By necessity, he or she uses a set of specific concepts, methods, and instruments that allow him or her to perform in a variety of contexts.
from Tom Avermaete, “Accommodating the Afropolis: Michel Eccochard’s Alternative Approach to the Modern City,” Informalize! Essays of Political Economy and Urban Form (Berlin: The Ruby Press, 2012) p.21.
And so we look for a tool to look for our contexts. In doing so, we redefine the existing meaning of these instruments and their contexts.
Danger Safety Tape is no longer just an instrument of defining danger and shedding risk. It also marks the extent of the page, defining an inside and outside, a participant and an audience. From behind the tape, an individual can ask questions verbally, communicating interest through watching. Inside the tape an individual can ask questions by taking action – physically digging a trench to locate the extents of a tree root. Perhaps the only synonym for context is frame. The danger tape signifies both a physical frame and provides other meta-frames. The tape signifies to our audience that this is a work zone : official, not to be tampered with, dangerous. It mimics something familiar of the fences further along the allée, another testing zone – material mockups for new buildings to be come. In turn, it sheds us a credibility and a stability. Not just a bunch of unhinged students devoted to a tree – which we completely are.
The One Tree Project 