Hello
This is a medium long post.
It is with great interest I have been taken part in the discussion on
deconstruction with has developed over the last days.
I would like to add yet another dimension: Few
disciplines/multidisciplines/subjects/areas are as 'polluted' with a
vocabulary as murky as that of design. A lot of different denominations,
notions, adjectives etc are frequently used without much discrimination. All
parties involved; designers, educators, journalists, manufacturers,
advertisers, retailers, consumers, ... are talking the same language but
saying different things! Or doesn't seem to know what exactly they are
talking about.
When I started my PhD work a couple of years ago I posted a question on this
list concerning a definition of the phenomenon timeless/timeless-ness, a
very overused word in current design vocabulary. The discussion that emerged
was very useful. It got me started to do exactly what is now on the agenda
here - to deconstruct and look for hidden, or more precise, meanings
'wherever' the word appeared. To perform this type of critical thinking, you
don't have to, as someone said, get totally submerged in Derridian thinking.
What you take on is a time consuming, but quite logic, mapping, which bit by
bit makes the essence unfold and the crap disappear.
As this mapping is part of my thesis I do need the references though.
I AM GRATEFUL FOR ANY ADDITIONS, WHICH MIGHT SUPPORT WHAT I HAVE ALREADY
UNDERTAKEN.
One important task for design research must be just this: To develop the
epistemology (and to a certain extend also what Nigel Cross calls
praxiology) of design by critical thinking, which will allow for practising
designers to pick up the thread and reflect without doing all the time
consuming mapping themselves.
Kristina Borjesson
PhD-student
CSM
University of the Arts, London
----- Original Message -----
From: "JohannV Van Der Merwe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: deconstruction and Design - and another definition
> Jeffrey Bardzell wrote:
> For what it's worth, I'l like to see deconstruction used more in design
> research--not dogmatically, of course, but rather as one strategic
> source among many. It is a powerful form of criticism, which focuses on
> the constructedness of things from a technical and interdisciplinary
> perspective. As such, I think it is an appropriate approach to design
> research.
>
> and Michael Pearson replied:
> Jeffrey - I absolutely agree with you - I firmly believe that we
> should
> become more critical in our approach to design ... we need ... to
> introduce
> critical thinking as a precursor to the manifestation of artefact .
> Oh - and being critically minded of course we must also interrogate
> the
> concept of being critical..
>
> I can only agree with both, and if deconstruction is to be used in
> design research, let's use it in the way that Derrida originally meant
> it: not as a plan for physical action / appearance / a design style, but
> as a critical way of seeing and (re)thinking. Seen in this light it is,
> of course, not a new idea, but perhaps a new vantage point from which to
> "unscramble" what we are confronted with "in the world" - and
> immediately the importance of (a knowledge of) language comes back into
> design education, and of course people like Wittgenstein and language
> games. Design is social communication, but not mere acceptance of what
> already is. Michael is right in emphasizing critical thinking - that is
> what deconstruction stands for, but it does not stand for an approach to
> design that blows things apart and reassembles the shattered pieces (or
> a building that looks like an explosion in a fish canning factory - said
> one critic once upon a time).
> Derrida even came to an understanding with Gadamer in that both agreed
> to recognize the existence of social protective guardrails (very similar
> to Kelly's personal constructs), and the crucial point is not to explode
> these ways of knowing as nonsense or as "wrong" - but to respect these
> "barriers" to further knowledge / growth / other interpretations, and to
> find ways to overcome them: not by force ("you just listen to me because
> I am right") but by allowing another viewpoint to emerge in a
> non-threatening way. We all construct meaning in our own way, that is
> known to us, and we cannot leave this protective circle without help
> (even if that help only comes from an interesting story that I have
> read, but one that made me think). The idea is for design students to
> move beyond themselves (from where and what they are, now) to that
> position, in the future (next week, next year?) where they will
> recognize the new person (designer) in themselves. This is done not by
> filling their heads (just) with critical theory or any other bits of
> knowledge (which by the way is such a rubbish and poorly understood
> modernist way of seeing education, because by the time my "knowledge"
> gets to you, it has turned back into mere information - the Cinders
> coach turned back into a mere pumpkin), but by opening up to them the
> wonderful world of critical thought - i.e. any form of deconstructive
> reading, which should in all honesty be so close to hermeneutical
> interpretation as to make no difference (cf. Ricoeur). This does not
> negate in any way the value of theory (I teach students that without
> using some form of theory, however trivial, you are probably dead), but
> theory can only be "discovered" (the use/fulness and application of
> theory) by each individual, and for that you need critical thinking - a
> deconstructive way of looking, a research approach that says "prove it
> to me - what for - why?"
>
> Michael also wrote: learning and practicing strategies that enables
> one
> to think critically is a more powerful skill than knowledge of
> critical
> theory - this is exactly what we are doing, Michael, in our so-called
> History and Theory of Design course, and I was very glad to read this
> post of yours, as I was with the previous one which I handed on to my
> staff for discussion. I can almost echo your sentiment of crying in
> one's sleep for the lost opportunities for students, but luckily there
> are enough of my 3rd years who actually do become critical thinkers to
> spare me the worst of educational nightmares.
>
> Johann
>
> PS: I used this 2002 article by Jan Michl, "On seeing design as
> redesign", Scandinavian Journal of Design History 12, as the basis of a
> "test" of design thinking - you cannot design without someone else's
> input, without design solution precedents, i.e. without moving outside
> your safe and known circle / comfort zone.
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