Creating an onto-epistemogram

Creating an onto-epistemogram is a challenging process. It involves breaking down a complex morass dynamics and interactions into inter-related phenomena. The diagramming language is by design limited and limiting – its formalisms help to surface exclusions that may well parallel exclusions in thought or practice.

Select an example

1. There can be no free-floating objects in an onto-epistemogram. There are only phenomena. Typically, phenomena will be cut between a constituted object (an inner circle) and a constituting process (an outer circle). The process may be one of observation, it may be a scientific experiment, it could be making in a workshop or an interview methodology. The object will be what is constituted from this - the object of perception, what is created by the experiment, or making process, the data gathered from the interview.

2. We then need to recognise moments where there is a meaningful shift in operation, a jump to another scale or configuration of becoming. For instance, once we have gathered the interview data, we need to analyse it. Once we have created an item, we may want to test it to see if it functions as intended. At each point, we can choose what scale these new phenomena will operate – we might take analysis or testing as a single function, or we could break them down into a number of successive steps.

3. From here, we may wish to trace out how processes influence one another in ways not captured by the diagram. For instance, the result of an experiment might lead to a refinement of the original experimental method. Two parallel processes might inform one another, as new techniques are used. This is represented by processes ’touching’ one another - this touching can be labelled, but can also be left indeterminate.

4. The diagram can be appended to represent what each phenomena excludes. This is intended only to represent exclusions within phenomena. We could view making and firing a clay pot as excluding all the other things that could have been made from that clay, for instance. Technically it should only include necessary exclusions - those that must arise from the resolution of the phenomenon. In practice, it is challenging to strictly adhere to do this.

5. Once a diagram is drafted, it is worth considering what is excluded not within the phenomena, but by the structure of the diagram itself. What is it unable to represent, what cannot be incorporated without examination. For instance, it can be challenging to represent the development of processes, whilst also charting the creation of objects through that process. Making a large number of granular scalar jumps might make it difficult to see choices made at a more expansive scale - for instance a choice of methodology, or medium. From here, we may wish to draw new diagrams which explores these aspects.