[apologies for cross posting]



*Call for Papers** – Deadline Extension to 27 **January** 2023*
EKSIG 2023 From Abstractness to Concreteness - experiential knowledge and
the role of prototypes in design research
International Conference 2023 of the DRS Special Interest Group on
Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG)

https://www.eksig2023.polimi.it/

*Date: *Monday and Tuesday, 19-20 June 2023
*Venue: *Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

*Deadline for Full Paper Submission:* 15 January 2023

*Conference Submission System opens!* EKSIG 2023 Conftool
<https://www.conftool.org/eksig2023>


*Confirmed Keynote Speakers*
Prof. Dr. P.J. Stappers, TU Delft, Netherlands
Kathryn Marinaro, Creative Director, Argodesign, USA
Aldo Sollazzo, Founder and CEO, Noumena, Italy

The conference aims to provide a forum for debate about prototypes as a
mean for knowledge generation by professionals and academic researchers,
exploring the role and relationship of generating and evaluating new and
existing knowledge in the creative disciplines and beyond.

We invite the submission of full papers (4000-5000 words) that offer new or
challenging views on the conference theme. The papers will be selected
through a double-blind peer-review process by an international review team.
We invite contributions from creative subjects and other disciplines, e.g.
design, architecture, engineering, craft, media, HCI, performance,
music, fine art, curation, museology, archaeology, philosophy, knowledge
management, education, health, cognitive science, sensory studies and other
fields that are concerned with collaboration in research and in creative
and professional practice.

*Conference theme*
Prototype and prototyping play a key role in experiential knowledge since
they support the interconnections and collaboration among researchers and
practitioners in many design fields. The role of prototypes in design
research is characterised mainly by the general function of representing
ideas and giving intelligible form to undetermined and abstract concepts
pertaining to design solutions. Such a principle of transition from
vagueness to clarity illustrates views on the role of prototypes which
dot the diverse landscape of design research. Indeed, the evolution of
design research in the past twenty years has led the path to a wide range
of new possible prototype applications.

Originally, in the industrial context, prototypes were made to test,
evaluate, and improve the product until the final design and production
phase. When design became an academic discipline, the scope of its enquiry
expanded, embracing new areas of interest (i.e., sustainable design,
materials design, participatory design, service design, user experience
design, etc.), and their methodologies and scopes. During this evolution,
the role that prototypes play in design research started to
be questioned.

Indeed, nowadays, the role of the prototype encompasses several
possibilities that link to the context and aim of the design research. When
a general aim of the investigation is to develop a new design solution and
make it real and available to users at the end of the process, prototypes
support the transition from the idea to the final product. In this realm,
prototypes play a crucial role, as they visualise, validate, experiment,
and create such new solutions. Interestingly, prototypes for this kind
of design research can be simple paper models that anticipate interactions
up to complete working prototypes that are very close to the final product.
In the digital field, provisional solutions are released on the market and
updated afterwards. Prototypes, in this case, merge with the final
products. New boundaries are broken between a final design and what is
not.

Furthermore, the products that designers call to envision are becoming more
and more complex. They are equipped with sensors, processors, and connected
devices that support the interaction with digital interfaces, applications,
and complex services. Hence, prototypes are meant to support design
processes that rely on the supplementation of new kinds of expertise – such
as user experience design, interaction design, material design and computer
science – besides those traditionally integrated – such as product design,
mechanical and electronic engineering). In this regard, the
prototype embodies the translation of different design languages into a
developing concept.

Moreover, design research that explores and discusses possibilities might
go beyond the development of concrete solutions and tackle significant
issues (i.e., the impact of technology on society; climate change, social
innovation) to reach new understating and develop new knowledge. This kind
of design research usually occurs in academia and requires exploratory and
speculative studies. Some of this design research is about tangible objects
or is based on material experimentations. Typically, prototypes play an
important role in the first explorative phases, in this realm since they
enable the transition from abstract to concrete through immediate and
factual experience. Designers research by envisioning solutions,
imagining possible futures, exploring new fields, and feeding the design
discourse with emerging contemporary issues and fictional scenarios.

Overall, the multifaceted landscape of today’s design research opens to a
wide range of meanings that define what a prototype is and does. The
discussion on prototypes’ identity is open.  Instead of seeking to find an
ultimate definition of prototype and its role in today’s design research,
the conference aims at eliciting a conversation around the current
and multiform panorama of experimentations around and with prototypes.

The call for papers encourages contributions with the following:
• What are the new roles of prototypes in these evolutionary pathways in
design research?
• How do new sophisticated, integrated, and advanced prototypes support
research in various areas of design?
• How do different research contexts (practice, R&D, and academia)
collaborate in design research due to the making and use of prototypes?
• How do prototypes enable the creation of theoretical knowledge and
support speculative research?
• How do prototypes enable the creation of practical knowledge and support
empirical research?
• How do prototypes enable the exploration of new research fields?

*Key dates*
• June/July 2022 – First Call for Papers
• 15 January 2023 >> 27 January 2023 – Submission of full papers
• 20 March 2023 – Notification of acceptance of papers
• 30 April 2023 – Submission of final revised papers
• 19-20 June 2023 – Conference

*Contact:* [log in to unmask]

-- 

*DR. NITHIKUL NIMKULRAT *(she/her)

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR & ACTING CHAIR

MATERIAL ART & DESIGN (MAAD)

FACULTY OF DESIGN

MAAD Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/ocadumaad/>



*E*  [log in to unmask]

*W* www.nithikul.com


OCAD UNIVERSITY
100 McCaul Street, Toronto, Canada M5T 1W1
www.ocadu.ca


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