Dear Chuck
You raise, for me, one of the key issues in terms of Design Theory as a
Practice. You ask: "How can theory be institutionalized to function more
like language?" (I've quoted the paragraph below)
I think the example you take from Klau's article illustrates one way
that theory is already determined as a language. Those of us from
rhetorical backgrounds know what talk is for, we know how to listen, we
know how to form various discourse "rules" and we know how to look for
larger patterns in the drift of things. This means that at con-ferences,
the con-ventions of different groups come to the fore. We are often
looking for things to emerge and we provoke and pose and wait in hope
that the community will emerge in language as a language. When this
works the conference is magic - when it doesn't then we have to go home
with facts.
There are names, in some cultures, for the various plays and players
that go to form the science of theory as community.
keith russell
OZ Newcastle
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Charles Burnette <[log in to unmask]
Date: Friday - May 20, 2005 4:24 AM
Subject: Theory as affordance
How can theory be institutionalized to function more like language? (I
assume you will accept that language becomes institutionalized to
support
dialogue wihin a culture.) You wrote "I see bricolages (..a relatively
loose
ecology of artifacts, produced or at hand, whose uses are guided by
conceptions that its many participants bring to it...) as being lin
guistically coordinated,assembled, disassembled, or reconstructed with
novel
artifacts, collectively supporting institutions that in turn nourishes
artifacts selectively." Maybe a theory (or a word) is a momentary
artifact
or maybe it is an institution like a language that can evolve and
transform
within the constraints imposed on it by its users (and itself).
Collaborative design thinking can create a coherent mental or physical
artifact. How does or could "bricolagees" do so?
I'd be really interested to "see" where you take this artifact of our
conversation.
Thanks again,
Chuck
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