:-)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Buchanan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: Inquiry into Consequences


> Dear Eduardo,
>
> I am double blessed with a comment to me at the beginning and at the end 
> of
> your post.  Yes, "the field" is aware of the consequences of design and so
> are the members of this particular list--we are all building the field,
> gradually.  I was commenting on how quick some people were initially to
> brush Victor's question aside rather than take it up and examine it. 
> Quick
> responses are fine in some cases, but deliberate and thoughtful replies 
> are
> also helpful.  I hope you weren't bruised by my comment.
>
> The response to Victor's question has begun to change now, and I am glad.
> And it is good to see some new voices on the list.  But it took a while, 
> and
> the turn was not inevitable.  Clive says we need a bit more pushing and
> shoving to prompt a dialogue.  Maybe he is right.  Civil pushing and
> pulling.
>
> However, we are still looking for a way to turn toward productive
> conversation on this list rather than a simple exchange of information in
> long posts.  The information may be interesting, but one sometimes has the
> feeling of one digital recorder talking to another digital recorder. 
> Maybe
> good for students in a lecture hall--actually, I don't believe it is good 
> in
> the lecture hall or the classroom either--but certainly not good for
> professors talking in the faculty lounge.
>
> But I have to say that you are good in conversation, and I like that.  I
> will call you the Hermes of Lisbon, if you don't mind.
>
> Thanks for your smiling post--I can see your face light up with that smile
> even now,
>
> Dick
>
> Richard Buchanan
> Carnegie Mellon University
>
>
> On 8/7/07 7:25 AM, "Eduardo Corte Real" <[log in to unmask]> 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Victor and apparently Richard, (since I was one of the guys that 
>> "seem
>> rather quick and content to turn to other disciplines for information").
>>
>> Let's try a somewhat J.L. Borgean taxonomy of objects: Inconsequential
>> objects, consequential objects, design objects, objects that please the
>> emperor, objects that are made for the hand, objects at the hand, handy
>> objects, objects that move incessantly, uncanny objects, blue an green
>> objects, small and beautiful objects, imaginary objects, strange objects 
>> of
>> desire. the list is endless. (Borge's China emperor, in another tale, 
>> also
>> ordered a map so detailed of its empire that unfolded it covered 
>> perfectly
>> the whole territory).
>>
>> Let's try also the total absence of objects. I would turn to Hans 
>> Castorp,
>> Thomas Mann character, lost in the snow and fog. Lost to an unimaginable
>> dimension of lostness, with no objects as references with any linearity 
>> to
>> guide him.
>>
>> From Borges we learn that any scientific approach needs representation 
>> and
>> classification of representations. But the most accurate representation 
>> is
>> the one that matches exactly the represented thing, useless as
>> representation, consequently.
>>
>> From Mann we learn that our humanity lays in our presence, and that 
>> without
>> the visual objectuality related with, at least the linearity of 
>> directions,
>> we are lost in its ultimate sense.
>>
>> Both Borges and Mann are not design researchers but tell us a lot about 
>> the
>> 'dasein' of objects.
>>
>> This reminds me of the sentence that is the foundation of Design as we
>> discuss it today:
>>
>> "Signum hoc loco apello quicquid in superficie ita insit ut possit oculo
>> conspici" ( Sign, I call here, any thing in a surface that our eye may
>> perceive) in the first page of Leon Batista Alberti's treatise "De 
>> Pictura".
>> Later translated by the same Alberti to the Florentine language, he
>> translates signum by "segno" thus making sense of the word "disegno". Di 
>> is
>> a prefix that indicates action. Disegno means literally signs in action.
>>
>> The English word design came from a different branch of sign related 
>> words
>> "Designare", to name or point, or to mark. I found no evidence that this
>> word Design was used in English before the 1500's to indicate any kind of
>> object production. Even to the beginning of the 1800's the common use of 
>> the
>> word was as 'whish' or 'will' although it was really commonly used to
>> designate projectual drawings (thus after "disegno").
>>
>> There is no doubt that we may think objects as design objects or simply 
>> as
>> objects. When we think them as design objects we are forced to understand
>> them as a result of an intention. I agree that designers or design 
>> theorists
>> or design researchers are better equipped to deal with that relation 
>> because
>> they, as Victor wrote, have better insights. But if you think about it, 
>> this
>> is reflexive to the design process, where the intentions lay.
>>
>> In order to know more about objects we need the observation, 
>> classification,
>> mapping of objects of other sciences if we want to be scientific about 
>> it.
>> Another thing is the urgent need of a Critic about design objects that I
>> find irrevocably needed for Doctoral studies or, for that matter research 
>> in
>> Design.
>>
>> An sorry Ken, but I think that Simon's definition of Design "[devise]
>> courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred 
>> ones"
>> is wrong. It should be like this "[devise] courses of action aimed at
>> changing existing situations into preferred ones DIFFERENTLY".  Meaning
>> differently according to a methodoxy or against a methodoxy. To design
>> Design is different from designing anything, it demands a disciplinary
>> consciousness. Meaning differently a disciplinary awareness, of a 
>> discipline
>> indefinable but existing.  And existing because, still, there are Design
>> Schools, Design Departments in Universities, Higher Education In Design,
>> that, willing or not, are shaping, copying, following or fighting
>> methodoxies. Please don't confuse me with a Design Methods Movement
>> advocate. Even the Design Methods Movement was nothing but a Methodoxy.
>>
>> Ranjan MP and Paul Rodgers just come out with posts about the outside 
>> limits
>> of what Design objects are. Objects so, so design that become trans 
>> design
>> and migrate to art that become interesting for design research and 
>> objects
>> so undersigned that become interesting to Design researchers and 
>> designers.
>> Any critical argument about them is welcome but most likely, inevitably 
>> will
>> come back to the intentions and the process of prefiguration and
>> configuration of such objects.
>>
>> A last word for Richard:
>>
>> before anything else, Design researchers and Designers must be 
>> Intellectuals
>> (Bonsiepe said it much better than I do). Any doctoral student must, 
>> first
>> of all, be prepared to be an intellectual. Any person working Victor's
>> question and being an intellectual should go further that the field.
>>
>> I think we agree on that. Your dismay with the lack of interest of this
>> community for the issue of consequences is first: erroneous. Second: If 
>> this
>> community has really no interest in design consequences (I think it has a
>> lot) you have failed in shaping the field.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Eduardo
>>