A Semiotic System Diagram for Creative Life Curation

Oliver Ding -

On Oct 20, 2022, I introduced the Creative Life Curation framework.

On Oct 26, 2022, I introduced a semiotic system diagram in order to curate three paths of Creative life together. See the diagram below.

Today I will introduce a new semiotic system diagram that expands the above diagram and offers more details of the Creative Life Curation framework.

Contents

1. The Creative Life Curation Project
2. Turning Experiences into Themes
3. Five Units of Analysis
4. The Basic Structure
5. Subjectivity: Turning potential opportunities into actual actions
6. Subjectification: Turning the world into a person’s experience
7. Objectification: Turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world
8. Curating Projects into a Journey
9. Curating Projects into a Landscape
10. Curating Projects into a Lifescape
11. An Open Framework

1. The Creative Life Curation Project


My primary interest is located in the intersection between Knowledge,  Creativity, and Adult Development. I roughly use Creative Life to name this focus.

It’s clear that I don’t want to develop a general framework about adult development for everyone. I only consider Knowledge Workers and Creators as my target audience.

The Creative Life Curation project aims to adopt Curativity Theory to understand Creative Life. The diagram below is the basic model of the Creative Life Curation framework.

The above framework highlights two tendencies:

  • Subjectification - Experience 1: turning the world into a person’s experience.
  • Objectification - Experience 2: turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world.

The term “Experience 1 / Experience 2” connects to the General Curation Framework. See the diagram below.

As an application of Curativity Theory, the above General Curation Framework represents the structure and dynamics of general curation practice. The activity of general curation aims to collect pieces of things into a meaningful whole in order to present a theme to a group audience.

The above diagram highlights several pairs of concepts:

  • Pieces v.s. Whole
  • Whole v.s. Container
  • Collect v.s. Present
  • Actor v.s. Audience
  • Experience v.s. Theme

I use Experience 1 to refer to turning the world into a person’s experience. For Life Curation Activity, this means Collecting pieces of life experiences.

Experience 2 refers to turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world. For Life Curation Activity, this means Presenting a new meaningful whole to a group audience.

The key to the transformation between Experience 1 and Experience 2 is Crystallize Thematically which refers to the process of discovering a match between individual life themes and collective cultural themes.

However, the above framework is an abstract framework. We need to find more details behind these concepts, especially the process of turning Experiences into Themes.

2. Turning Experiences into Themes


The new semiotic system diagram aims to develop a landscape of creative life curation.

In the past several months, I wrote a series of articles and a set of tools for slow cognition, knowledge creation, life strategy, and related topics. The new diagram weaves these ideas together.

Moreover, I want to use the new semiotic system diagram to explore the details of turning experiences into themes. This is the critical part of Creative Life Curation.

The above diagram is the first version of the new semiotic system diagram. The rest of the article will unpack this diagram and offers more details.

3. Five Units of Analysis

How to read the above diagram?

We can start with the following five keywords which refer to five Units of Analysis of Creative Life Curation.

In 2019, I founded Creative Action Learning Lab (CALL) as an independent research project. Its keyword is Creative Action and it refers to my approach to creativity research: the “Process as Product” approach. You can find more details in The NICE Way and Creative Actions.

Later, it led to the Path of Creative Life and four possible books. You can find more details in Aspects of Creative Life: Four Possible Books for Knowledge Creators.

In the past 12 months, I developed a new structure of Units of Analysis:

  • Creative Actions
  • Creative Work (Projects)
  • Creative Journey
  • Creative Landscape
  • Creative Lifescope

Each Unit of Analysis refers to a unique time scale, spatial scale, and theoretical focus.

4. The Basic Structure

The new semiotic system diagram was designed with the following basic structure.

The content of the diagram is formed with three parts:

  • Subjectivity:  Turning potential action opportunities into actual actions
  • Subjectification: Turning the world into a person’s experience
  • Objectification: Turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world

The above discussion mentions five Units of Analysis. I also made a distinction between Creators and Curators. These two roles are assigned to different Units of Analysis.

  • Creators: Creative Life (Action, Project)
  • Curators: Creative Container (Journey, Landscape, Lifescope)

What does this distinction mean?

It means that "Action" and "Project" are related to Creators. These two Units of Analysis are necessary for Creators.

However, "Journey", "Landscape", and "Lifescope" are only useful to Curators, they are not necessary for Creators.

This distinction is inspired by sociologists' distinction between Actors and Researchers. While Actors don't need to consider producing scientific sociological knowledge, researchers have to do it.

The Creative Life Curation framework focuses on the Curativity of Life experience. All tools and methods are developed for professional curators who aim to 1) produce scientific knowledge for the public, and 2) help creators improve their creative actions.

We should notice that a creative person could be both a Creator and a Curator of her own creative actions.In this manner, she is running self-guided Creative Life Curation projects.

5. Subjectivity: Turning potential opportunities into actual actions


The first part of the diagram is Subjectivity. See the diagram below.

I work on several theoretical approaches. Each approach has its own way to define Subjectivity. I used the Ecological Practice approach to guide the Creative Life Curation project.

The primary theme of the Ecological Practice approach is the "Actualization of Opportunities". Inspired by Ecological Psychology, the Ecological Practice Approach defines a set of Potential Action Opportunities:

  • Affordance
  • Projectivity
  • Attachance
  • Supportance
  • Curativity

I only highlight "Affordance", "Projectivity", and "Curativity" for the new diagram. You can also notice that there are three types of "Curativity" which mean "turning pieces into a meaningful whole".

  • Curativity 1: Turning pieces of Projects into a Journey as a meaningful whole
  • Curativity 2: Turning pieces of Projects into a Landscape as a meaningful whole
  • Curativity 3: Turning pieces of Actions and Projects into a Lifescope as a meaningful whole

How does a creator or curator perceive Potential Action Opportunities? They rely on Sense-makers. Thus, the part of Subjectivity is organized with the following three ideas: Potential - Sense-maker - Actual.

For example, Activity Theory has the key concept of Object which is a sense-maker of the theory. So, I think we can assign similar sense-makers to Project and Event. For example, I think the primary sense-maker of a Project can be Identity and the primary sense-maker of an Event can be Theme.

Projects refer to both events and activities and it shares some aspects with them. Project’s primary sense-maker is Identity and its secondary sense-makers are Theme and Object.

6. Subjectification: Turning the world into a person’s experience


The second part of the diagram is Subjectification which is about life experience.

I made a distinction between First-order Experience and Second-order Experience. While First-order Experience is directly given, it requires using Techniques to detective Second-order Experience. See the diagram below.

For example, Immediate Experience is directly given by everyday life events and actions. It belongs to First-order Experience.

If we don't reflect on Immediate Experience intently, we can't acquire deep meaning and knowledge under Immediate Experience. The Reflection brings us Reflective Experience which belongs to Second-order Experience.

I adopt the Project Engagement approach to understand the "Project" unit of analysis. The approach aims to build a connection between individual life and collective life.

Initially, I used the term "Project Engagement" to name the second part of my 2020/2021 book Project-oriented Activity Theory which introduces Andy Blunden's "project as a unit of analysis of activity" to Activity Theory. In 2022, it expanded to a series of tools for understanding project-oriented life and innovation. You can find more details in Project Engagement (v2.1) as an Innovation Approach.

Andy Blunden mentions a project-oriented approach is both psychology and sociology, “A project is a focus for an individual’s motivation, the indispensable vehicle for the exercise of their will and thus the key determinant of their psychology and the process which produces and reproduces the social fabric. Projects, therefore, give direct expression to the identity of the sciences of the mind and the social sciences. Projects belong to both; a project is a concept of both psychology and sociology.” (2014, p.15)

The concept of Life can be understood as Collective Life and Individual Life. We can use the concept of Project to understand both of them. A person’s real life is a set of real actions. The concept of Project is a way of curating these actions. On the other hand, Collective Life can be curated with Projects too.

While Projection refers to the First-order Experience of joining a project, Significance refers to reflecting on Projection. Why does a person start or join a project? What does the project mean to the person in her life?

The technique for turning Projection into Significance is called Activity Analysis because the Project Engagement approach belongs to Activity Theory. We can use many models of Activity Theory as tools for our analysis. For example, the diagram below is an example of using the basic model of Activity Theory to reflect on a project.

While the basic model of Activity Theory considers "Subject - Mediating Instruments - Object", the above example also uses a series of operational concepts for Activity Analysis. You can find more details of the example in Mapping Thematic Journey (Engaging with Activity Theory, 2020 - 2022).

7. Objectification: Turning the person’s experience into artifacts for the world


The third part of the diagram is Objectification which is about turning life experience into material objects.

The concept of Objectification is inspired by Project-oriented Activity Theory. It represents three types of Objectification of a Concept:

  • Symbolic Objectification: “Verbal” and “Visual”
  • Instrumental Objectification: “designed” and “found”
  • Practical Objectification: “Branded” and “Shared”

The above diagram represents a sequential structure of the Objectification of a Concept. According to Andy Blunden, Symbolic Objectification is the first stage, Instrumental Objectification is the second stage, and Practical Objectification is the third stage. You can find an example in Case Study: TEDx as "Formation of Concept" [Activity Theory].

My focus is the Objectification of Life Experience, I roughly use the above three stages as three types of objectification. See the diagram below.

I only use these three types of objectification as a reference frame. In fact, there are four rows in the body of the Objectification part. See the diagram below.

The goal of Creative Life Curation project is to turn a person's creative actions into a social collective culture. I consider symbolic objectification as the final stage of this process. See the last row.

Name > Concept > Life Themes > Emerging Themes > Cultural Themes

Moreover, I use the "Thematic Engagement" toolkit to understand the process. The toolkit is inspired by the "Project Engagement" approach and the "Themes of Practice" approach. The primary focus of the toolkit is to connect Life Themes and Cultural Themes.

In this way, we build an operational framework for understanding the chain of Creative Life Curation:

Affordance > Action > Experience > Theme > Culture

I have written several possible books (drafts) and many articles for this chain. Now the semiotic system diagram curates related ideas together.

8. Curating Projects into a Journey


As mentioned above, Curativity 1 refers to turning pieces of Projects into a Journey as a meaningful whole.

Inspired by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s ideas on the Cognitive Science of the Embodied Mind in their 1999 book Philosophy in The Flesh and other books, I developed the "Project - Journey" structure for the Creative Life Curation project.

  • Journey: the Event-Structure metaphor, long-term activities, and a number of intermediate purposes.
  • Project: the Source-Path-Goal schema, short-term projects, each project refers to an intermediate purpose of the Journey.

See the diagram below.

In Life Strategy: The “Possible Journey”, I introduced a technique called "Possible Journey" for designing a Developmental Project.

There are several related terms to the technique:

  • Real Events
  • Actual Journeys
  • Possible Journeys
  • Imagined Journeys

Real Events refer to things that happen in our life while Actual Journeys refer to planned activities that contain several actions as real events.

The above four projects are Real Events because they happened in my life. However, they are not an Actual Journey because they are not planned as a meaningful whole in the beginning.

Thus, they are a Possible Journey.

Since the meaning of an Actual Journey is given in the beginning, what is the meaning of a Possible Journey as a whole?

A possible journey needs a reasonable structure to curate several intermediate purposes into a new meaningful whole.

This is a challenge of sensemaking with life projects.

One way to deal with this challenge is discovering Life Themes from Projects. It requires discovering Patterns behind actions and projects and detecting Similarities and Differences between projects.

You can find a case study in Mapping Thematic Journey (Engaging with Activity Theory, 2020 - 2022).

9. Curating Projects into a Landscape


Curativity 2 refers to turning pieces of Projects into a Landscape as a meaningful whole.

While the Unit of Analysis "Journey" aims to reflect on a long-duration life experience, the Unit of Analysis "Landscape" focuses on the global view of life experience at a particular duration.

The primary aspect of "Landscape" is a Network of connected Projects. We can use Thematic Analysis to discover Synergy Effects from the Complexity of the Network. See the diagram below.

On Sept 2, 2022,  I developed a new method called Mapping Thematic Landscape for the Slow Cognition project. Now we can adopt it for the Creative Life Curation project.

On Sept 2, 2022, I used my "Curativity" Knowledge Enterprise as an example to develop the "Thematic Landscape" method. The final result is a large diagram. See the screenshot below.

The method uses three nested circles as a basic model.

  • Theme: this inner circle is for displaying Themes and Books.
  • Work: the middle circle refers to Projects and two types of Knowledge Frameworks: Abstract Models and Concrete Models.
  • Play: the outer circle is about Programs that consider two types of things: Tools and Actions.

While the Theme circle and the Work circle are about knowledge makers' individual work, the Play circle refers to the collaborative space between knowledge makers and knowledge users.

These three circles also have different significant aspects of complexity.

  • Theme: the cognitive aspect of complexity is the primary challenge.
  • Work: the material aspect of complexity is the primary challenge.
  • Play: the social aspect of complexity is the primary challenge.

The mapping method can be used to 1) Reflect on Present Situations, 2) Discover Potential Themes, 3) Explore Possible Projects, and Find Synergy Effects.

10. Curating Projects into a Lifescape


Curativity 3 refers to turning pieces of Actions and Projects into a Lifescope as a meaningful whole.

Creative Lifescope is defined by a creative person's biographical time and social space.

Creative Lifescope (Oliver Ding, 2021)

I drew the above diagram to visualize the notion of “Lifescope”. There is a dimension called Social Space behind “Self → Other → Field” and “Moment → Project → Theme” refers to another dimension called Biographical Time. These two dimensions define a creative person’s Lifescope.

A creative person’s Lifescope is defined by his creative work which can be measured with social space and biographical time.

I use the Platform Genidentity framework to understand the Unit of Analysis "Lifescope".

A thing’s Genidentity is defined by Essential Differences with Situated Dynamics.

The diagram below is the basic model of the Platform Genidentity framework.

The Unit of Analysis "Lifescope" is related to biographical analysis. It considers a creative person's life as a whole.

Moreover, we can consider a creative person's "Lifescope" as a Possible Developmental Platform for the person. In this way, we can adopt the Platform for Development framework to understand the "Lifescope".

You can find more details in Platform Genidentity: The Movements of Unfolding Uniqueness.

11. An Open Framework


This is the first version of the Semiotic System Diagram for the Creative Life Curation project.

It's an open framework!

If we can discover a new significant aspect of Creative Life and develop a corresponding method, we can add Curativity 4 and related keywords to the diagram.

Or, we can add Curativity 1.5 or Curativity 2.5 to the diagram.