Richard Buchanan was probably right, design is a modern phenomenon, and
as a discipline, this new kid on the block accepts new ideas and
practices, but, like the nouveau riche, it also desperately wants to be
known as an individual within the original old money group whose party
it just gatecrashed. Therefore it deperately tries to re-design itself
by definition (you can picture the gatecrasher lying through his teeth
despite all the raised eyebrows directed at him), instead of by
distinction/differentiation.
Wanting to become the original is impossible, since you end up as a
somewhat empty copy, and this goes against all the guidelines of
actor-network theory. We also lose sight of the possible 'third way' of
seeing design (which includes not confusing theory with method). 

Design is what comes of the network that needs to be built up, in
context absolutely, and with the local environment as the other actors
(including humans, but also objects/systems as non-human actors). Design
for the nouveau riche is blatant consumerism, and is a one-way street of
indulgence - there is no network, since there is only one focal actor
whose word is law, by definition! Old design from the industrial era
used to be like this, but we have moved on, haven't we?

If Richard Buchanan is to be correct with 'neoteric', then please pay
attention to Chris Rust's Undisciplined conference this July (just the
week before Ezio Manzini & Changing the Change). If we are serious about
design helping the world to become a better place, and acting as a
change agent, remember it is the individual, which includes the designer
+ every human actor in the (local) network, that is really the change
agent. If design is successful as a 'change agent' it is because the
designer did what? Offered defined design parameters to the user? Or
because the designer acted more like a facilitator working with the
context (which means working with what people need for long term
sustainability) of the network-in-action?

Take neoteric + de-constructing the sign (Bruce), and what happens?
Any thoughts?
Johann

>>> Mike McAuley <[log in to unmask]> 06/14/08 9:17 AM >>>
Hi Terry,
I have to say, I always read your posts and benefit from your  
thoughts. I hope you will be at DRS in July.

Are we defining a word, or a field of enquiry? Were we to take the  
challenge of defining 'black' or for that matter 'green', we would  
quickly realise that a single definition can not be context  
exclusive. I can not imagine the field of medicine or law, stressing  
over a single, encompassing definition. Perhaps we are too eager to  
be taken seriously in academia. That we ask  such questions as to  
what pertains to a single definition of design suggests we want to be  
taken seriously but are not sure what we are. We are still what  
Buchanan in 1998 called a 'neoteric' discipline. I am tempted to ask  
my colleagues, can you define neoteric?

Mike
McAuley