I believe in radical social constructivism, second order cybernetics and reasonable argumentation to first principles. My work as a lecturer, and subsequently as a design researcher, has been shaped by an introspective and autopoietic "design" thinking, which owes as much to Maturana as to Heidegger. I am an introvert who has learned to use the argumentation tools of an extrovert, in order to reach my students and allow them to follow my thinking processes.
The following extract from my masters dissertation, Deconstruction and Appropriation, was written... more The following extract from my masters dissertation, Deconstruction and Appropriation, was written long before there was such a term as woke, and yet I find that many of our contemporary issues around freedom of speech, freedom of association, societal structures, and downright normalcy had (at the time of writing the dissertation - 1997) already been under attack from the far left and the far right disguised as postmodern thought.
"On Gadamer's view, to set oneself up as the arbiter of the `communicative competence' of others in this way can only be elitist" [Warnke 1987:127]. But the way of seeing that the Other adheres to, through a particular use of a materialist language-game, seems to have the aim of disintegrating the socio-historical domain, because the Other believes that this domain is repressive of their domain, and their domain, their meanings, demand recognition and legitimacy (for wokeness).
Certain postmodern works of art, using a materialistic theory of language, privilege theory over ... more Certain postmodern works of art, using a materialistic theory of language, privilege theory over practice in their function of liberating the Other through the assertiveness of the new voices and metanarratives, in a visual language that turns away from creative artistic preoccupations and towards social manipulation through a persuasive linguistical system of appropriation and subverted deconstruction. It becomes a visual language of art that transforms symbolic systems of signification into those of materialistic and prosaic signification. The theorists present their own metalinguistical images of fiction as those of society, and through the mechanism of exchange in the simulacrum, social subjects come to inhabit the world of virtual reality in these created fictions, thus abandoning positions of power, now occupied by the new creators of reality, the critics, theorists, and artists who legitimize the marketplace of ideas, in which the theories of the new open society gain the authority of decision-making re falsehood and truth.
A materialist language-game, whether literary or artistic, brings about the institutionalization of deconstruction; it reappropriates the value practice. Although Derrida [1981:90] warns against this, it has developed to a point where a strategy for textual criticism becomes a mainstream method for producing texts, and, consequently, producing meaning and truth. Any theory or language system, that wants to formulate verbal propositions exclusive of even the possibility of misguided determinate meaning, is impossible to achieve. It is argued that this materialist language-game continually strives to formulate, and regulate, theoretical verbal propositions incapable of implying unwanted or ideological consequences, as a result of which [failure] this language-game becomes an ideological critique seeking to replace that which it opposes, in the sense of "one's language will always be complicit with the language one seeks to deconstruct in ways one simply cannot see" [Waugh 1992a:72, on Derrida].
Proceedings of the Re-inventing Design Education in the University conference, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia 11-13 December., 2000
If one looks at both ends of the design curriculum - the academic outcomes from a teaching perspe... more If one looks at both ends of the design curriculum - the academic outcomes from a teaching perspective and the non-academic inputs from the new student's perspective - it should be clear that a mutual working consensus needs to be reached, a consentient middle-ground, so to speak. In constructing a meeting-place for both teacher and student, Boyer's four types of scholarship will be examined as a starting point for this educational and creative process, while also considering four constructivist perspectives for improving teaching methods. Following on from this a scenario of design-for-discovery will be discussed. This approach sees design as a reciprocal conversation set in a social landscape of personalized discovery, and uses the analogy design-as-language-though-metaphor (social structuration and the concept of 'understanding' as reflective practitioner)..
Gramma/topology will always be a work in progress, because it is not a theory of knowledge but si... more Gramma/topology will always be a work in progress, because it is not a theory of knowledge but simply the ground to the student's figure, and in the process of dealing with our contemporary and complex world of changing problem spaces it is hoped that a gestalt switch can take place between what the design student knows at any one point in time and what it can become possible to know the next, instead of the learning process being a mere stacking up of one fact after another in rote learning.
Proceedings of the 9th ANZSYS conference, "Systems-in-Action", Melbourne, Australia., 2003
This paper begins with an anarchistic dialogue example: there is no such thing as a designer. Edu... more This paper begins with an anarchistic dialogue example: there is no such thing as a designer. Educational anarchism is designed to take away your certainty that there is such a creature, while initiating a conversation around whether there really is or should be such creatures. Social communication means voluntarily giving up your individual rights to absolute certainty, and declaring your willingness to accommodate the other. In that sense there can be no such thing as an individual personality sans any formative social background, or a designer divorced from that which is being designed for: the contextual social world
This is an extract from my thesis: Gramma/topology, Chapter 5.
An argument for abduction makes... more This is an extract from my thesis: Gramma/topology, Chapter 5.
An argument for abduction makes use of an educational process, indeed, a lifelong learning process that uses us as explained by this figure, that I shall now begin to call Jakobson’s Ladder. We might feel as if we live in an inner world of subjective thought, and regard the outer world of objective expression as alien to who we think we are, but in fact who we are is to be found in the rapid switching between implicit and explicit knowing, between in here and out there, both as virtual and as ephemeral as the eventual identity we can claim for ourselves, which is to be found in the inbetween of movement, between worlds, of our construction.
2023: if anyone wishes to contact me regarding this particular issue, or, indeed, any of the often contradictory stances I have established (mostly to prod my students to query the "stuff" I present them with), then feel free to contact me at any time.
This article is a response to both Bert Olivier's article "Natural Born Killers, violence and con... more This article is a response to both Bert Olivier's article "Natural Born Killers, violence and contemporary culture". Based mainly on two issues derived from du Preez's report, this article argues the points raised from a social structuration perspective as against the report's perceived postmodern perspective. The question of the absence of a role for narrative in the social sense is discussed, as well as the schizophrenic "normality" that can be created by the non-presence of such a normative structure. The article ends by looking at Stone's supposed criticism of violence, and questioning what is really being criticised.
This article discusses the means by which a visually creative, artistic language can imitate the ... more This article discusses the means by which a visually creative, artistic language can imitate the communicative abilities of a written/spoken language, making it possible to "read" a work of art as a visual text. Comparing Barthes' critique of myths with Eco's use of denotative and connotative systems leads to the conclusion that allowing for dissimilarities, the two systems can be read as texts with similar goals. Reading certain works of art through the mediation of Bart hesian Eco/s, it becomes clear
that a visual language can successfully copy the semantic modes of a social linguistic system and achieve the same ends.
To effect the change from an active 60s/70s style political dialogue to a user-friendly dialogue ... more To effect the change from an active 60s/70s style political dialogue to a user-friendly dialogue of-and for the people, postmodern language use enters the sublime arena of virtual reality, wherein 'fictions' are created by those who 'know better: and fictions/truths become synonymous in a psychoanalytic world of uncertainty and doubt. This is highlighted in the critical essay Lucid intervals: postmodernism and photography (1990) by Allen Weiss, in which he also discusses the work of the artist Barbara Kruger. In his essay Weiss shows the transference, from theory to practice, of this new basis of knowledge in the epistemological shift. The new epistemology allows a subject to be seemingly 'destroyed'in favour of an object (but this only means an attempt is made to change the subject into an object, it does not mean the subject disappear). The object itself is then changed to a copy of the real, and in this false 'mirror image' no subject (so it would seem) can be found to refer or to relate to -a psychological shift in perception that isolates anyone viewing these images from normal interrelational contact re:social communication and cultural values as guidelines. 'Visual words' in art are not in themselves indicative of reality; they can, however, change our perception of reality. Because virtual reality may be persuasive in this irrational way - because there still remains a very strong link between object and subject as far as information-in-the-world is concerned -t he simulated object (in its operation as a hidden subject) can relate back to the 'normal' primacy of the subject over object relation, and psychologically this is accepted as the domination of the one over the other. Because we do not consciously think of this relation of primacy as domination, in the political and ideological sense, we may mistake the transformation process that takes place in the visual persuasiveness of Kruger's work. This transformation or shift in the epistemology of postmodernism re-interprets language as a communication system that facilitates a reading of the 'new social reality': the control of information and knowledge disguised as the postmodern call to freedom.
I set out a possible framework for a designerly theory of knowing, called gramma/topology, a fram... more I set out a possible framework for a designerly theory of knowing, called gramma/topology, a framework that is simultaneously a framing action in real time; it is a means towards an end. However, this model-of-knowing-and-exploring, projected onto the world, becomes a unique construction that may look the same (to an observer), but differs in use from person to person like fingerprints. The main part deals with the theoretical and philosophical inputs that provide the core of what can become gramma/topology, an argumentative theory in search of both epistemological and ontological ways of knowing. After a short summation, and as an example of my own gramma/topological reasoning I discuss the structure of a cybernetic design conversation, including Heidegger’s notion of the ontology of equipment, and end with Aristotle’s defense of arguing to first principles.
Proceedings of the conference: Design, development & research, 26-27 September, 2011, Cape Town, 2011
Design education has to change, because the discipline of design is changing. This paper deals wi... more Design education has to change, because the discipline of design is changing. This paper deals with some of these changes and the reasons why they are deemed to be necessary, in order to move on to the more focused and more interesting aspects, namely: 1] ‘design thinking’ is a myth (as claimed by Donald Norman), and we need to ask ourselves if what we mean by ‘design thinking’ is an exclusive domain of the discipline; 2] if Norman’s argument is valid, then it would follow that design as a stand-alone discipline is also a myth, since most of the efforts of design researchers and practitioners today cannot be accommodated within a domain-independent area, but are increasingly influenced by, and indeed motivated by, socio-technical concerns that need the inputs from a range of knowledge fields outside the scope of traditional design disciplines. This paper will therefore 3] present an argument for a theory of design knowing that explains the different uses of the terms ‘design thinking’ and ‘design process’, a change in focus that decentres the product and moves it to the periphery of design research, while constructing a framework for thought that contingently centres the focus of purposeful design action on the observer of contextual observations, i.e., a theory of design knowing that utilizes second order cybernetics and radical constructivism. Using the insights of Protagoras and Aristotle, this initial ‘Grecian Turn’ will be shown to lead to a re-appraisal of the fundamentals necessary to innovative design thinking.
Handbook of Research on Trends in Product Design and Development: Technological and Organizational Perspectives , 2010
Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be ... more Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be said and everywhere to be felt” (2005: 73). Traditionally, not only objects, but design’s presence in general has gone largely unnoticed by the public, but that is changing, due, in considerable part, to the ubiquitous presence of computing technology. Design, as representative of unnoticed and neutral objects, is no longer feasible, but design, as a participative presence in the lives of its users, is fast gaining ground in our complex society. Designers are no longer fully in control of the design process, meaning design practice, and as a result design education, must change to adapt to the increasing pace at which different social groups are evolving new ways of communicating and living.
This paper wil present two main ideas: firstly, that the processes and narratives of interaction ... more This paper wil present two main ideas: firstly, that the processes and narratives of interaction spaces are more important than the products themselves, and secondly, that the notion of identity formation can help designers of systems understand the possible actions that could result when user and system interact.
This paper investigates alternative methods of teaching design studies in a school of design that... more This paper investigates alternative methods of teaching design studies in a school of design that still largely follows a traditional apprenticeship practice-based programme. It looks at sustainable and student-centred design educational methods of teaching and learning that are underpinned by social constructivism, soft systems thinking and second-order cybernetics. In the first two sections I construct an imaginary dialogue to demonstrate some of the difficulties in teaching design, especially theory, followed by a remodelling of this teaching scenario using Stafford Beer’s muddy box regulatory system as a learning device. The sections that follow deal with conversation theory, story telling and projection, the way we construct and construe virtual frames of existence, while the last section deals with how we can imagine ourselves as autopoietic systems that have the capability of communicative interaction.
"""When listening cybernetically we find out that we are not (as/who we thought we were). Ordinar... more """When listening cybernetically we find out that we are not (as/who we thought we were). Ordinary listening merely accesses data and at best information, but that does not necessarily lead to action, in the absence of the making of distinctions, since ordinary or passive listening changes nothing, thereby contrasting ordinary listening to active listening. Once we get to this constructivist point, we can use the space of we are not to make distinctions between our old selves and the continuously (re)designed new selves. The space of we are not is a space for conversation, and it is here that the construction of new realities takes shape. This space of becoming is nothing if it is not an ontological world of possibility, proving that cybernetics allows us to locate ourselves in worlds of probability wherein we are the reciprocal subject-object relation. If listening could be made visible, we would be able to see this happening, see ourselves being redesigned, as we speak, as we listen, given that speaking here means an investigative response to what we are listening to, turning speech into probe.
Pre-proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Complexity and Philosophy, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa., Feb 22, 2007
In finding new ways of understanding our world we have to deal with complexity issues, including ... more In finding new ways of understanding our world we have to deal with complexity issues, including the realisation that renewal depends on each individual. In order to speak complexity we need to rethink conversation as an autoproductive communicative event that can disclose the interconnectivity of our fitness landscapes. To further the philosophical connection, ethics is shown to underpin the choices people make, and the structural information needed is shown to be a coproduction between self and environment.
"It is now an accepted maxim in design theory and practice
that real-world problems needing the ... more "It is now an accepted maxim in design theory and practice
that real-world problems needing the attention of design
practitioners are not neat and well-structured, but ill-structured
and “wicked”—part of a larger, complex social situation. For
design education, then, to take its lead from contemporary
social, political and economic structures, it will have to seriously
re-think its problem-solving paradigms. The authors investigate
the use of self-generating learning narratives in the classroom
and contrast the approach they introduce with the still-too prevalent notion that knowledge can be transferred from teacher
to student. Their methodology draws from ideas formulated
by Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, specifically the notion
of co-ontogenic drift."
Image & Text: a Journal for Design (16):22-39., 2010
"In this article I wish to argue for a mode of critical and
expansive thinking that our professi... more "In this article I wish to argue for a mode of critical and
expansive thinking that our profession can call designerly-
knowing, design thinking, or a design conversation
– if this mode of thought can be understood to be undisciplined, and understood to be critical thought that
owes allegiance to no (one external) directive philosophy
except the one that regulates the fluid conditions
of living and being of everyday existence, as will be
explained below. This is not to be taken as a contradiction,
since the developing argument will be for an
internal (intrinsic) directive that regulates life, but
further, also that this intrinsic directive is a shared concept
as opposed to an individual one, making this ‘directive’
a constantly reassembled one. It is in this sense that
Merholz (2009) would rather rename ‘design thinking’
as ‘social science thinking’, since design needs the clarifying
perspectives and viewpoints brought to its practice
by the disparate disciplinary backgrounds of the
non-designers on the team, while Patnaik (2009) calls
these newly combined skill sets ‘hybrid thinking’. Roger
Martin (in Merholz 2009) acknowledges the need for a
different type of ‘thinking practice’ (inelegant as my
phrase may be), since the mere wish for interdisciplinarity,
and knowingly putting a design team together from
different disciplinary backgrounds will not be enough. I
stated above that I do not wish to argue for the type of
interdisciplinary thinking that integrates the systems
approach into design thinking as if simply adding another
string to the bow would solve an inherent problem,
since ‘the problem’ is not so much design thinking
but one highlighted by the contemporary, external,
world of complex social interactions; the ‘problem’ is
a truly systemic problem, namely one of evolutionary
adaptation."
"We have, for some considerable time, been living in an era of unprecedented change, but only now... more "We have, for some considerable time, been living in an era of unprecedented change, but only now are we apparently becoming aware of the paradigm shift overtaking our life on earth. We hardly need the admonishment of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to point out the material unsustainability of our manufacturing and consumerist base. We cannot afford to keep on focusing on designed objects in isolation to the real problems of the world, and we cannot afford not to link the present manufacturing/consumerist base with the changes happening to and in society as a whole. We have to ask what these paradigm shifts are all about, and what will be required of us is to give up our comfortable worldviews and to construct, to design, our new and better paradigms of thinking and living. We have to announce our own death in order to live.
However, we cannot do so from within the parameters of any of the design disciplines as we know them today because “we” are not enough. But before I bury the corpse of old-fashioned design (because its self-deception ignored the concerns of everyday life), let us pause a moment and reflect on what could have been, by asking this: Why do I see a discipline being buried and do not see something else?
“We see what we do and do not see something else because of the way in which we look. And these ‘ways’ constitute … reality-generating mechanisms … [and each of these] schemes has its own characteristic set of tools and methods for answering the question. The methods [produce] a set of rules [that] are of a special type and, in contrast to many other reality-generating procedures, are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence.”
The way I see and the way I use design thinking to view the world has changed, initially because I discovered systems thinking and cybernetics, and recently, because our Faculty had to change its character when it was subjected to an official merger process. In this article I unfold the development of a way of thinking in, with, and through design theory and practice first by briefly dealing with our new Faculty structure and the renewed research direction(s) this afforded us, and second by following the trail of emergent signs that seems to point the way to an undisciplined future development of design.
"
Systems Theory and Practice in the Knowledge Age., Jan 1, 2002
Systems theory and practice in design will achieve nothing of lasting worth if not predicated on ... more Systems theory and practice in design will achieve nothing of lasting worth if not predicated on human values and human understanding – if the social system we all have to deal with is not allowed to either affirm or deny that which we are engaged in. The basis of that which we are engaged in happens to be the raw (social) material, if you will, of all systems theory and practice, or at least those aspects that have a direct influence on the discipline of design, hence on design communication, design research and on the teaching of design theory and practice. That basis is the social structure from within which design draws its reality and reason, and, I would presume, that same basis would also serve to authenticate systems theory and practice. The correspondences between design theory and systems theory – and more specifically action learning - points to one of the strengths of both, namely adaptability in the face of different cultural conceptions of reality.
The following extract from my masters dissertation, Deconstruction and Appropriation, was written... more The following extract from my masters dissertation, Deconstruction and Appropriation, was written long before there was such a term as woke, and yet I find that many of our contemporary issues around freedom of speech, freedom of association, societal structures, and downright normalcy had (at the time of writing the dissertation - 1997) already been under attack from the far left and the far right disguised as postmodern thought.
"On Gadamer's view, to set oneself up as the arbiter of the `communicative competence' of others in this way can only be elitist" [Warnke 1987:127]. But the way of seeing that the Other adheres to, through a particular use of a materialist language-game, seems to have the aim of disintegrating the socio-historical domain, because the Other believes that this domain is repressive of their domain, and their domain, their meanings, demand recognition and legitimacy (for wokeness).
Certain postmodern works of art, using a materialistic theory of language, privilege theory over ... more Certain postmodern works of art, using a materialistic theory of language, privilege theory over practice in their function of liberating the Other through the assertiveness of the new voices and metanarratives, in a visual language that turns away from creative artistic preoccupations and towards social manipulation through a persuasive linguistical system of appropriation and subverted deconstruction. It becomes a visual language of art that transforms symbolic systems of signification into those of materialistic and prosaic signification. The theorists present their own metalinguistical images of fiction as those of society, and through the mechanism of exchange in the simulacrum, social subjects come to inhabit the world of virtual reality in these created fictions, thus abandoning positions of power, now occupied by the new creators of reality, the critics, theorists, and artists who legitimize the marketplace of ideas, in which the theories of the new open society gain the authority of decision-making re falsehood and truth.
A materialist language-game, whether literary or artistic, brings about the institutionalization of deconstruction; it reappropriates the value practice. Although Derrida [1981:90] warns against this, it has developed to a point where a strategy for textual criticism becomes a mainstream method for producing texts, and, consequently, producing meaning and truth. Any theory or language system, that wants to formulate verbal propositions exclusive of even the possibility of misguided determinate meaning, is impossible to achieve. It is argued that this materialist language-game continually strives to formulate, and regulate, theoretical verbal propositions incapable of implying unwanted or ideological consequences, as a result of which [failure] this language-game becomes an ideological critique seeking to replace that which it opposes, in the sense of "one's language will always be complicit with the language one seeks to deconstruct in ways one simply cannot see" [Waugh 1992a:72, on Derrida].
Proceedings of the Re-inventing Design Education in the University conference, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia 11-13 December., 2000
If one looks at both ends of the design curriculum - the academic outcomes from a teaching perspe... more If one looks at both ends of the design curriculum - the academic outcomes from a teaching perspective and the non-academic inputs from the new student's perspective - it should be clear that a mutual working consensus needs to be reached, a consentient middle-ground, so to speak. In constructing a meeting-place for both teacher and student, Boyer's four types of scholarship will be examined as a starting point for this educational and creative process, while also considering four constructivist perspectives for improving teaching methods. Following on from this a scenario of design-for-discovery will be discussed. This approach sees design as a reciprocal conversation set in a social landscape of personalized discovery, and uses the analogy design-as-language-though-metaphor (social structuration and the concept of 'understanding' as reflective practitioner)..
Gramma/topology will always be a work in progress, because it is not a theory of knowledge but si... more Gramma/topology will always be a work in progress, because it is not a theory of knowledge but simply the ground to the student's figure, and in the process of dealing with our contemporary and complex world of changing problem spaces it is hoped that a gestalt switch can take place between what the design student knows at any one point in time and what it can become possible to know the next, instead of the learning process being a mere stacking up of one fact after another in rote learning.
Proceedings of the 9th ANZSYS conference, "Systems-in-Action", Melbourne, Australia., 2003
This paper begins with an anarchistic dialogue example: there is no such thing as a designer. Edu... more This paper begins with an anarchistic dialogue example: there is no such thing as a designer. Educational anarchism is designed to take away your certainty that there is such a creature, while initiating a conversation around whether there really is or should be such creatures. Social communication means voluntarily giving up your individual rights to absolute certainty, and declaring your willingness to accommodate the other. In that sense there can be no such thing as an individual personality sans any formative social background, or a designer divorced from that which is being designed for: the contextual social world
This is an extract from my thesis: Gramma/topology, Chapter 5.
An argument for abduction makes... more This is an extract from my thesis: Gramma/topology, Chapter 5.
An argument for abduction makes use of an educational process, indeed, a lifelong learning process that uses us as explained by this figure, that I shall now begin to call Jakobson’s Ladder. We might feel as if we live in an inner world of subjective thought, and regard the outer world of objective expression as alien to who we think we are, but in fact who we are is to be found in the rapid switching between implicit and explicit knowing, between in here and out there, both as virtual and as ephemeral as the eventual identity we can claim for ourselves, which is to be found in the inbetween of movement, between worlds, of our construction.
2023: if anyone wishes to contact me regarding this particular issue, or, indeed, any of the often contradictory stances I have established (mostly to prod my students to query the "stuff" I present them with), then feel free to contact me at any time.
This article is a response to both Bert Olivier's article "Natural Born Killers, violence and con... more This article is a response to both Bert Olivier's article "Natural Born Killers, violence and contemporary culture". Based mainly on two issues derived from du Preez's report, this article argues the points raised from a social structuration perspective as against the report's perceived postmodern perspective. The question of the absence of a role for narrative in the social sense is discussed, as well as the schizophrenic "normality" that can be created by the non-presence of such a normative structure. The article ends by looking at Stone's supposed criticism of violence, and questioning what is really being criticised.
This article discusses the means by which a visually creative, artistic language can imitate the ... more This article discusses the means by which a visually creative, artistic language can imitate the communicative abilities of a written/spoken language, making it possible to "read" a work of art as a visual text. Comparing Barthes' critique of myths with Eco's use of denotative and connotative systems leads to the conclusion that allowing for dissimilarities, the two systems can be read as texts with similar goals. Reading certain works of art through the mediation of Bart hesian Eco/s, it becomes clear
that a visual language can successfully copy the semantic modes of a social linguistic system and achieve the same ends.
To effect the change from an active 60s/70s style political dialogue to a user-friendly dialogue ... more To effect the change from an active 60s/70s style political dialogue to a user-friendly dialogue of-and for the people, postmodern language use enters the sublime arena of virtual reality, wherein 'fictions' are created by those who 'know better: and fictions/truths become synonymous in a psychoanalytic world of uncertainty and doubt. This is highlighted in the critical essay Lucid intervals: postmodernism and photography (1990) by Allen Weiss, in which he also discusses the work of the artist Barbara Kruger. In his essay Weiss shows the transference, from theory to practice, of this new basis of knowledge in the epistemological shift. The new epistemology allows a subject to be seemingly 'destroyed'in favour of an object (but this only means an attempt is made to change the subject into an object, it does not mean the subject disappear). The object itself is then changed to a copy of the real, and in this false 'mirror image' no subject (so it would seem) can be found to refer or to relate to -a psychological shift in perception that isolates anyone viewing these images from normal interrelational contact re:social communication and cultural values as guidelines. 'Visual words' in art are not in themselves indicative of reality; they can, however, change our perception of reality. Because virtual reality may be persuasive in this irrational way - because there still remains a very strong link between object and subject as far as information-in-the-world is concerned -t he simulated object (in its operation as a hidden subject) can relate back to the 'normal' primacy of the subject over object relation, and psychologically this is accepted as the domination of the one over the other. Because we do not consciously think of this relation of primacy as domination, in the political and ideological sense, we may mistake the transformation process that takes place in the visual persuasiveness of Kruger's work. This transformation or shift in the epistemology of postmodernism re-interprets language as a communication system that facilitates a reading of the 'new social reality': the control of information and knowledge disguised as the postmodern call to freedom.
I set out a possible framework for a designerly theory of knowing, called gramma/topology, a fram... more I set out a possible framework for a designerly theory of knowing, called gramma/topology, a framework that is simultaneously a framing action in real time; it is a means towards an end. However, this model-of-knowing-and-exploring, projected onto the world, becomes a unique construction that may look the same (to an observer), but differs in use from person to person like fingerprints. The main part deals with the theoretical and philosophical inputs that provide the core of what can become gramma/topology, an argumentative theory in search of both epistemological and ontological ways of knowing. After a short summation, and as an example of my own gramma/topological reasoning I discuss the structure of a cybernetic design conversation, including Heidegger’s notion of the ontology of equipment, and end with Aristotle’s defense of arguing to first principles.
Proceedings of the conference: Design, development & research, 26-27 September, 2011, Cape Town, 2011
Design education has to change, because the discipline of design is changing. This paper deals wi... more Design education has to change, because the discipline of design is changing. This paper deals with some of these changes and the reasons why they are deemed to be necessary, in order to move on to the more focused and more interesting aspects, namely: 1] ‘design thinking’ is a myth (as claimed by Donald Norman), and we need to ask ourselves if what we mean by ‘design thinking’ is an exclusive domain of the discipline; 2] if Norman’s argument is valid, then it would follow that design as a stand-alone discipline is also a myth, since most of the efforts of design researchers and practitioners today cannot be accommodated within a domain-independent area, but are increasingly influenced by, and indeed motivated by, socio-technical concerns that need the inputs from a range of knowledge fields outside the scope of traditional design disciplines. This paper will therefore 3] present an argument for a theory of design knowing that explains the different uses of the terms ‘design thinking’ and ‘design process’, a change in focus that decentres the product and moves it to the periphery of design research, while constructing a framework for thought that contingently centres the focus of purposeful design action on the observer of contextual observations, i.e., a theory of design knowing that utilizes second order cybernetics and radical constructivism. Using the insights of Protagoras and Aristotle, this initial ‘Grecian Turn’ will be shown to lead to a re-appraisal of the fundamentals necessary to innovative design thinking.
Handbook of Research on Trends in Product Design and Development: Technological and Organizational Perspectives , 2010
Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be ... more Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be said and everywhere to be felt” (2005: 73). Traditionally, not only objects, but design’s presence in general has gone largely unnoticed by the public, but that is changing, due, in considerable part, to the ubiquitous presence of computing technology. Design, as representative of unnoticed and neutral objects, is no longer feasible, but design, as a participative presence in the lives of its users, is fast gaining ground in our complex society. Designers are no longer fully in control of the design process, meaning design practice, and as a result design education, must change to adapt to the increasing pace at which different social groups are evolving new ways of communicating and living.
This paper wil present two main ideas: firstly, that the processes and narratives of interaction ... more This paper wil present two main ideas: firstly, that the processes and narratives of interaction spaces are more important than the products themselves, and secondly, that the notion of identity formation can help designers of systems understand the possible actions that could result when user and system interact.
This paper investigates alternative methods of teaching design studies in a school of design that... more This paper investigates alternative methods of teaching design studies in a school of design that still largely follows a traditional apprenticeship practice-based programme. It looks at sustainable and student-centred design educational methods of teaching and learning that are underpinned by social constructivism, soft systems thinking and second-order cybernetics. In the first two sections I construct an imaginary dialogue to demonstrate some of the difficulties in teaching design, especially theory, followed by a remodelling of this teaching scenario using Stafford Beer’s muddy box regulatory system as a learning device. The sections that follow deal with conversation theory, story telling and projection, the way we construct and construe virtual frames of existence, while the last section deals with how we can imagine ourselves as autopoietic systems that have the capability of communicative interaction.
"""When listening cybernetically we find out that we are not (as/who we thought we were). Ordinar... more """When listening cybernetically we find out that we are not (as/who we thought we were). Ordinary listening merely accesses data and at best information, but that does not necessarily lead to action, in the absence of the making of distinctions, since ordinary or passive listening changes nothing, thereby contrasting ordinary listening to active listening. Once we get to this constructivist point, we can use the space of we are not to make distinctions between our old selves and the continuously (re)designed new selves. The space of we are not is a space for conversation, and it is here that the construction of new realities takes shape. This space of becoming is nothing if it is not an ontological world of possibility, proving that cybernetics allows us to locate ourselves in worlds of probability wherein we are the reciprocal subject-object relation. If listening could be made visible, we would be able to see this happening, see ourselves being redesigned, as we speak, as we listen, given that speaking here means an investigative response to what we are listening to, turning speech into probe.
Pre-proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Complexity and Philosophy, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa., Feb 22, 2007
In finding new ways of understanding our world we have to deal with complexity issues, including ... more In finding new ways of understanding our world we have to deal with complexity issues, including the realisation that renewal depends on each individual. In order to speak complexity we need to rethink conversation as an autoproductive communicative event that can disclose the interconnectivity of our fitness landscapes. To further the philosophical connection, ethics is shown to underpin the choices people make, and the structural information needed is shown to be a coproduction between self and environment.
"It is now an accepted maxim in design theory and practice
that real-world problems needing the ... more "It is now an accepted maxim in design theory and practice
that real-world problems needing the attention of design
practitioners are not neat and well-structured, but ill-structured
and “wicked”—part of a larger, complex social situation. For
design education, then, to take its lead from contemporary
social, political and economic structures, it will have to seriously
re-think its problem-solving paradigms. The authors investigate
the use of self-generating learning narratives in the classroom
and contrast the approach they introduce with the still-too prevalent notion that knowledge can be transferred from teacher
to student. Their methodology draws from ideas formulated
by Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, specifically the notion
of co-ontogenic drift."
Image & Text: a Journal for Design (16):22-39., 2010
"In this article I wish to argue for a mode of critical and
expansive thinking that our professi... more "In this article I wish to argue for a mode of critical and
expansive thinking that our profession can call designerly-
knowing, design thinking, or a design conversation
– if this mode of thought can be understood to be undisciplined, and understood to be critical thought that
owes allegiance to no (one external) directive philosophy
except the one that regulates the fluid conditions
of living and being of everyday existence, as will be
explained below. This is not to be taken as a contradiction,
since the developing argument will be for an
internal (intrinsic) directive that regulates life, but
further, also that this intrinsic directive is a shared concept
as opposed to an individual one, making this ‘directive’
a constantly reassembled one. It is in this sense that
Merholz (2009) would rather rename ‘design thinking’
as ‘social science thinking’, since design needs the clarifying
perspectives and viewpoints brought to its practice
by the disparate disciplinary backgrounds of the
non-designers on the team, while Patnaik (2009) calls
these newly combined skill sets ‘hybrid thinking’. Roger
Martin (in Merholz 2009) acknowledges the need for a
different type of ‘thinking practice’ (inelegant as my
phrase may be), since the mere wish for interdisciplinarity,
and knowingly putting a design team together from
different disciplinary backgrounds will not be enough. I
stated above that I do not wish to argue for the type of
interdisciplinary thinking that integrates the systems
approach into design thinking as if simply adding another
string to the bow would solve an inherent problem,
since ‘the problem’ is not so much design thinking
but one highlighted by the contemporary, external,
world of complex social interactions; the ‘problem’ is
a truly systemic problem, namely one of evolutionary
adaptation."
"We have, for some considerable time, been living in an era of unprecedented change, but only now... more "We have, for some considerable time, been living in an era of unprecedented change, but only now are we apparently becoming aware of the paradigm shift overtaking our life on earth. We hardly need the admonishment of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to point out the material unsustainability of our manufacturing and consumerist base. We cannot afford to keep on focusing on designed objects in isolation to the real problems of the world, and we cannot afford not to link the present manufacturing/consumerist base with the changes happening to and in society as a whole. We have to ask what these paradigm shifts are all about, and what will be required of us is to give up our comfortable worldviews and to construct, to design, our new and better paradigms of thinking and living. We have to announce our own death in order to live.
However, we cannot do so from within the parameters of any of the design disciplines as we know them today because “we” are not enough. But before I bury the corpse of old-fashioned design (because its self-deception ignored the concerns of everyday life), let us pause a moment and reflect on what could have been, by asking this: Why do I see a discipline being buried and do not see something else?
“We see what we do and do not see something else because of the way in which we look. And these ‘ways’ constitute … reality-generating mechanisms … [and each of these] schemes has its own characteristic set of tools and methods for answering the question. The methods [produce] a set of rules [that] are of a special type and, in contrast to many other reality-generating procedures, are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence.”
The way I see and the way I use design thinking to view the world has changed, initially because I discovered systems thinking and cybernetics, and recently, because our Faculty had to change its character when it was subjected to an official merger process. In this article I unfold the development of a way of thinking in, with, and through design theory and practice first by briefly dealing with our new Faculty structure and the renewed research direction(s) this afforded us, and second by following the trail of emergent signs that seems to point the way to an undisciplined future development of design.
"
Systems Theory and Practice in the Knowledge Age., Jan 1, 2002
Systems theory and practice in design will achieve nothing of lasting worth if not predicated on ... more Systems theory and practice in design will achieve nothing of lasting worth if not predicated on human values and human understanding – if the social system we all have to deal with is not allowed to either affirm or deny that which we are engaged in. The basis of that which we are engaged in happens to be the raw (social) material, if you will, of all systems theory and practice, or at least those aspects that have a direct influence on the discipline of design, hence on design communication, design research and on the teaching of design theory and practice. That basis is the social structure from within which design draws its reality and reason, and, I would presume, that same basis would also serve to authenticate systems theory and practice. The correspondences between design theory and systems theory – and more specifically action learning - points to one of the strengths of both, namely adaptability in the face of different cultural conceptions of reality.
Design thinking is not thinking about design, but rather a re-focus on the way we think, about th... more Design thinking is not thinking about design, but rather a re-focus on the way we think, about the world in general, and in this cybernetic process the real self can be brought into being. Gramma/topology is the social structuration of a theory-as-ontology framework with the ability to function as a design educational model that could enrich the teaching and learning of design in all its diverse applications. To paraphrase and deconstruct Derrida, I shall call this model gramma/topology; since such a peculiar field-of-knowing does not exist, in any particular form, before the model is used, no one can say with certainty what the outcome would be, but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance for both designer-Dasein and design-Dasein.
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"On Gadamer's view, to set oneself up as the arbiter of the `communicative competence' of others in this way can only be elitist" [Warnke 1987:127]. But the way of seeing that the Other adheres to, through a particular use of a materialist language-game, seems to have the aim of disintegrating the socio-historical domain, because the Other believes that this domain is repressive of their domain, and their domain, their meanings, demand recognition and legitimacy (for wokeness).
A materialist language-game, whether literary or artistic, brings about the institutionalization of deconstruction; it reappropriates the value practice. Although Derrida [1981:90] warns against this, it has developed to a point where a strategy for textual criticism becomes a mainstream method for producing texts, and, consequently, producing meaning and truth. Any theory or language system, that wants to formulate verbal propositions exclusive of even the possibility of misguided determinate meaning, is impossible to achieve. It is argued that this materialist language-game continually strives to formulate, and regulate, theoretical verbal propositions incapable of implying unwanted or ideological consequences, as a result of which [failure] this language-game becomes an ideological critique seeking to replace that which it opposes, in the sense of "one's language will always be complicit with the language one seeks to deconstruct in ways one simply cannot see" [Waugh 1992a:72, on Derrida].
An argument for abduction makes use of an educational process, indeed, a lifelong learning process that uses us as explained by this figure, that I shall now begin to call Jakobson’s Ladder. We might feel as if we live in an inner world of subjective thought, and regard the outer world of objective expression as alien to who we think we are, but in fact who we are is to be found in the rapid switching between implicit and explicit knowing, between in here and out there, both as virtual and as ephemeral as the eventual identity we can claim for ourselves, which is to be found in the inbetween of movement, between worlds, of our construction.
2023: if anyone wishes to contact me regarding this particular issue, or, indeed, any of the often contradictory stances I have established (mostly to prod my students to query the "stuff" I present them with), then feel free to contact me at any time.
that a visual language can successfully copy the semantic modes of a social linguistic system and achieve the same ends.
""
that real-world problems needing the attention of design
practitioners are not neat and well-structured, but ill-structured
and “wicked”—part of a larger, complex social situation. For
design education, then, to take its lead from contemporary
social, political and economic structures, it will have to seriously
re-think its problem-solving paradigms. The authors investigate
the use of self-generating learning narratives in the classroom
and contrast the approach they introduce with the still-too prevalent notion that knowledge can be transferred from teacher
to student. Their methodology draws from ideas formulated
by Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, specifically the notion
of co-ontogenic drift."
expansive thinking that our profession can call designerly-
knowing, design thinking, or a design conversation
– if this mode of thought can be understood to be undisciplined, and understood to be critical thought that
owes allegiance to no (one external) directive philosophy
except the one that regulates the fluid conditions
of living and being of everyday existence, as will be
explained below. This is not to be taken as a contradiction,
since the developing argument will be for an
internal (intrinsic) directive that regulates life, but
further, also that this intrinsic directive is a shared concept
as opposed to an individual one, making this ‘directive’
a constantly reassembled one. It is in this sense that
Merholz (2009) would rather rename ‘design thinking’
as ‘social science thinking’, since design needs the clarifying
perspectives and viewpoints brought to its practice
by the disparate disciplinary backgrounds of the
non-designers on the team, while Patnaik (2009) calls
these newly combined skill sets ‘hybrid thinking’. Roger
Martin (in Merholz 2009) acknowledges the need for a
different type of ‘thinking practice’ (inelegant as my
phrase may be), since the mere wish for interdisciplinarity,
and knowingly putting a design team together from
different disciplinary backgrounds will not be enough. I
stated above that I do not wish to argue for the type of
interdisciplinary thinking that integrates the systems
approach into design thinking as if simply adding another
string to the bow would solve an inherent problem,
since ‘the problem’ is not so much design thinking
but one highlighted by the contemporary, external,
world of complex social interactions; the ‘problem’ is
a truly systemic problem, namely one of evolutionary
adaptation."
However, we cannot do so from within the parameters of any of the design disciplines as we know them today because “we” are not enough. But before I bury the corpse of old-fashioned design (because its self-deception ignored the concerns of everyday life), let us pause a moment and reflect on what could have been, by asking this: Why do I see a discipline being buried and do not see something else?
“We see what we do and do not see something else because of the way in which we look. And these ‘ways’ constitute … reality-generating mechanisms … [and each of these] schemes has its own characteristic set of tools and methods for answering the question. The methods [produce] a set of rules [that] are of a special type and, in contrast to many other reality-generating procedures, are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence.”
The way I see and the way I use design thinking to view the world has changed, initially because I discovered systems thinking and cybernetics, and recently, because our Faculty had to change its character when it was subjected to an official merger process. In this article I unfold the development of a way of thinking in, with, and through design theory and practice first by briefly dealing with our new Faculty structure and the renewed research direction(s) this afforded us, and second by following the trail of emergent signs that seems to point the way to an undisciplined future development of design.
"
"On Gadamer's view, to set oneself up as the arbiter of the `communicative competence' of others in this way can only be elitist" [Warnke 1987:127]. But the way of seeing that the Other adheres to, through a particular use of a materialist language-game, seems to have the aim of disintegrating the socio-historical domain, because the Other believes that this domain is repressive of their domain, and their domain, their meanings, demand recognition and legitimacy (for wokeness).
A materialist language-game, whether literary or artistic, brings about the institutionalization of deconstruction; it reappropriates the value practice. Although Derrida [1981:90] warns against this, it has developed to a point where a strategy for textual criticism becomes a mainstream method for producing texts, and, consequently, producing meaning and truth. Any theory or language system, that wants to formulate verbal propositions exclusive of even the possibility of misguided determinate meaning, is impossible to achieve. It is argued that this materialist language-game continually strives to formulate, and regulate, theoretical verbal propositions incapable of implying unwanted or ideological consequences, as a result of which [failure] this language-game becomes an ideological critique seeking to replace that which it opposes, in the sense of "one's language will always be complicit with the language one seeks to deconstruct in ways one simply cannot see" [Waugh 1992a:72, on Derrida].
An argument for abduction makes use of an educational process, indeed, a lifelong learning process that uses us as explained by this figure, that I shall now begin to call Jakobson’s Ladder. We might feel as if we live in an inner world of subjective thought, and regard the outer world of objective expression as alien to who we think we are, but in fact who we are is to be found in the rapid switching between implicit and explicit knowing, between in here and out there, both as virtual and as ephemeral as the eventual identity we can claim for ourselves, which is to be found in the inbetween of movement, between worlds, of our construction.
2023: if anyone wishes to contact me regarding this particular issue, or, indeed, any of the often contradictory stances I have established (mostly to prod my students to query the "stuff" I present them with), then feel free to contact me at any time.
that a visual language can successfully copy the semantic modes of a social linguistic system and achieve the same ends.
""
that real-world problems needing the attention of design
practitioners are not neat and well-structured, but ill-structured
and “wicked”—part of a larger, complex social situation. For
design education, then, to take its lead from contemporary
social, political and economic structures, it will have to seriously
re-think its problem-solving paradigms. The authors investigate
the use of self-generating learning narratives in the classroom
and contrast the approach they introduce with the still-too prevalent notion that knowledge can be transferred from teacher
to student. Their methodology draws from ideas formulated
by Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, specifically the notion
of co-ontogenic drift."
expansive thinking that our profession can call designerly-
knowing, design thinking, or a design conversation
– if this mode of thought can be understood to be undisciplined, and understood to be critical thought that
owes allegiance to no (one external) directive philosophy
except the one that regulates the fluid conditions
of living and being of everyday existence, as will be
explained below. This is not to be taken as a contradiction,
since the developing argument will be for an
internal (intrinsic) directive that regulates life, but
further, also that this intrinsic directive is a shared concept
as opposed to an individual one, making this ‘directive’
a constantly reassembled one. It is in this sense that
Merholz (2009) would rather rename ‘design thinking’
as ‘social science thinking’, since design needs the clarifying
perspectives and viewpoints brought to its practice
by the disparate disciplinary backgrounds of the
non-designers on the team, while Patnaik (2009) calls
these newly combined skill sets ‘hybrid thinking’. Roger
Martin (in Merholz 2009) acknowledges the need for a
different type of ‘thinking practice’ (inelegant as my
phrase may be), since the mere wish for interdisciplinarity,
and knowingly putting a design team together from
different disciplinary backgrounds will not be enough. I
stated above that I do not wish to argue for the type of
interdisciplinary thinking that integrates the systems
approach into design thinking as if simply adding another
string to the bow would solve an inherent problem,
since ‘the problem’ is not so much design thinking
but one highlighted by the contemporary, external,
world of complex social interactions; the ‘problem’ is
a truly systemic problem, namely one of evolutionary
adaptation."
However, we cannot do so from within the parameters of any of the design disciplines as we know them today because “we” are not enough. But before I bury the corpse of old-fashioned design (because its self-deception ignored the concerns of everyday life), let us pause a moment and reflect on what could have been, by asking this: Why do I see a discipline being buried and do not see something else?
“We see what we do and do not see something else because of the way in which we look. And these ‘ways’ constitute … reality-generating mechanisms … [and each of these] schemes has its own characteristic set of tools and methods for answering the question. The methods [produce] a set of rules [that] are of a special type and, in contrast to many other reality-generating procedures, are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence.”
The way I see and the way I use design thinking to view the world has changed, initially because I discovered systems thinking and cybernetics, and recently, because our Faculty had to change its character when it was subjected to an official merger process. In this article I unfold the development of a way of thinking in, with, and through design theory and practice first by briefly dealing with our new Faculty structure and the renewed research direction(s) this afforded us, and second by following the trail of emergent signs that seems to point the way to an undisciplined future development of design.
"