Dear David and Colleagues
You wrote:
"One of the big difficulties we all face, having recognised that something
important is going on between people and designs, is how to describe it.
It's like exploring a new territory and our vocabulary for doing so is
really quite limited."
Yes indeed, designers' vocabulary for exploring the new territory of
interaction between people and designs is still limited. But efforts are
being deployed since, say the last 50 years, towards devising such a
vocabulary. Design researchers should keep playing an active role in
devising such a vocabulary, drawing from predecessors as suggested by
Victor (core references), but also drawing from and collaborating with
Archeologists (both in Processual and in Post-Processual Archaeology), and
with Ethnologists working in Material Culture Studies. "Critical discourse
surrounding contemporary material culture has become an important
aspect of design
education <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_education> because it offers
designers new perspectives on how their practice affects society and the
environment." (in Wikipedia).
There also is both intensive and extensive thought to refer to on artefacts
and human needs and agency by the late American philosopher, James K.
Feibleman, in addition to Bruno Latour and his ANT Theory building group.
With all the above, I guess we, as individuals and as a group, will soon be
in a position to leap into 'adulthood' and start speaking, at last, in a
more coherent, more meaningful, more useful and more socially negotiable
manner!
Francois
Montreal
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