regarding the charge that: "no-one has yet offered me new knowledge that
will improve my practice"
I understand what David is saying and I'm grateful for his observations but..
I have in the past been able to reflect usefully on ideas about creativity that
have led me to improve my own methods of working and give a more informed
structure to my students' experience and I'm sure that I am not alone in this.
The quote from Pierre Bezier provided by Martti Lemieux a while ago seems to
sum up a lot of the ideas that I have found useful and I commend it to anybody
looking for a way to reflect on their own work.
Similarly, Terry Love has frequently referred to new knowledge about how our
brains operate as a promising source of ways to understand designing. At first
I thought he was off with the fairies (in his ambitions, not his knowledge) but
recently I have come to the view that, the more I know about myself, the better
I am equipped to behave well and work to good effect. Knowledge does not have
to be explicitly linked to purpose for it to have an effect.
In fact we have a good example to hand in the way that theories which explain
dyslexia (as poor integration between the two hemispheres of the brain) are
helpful in developing strategies for overcoming this disability. The
strategies don't involve any kind of physiological intervention, they still
require the individual to take an intelligent and constructive approach to
their own problems but I have seen plenty of cases where this kind of
self-knowledge has been very helpful to people in approaching their education
and professional lives.
So let's reassert that knowledge is good and remember that its utility is never
completely transparent. Otherwise we might as well give up on research. When
Bezier asked, "Is imagination not based partly on the ability to connect
notions which, at first sight, look quite unrelated....Is it related to the
sense of humor that can detect unexpected relationships between facts that look
quite unconnected?" he was reminding us is that each of us has responsibility
for making our own connections, if you can't construct useful personal insights
from situations and knowledge that you encounter that's your problem. (David
Sless is never short of insights or humour so I hope he's enjoying all this)
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
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Professor Chris Rust
Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University UK
www.shu.ac.uk/design
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tel +44 114 225 2706
fax +44 114 225 2603
Psalter Lane, Sheffield S11 8UZ, UK
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