Phenomenography

Definition

Phenomenography is Ross T. Smith's name for the outward expression of phenomenological experience — the recording and documentation of lived perception as communicable work. Smith's note 9 states the distinction exactly: "Phenomenology is the apprehension and comprehension of phenomena, whereas phenomenography is the expression of that experience graphically or physically as documentation and outward expression of experiential learning. The former could be considered an internalized process whilst the latter an externalized manifestation of the phenomenological process. Phenomenography is the process of recording physically, as drawing and writing, making and building, the outcomes of learning by doing as things which materialized and can be seen, discussed, and reflected upon by the individual or others."

The concept does the pedagogical work of converting perception into discipline: the "phenomenographic manifestation of these experiences in written, drawn, photographed, or modeled form is the way architects and designers communicate in specific language with others." Its media are the body's: "the phenomenographic expression of our experience through movement, writing, drawing, making, photography, and performance." Drawing mediated by the body is exemplary — "a phenomenographic process of transferring thought to paper" (see blind-drawing). Language is the necessary complement: "Language becomes the necessary complement to drawing by adding the descriptive and poetic details that drawings merely allude to" — the descriptive-poetic register that gives "nuance and eloquence to silent drawings and models."

Key Thinkers

• Ross T. Smith — the concept's author and definer: phenomenography as the externalized manifestation of phenomenology; the internalized/externalized pair; the six media (movement, writing, drawing, making, photography, performance); language as drawing's complement.
• David Seamon — the language standard Smith invokes (see log): phenomenology describes the world with "vividness, accuracy, richness, and elegance" — the criteria phenomenographic documentation aims at.
• Gaston Bachelard — the poetic register of the expression: "one needs a poetic language to bring life to the phenomena, sensation, and interpretation."

Related Concepts

• Subtle Revelation — the internalized pole phenomenography externalizes: apprehension and comprehension of phenomena become "documentation and outward expression."
• Experiential Learning — the process whose outcomes phenomenography records: "the outcomes of learning by doing as things which materialized."
• Blind Drawing — phenomenography's paradigm exercise: "Drawing (or any mark making) mediated by the body is a phenomenographic process of transferring thought to paper."
• Representation — the neighbor phenomenography must be distinguished from: expression of lived experience rather than depiction of objects; "not objects, but feelings of a thing."
• Waiting Drawing — the wiki's other phenomenographic drawing-concept: Hedges's drawing that marks time, made of "differences in weight, interval, and motion."

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Design studio through the subtle revelations of phenomenology (Smith 2018) — the concept's source and definition (note 9); the language-as-complement claim; the media list; "the phenomenographic manifestation of these experiences in written, drawn, photographed, or modeled form is the way architects and designers communicate."

Open Questions

• In the educational-research literature, "phenomenography" names an empirical method (Ference Marton's study of the ways people experience phenomena — variation in conceptions). Smith's usage is different: the expression/documentation of experience. Are these homonyms or relatives — and does Smith's design-studio usage obscure or enrich the established term?
• If phenomenography is "the way architects and designers communicate," is it a genre (with standards of "vividness, accuracy, richness, and elegance," per Seamon) or merely whatever the body produces? Can a smudge (Smith's "ephemeral or material quality") be assessed as phenomenographic documentation?
• Smith's pair suggests phenomenology without phenomenography is incomplete (experience never expressed) and phenomenography without phenomenology is empty (expression without apprehension). Does studio assessment, which grades only the externalized artifact, structurally lose the internalized half — and is that loss the blind drawing exercise designed to prevent or to expose?