Dear Francois,
I share your desire: if only we all were younger, we could remedy at least a few of the gaps in our formal learning.
Perhaps we are now training the people who will be working for Apple in the future? If we take on the burden of caring about these things, if we value the processes of valuing in all our teaching, then perhaps we can be part of a future that has design awareness.
cheers
keith
>>> Francois Nsenga <[log in to unmask]> 12/01/10 5:43 AM >>>
Yes indeed, dear Keith, "anthropology and ethnology must be implicated in
all design research"; however, as would say Eduardo, designers not becoming
Anthroplogists/Ethnographers!
The actual problem is precisely that relatively little of 'robust'
anthopology/ethnology insights is embedded into artifacts. In today market
induced modus operandi, designers translate (not "create") excessively much
of the only business value, that of maximizing profit out of sales, as
dictated in briefs handed over to designers by marketers and economists . In
spite of all current claims and pretentions (oftentimes genuine and/or
naive), the "burden of - taking into account other avenues of -
valorization" is comparatively very, very light on designers' shoulders!
If I were younger, I'd definitely have registered in Dr. Tunstall's program,
with the aim, as a researcher in/for design, to explore further the
pertinence and concrete modalities of translating (neither creating nor
"determining"!) into artifacts ALSO those other human values, namely the use
value as observed not on the market place (where the sole activity is that
of exchanging goods and services) but in real life contexts where the sole
compound activity implicating the full essence of artifacts is that of their
use. Chatting is indeed one of the many uses of the iPhone, and I'd be
curious to learn the proportion of research, development, manufacturing and
promoting efforts that have been devoted at Apple towards full enhancement
of this particular 'service' - or value - of the artifact!
Regards
Francois
Montreal
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