How do you determine the “correct” figure and ground? Is there such a thing? How much can study of culture/society be structured, and how much must be left to be free as it is? What is the purpose of project design, outside of our own personal curiosities, motives, and interests? Sometimes I find the more I attempt to impose any sort of structure, the more the evidence defies those structures. Even with an open system, I wonder to what extent it might run the risk of imposing on that which we are attempting to understand.
"Projects, like other meaning-making processes, work in part because they exclude. Signal becomes signal, through often painful designations of what will, for the moment, count as noise."
This quote reminds me a great deal of a quote I learned of by Stuart Hall. While I do not recall the exact text of this quote, he asserts that one can keep on going theorizing and describing a social phenomenon. But at some point one has to take a stand, to take action. Making a project is painful--I am of the combination and contexture disorder variety. I have a strong feeling that guides me towards what seems most relevant/interesting, but then the exact object I am seeking out eludes me. After a certain point, I have to act as a DJ of sorts, adjusting the volume settings of various keys to determine a preferred arrangement. However, I am then left wondering what I may be missing out on with a different arrangement. What if the object I really want to find is elsewhere, and not here where I have been searching?