Dear Terry,
Thanks for your response. I regret that there is no way to answer this. If you are attempting to address epistemological questions in design theory, writing questions for a school exam doesn’t seem to me to be the way to get at this.
No one that I know of makes the “assumption that photography involves a design process and results in a design.” I do not make this assumption. I disagree with both statements. In my view, photography is not “a design process,” and photography does result in “a design.” If no one makes the assumption, no one has overlooked subtle theoretical points.
As I wrote earlier, this kind of inquiry begins with a clear definition. You are asking an institutional question. This institutional question does not point to problems in theory. The problem lies in the language you are using, not in the subject matter. One way to make this problem go away is to place photography students in dental school or a theology faculty. Then we can ask them technical photography questions without worrying whether these questions raise theoretical problems about teeth or transubstantiation.
There are two ways to see this.
The charitable way to see this that your explanatory post is confused and the language opaque. Epistemology requires clear thought and clear language. There is no point in attempting to address problems in design theory by starting with the idea that you need to clarify an assumption that no one makes.
The slightly grumpy to see this is that you are yourself starting with an unstated assumption. This is a definition of design that you have floated in many prior debates. You have an unstated definition of [the verb “design”] in mind, along with an unstated definition of [the noun “design”]. By proposing that someone makes the “assumption that photography involves a design process and results in a design” and suggesting that this raises subtle and not so subtle theoretical problems, you are showing that there exists here an epistemological problem that we can solve if only we permit you to back us into using your definitions.
This is not a contribution to design theory. This is the starting point of the same debate on this issue that has gone around on this list through numerous repetitions.
If I take the grumpy and not-so-charitable way of seeing this, I’d say that you were not asking a question at all. Since you already know what you think, you weren’t asking for input.
If I take the charitable view that the language was simply confused, I'd suggest sorting through your language to see what you really want ask. If there is actually a question you want to pose about design theory, please ask again in clear terms rather than asking about photography.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
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> On 2015Sep15, at 13:50, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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The three questions I posed I suggest act as a reasonable test of whether photography is a design activity/design discipline or not in current design theory terms.
The three questions can bring to light some subtle and not so subtle points of theory that may have been overlooked in the assumption that 'photography involves a design process and results in a design’.
—snip—
—snip—
The issue as a whole emerged in the context of writing questions for the equivalent of the UK AS level examinations in Design. It became clear that it is not obvious that photographers produce a 'design' (using a design process) that is then used in 'manufacture' of the photographic image (the product). It is straightforward to ask students of product design to explain their design process and identify the design output that results from that design process (usually SolidWorks/Autocad files or production drawings) and explain how that design output is used in the manufacture of the product. There seem to be problems asking photography design students to answer the same about their design process and design output...
From experience, this kind of confusion/conceptual problem is often an indicator the accepted theory view of a situation is flawed and needs review, hence me asking for input.
—snip—
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