Towards Sensemaking in the Meshwork of Technology, Ecology and Society: Symbiosis of Aesthetics, Performance and Digitalization

To act, humans first need to make sense of the world. Thereby, sensemaking goes beyond accumulation of pure information of objects or rational knowledge production, but it encompasses additional information such as meaning, mindful engagement, socially embedded knowledge, cultural and work contexts. To navigate in diverse environments, sensemaking becomes central to social settings, also to engage with technologies and understand dynamics in ecological environments. In a complex world where technologies are added components of everyday life and are envisioned as partial means to approach global challenges, social, technological, and ecological environments become intertwined. This meshwork of environments also means to bring together different kinds of knowledge as a base of sensemaking through experience. In the Digital Sensemaking project we specifically look at digitization processes, the interaction with IoT Elements and Digital Twins through the lens of performance art to elaborate on the non- cognitive core constituents of sensemaking processes: embodiment, action-sense nexus, and temporality. We show that aesthetics can be found as an important dimension to bridge the cognitive and non-cognitive process and explore the role of art in this kind of research. It facilitates process and technological development in organizations entangling the social, technological, and ecological.