*EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, SOCIAL WORLDS*
4th STSItalia National Congress
Rovigo (Italy), June 21-23, 2012
Track proposal n. 12 (
http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/STSITALIA_2012/STS_Track12.pdf)
*DESIGN PRACTICES, ARTICULATIONS AND STABILIZATIONS OF THE COLLECTIVE*
Convenors:
Stefano Maffei (Politecnico di Milano, [log in to unmask])
Alvise Mattozzi (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, [log in to unmask])
Laura Lucia Parolin (Università di Milano “Bicocca”,
[log in to unmask])
Paolo Volonté (Politecnico di Milano, [log in to unmask])
Artifacts have been one of the focuses of STS’ reflection. STS have shown
their social role by outlining the paths of their (de)stabilization and by
accounting for them as full-fledged actors of our collective.
And yet, only recently, STS started to take systematically into
consideration design as a complex process of articulations and
stabilizations of artifacts (A.Telier 2011; Ingram-Shove-Watson 2007;
Jelsma-Knot 2002; Latour 2008; Yaneva 2009b; Woodhouse-Patton 2004).
Such a discovery of the design domain has firstly emerged as a research on
the design practices in various areas, from those closer to the ones
traditionally addressed by STS, such as engineering (Bucciarelli 1994; Law
2002; Vinck 2009), to others, such as architecture (Houdart 2006;
Latour-Yaneva 2008; Yaneva 2009a; 2009b) or product design (Parolin 2010;
Storni 2011).
This track wants to recover and foster this thread of researches in order
to deepen the dialogue between STS and Design Studies by highlighting the
heterogeneous and situated nature of design practices.
But it is not limited to that.
Today design is seen as a resource for innovation, a dispositif for the
creation and the valorization of any emerging technology. Thus, tackling
design in all its facets should allow us to contribute to the accounting of
social worlds’ present dynamics. Thanks to the principle of symmetry as
well as to the concept of translation, STS can effectively account for the
relevance of design within our collective.
Will, thus, STS contribute to Design Studies? Can Design Studies offer
tools to STS to tackle design?
List (non-exhaustive) of addressable topics:
- social dimensions of design
- design practices and manufacturing
- designing artifact, articulating practices of use
- the use of new technologies within design practices
- users’ design
- adoption and stabilization of artifacts
References
A. Telier, 2011, *Design Things*, MIT Press.
Bucciarelli L. L., 1994, *Desinging Engineers*, MIT Press.
Houdart S., 2006, “Des multiples manières d’être réel. La représentation en
perspective dans le projet d’architecture”, *Terrain *46/1, pp. 107-122.
Ingram J. et al., 2007, “Products and Practices: Selected Concepts from
Science and Technology Studies and from Social Theories of Consumption and
Practice”, *Design Issues*, Vol. 23/2, pp. 3-16.
Jelsma J. and Knot M., 2002, “Designing environmentally efficient services:
a ‘script’ approach”,* The Journal of Sustainable Product Design*, 2/.3-4,
pp. 119-130.
Latour B., 2008, “A Cautious Prometheus: A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of
Design”, keynote lecture, *Networks of Design*, meeting of the Design
History Society.
Latour B. and Yaneva A., 2008, “Give me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings
Move”: An ANT’s View of Architecture”, R. Geiser, ed.,* Explorations in
Architecture: Teaching, Design*, *Research*. Basel, 2008, p. 80-89.
Law J., 2002, *Aircraft Stories: Decentering the Object in Technoscience*,
Duke University Press.
Parolin L. L., 2010, “Sulla produzione materiale. Qualità sensibili e
sapere pratico nella stabilizzazione degli artefatti”, *Tecnoscienza *1/1,
pp. 39-56.
Storni C., 2011, “Unpacking design practices: the notion of things in the
making of artifacts”,* Science, Technology and Human Values*, pp. 1-36.
Vinck, D., 2009, *Everyday Engineering: An Ethnography of Design and
Innovation*, MIT Press
Yaneva A., 2009a, *Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: an
Ethnography of Design*, 010.
Yaneva A., 2009b, “Making the Social Hold: Towards an Actor-Network Theory
of Design”, in *Design and Culture*, 1/3, pp. 273-288.
Yaneva A., 2009c, *The Making of a Building, A pragmatist approach to
architecture*, Peter Lang.
Woodhouse E. and Patton J. W., 2004, “Design by Society: Science and
Technology Studies and the Social Shaping of Design”, *Design Issues*,
20/3, pp. 1-12.
Abstracts (in Italian or English) should be sent as email attachment (as MS
word or Rich Text Format) to the track’s coordinators (and carbon copied to
[log in to unmask]) by March 1, 2012. Abstracts with a maximum length
of 500 words should contain the title, author's name, affiliation and
contact details including e-mail.
Further information on the conference on: www.stsitalia.org.
--
Alvise Mattozzi
Semiotician
Research Fellow in Sociology of Culture and Communication
Faculty of Design and Art
Free University of Bozen
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