clive,



thank you,

clive,

for your insightful post.  i don't have much to add in response to terry.  



but i want to point to the theory of evolution of species as an analogue to how design is embedded in the social construction of technology.



it is widely recognized that evolution takes place when random mutation meets natural selection, the survivors of which have offsprings that include further mutation and selection of the unfit, etc.



mutation is always of something that has previously survived, i.e., pertains to dimensions that are altered in ways that cannot be anticipated, in case of nature non-purposefully, in case of design with some idea of the future in mind.  



true, even random mutations are always of something, i.e., they do not mean that a new species could emerge although an existing species may well lead to a splitting of one species into two.



for evolutionary processes, we may say quite confidently what will not happen but are at a loss concerning what will happens. i.e. we can speak of constraints but not of the innovations that will succeed within these constraints.  so, when the wright brothers experimented with a flying machine, the dream of human flying was of ancient origin, of course, but their novel combination of what they knew: kites, propellers, and automobile engines could not be predicted from the dream or from the existence of the technology at that time. it is quite possible that the dream could have been realized in another way and started an altogether different trajectory.  we wouldn't know.



to me the theory of evolution teaches us a lot of what we do, although i have been in seminars where natural scientist insisted that it is not a scientific theory because it doesn't predict anything. i have countered that it does predict what will not happen, which defines the space in which mindless mutations or purposeful design may happen. but surely, what will happen cannot be predicted from the analysis of what exists.  conceptualizing our work within evolutionary processes rather than as deterministic ones (which scientific research intends to explore) requires a gestalt shift that i think is necessary to understand design, write about design, and succeed in designing future artifacts.



klaus 



-----Original Message-----

From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Clive Dilnot

Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 2:52 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Where do we want to go? Innovation and the new



Terry,

I will leave to Klaus the requested “saying more” around the

proposition that 'Innovations cannot be extrapolated from existing data,

they always add something new and are inherently unpredictable from the

past’ but the arguments in your last post are so misleading they call

for a wider rebuttal. 



1. If no innovation arrives sui generis and if all innovations can be

archaeologically re-constructed as to their origins—much in the way

that art historians used to avidly pursue “influences” on

artists—Klaus’ major point still stands in that genuinely

configurative innovations (note the qualification here) can only be

retrospectively and indeed artificially extrapolated. A simple example:

The London Underground Diagram (1931 and passim). If you study of the

conditions surrounding the mapping of the London underground system

between between 1908 and the late 1920s you can retrospectively identify

the ways in which the paradigm of “map” was breaking down. By

looking at some of Stingmore’s maps of the system c.1930 you can

identify all the elements that went into Harry Beck’s transformation

of the map into diagram in 1931. But what you cannot do, or can do only

illegitimately, is to suppose that there is no decisive break between

the one and the other, between ‘past’ (Stingmore) and the new

present (Beck). The configurative innovation that Beck introduced a)

cannot be fully extrapolated from the existing models; b) adds

‘something new and inherently unpredictable’ from the past. In

short, Beck’s diagram constitutes a genuine innovative event—or I

would say a genuine configurative event. Two more small examples, this

time from around 1960, might make the same point—i.e. the

configurative innovation of the Austin-Morris Mini and Mary Quant’s

configurative innovation of the mini-skirt



2. ‘Path dependence of innovations by which they are tightly linked

to and dependent on past innovations’ are best thought of by looking

at the path as a whole as the innovative sequence. Prediction of

developmental possibilities within a sequence is not necessarily

innovation—unless and until, in design terms, that sequence issues in

an unpredictable configurative jump. To what extent is Apple’s

development of the GUI the setting in chain of a sequence where a

fundamental innovation acts ‘as if’ it were an evolutionary leap,

opening a whole new series of developmental possibilities? Or, to return

to the LUD, to what extent is it the sequential grand-father of a whole

series of like-minded transformations of maps-into-diagrams for urban

transit networks? 



3. To see technological innovations and sometimes design

transformations as setting in chain innovative and developmental

sequences is to allow us to see the issues of ‘path dependence’ and

‘delay between innovation and appearance on the market’ providing we

play both also through economics and the market and through the issue of

categories. For example, an object like a video-recording or a DVD

player is in practice not determined by form-follows-function but by

form follows category (in this case “home entertainment”).

Configurative innovation with these objects would involve the

re-configuration of these objects such that they broke with the existing

category. A silly example would be Ron Arad’s Concrete Stereo of the

late 1970s, an object of unpredictable innovation whose value is to

throw light onto the fact that in fact the design of most such consumer

goods is indeed path-determined, but not necessarily by objective

technological considerations, rather by social, cultural and economic

categories. 



4. To call the possibility of changes or developments ‘in the

governance of Bolivia over the next decade or two’ (due to the fact

that it ‘holds 50% of the worlds reserves of lithium and is not

militarily one of the stronger nations innovations’) “innovations”

is to stretch the word beyond meaning. Innovations are not simple

changes. They are much more like (unpredictable) events. Innovations may

well occur in the governance of Bolivia over the next half-century; but

they will be innovations only when and if they issue in a new

configuration or new mode of governance; when, in effect, there is the

invention of new ways of governing Bolivia. Such new ways of

governance—if they are indeed innovations and not simply the

borrowing of models from elsewhere or the imposition of different (but

existent) patterns of how states are governed. To put it simply: all

change is not innovation. 



5. If one was to restrict a definition of design to 'newness' and ‘to

social interactions as theory foundations’ might have a point that

such a definition ‘doesn't seem to work.’ But I don’t think Klaus

was making such a restrictive definition. I understood him to be saying

that in so far as configurative change (design) brings something

“new” into the world then, at certain qualitative points of

change (what we call “innovations”) what is made or brought into the

world in this way cannot be fully extrapolated from the existing

“data” (or existing fields of objects) and that their

configuration adds something new (something that we may, at first,

scarcely understand). This, I think, is a necessary—though not

sufficient—aspect of any adequate theory of design. One aspect of its

necessity is that it deals with one of the most essential internal

aspects of design, namely that design operates—we might say

exclusively operates—on the configuration of things. Clearly, in the

re-configuration of things there is a spectrum of transformation that

goes from reproduction and duplication of what-is (what I will

flippantly call the “Hong Kong” model of design) through to the

genuinely innovative—where the degree of configurative transformation

is such that one word we use to describe such things (especially today)

is “innovations.”  Innovations then are originary events. Existing

within and coming from a historical sequence they nonetheless alter that

sequence—and often in unpredictable ways. Any adequate theory of

design must include this moment—otherwise it does not comprehend much

of what is salient to design. Including these moments in an adequate

theory of design does not, contrary to your (un-argued) statement

fail” any of your five tests. 



6. Given that all design issues from and is conducted in response to

the social then there can be no adequate theory of design that is not in

some manner in grounded in social construction and social creation. 



Best wishes



Clive 





Clive Dilnot

Professor of Design Studies

Parsons School of Design/

New School University

Room #731, 7th Floor

6 E16th St

New York 

NY 10011



T. (1)-212-229-8916  x1481





>>> Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> 8/17/2010 12:52 PM >>>

Hi Klaus,



Thank you for your comments.



You wrote: <snip>'Innovations cannot be extrapolated from existing

data,

they always add something new and are inherently unpredictable from

the

past. <endsnip> '



Please can you say more. Reality seems to be the opposite. 



One of the things I find  obvious is the path dependence of innovations

by

which they are tightly linked to and dependent on past innovations.

Mostly

future innovations are fairly easy to see at least in broad brush

format

for a decade or more  ahead. For  example as soon as it was obvious in

the

70s that logic chips and  small electromechanical actuators would be

mass

produced, you could (and lots of us did) immediately predict most of

the

consumer items that we have seen developed since then. Similarly, you

can

see now that the rapid rise in battery powered devices (particularly

phones

and electric cars) will result in particular kinds of 'innovations' in

the

governance of Bolivia over the next decade or two. This doesn't take

much.

There are only a few places lithium is available in easy to access

quantities. Bolivia holds 50% of the worlds reserves and is not

militarily

one of the stronger nations. You might also predict some innovations

in

governance and trade in Afghanistan now lithium has been discovered

there.

Similarly, it is possible to predict some innovations in future

US-Iranian

negotiations due to the fact that  Hezbollah and the IRGC are well

represented in South America near Bolivia.



Linking  definitions of design to  'newness' and to social interactions

as

theory foundations doesn't seem to  work on several fronts.  In the

90s, I

also defined design in terms of newness and social creation. It seemed

obviously useful, however, to test definitions of design -  there are

hundreds of them. Some of the tests I used included: 1) Did the

definitions

successfully include everything that people seemed to think should be

included in  design?; 2) Did they  exclude things that didn't seem to

be

design? 3) Did they work to make a coherent theory picture across all

the

disciplines that have strong literatures of design and design theory?;

4)

Did they make sense in terms of providing good coherence for design

with

theories from other fields ?; and 5) Did they fit with observable

reality?

Defining design activity as dependent on newness and social

construction and

independent of the past seemed to fail several of the above. 



A key issue in theorising about design at a macro-scale seems to be how

to

deal with 2 issues: path dependence and delay between innovation and

appearance on the market. For example, ideas about devices similar to

the

iPad were around in the 80s. In the mid-90s (15 years ago), I wrote my

PhD

thesis on an A4 size lightweight touch sensitive Compaq computer

screen

using 'Pen Windows 1.0'.  It worked well (especially compared to the

Newton)

and recognised my handwriting (even I have difficulty with that!). It

was

easy to see then that sometime in the future Apple would eventually

come up

with the iPad or something similar  - and that it would likely be more

user

friendly because  that appears to be a focus of Apple's design effort.

It's

just taken rather a long time!



Can you suggest areas of design that could not be extrapolated from

prior

art?



Best wishes,

Terry