I started this exposition by presenting the current drive in design towards participatory and user-driven approaches. It has led to designers developing participatory design tools and methods (Sanders, Brandt, and Binder 2010), such as design probes, tangible tools, and generative tools. These all aim to enhance communication and co-creation between designers or design researchers and participants or multiple stakeholders. I introduced the object theatre methodology as a new learning and research-oriented process of readymade objects for designers in participatory design processes. In the discussion, I return to the three research questions posed in the beginning of the exposition and discuss how object theatre can contribute to participatory design. In the discussion, I draw on work developed by object theatre practitioners and design researchers, and support my findings with reflections from the designers engaging with the object theatre process during my research.
Fundamental object theatre practices
On the basis of interviews with object theatre practitioners, Margolies (2016) highlights the difference between object theatre, puppetry, and actors’ theatre that practitioners articulate (148). Object theatre utilises readymade objects, whereas in actors’ theatre and puppetry objects are usually crafted and subordinate to the human actor. I build on Margolies (ibid.), who claims that the focus in object theatre is on what happens between the (human) performer and the real object. This is one of the fundamental practices of object theatre, which the exercises developed in this study share. Working with readymade objects and focusing on their inherent properties has implications for designers’ practice. The exercises made the designers attentive towards the selection of recognisable objects, to the extent that they considered each object that they selected for conducting field interviews. Rita reflected on the selection process of objects in the object theatre exercises: ‘When we choose an item, there are reasons why we choose this item. It’s about the three dimensions: it’s about the shape, material and the way we can communicate through an object.’ Sam made a similar observation while choosing objects for his field interview box, which he developed in parallel with the object theatre research process. He selected abstract objects that were open to free interpretations, such as a piece of fur and a sponge. To provoke interactions with a participant, some objects should be more closed or heavily loaded with meaning, for example an electric light bulb or a cross. Sam observed that the more recognisable the object, the stronger interpretation and meaning people can associate with it. This connects back to the collective memory that objects evoke as articulated by Limbos (quoted in Margolies 2016). The social imagery and associations play a significant part, bringing individual and collective experiences with objects to the surface.
Working towards recognising people’s inherent tendency to act towards objects and the historical meanings that we assign to different objects is another fundamental practice in object theatre exercises. In the Object Family Tree, this is examined through marrying objects and creating offspring, which enabled the designers to recognise their personal way of interacting with readymade objects. The exercise rendered visible the different choices and interpretations of objects. The object theatre research process helped the designers to develop a new and nuanced vocabulary of object exploration.
As stated by Heape (2007), the role of artefacts and objects is crucial in collaborative design processes: they serve as a rich content for different interpretations by different participants. Through the collaborative object exploration process in Object Family Tree, the designers cast objects that had a previous meaning – a charge – of a lived life and were associated with a new meaning. According to Margolies (2016) both casting and charging objects are fundamental practices for object theatre practitioners. This goes well together with the design practice: due to the nature of object theatre exercises, which develop abilities to cast and associate meaning with objects, designers are able to strengthen their interpretation capabilities. Each designer in this study gained from practising their interpretation skills in their own object research processes. It is notable that each person’s interpretation is different from those of the others. Thus, the strength of object theatre exercises lies in exploring several alternative aspects of the human-object relationship: the Object Family Tree focuses on the narrative that is projected onto the object through association and the metaphor of the family tree; Satelliting Objects puts objects in physical, interactive, and material relation with other objects and unfolds unforeseen material relationships through handling objects; and, finally, Dancing the Object pushes to investigate bodily and movement relationships with objects, translating objects to the scale of a human body and vice versa.
Challenging the human-object relationship
In the background section, I suggested that the solidified notion of human-object relationships can be challenged through object theatre exercises that open up a dynamic understanding of human-object relating. According to Stacey, Griffin, and Shaw (2000), interacting can be understood as our tendency to act and react in processes of relating. Object theatre exercises transform our usual ways of interacting with objects. In design it means that designers can approach objects in multiple ways, which challenges the traditional ways of understanding objects as products for specific use (common in interaction design), or as design tools for expression (such as in probes and tangible tools). For designers, object theatre may open up new possibilities of moving between different ways of understanding objects and exploring how objects can gain new meaning when people are invited to alter relations between human and object agents. A die can be translated into a movement choreography, and the other way around: a movement can be associated with a die. The transformation potential that object theatre exercises bring about is powerful, as the exercises are neither committed to one way of perceiving objects nor solidifying stereotypes. What the exercises do specifically is that they invite the human actor to take an object and investigate it in unforeseen ways, through its materiality, form, symbol, metaphor, movement, history, association, memory, and so forth. The human actor is asked to reconsider their own position and approach to an object by either giving into the physical and associative exploration or rejecting new openings. New meanings emerge in the improvised exploration process that challenge the usual user-centred way of perceiving an object.
In a previous project, I used personal objects as vessels for storytelling about personal practices and values in field studies (Karyda et al. 2020). One of the findings was that the personal objects that the study participants chose to talk about would usually be associated with people, places, and previous periods in their lives. It was impossible to disconnect from these memories. Similarly, the object theatre exercises investigate immediate associations that objects bring about. The group process challenges pre-existing assumptions about objects as we are exposed to other people’s acting upon and responding to the same or similar objects. The collaborative process reveals how differently, yet recognisably, we associate meaning with objects as we act and react to their particularities. The object theatre exercises invite relating to an object in a new way: to manipulate an object, to move it, to use it as a symbol or a metaphor, to become the object or to talk like it.
Pushing designers to (inter)act with objects
When engaging design students to interact with objects in unforeseen ways, I noticed how challenging it is for the students to actually take an object and start to act with it in an untraditional way. Buur and Friis (2015) explain this as a difference between the distanced view that designers tend to have of objects and an immersed ability to act from within that is common in theatre. I have observed object theatre exercises, especially those that require a radical shift of perspective (to talk, move, or behave like an object), challenging designers to act differently with objects (Ryöppy 2020). The insights that designers can get from within the object are based on personal experiences. Taking a personal viewpoint questions the traditional use- and user-centred interpretations of objects, and pushes the designer to make an action before thought and reflection. It is a bodily exploration process rather than an intellectual one.
In the early iterations of educational design games, two key principles were (i) the use of inspiring material (the board and game pieces) as well as (ii) the importance of bold moves (Iversen and Buur 2002). Expanding on those experiences, the designers should have the possibility to play with materials and train their spontaneous abilities to make bold actions as part of a participatory design research process. In the Family Tree exercise, we could sense the designers’ hesitation to physically touch and sense the tactility of objects in the beginning. But once they got into a playing mode, they were able to make quick interpretations of objects through tactile sensing and association. An action of picking two objects resulted in a story about why a particular object would marry another object, not the other way around. This explorative process was reflected upon by Rita: ‘I just chose some stuff and then I realise something about why I chose them and what it had. . . . So, the reflection that you have afterwards is very important.’ This statement indicates how powerful the object theatre research process can be in shaping designers’ ways of relating to objects. From Rita’s reflection it is easy to get the sense that the research process has sensitised her to object qualities in unexpected ways. She was able to make sense of material objects in a moment and make a rapid interpretation of that. Through the process, designers may open themselves to new meanings that emerge in spontaneous interaction between objects and people. Building designers’ confidence to act with and towards objects in new ways is one practical outcome of object theatre research processes.
Focusing on inherent object qualities
Sensitising oneself to inherent object qualities is an important skill especially when using readymade objects to engage with non-designer participants in the field. The designer should facilitate and encourage different interpretations of object qualities, which can then reveal social imagery (Margolies 2016) associated with objects. Through explorations of objects, the designers in this study recognised a change in selecting and handling objects. Each of the designers had their own design research project and a specific context in which they developed novel interview methods by using readymade objects to engage with non-designer participants. For Sam, who worked in the context of social work, and Rita, who concentrated on bodily awareness, the object theatre research processes triggered changes in relating to the materiality of objects and physical exploration. Tanya engaged in the process and had natural sensitivity to exploring the qualities of objects, but she did not manage to translate what she learnt into the tangible stakeholder game to the same extent as Sam and Rita. I revisit now these two latter cases and present reflections from the designers on how the process changed how they relate to objects.
Social: Object interviews with social workers. Sam designed the Object Interview Box consisting of readymade objects fuelled by the Object Family Tree exploration process, “Doing this exercise, I learned to understand a good amount about what the objects can do, and what limits them. The more I recognise the object, the more I feel limited about it, and the general value put into it. A knife would limit my imagination, while an abstract statue gave my imagination more room. I came to that conclusion that my interview box had to have both things. Something readily recognisable, and something abstract. For understanding what the objects could do, I tried to place items in the box with similar function but different qualities. Like a knife made of metal and one of plastic, a rope and a tube, a piece of fabric made of silk and one of cotton.”
In his final selection, Sam picked a variety of objects from abstract play material, such as a soft fur, solid and rough metal, transparent glass/plastic, or round and circular objects, to recognisable readymade objects, for example a knife, a glass, a rope, a light bulb, and many more. More insights on the results and the design research process can be found in Ryöppy and others (2018).
Body: Bodily awareness. To explore body parts and bodily sensations, Rita designed an interview method including objects that would offer the participants options to express their inner sensations as accurately as they could. Rita established a collage of carefully cast objects and designed a body-based method in three steps. Rita tried to leave aside object meaning-making to instead focus on shapes, material characteristics, and motion. Rita’s initial idea was to intuitively gather several different objects with each of them carrying different qualities. A reflection on the selection process of the objects is combined with the figure caption text of the interview object collage.
The interview objects were introduced as part of the body-based method progressing in three steps:
1) Sensitise: The participant is asked to close their eyes, relax, and try to connect with parts of their bodies that they can feel. They are asked to put a Post-it in each spot they feel some sensation.
2) Find the character: The participant is asked to choose one of the spots they identified and try to find the character of this spot and act it out. How would the body part talk and move, and what would it say if it had the ability to speak? The interview is then conducted between the interviewer and this body part as if it were a person. Starting with simple questions and letting the body part talk and ‘express itself’, the interview unfolds moving from past experiences ‘feeling healthy and strong’ towards the present moment ‘sensations of pain and emotional responses to that’.
3) If objects could talk: The participant is asked to choose an object from the interview object collage that relates to their chosen body part and to explain why they chose it. Next, they are asked to choose another object that resembles the ideal condition of that body part. The interviewer helps the participant to transform those two objects into talking objects and facilitates a dialogue among them.
In retrospect, Rita would have reduced the number of objects: ‘to keep many (object) qualities with . . . fewer items, since I realised that it could appear less chaotic for the participants to choose from’. When designing the object interview method and selecting readymade objects, Rita moved from an intellectual process to an action-based process, where a reflection of the selected objects followed an action. Her reflections are combined with the figure caption text of the interview object collage. When sensing the objects, Rita was able to place herself in the position of her participants, testing the potential expressive object qualities that could be utilised in the interview. The object theatre research process helped Rita use imagination and associate new meanings with objects, different from a common tendency to plan ahead.
Differences in designers' practices
In the explorations with readymade objects, I have often asked myself and the designers who I have worked with, ‘Who defines the meaning of an object?’ When comparing design probe tools and tangible tools with interview methods developed through object theatre processes in this exposition, I notice one major difference: in participatory design, it is usually the designer who crafts the design tool and is in charge of the selection and sometimes even pre-labels the objects. In the example of a probe suitcase developed for one-to-one interviews with cancer patients by Knutz and Markussen (2020), the objects selected in the suitcase were predefined and labelled with a specific value based on field observations by designers. The task for the interview participants was then to select which values (represented by objects) they would like to take with them on the involuntary journey of their cancer treatment process. The objects sparked conversations and worked as pointers of what values, for example, ‘dignity’ or ‘well-being’, might mean.
When compared to the Object Interview Box developed over the course of this study by Sam, the difference in the design process was striking. The objects in the box were cast through object explorations and their possible meaning was left intentionally open-ended to allow the participants to associate and articulate what meaning they give to the objects in the context of social work. Object qualities, for example, a soft fur, became important in expressing qualities of social work practice. The objects gained their meaning in the ongoing relating between the design researcher and the participant, guided by the participants’ intentions and meaning-making. The versatility and everydayness points towards another difference between object theatre practice and participatory design practice. When designing tangible tools, Buur and Mitchell (2011) discovered that business stakeholders responded better to a professional looking kit with silver objects on a black surface than to a colourful, playful, and organic set of materials, wooden bricks, or foam pieces. Designers often favour similar style or material objects in toolkits, laser cut or hand-made to specific shapes. Object theatre makes use of the aspects of wear, patina, or brokenness of objects, and aims to transform meaning through object manipulation rather than through specific style or material choices. Thus, readymade objects form essential foundations of object theatre.
Facilitating object interviews
To help the interview participant focus on the objects, the designer can facilitate the process by using expressive movements and recognisable metaphors and demonstrating different ways of manipulating objects. The demonstration can encourage the participant to try different ways of handling the objects and arriving at a new association. The most successful interviews with objects were those where the potential qualities of the readymade objects were explored thoroughly. I observed three ways in which the designers encouraged their interview participants:
- posing leading questions about a particular object: ‘What is it? What can that object do?’
- Demonstrating different ways of handling objects to invite the participant to try them out
- Simultaneously acting with an object and drawing on the object qualities
In order to gain deeper insights, the designer should have the ability to improvise and probe into the inherent qualities of an object. The preparation for the interview situation can be thought of similarly to what object practitioners do when developing a performance: the research process for their performance. Similarly the research process in design affects the designer’s performance in the field. The designers can find out about their own pre-understandings of objects and develop their own repertoire of interacting with objects. Facilitating interviews with objects requires not only a sensitivity to the qualities of objects, but also, beyond that, the skill of introducing non-designers to conveying their experiences through object theatre.
Future research
In this study, I explored the potential of introducing object theatre exercises to designers as a way to widen their repertoire with objects. The research contributes to participatory design by suggesting a practice-based methodology of object theatre for unfolding human-object relating in participatory design processes. To exchange practices and extend the impact of this research, more object theatre practitioners should be invited to collaborate with designers in similar collaborative research workshops. The developed field interview methods with object theatre should also be taken further to explore how those translate to other contexts and whether they work with other participants.
My PhD study revolved around object theatre traditions and participatory design practices, exploring the crossing interests across these two fields (Ryöppy 2021). I have put emphasis on social and relational theories (Stacey, Griffin, and Shaw 2000; Shaw and Stacey 2006) that come with understanding of objects as social entities and interaction as an ongoing process of social relating. During recent decades, new theoretical concepts of New Materialism (Barad 2003; Braidotti 2013) and object-oriented ontology (O-O-O) (Bogost 2012) have gained momentum in both design and theatre research. I have taken a critical approach to these theories because they aim to equalise power relations between human and non-human actors. However, I acknowledge that New Materialism and O-O-O will play an even stronger role in future research on objects and object theatre. It will provide interesting avenues for research on theatre practices by contrasting social and relational theories with non-human and O-O-O theoretical frameworks.
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