Incubation 5
Shared Mental Model Survey
In Spring 2025, 3 months after the Residency, PW receive a survey. It includes a set of 8 questions about ‘The Configurations’ – including prompt-based questions, paired comparison matrixes, and diagram requests. Its stated aim is ‘to get as accurate a sense as possible of what each participant’s understanding of the work is.’
Completion is optional. 5 people complete the survey.
(The example survey below was filled in by Tanith Mab).
Introduction
For further information:
N1 – ‘The Confetti Manifesto’ – preparatory document circulated to PW prior to survey, introducing conception of PW as ‘a set of components, an emergent switchboard, a learner-generated context, shared representation’ – with reference to Wayne Koestenbaum, certain blur-related aesthetics and Buddhist imagery.
The whole
Socio-cultural context
PW cross-reference ‘The Configurations’ with elements of its socio-cultural environment.
For further information:
N2 – Wikipedia Bibliography for developing a Collective Intelligence Test
Configuration-by-Configuration Basic Understanding
PW members give their remembered version of the contents of each Configuration.
Section largely left unanswered.
Table of Elements
PW members write down perceived degree of connectedness between the set of ‘characters’ and the set of narrative units that make up ‘The Configurations.’
Scattergram
PW diagram the relations between characters/’identity-positions.’
Interestingly this reveals relations between characters who aren’t narratively connected – suggesting a view of the different ‘Configurations’ as iterations and versions of the same story.
Themes
PW write down perceived degree of interconnectedness between narrative elements and a set of Themes.
For further information:
N3 – Number Fatigue/Possible Issues with Data
PW Members
PW write down perceived degree of interconnectedness between characters and the set of PW members who had been involved in the process of creating them.
For further information:
N4 – Data Technician
Communal Memory
PW cross-reference ‘The Configurations’ with elements of the group of artists collective lived experience of the ‘art scene’ in Manchester and just general city life.
How to Materialise This
PW offer suggestions about how they see the world of ‘The Configurations’ being realised and presented.
For further information:
N5 – PW’s realization suggestions in Inc 5
Notes
N1
The Confetti Manifesti
N2
Wikipedia Search Bibliography for developing a Collective Intelligence Test
C-factor tests for collective intelligence; ‘Honest Signals’ ; McGrath’s Task Circumplex ; Vsauce ‘Supertasks’ ; ‘Reading Literary Fiction Improves ToM’; Amazon Product Reviews model of CI – opinion aggregation ; social bookmarking and folksonomy ; joint attention tests ; attribution theory ; the temporoparietal junction ; mentalism – Derren Brown ; common milestone language.
N3
Number Fatigue/Issues with our data
Completing the survey requires making over 500 individual judgements and assigning number values to each one. PW found this a very draining, delirious process – especially considering the fields being cross-referenced were entirely fabricated and self-referential. In many cases it seems the quality of our data was compromised by the solipsistic intensity of the mental labour required – with survey-takers just spamming 0’s and 4’s and using other methods to get through it.
N4
Our Technical Consultant
Planet Thunk, the PW Technical Consultant, made a very important contribution to PW’s thinking about the connection between PW members and parts of ‘The Configurations’ :
‘This data will allow us to connect people to ‘The Configurations’ in 2 different ways: 1. it will directly show us who was voted as the most connected to each Con. 2. by extrapolating from the data of people’s answers to the other questions we’ll be able to see who answers were the most mathematically in line with the rest of the group, who’s answers were the most representative, for each Con. Overall, we’ll be able to seewho actually knows each Con the most and also who everyone thinks knows the Con the most. Then we could give each of these people different levels of authority/different roles in relation to material from that Con.’
This led to the twin roles of of ‘The Expert’ and ‘The Appointee’ in Inc 6.
N4
PW’s Suggestions from Inc 5
Survey-takers answer to Q10 – ‘what presentational options do you think would be best suited to ‘The Configurations’ :
‘An installation with multi-screen film and documentary and concurrent performance art.’ – Huz
‘A real life play. In a weird place.’ – Tanith
‘Shadow libraries ,Knowledge sharing ,Art schools ,Immersive exhibitions ,Blogging Public letter writing ,Reading group, shared experiencing, exploring the trafford centre. Urban readymades, the audience doesnt know theyll be an audience until they are. In person, with online presence. ,A curated universe, many moving points and in real life outcomes. Documentaries , fake documentaries that shed light on real things we question.’ – Kris
‘As i’ve been filling this out i’ve been feeling that a group exhibition is probably the format to go for here, I’m not currently convinced that there is a through-line to our ideas that would work presented as theatre, film, or a similar single-piece medium, although I would be happy if a majority feel otherwise. This feels like a nexus of ideas whose links are best left as a loose nexus, which suits an exhibition where a theme can be loose and a collective can be loosely drawn. I think having that sense of mystery about which themes/elements from PW people are taking on could pay off really nicely in discovering links between different contributors’ works.
I think in-person better than online. I think for an external audience our ideas are not in-your-face enough to draw people into viewing online art, or to sit somewhere for a long time figuring something out. I think we’d be best letting people sit with what they’re most drawn to, and unpack from there. I think we need to nail our aesthetics and make sure things are compelling enough at a first glance that audiences then want to spend more time doing thinking, feeling, analysis and drawing connections. To me this means it’s worth the effort to make this broadly accessible – a venue that compels people to attend by ease and aura, pretty well-executed presentation, consideration of spacing and timing of pieces.’ – Foam Necklace