Heath and Jon Hindmarsh

Heath and Jon Hindmarsh:
Configuring Action in Objects: From Mutual Space to Media Space
Two main topics of the article

• How aspects of the material environment are rendered momentarily intelligible in and through interaction
• The ways in which objects provide a resource for the recognition of the actions and activities of others.

How the material world is rendered meaningful

The scene is shaped, rendered intelligible, with regard to the resources provided by John and the sequentially appropriate activity, discovering and displaying the position of the train in question.

Discovering and seeing the object, or rather constituting one aspect of the physical environment in a particular way, engenders sequentially relevant actions by both John, Graham, and presumably at some later date, by the caller himself.

Objects as resource for the recognition of the actions and activities of others

The object and its perception is separated or fragmented from the very ways in which it is rendered noticeable, and thereby stands before the participants as an “objective order of social fact.”

The characterization may consist of a train number or something funny. The characterization informs the ways in which the environment is inspected by the coparticipant and how the particular object is discovered