision making and sensemaking at work as it often leaves
employees and workers with an overflow of information or with too little
information about decisions and processes (e.g., Hacker, 2020). For example,
workers may experience automation processes as surveillance through algorithms
which cannot be interpreted and predicted in the evaluation of the workers’ work,
so the only way to work is fast – without having the opportunity to reflect what
they are doing and why, if it is the safest and best way to work1. Another example
shows how automation processes at warehouses render workers unable to predict
processes, movements of robots and drones that should support their work, and
future tasks. This renders the workers in a position where they feel to be
subordinates to machines of whose behaviour it is impossible to make sense to
the workers.2
Similar difficulties in making sense of new work processes and required steps
to realize tasks are being reported when processes are being digitalized and
workers receive too much abstract or additional information via digital interfaces
that are not related to experiences, they had in the previously non-digitalized
work processes (e.g., Hacker, 2020). Considering the upcoming cyber-physical
1 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-
warehouse
2 https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-12-30/robots-warehousing-human-workers
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workplaces as socio-technical system, issues including human–computer
interaction, risk management, science and technology studies, and (systems-of-
)systems engineering become crucial (Kant, 2016, Stary, 2022). They advise a
perspective recognizing technology and societal elements as ‘hybrid entities
available at several levels of functional abstraction’ (Kant, 2016). Such a view
opens space for various forms of interactive experience and exploration.
DIGI-Sense aims to contribute to this important aspect in knowledge
management of digital transformation processes by connecting to sensemaking
theory (Weick, 1995) with a specific focus on embodiment and aesthetics. First,
studies in organizational research show that sensemaking tools and efforts are
fundamental for meaningful work experience for individuals and organizations
(Asik-Dizdar & Esen, 2016). Understanding essential aspects of sensemaking in
digitalization processes is key to design better transition processes. Second, in
digitalization processes embodied work often becomes disembodied, projected,
or represented on a screen, deprived of the material and spatial qualities workers
are used to experience. Moreover, screens, tangible interfaces and robotics that
replace parts of the work processes or represent individual steps, are conceived as
rational representations without reflecting actual qualities of the work being
done. This requires a lot of conceptual knowledge stemming from cognitive
processes and makes meaningful experiences and interaction difficult. In this
respect, researchers in Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) call for more in-depth
work on meaningful experience in HCI (Mekler & Hornbaek, 2019). Third, in the
same study, researchers in HCI (ibid.) conclude that especially research to produce
insights into embodied interaction will be necessary. Fourth, embodied aspects of
processes are also perceived as essential in sensemaking, by Sandberg & Tsoukas
(2020) as well as by Maitlis & Christianson (2014). Sensemaking can be
understood as process to give meaning to processes in organizations, shared
experiences, and rationalize decisions. Thereby, it is not to be confused with
knowledge creation processes. Fifth, also creation processes on some levels are
connected to embodiment, e.g., transmission of tacit knowledge, internalisation
of knowledge (Nonaka et al., 2000). Lastly, we aim to focus on articulation, as
articulation is known as part of both, knowledge creation processes (Nonaka et
al., 2000) and sensemaking processes, where it is mainly found in studies looking
at articulation through language (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2020).
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2 Sensemaking and Digital Transformation Processes
Sensemaking (Weick, 1995) is understood as a process, a constant flow to make
meaning, enrich and develop conversations about shared experiences. Such
experiences can be work processes, routines in organizations, or organizational
structures. Individuals share their experiences and plausible explanations to
achieve a common interpretation of a past situation, as sensemaking is defined by
retrospectiveness. Although an individual person tries to make sense of a
situation, this never happens without the social context, the group that also
shared the experience.
Analysing a substantial body of published studies in sensemaking, Sandberg
and Tsoukas (2020) found ‘four core constituents’ of sensemaking: the sense-
action nexus (or being-in-the-world), temporality, language, and embodiment.
First, sensemaking is found to predominantly take “place within specific practice
worlds” (ibid., p. 1), the person is engulfed within a certain context, being
immersed in a task, being part of a situation, in which a new situation happens
that needs to be made sense of. Second, sensemaking always takes place over
time and is never finished, thus temporality is an essential part of sensemaking.
Third, individuals taking part in sensemaking processes articulate their
experiences and plausible explanations of situations. Through this retrospective
articulation in language a certain individual and shared understanding is formed.
Fourth, taking part in a situation is twofold: there are cognitive elements, but it is
also “constituted by bodily engagement with the world” (ibid. p. 6). Sandberg and
Tsoukas refer to Merleau-Ponty (1962/1945) who connects cognitive and mental
activities to bodily engagement with the world. This highlights aspects of
embodied knowledge, spatial learning, bodily movements in practical operations,
and other habitual reactions (or anticipation of future situations) that play into
sensemaking processes, either through cognitive reflection or through tacit
knowledge.
Already Maitlis and Christianson (2014) pointed out that there is still little
research into the role and specificities of embodiment in sensemaking processes.
Only a few studies took up embodied aspects, such as the role of materialities
and physical objects as mediators in sensemaking processes. Strike and Rerup
(2016) point to the role of material and immaterial embodied practices to
facilitate sensemaking processes. Similarly, Stigliani and Ravasi (2012) showed the
importance of the physical representation of objects and concepts in collective
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sensemaking, especially by employing ethnographic methods, qualitative
interviews, and process diaries.
We aim at exploring these core constituents of sensemaking especially within
digitalization and digital transformation processes, which represent processes
where embodied and material practises are translated into most abstract and
non-material, non-embodied processes. Thereby, DIGI-Sense explicitly focuses on
embodied, spatial, and material (i.e., aesthetic) aspects of sensemaking in
interaction with new technologies and in Cyber-Physical-Systems (CPS). Such a
cross- and interdisciplinary endeavour requires a methodological set-up which
best can be met by Design Science-based Research that is detailed in the
subsequent section. Although the subject of concern is CPS as socio-technical
systems, a constituent part of the artefact to be designed needs to be some
digital representation for situation-aware transformation and development
processes (Eckhart et al., 2019). The applied Digital Twin (DT) representation
enables the documentation of progressing design cycles towards embodied
articulation. Articulation intertwines knowledge generation and sharing in
organisational contexts with performance and aesthetic processes, as could be
already demonstrated in the initial phase of the DIGI-Sense project (see details in
the rest of the paper).
3 Methodological Framework
To extend the existing approaches on CPS development and sensemaking we
incorporate embodiment, aesthetics, and DT that become increasingly important
for infrastructures (Ricci et al., 2022). While DT play a critical role in digitalization
(Fuller et al., 2020), little is known about how they manifest in users’ sensemaking
while they are articulating needs when working with CPS information in a
digitized work/living settings. The project aims at a better understanding of the
process of sensemaking from the perspective of digital while human-centred CPS
development support. The findings also inform design of DT as information
spaces facilitating sensemaking processes. A mixed-method design is adopted,
consisting of experimental studies and interviews. We will enrich this design by
“artful articulation” to tackle aesthetics in sensemaking processes, such as
materiality and embodiment. To reach this aim, we work with an interdisciplinary,
diverse team, bringing together theoretical investigation into sensemaking
processes, aesthetics and art theory, organizational studies, knowledge
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management and business engineering. With artists (dancers, performers) to
realise three distinct DIGI-Sense phases of embodied articulations by artists with
the CPS/DT infrastructure the team works with in the “Digital SenseMaking Lab”.
We work with artists because our aim is to specifically illuminate the
entanglement of aesthetic concepts and the four core constituents of
sensemaking (sense-action nexus, temporality, language, embodiment) as
described by Sandberg and Tsoukas (2020). In their meta study on research in
sensemaking they strongly describe aesthetic concepts in connection to these
four core constituents without naming them as aesthetic concepts. For example,
they refer to “different types of sensemaking” and question how they are
described in terms of “how sense is created, and how bodily perception,
language, and time are implicated in each other” (ibid., p. 3), they talk about
“sensory experience” (ibid., 5), “representational language” (ibid., p. 8) and that
“language is used performatively” (ibid., p. 7), but also how senses support
sensemaking, e.g. “normal engine noises” that are lost or that it is quiet (ibid. 12).
With respect to literature in Organizational Aesthetics (e.g., Strati, 1999, 2010;
Taylor & Hansen, 2005) draws heavily on theories in aesthetics that relate to
aesthetics as sensory information and to aesthetic categories, it is important to
illuminate the entanglement of aesthetics with sensemaking.
Moreover, dealing with ‘materiality’ of physical objects in sensemaking
processes has been found as an important contribution to collective sensemaking
(Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012). Again, although aesthetics has not been part of their
study, the aesthetic (or sensory) information of such physical objects (how they
feel, how they look, how they change physically and thus help to understand
changes cognitively) needs to be considered to better understand the
contribution of these objects in the sensemaking process.
The work with artists in the DIGI-Sense project focuses on performance art due
to open questions in sensemaking research. Sandberg and Tsoukas (2020), like
Maitlis and Christiansen (2014), call for more research on the role of embodiment
in sensemaking. Moreover, as mentioned in the previous sections, the four core
constituents of sensemaking (sense-action nexus, temporality, language,
embodiment) are closely aligned to the specificity of performance art. To focus on
sensory perception and in particular aesthetic aspects that are connected to
embodiment, we will work with artists based in performance art – performers,
dancers, choreographers – as these are trained to work with their body, be aware
of their bodily senses, and how to connect with their body to the environment,
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objects, audiences, and other performers. They are trained to bodily engage in
processes and reflect about these processes in an elaborate way (Greil, 2021).
Moreover, performance art is based in temporality and is situated in contexts
(theme, stage, etc.), a process. For additional evaluation of aesthetic concepts, we
will work with visual analysis of the visual material gained by filming and imaging
the performers’ process. Additionally, we will use traditional approaches in
sensemaking studies that focus on language – the fourth core constituent, such
as interviews and participatory observation guided by observation diaries (e.g.,
Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012, used these methods to study the role of objects in
collective sensemaking).
For each experimentation, we aim at describing sequences (Poole et al., 2017)
of processes at each location, involving interviews and direct observation. This
shall build the basis for identifying units of sequences and categories of
sensemaking, which will be theoretically derived, guided by sensemaking
categories as they have been identified in previous research, building on the
phases of sensemaking, including context, identity, retrospect, cues, ongoing
development, interpretations, and enactments (Weick, 1995).
3.1 Artful work in Organizational Studies and Scientific Endeavours
The methodological framework brings together methods from qualitative social
research, such as qualitative interviews, ethnographic methods, research into
organizational aesthetics (Strati, 2010) and arts-based research in organizations
employing artscience collaboration (Schnugg & Song, 2020), visual studies and
visual methods in organisational research (Bell et al., 2014; Rose, 2007; Gagliardi,
1992) and performance as method to investigate embodied processes and spatial
aesthetics in the organisational process (Biehl, 2017) of sensemaking. In
sensemaking work with art, the “workarts”, has been discussed as a relevant
method (Barry & Meisiek, 2010) to explore or support sensemaking and
mindfulness. Along these lines – changing the terminology to “arts-based
initiatives”, “artistic interventions” or “artistic engagement” –, art has been
employed for researching and supporting sensemaking processes in organization
studies (Berthoin Antal & Strauss, 2013). We employ art in our research project –
with a specific focus on dance and performance – to gain insights into the
embodiment and relevance of aesthetic/sensory knowledge in sensemaking
processes (Schnugg, 2019). Moreover, most recently, bridging art and technology
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development has been introduced as an interesting method to focus on human-
centred technology development as seen in diverse industry organizations, such
as Nokia Bell Labs, in Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 funding schemes within
the framework of S+T+ARTS1 and art-science projects exploring implications and
possibilities of collaboration with artificial intelligence systems (Schnugg, 2020).
Performance as such is a most embodied artform as it is relying on the
performer’s body, their bodily awareness and ability to relate to the environment
through their body, it is time-based, and performers are trained to reflect on their
embodied processes. To employ performance in our research, we rely on
methodologies that have been used previously in related fields, e.g., dance and
performance have been recognized as useful techniques in organizational studies
(e.g., Biehl, 2017; Reinhold et al., 2018) and in human-robot-interaction research
(e.g., Cuan et al., 2019; LaViers et al., 2018). We inquire language through
qualitative interviews and conversational processes (e.g., Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012).
Thereby we aim at advancing understanding of the mechanisms underlying artful
articulation (Liu, 2004) and sensemaking in digital transformation projects by
examining the socio-technical design and development process through the lens
of digital twins (DT) as models of encapsulated behaviour (Stary, 2021).
3.2 Three DIGI-Sense phases towards embodied articulation
In the process of the DIGI-Sense project, we will realize three phases of
experimentation that are developed collaboratively with the interdisciplinary
project team and performance artists. The three consecutive phases of
experimentations will draw on outcomes and insights gained during the previous
senses. In this respect, the research process is inspired by Design Science (Hevner
et al., 2004; Peffers et al., 2007). DIGI-Sense Phase 1 starts by investigating
individual and shared experiences of performers regarding their sensemaking
while creating processes with the technological infrastructure available. It
represents sensemaking in a ‘first confrontation’ with the new technologies, CPS
and processes linked to these technologies. In this phase, we will strongly build
on sensemaking theory, investigate its micro-processes with a focus on embodied
and aesthetic aspects. DIGI-Sense Phase 2 provides the artists an experimental
setup for artistic exploration of sensemaking, sensebreaking, and sensegiving.
1 S+T+ARTS = Science + Technology + ARTS, see https://starts.eu/
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Thereby, we will consider aesthetic categories and the influence of aesthetics and
embodied movements on sensemaking processes (e.g., rhythms, melodies,
patterns, stillness). We also aim at realising experimentations that allow to identify
the relevance of embodiment and aesthetics in terms of sensemaking,
sensegiving, and sensebreaking (Vitry et al., 2020; Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991).
We are specifically interested in looking at these outcomes with respect to CPS
and DT. In DIGI-Sense Phase 3 we are looking at “embodied articulation”.
Working with performance artists we aim at bringing abstract representations and
exploration to concrete action and exploration. In the same vein to Weick’s work
on poets of change (2011) with a focus on language, we aim to bring “the airy
nothing” (ibid., p. 17) into existence, though with a focus on embodiment.
In these three phases, we will enhance the design artefact with performers and
technology on different levels of abstractions, namely: a support system
generating DT in locations and in relation to the technology, based on a
combination of the agile robot system Spot© (http://www.bostondynamics.com/)
enhanced with the LiDAR technology Trimble© x7 for 3D-scanning and point-
cloud generation (https://de.geospatial.trimble.com/x7-scanner), Internet of
Things (IoT) components M5Stack (http://m5stack.com) (Stary et al., 2021, 2022),
and (tangible) platforms for modelling and DT execution, including the Metasonic
Touch© table (https://www.metasonic.de/en/products/metasonic-process-
touch/overview) and the compunity© suite (http://www.compunity.eu) (see Fig.1
and Fig.2). This existing infrastructure might be enhanced during our
experimentations with other elements such as tracking systems or smart textiles.
As we are interested in digital sensemaking processes, this reflects different levels
of “being-in-the-world” of the object that an individual relates to, but also the
experience of new technology and hardware relating to digitalization processes.
Thereby, the experience of the ‘use cases’ is itself ‘embodied’ in different levels of
abstraction, relating to the performers.
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Fig. 1. Overview of the available infrastructure: point clouds and images generated by
Trimble x7, M5Stacks, Spot robot optional in combination with Trimble x7, two different
versions of the multi touch tables for tangible modelling.
Fig. 2. Point cloud of the office and two researchers of the team generated during first artistic
tests with Trimble x7.
Since embodiment as a major aspect of sensemaking relates to tacit and
embodied knowledge of sensemaking processes, we need to build the DIGI-Sense
experimentations and exploring them along individual use cases with performers.
From an artistic and aesthetic perspective, performance is the ultimate embodied
artistic practice. Performers are educated in understanding and reflecting on their
embodied processes and elaborate in reflecting on their embodied experiences.
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Moreover, performance is named as a relational practice (Greil, 2021): relating to
one's own body, to other performing bodies, to objects and space, and to the
audience. This is interesting in respect to the use of space, the relation to objects
and the space, and shared experience in terms of sensemaking as ‘being-in-the
world’ or ‘sense-action nexus’.
In performance as an ephemeral art practice temporality and changing
experience throughout a given timeline is relevant. Through this we aim at
gaining insights on evolving embodied insights throughout the process.
Therefore, we will capture movements and expressions by film and photography.
We are interested in analysing the movements (Ruprecht, 2015) but also the
reflective capability and insights of the performers. Thus, we add journals for the
performers and interviews. The researchers will take notes as an observational
practice. Lastly, we are looking at the fourth constituent of sensemaking:
language. We will do qualitative interviews with the performers at different stages
of the experimentations with them. Additionally, we will capture their verbal
expressions about their ongoing experience and include their journals in the
analysis of the data.
In advance of the start of phases 1 a series of interviews with performance
artists experienced in pushing the boundaries of human-robot and human-
computer interaction are conducted. This aims at creating an overview of existing
reflective practices and experiences in the field of arts that refer to individual and
shared processes in the interaction with digitalization techniques. We use
qualitative interviews to gather information and their experience in their work
with respect to sensemaking. This informs our method by reviewing existing
practices and insights from experienced artistic practitioners, especially
performers. These interviews are conducted as semi-structured interviews,
recorded, and analysed following the standards of qualitative research in social
sciences.
The data collection and methodological design in qualitative research of the
DIGI-Sense sensemaking process is informed by Stigliani and Ravasi’s data
collection methods, as their study already brings highlights the role of objects
and materiality in the sensemaking process. The methodological design is based
on ethnographic work (e.g., Jorgensen, 1989; Van Maanen, 1979) and “combined
archival search, participant observation, formal semi structured interviews, and
informal talks” (Stigliani and Ravasi, 2012, p.9). The method we therefore follow in
each design cycle has three steps: 1. “Tracing individual and group level practices
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of sensemaking” (Conversations, forms of engagement, patterns of social
interaction, material artifacts) 2. “Tracing cognitive subprocesses of sensemaking”
(Interviews and data, vocabulary, and interpretation 3. “Build a grounded
theoretical groundwork” (Axial coding framework, grounded model of how
material and conversational practices support collective, future-oriented
sensemaking efforts). These three steps are further processed through noticing
and bracketing, articulating, elaborating, and influencing.
The analysis of the collected data should lead to systematic comparisons of
sensemaking processes to understand the role of digital twins and the
embodiment of interaction processes in sensemaking of work processes.
Additional data gathered to lay ground for exchange across disciplines and
recommendations for future studies and design of digitalization processes will be
gained through interdisciplinary discussions and translation processes. Therefore,
the project provides a systemic approach to documenting the interaction
between the invited artists, the DIGI-Sense team and the team of researchers and
engineers at the Institute of Business Informatics & Communications Engineering
at the Johannes Kepler University Linz where the project is embedded. This
interaction between disciplines, thought collectives, knowledge production
processes and behaviour around the technical infrastructure of the project is
intriguing from the point of view of them being unexpected, disruptive, and even
irritating sensemaking triggers.
3.3 Instantiating DIGI-Sense Phase 1: Exploring candidates for embodied
articulation
The first phase has already been established as an exploratory co-production
with two performance artists who have not worked directly with digital and
technological tools as part of their performance practice. They have no previous
expertise in sensemaking theory, but they are interested in cognitive, behavioural,
and social aspects of meaning making. For instance, they have been working on
topics, such as medical, psychological, and behavioural research both in humans
as well as in animals.
Visualizing possible sensemaking processes through the interactions of the
artists with the digital and technological tools available, we explore what happens
during digitalization processes with the body, its movements and interactions,
and what elements of the tools we are using are missing for an optimal
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digitalization process to happen. The perspective of performance studies allows
access to the role of embodiment, movement, and the integrated sensemaking in
embodied processes (Fig.3 to Fig.7). We distinguish three main moments of data
gathering:
Sensemaking processes while working and interacting with the provided
technological infrastructure: The artists are invited to experiment with the tools,
learn how to use them, start conversations with the team about the way to
understand and apply them for individual use cases and their artistic ideas. The
interaction between the artists and the tools is documented in different levels,
since every level starts a new sensemaking process: (i) first reaction of the body to
the tools (since it is the first time the artists are seeing and interacting with the
tools we consider this to be an important step where the tools start to make
sense, this reaction is informed by their previous knowledge on the body,
movement, emotional meaning of certain performances), (ii) how these first
reaction develops throughout the exploration using the tools and learning
background information about their functionality and about their real-world
applications, and (iii) the moments the tools start to be part of the creative
process of the artist.
Knowledge production through conversations, interviews and tacit- and explicit
knowledge collection: We are informing this step with the Unified Model of
Dynamic Knowledge Creation by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno (2000), in which the
production of new knowledge is considered to be a spiral, “a never-ending
process that upgrades itself continuously” (ibid., p.8) regarding tacit knowledge
from its humanistic, relative and dynamic dimensions, and the production of
explicit knowledge on its interactive and context specific dimensions. We aim at
exploring the way in which the interaction of performance artists and the team of
engineers, designers and researchers dynamically creates explicit knowledge out
of the tacit knowledge during sensemaking processes.
Production and documentation of individual use cases as micro-performances
informed by the sensemaking processes (1) and the tacit and explicit knowledge
spiral (2). Micro-performances are understood as ephemeral and unannounced
actions, happenings and moments that disrupt the flux of time, space, and focus.
They are a direct manipulation of matter, movement, language, among other
elements for a limited period. A sensemaking process is triggered by unexpected
events, in this case, the micro-performance will be the aesthetic expression and
documentation of the ongoing sensemaking processes during this phase while at
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the same time being a disruptive moment that generates more possible
sensemaking processes. Micro-performances act also as a magnifying glass on
certain events that get lost among many other predominant events, it allows the
performer and the viewer to focus on a specific movement, object, or expression
and for a limited amount of time change perspectives and rethink or transform
the quotidienne into sensible occurrences, capturing moments that are crucial for
the activation of sensemaking processes. Dance and performance are both
discipline and overflow, closing and opening of the body. This makes it possible
to explore the silenced areas of the body as a spontaneous, experimental, and
creative force that challenges organizational life (Biehl-Missal, 2019).
Fig. 3 Performer 1 and performer 2 being scanned by Trimble x7 to gain insights of digital
body representations
.
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Fig. 4. 360 photographic image of performer 1 and performer 2 by Trimble x7 for
further exploration
Fig. 5. Point clouds of performer 1 and performer 2 in the context of populated space as
scanned by Trimble x7.
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Fig. 6. Performer 1 registered three times in different positions in the scans/point clouds by
Trimble x7.
Fig. 7. Performer 1 interacting with Spot, performer 2 operating Spot – addressing some ‘body
level’.
At the beginning of DIGI-Sense Phase 1 the two performance artists have been
interviewed individually on their prior knowledge (and already-made-sense)
about the main topics of the project (“Sensemaking”, “Embodiment”, “Digital
Twin” etc.). This builds the starting point for following interviews, to study how
ideas of concepts change, and structure for further dialogues and conversations.
This interview is followed by a group interaction with the project team. The artists
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are introduced to the theoretical base of the project, and to the technical
possibilities the project comprehends. It is crucial to document the conversations
and the sensemaking processes (see sensemaking aspects: construction of
identity, retrospect, enactment, social contact, ongoing process, cues, plausibility,
see Weick, 1995) of the artists and the academic personnel that works with this
infrastructure from a non-artistic but a functional and pragmatic perspective.
Continuing with this phase, the artists are invited to propose ways of exploring
and experimenting with the tools available. The documentation of this part is
conducted based on the “Bridging Models” proposed by Barnard and deLahunta
(2017, p.5) to document and register choreographic (in this case performative)
decision-making, biological and body reactions, fast thinking in the moment
among others. Parallel to the research in sensemaking through experimentations
and use cases, the project opens a space of theoretical study and co-production
of meaning through translation of languages (artistic, scientific, organizational,
poetic, etc.) between the artists and the team. Juxtaposed to this physical space at
the university and its implications in the performer’s creative processes, a second
physical space away from the context of technological tools will allow an
exploratory artistic development with no attachment to the meanings already
given to the academic/laboratory space (like liminal spaces, Schnugg, 2018). This
space as a metaphorical “blank canvas”, in which no previous knowledge exists
about the topic of the project, every interaction, conversation, performative action
fills it with meaning, allowing the performers to use/embody the knowledge
gained in a neutral space, and reimagine its meaning and reconsider its uses. It is
also valuable for the project aiming at exploring digital twins to consider the way
the body, existing in only one space at the time, can imagine and use digital tools
to act also in the second physical space.
Throughout these series of actions, the artists are asked to keep a notebook of
sensations, words that arise, questions, procedures, reactions both bodily and
mentally, and of the processes in which these reactions change their shape during
the phase. Both spaces and the interactions that take place in them are recorded
visually (video and photography), as sound, and as written documentation. There
is a special focus on the “epistemic objects” (Stigliani and Ravasi, 2012, p.3),
“special interactive tools” (ibid., p.3) and the “individual thinking tools” (ibid., p.3),
the practices of collection, production, manipulation, and use of material
artefacts.
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We expect as results of DIGI-Sense Phase 1 a collection of data to analyse and
study the sensemaking processes that take place in the unexpected event in
which performance artists work together with technological tools to explore
sensemaking mechanisms, and a documentation of the micro-performances
conducted during the process, which is also explained and analysed
retrospectively through interviews and based on the documented data.
4 Conclusions
DIGI-Sense aims to explore core constituents of sensemaking processes along
digital transformation processes. We understand those processes as embodied
and material practises that have correspondences to abstract and non-material,
non-embodied processes at several layers and in various codifications. When
exploring embodied, spatial, and material (i.e., aesthetic) aspects of sensemaking
in interaction with new technologies and in CPS, the adopted Design Science-
based Research support continuous design cycles while applying concepts or
theories from different domains and disciplines. Articulation intertwines implicit
knowledge generation and sharing experiences along performance and aesthetic
processes. The already instantiated DIGI-Sense phase 1 will be continued for
several months to ‘dance the change’ and institutionalize embodied articulation
(DIGI-Sense Phase 2 and 3) for organizational transformation processes. We
expect transhuman actors to become part of those processes (Brill et al., 2022).
Acknowledgements
The paper has been partially supported by the Linz Institute of Technology
DIGI-Sense project
(https://www.claudiaschnugg.com/projects/
https://www.jku.at/institut-fuerwirtschaftsinformatik-communications-
engineering/forschung/forschungsprojekte/laufende-projekte/national-rd-digi-
sensedigital-sensemaking-constructive-capacity-building-for-co-creative-
transformativechange
https://www.jku.at/linz-institute-of-technology/forschung/lit-
calls/#ac_item_23560)
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