Generative vs reductive

Author: joe

Friday, 06 February, 2009 - 08:04

Further to the attraction of Ian Bogost's definiton of system and unit operations, which are each respectively top-down and bottom-up tools of analysis, is the fact that the unit operation he articulates is procedural rather than descriptive.

So just as structuralist analysis is reductionist while post-structuralist analysis is productive, so system operations are like 'black box' simplifications, while unit operations are transformative and generative. Not unlike the comparison between scientific and metaphorical ways of thinking I described a while back in terms of understanding the lives and evolution of cities.

Categories: structuralism, post-structuralism, Bogost, unit, system, operation, analysis, generative, productive, reductive ,
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