Praxis

Definition

Praxis is the accepted word, in Awan, Schneider, and Till's formulation, for a critical practice: "Against this emerges a critical practice or rather to use the accepted word – 'praxis' – which starts with an open-ended evaluation of the particular external conditions, out of which action arises with no predetermined outcome, but with the intention to be transformative." Its contrast class is traditional practice as "predetermined action, or… anticipating the world dogmatically, through its habit of playing out established themes." Praxis thus has three elements: an open-ended evaluation of particular conditions (no template); action with no predetermined outcome (no script); and transformative intention (no neutrality). Carraher transposes the term into digital design: "digital praxis" is practice that uses "the potential of digital technologies to produce space" so that "the public can be engaged in ways that broaden the discussion of how the interior built environment can benefit society" — expanding practice beyond the traditional clientele and "generating new types of spatial issues and potentials through the fabrication of form."

The concept carries the Marxist legacy Carraher names for the agency discourse: agency "often carr[ies] an implication of affecting change against societal structures" — and, after "many humanist Marxist scholars" (via Unwin), sees the dialog about space "as an opportunity to affect positive change on the world": "By understanding the production of space, it becomes possible to understand ways of changing the shape of that society." Praxis is therefore the bridge between critique (the wiki's critical-architecture cluster) and making: it insists that criticality be enacted in the act of building, not suspended before it.

Key Thinkers

• Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider & Jeremy Till — the concept's definers (Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, 2011): praxis as critical practice against predetermined action; making, writing, and acting as "tactical maneuvers" (not yet paged — see log).
• Erin Carraher — the digital transposition: "digital praxis" as computation + fabrication + open-source community, redefining practice toward empowerment.
• Henri Lefebvre — the humanist-Marxist ground: understanding the production of space as the condition of changing society's shape (via Tim Unwin).
• Michel de Certeau — the tactics/practice cousin: spatial agency as operation on the terrain of the other (cf. strategy-and-tactic).
• Jean Baudrillard — the classical distinction beneath the modern term, from his reading of Vernant on the Greek polis: praxis, the noble activity of use and of playing and acting, is set against "poesis which designates fabrication" — the artisan's problem "is one of the best use of things, not of their transformation through labor" (1973/1975). See artisanal-mode, use-value.

Related Concepts

• Spatial Agency — praxis's parent frame: the capacity to act within structures; praxis is that capacity's critical, open-ended form.
• Critical Architecture — the concept's critical-theoretical kin: praxis is critical architecture's practice-side pole (Hays's "actively and continually occupying a cultural place").
• Critical vs. Projective — the debate praxis repositions: open-ended action with transformative intent stands between critique's distance and the projective's instrumentality.
• Strategy and Tactic — Awan/Schneider/Till's "tactical maneuvers" vocabulary descends from de Certeau's tactics.
• Everyday Life — the terrain of the particular conditions praxis evaluates "open-endedly."
• Production Stream — the practice-model geography Satterfield & Swackhamer chart: repositioning practice as an analogue of praxis's openness.
• Artisanal Mode — the polis/artisan frame in which Baudrillard contrasts praxis (use) with poesis (fabrication), and symbolic work with labour as productive exteriority.
• Use-Value — praxis's own register in Vernant's polis: labour "seen exclusively as a function of the use value of the manufactured product."

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Technologies: The spatial agency of digital praxis (Carraher 2018) — the definition (Awan/Schneider/Till, p. 29, quoted); the Marxist legacy of the agency discourse; Unwin on Lefebvre; "digital praxis" as the chapter's namesake operation; the Spatial Agency catalogue ("bypass", "penetrate", "hijack", "open source"; empowerment through negotiation).

• Everyday Life: The Transformation of the Meaning of Agency (Başeren 2011) — the everyday-theory genealogy of agency's meaning-transformation that praxis presumes.

• Design studio through the subtle revelations of phenomenology (Smith 2018) — the pedagogical register of the thought-to-action bridge: "Experiential learning is the physical experience of making and doing which translates thought into action. Experiential learning reasserts the physicality of the teaching and learning experience through embodying design concepts in physical, project-based work" — praxis's "making" pole enacted as studio method (see experiential-learning), with "active experimentation, risk-taking, and reflective observation" as its mode and the teacher's commitment "to empower students to be freethinkers and questioners" as its transformative intention. See design-studio-pedagogy.

• The Mirror of Production (Baudrillard 1975) — the classical distinction beneath the modern term, from Baudrillard's reading of Vernant on the Greek polis: the artisan's problem "is one of the best use of things, not of their transformation through labor," and the contrast is drawn between use and fabrication — "Praxis, a noble activity, is always one of use, as distinct from poesis which designates fabrication. Only the former, which plays and acts, but does not produce, is noble" (ch. IV, "The Artisan," pp. 96–105). Placed here, praxis is not the transformation of the world but the use of it — which is why Baudrillard can say that in such an order "in no way does 'productivity' emerge." See artisanal-mode, use-value.

• Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real (Butler 1999) — the book-length secondary study that reads Baudrillard "in his own terms": the paradox of the sign (paradox-of-the-sign), simulation as the realization rather than the loss of the real (simulation-hyperreality), seduction as the limit to simulation, and the doubling power of theory (doubling, the-real, double-strategy).

• source-notes/hannah-2018-event-space

Open Questions

• Can praxis keep its "no predetermined outcome" openness once it is executed through parametric tools, which by definition predetermine the space of outcomes?
• Is digital praxis praxis at all in Awan/Schneider/Till's sense — their catalogue is defined by bypassing institutions, while digital practice typically requires the institution's software, hardware, and capital?
• Does the transformative intention survive scale: WikiHouse may empower a self-builder, but can digitally repositioned practice transform the structures (property, labour, finance) that produce housing need?