Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged Oslo on March 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged Kabelvåg on February 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged Helsinki, Tromsø on February 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged Fashion Street, London on February 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »
As part of our discussion, I had asked whether we could draw an image of work flows that consisted of human judgement and calculative dimension. Specifically:
I sought to visualize relationships by reference to practical understandings and also through IT systems. Information-sifting, for example, is selective and depends on high levels of embodied understandings such as years of experience. By contrast, IT infrastructure such as DB Planning Systems employ a logic of conversion whereby the Arctic is converted into knowledge with the intention of creating value.
While in the first instance, assembly (in white) takes place by rendering embodied knowledge explicit, in the second, technical systems (in color) redistribute calculative capacities from humans to machines.
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged London, White Chapel on January 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Customer satisfaction in speed and logic of performance…
In response to the question: “How long should it take for a screen to upload after pressing the submit button?”
Answer: “Two to three minutes for the biggest queries or else the thought process identifies a problem with the software or computer [and for normal reports] it should be pretty instantaneously”
1/22: In the above quote, I underlined the last few words, “it should be pretty instantaneously,” to stress how quickly information of arctic energy developments can be accessed through the Evaluate Universe (see below posts for introductions to the Evaluate Energy universe).
The quote is from John Q., Senior Analyst responsible for managing financial research data for global oil and gas development. What strikes me in particular, is how incredibly speedy and easy it is to access this Norwegian continental shelf map produced by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. I can download the map in an instant. I have posted a screenshot of it directly below.
I first came across this map as a full length paper print out hanging on the wall in the office of a colleague at a Norwegian university. As I stood staring at the map, my colleague acknowledged the aesthetic wonder of the variety of information contained in one glance, and immediately afterward, mentioned that he could order an extra map for me. I responded with great admiration and desire, as if having the map itself would elevate my understanding of events in the country.
At Evaluate E. however, such maps are available at the click of a button.
The images above are all computer screenshots taken from the “Key E & P Assets” link [“E” stands for exploration and “P” for production] located on the “Country” page of the Evaluate website. If you look on the bottom left hand side of each screen shot, there is a “Blocks Map” and “View” link, which is the links the page to the resources directorate of each country under view.
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged London, White Chapel on January 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »
1/21: In a previous post, I call attention to the images above by their depiction of Productive Calm. That is, analysts spend long days intensely concentrated on computer analysis of data gathering and managing financial reporting on oil/gas developments. The day begins at 9:30AM and ends at 5PM, but analysts are often in the office anytime between 8AM and 7PM. They take no longer than 45 minutes lunch break outside the office, and sometimes lunch at their desks. Apart from eye movements, blinking, and constant finger typing, there is not so much bodily movement throughout the day. Analysts will get up from theirs seats to walk across the room to a toilet located in the office, but tend to avoid the casual practice of standing up and stretching.
In this display of images, I discuss the threshold of problem-solving that leads to physical movement by engaging a fellow analyst in the room.
Verbal communication is not as frequent as I would have imagined given the analysts proximity to each other. Actual physical movement by one analyst moving to the station of another analyst is rare. The two occasions when I notice it taking place are (1) when an analyst will walk by each station inquiring if he or she can make a cup of tea; and (2) when a problem arises that cannot be solved over electronic communication between the analysts. To explain: all the analysts in this room are constantly chatting to each other over Skype (less so over email because of the lack of immediacy and frequently also, the subject heading is often ambiguous possibly suggesting a greater time requirement for response than the instantaneous and “emotional” reaction offered by Skype chat).
In fact, with one-half the analysts working abroad in Ahmedabad (“India team”) and the other half located here on Fashion Street (“London team”), Skype also integrates both groups working on two sides of the world. Actually, with a Calgary (Alberta, Canada) office, the Evaluate Universe is never off-line for more than three hours per day. The Evaluate day begins at 4:30 AM Greenwich meantime (in Ahmedabad 9:30 AM India Standard Time) and ends 1:30AM Greenwich meantime (in Calgary 6:30PM Mountain Time).
In the above image, John Q. is seen sitting on the left (under the orange arrow), while Hannah K. is seen sitting on the right (under the red arrow). This is the regular order of the E. Universe. It would be dramatic to move a chair over to another analysts station without justification. Nevertheless, in the image below, John is seen sitting next Hannah, in close proximity while talking.
Over lunch, John explained to me that a problem takes place that cannot be solved over Skype. So, physical movement of one analyst to another analyst’s station is linked to problem solving. But what kind of problem? Yesterday, when I noticed John having moved his chair over to Hannah’s, I moved my own chair to sit in on their discussion, looking over their shoulder to get a sense of what what all the hubbub was about.
On one level, there is a requirement of sitting next to Hannah, and using a hand movement to direct her attention to a particular place on the computer screen.
The location is quite specific, but in fact, it refers to one location from which the surrounding area can be discussed in reference to that location. The location is not the actual number he is point to directly, but in fact, the “column” of numbers, and its placement in relationship to other columns, suggesting a problem of hierarchy in taxonomy.
In particular, as in this image directly below, cropped from the above discussion, what is discussed is a relationship.
On the far left, a column of numbers lies under a heading titled “Crown lands” which refers to an abstract identification number for a land tract provided by the federal ministry of Natural Resources Canada . To the right is a column headed by “Township Range”, which identifies the actual geographical location of the tract. The column on the far right is “Stratigraphic Description” which refers to the name of the actual geological layer in that tract. Oil and gas deposits can be situated vertically crossing various geological layers, each with their own permissions on working interest. For example, the columns in the middle titled “Top zone” and “Bottom Zone” refer to a specific geological layer, and the columns to the left, titled “Include/Exclude” indicate whether a geological layer is part of a particular tract.
In this particular case, the taxonomy of township over crown land would increase the likelihood that the stratigraphic permissions would be spread across the sheet (on the computer screen) in a more legible manner. So in this particular case, the issue of physical movement is associated with creating aesthetic legibility through rearranging a taxonomic hierarchy in which geological location (township identity) more closely identified working interest rights than federally assigned identification.
So, in this case, after some discussion of both the situation and a plan to rearrange the appearance of data, Hannah takes notes on how to move forward.
The completed list of tasks for rearranging this taxonomy is shown directly above. This complete list is then “reduced” to a smaller sentence and inputed into Hannah’s over all main list of activities to do on this project, as seen in this image below:
Posted in Paparazzi Ethnography, tagged London on January 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »
1/20: The image above is a newly created product by Evaluate E., an energy information firm on fashion street in the White Chapel section of downtown London, not too far from Liverpool underground station. The office space for the firm is located inside a refurbished factory space, where it continues in its tradition of serving as a kind of sweatshop of the twenty-first century, with knowledge workers focused on computer screens in their role as caretakers of a massive data base on oil and gas corporate performance.
The image below is the actual location of most daily activity, a space of productive calm where the people in the photo are now familiar to me by name and to some extent by certain observable attitudes toward labor and knowledge.
I have been coming down to Evaluate E. daily, occupying that empty chair located in the above image on the left. It is not that simple what this firm does. I can tell you in a sentence that they apply accounting practices to energy corporate data, so that clients can measure the individual (or peer group) performance across the industry. When you actually look at the data (accessible through client login), however, it is really hard to understand how they compile it, how they assemble it, and how clients find value in it.
First off, the analysts compile a lot of data, on topics ranging from Mergers and Acquisitions to the actual names of individual production licenses or wells in various basins globally. Take a look at the image above, for example, which is the same as the first image of this post, but taking place at a more “granular level”.
Granularity is a topic of great concern here in this office, and a lot of time is spent managing and producing ways so that clients can gain access to its particular forms. For example, again referring to the top image, you can see a lot of black splotches, almost appearing like a Roarschach test image. At a more granular level, the image directly above, we see the splotches in the form of little round targets.
Looking at the “legend” below, you can see that targets have particular shape to indicate what type of oil/gas well they might be. 
And in the above image, if you click on a target, a data box opens providing information on the UWI (unique well indicator) and other types of data, that you can click on that will bring you back to various parts of the data base for examining performance of the well, its operators, owners, periods of operation and the like.
As a final example in this series, directly below is the window that indicates the specific kinds of information on each well, and that you may click on to find out more details. You will notice, for example, a little graph design on the very left of each item. Pressing on that little sign delivers a new window in the form of a graph, seen directly below, which in this case indicates performance of a particular well.
Access to such an office requires a magic wand. While small by comparison to other items in the big city, it appears here below like a blunt instrument in the context of the delicacy with which my new colleagues focus their lives.
While out in the street, life goes on pretty much as usual.
Paparazzi Ethnography 