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The Tyranny of Embodiment
Contemporary virtual worlds tend to insist on employing the metaphor of embodiment and replicating physical reality. We are represented by graphical avatars that in turn sit in virtual chairs around virtual tables. On the other hand in what ways might this insistence on replicating physical reality constrain the kinds of work that might take place in virtual worlds? In this article we outline a set of common expectations that derive from this insistence on embodiment and present examples of how these expectations might be broken in productive ways.
Design History of the www: Website Development from the Perspective of Genre and Style Theory
Since the emergence of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s the internet has become one of the most important tools for information entertainment trade and social contacts. From a primitive text-based medium the web has become a highly advanced and complex mass-multi-medium representing multiple forms of design. Despite the web’s importance as a design medium the development of website design has only been sporadically described. As yet we have no historical chronological descriptions of web design history similar to what we find for example in the study of art or “analogue” design history. The article demonstrates how website development can be analysed from a genealogical point of view. It does so by pointing out a number of genre and style formations and discussing their ideological and cultural sources. It is argued that the main engine for web development is the demand for renewal and differentiation from producers and users which leads to various technical functional and symbolic distinction strategies for website design.
The Grand Diversion: Play, Work and Virtual Worlds
Enterprises including corporations use virtual worlds for such purposes as marketing training and recruitment and increasingly meetings. As researchers whose primary focus has been on the nature of “work” and the sites and institutions that mediate contemporary experiences of work the authors reflect on the implications of play as a constitutive feature of virtual worlds through consideration of institutional uses of virtual worlds. Evidence for the claim that play has emerged as the paradigmatic metaphor for interpreting and designing virtual worlds is presented. A case from the authors’ company’s application of virtual worlds to work and learning environments is unpacked to explore how notions of play and game drove particular ways of proceeding and not others and the implications of this thinking for the resulting solution. Questions are raised concerning what such a rethinking may entail and the opportunities it may hold for opening up new opportunities and understandings of virtual worlds.
Enchanted Artifacts: Social Productivity and Identity in Virtual Material Ecologies
Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft offer some of the most immersive interactive possibilities for learning simulation and digital design in use today. While it is clear that they support complex collaborations and productivity often in highly engaging ways less well understood are the mechanisms that create conditions favorable to these outcomes. Theories of material ecology offer one approach to improving our understanding of the ways that virtual worlds support these forms of collaboration and productivity. This paper presents two case studies which consider two particular Second Life ecologies: its public sandboxes (used for developing content with its authoring tools) and the most private spaces of a private role-playing community. This paper offers an application of and a contribution to material ecology theory. The application is to use material ecology theory to understand non- casual productivity and advanced social behavior specifically in Second Life. The theoretical contribution is twofold: to clarify the relationship between a given material ecology and its type or kind; and to propose that technologists extend material ecology theory by incorporating material culture theory.
Considering conceptual type
Nanna Bonde's contribution to the conference Conceptual Type – Type led by ideas Copenhagen 19. November 2010.
Where are the idealistic fonts the artsy fonts the non fonts the political fonts the funny fonts the difficult fonts the fonts that do not look like fonts fonts that are frontiers of new belief?
We would like to focus on the ideas and concepts behind type. Rather than talk about type by asking who made it and what does it look like we will start a new decade by asking why do we make it and what does it mean?
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes art.'Sol LeWitt. 'Paragraph on Conceptual art' Artforum 1967.
We would like to borrow from Sol LeWitt's vision and replace ‘art’ with ‘type’ looking for the idea-type-machines of our time.
[From the conference call]
Productivity and Play in Organizations: Executive Perspectives on the Real-World Organizational Value of Immersive Virtual Environments
In exploring the productive potential of virtual worlds one relevant line of inquiry is the degree to which immersive online environments can support the objectives of real-world enterprises. Despite the favorable treatment of virtual worlds in the popular and business press organizations remain cautious in their acceptance and adoption of virtual environments. Since there is a dearth of academic literature on this facet of the virtual world phenomenon this research aims to provide an assessment of executive perspectives on the potential impact of virtual worlds on businesses and the challenges that may be encountered in organizational application of such environments. To capture business-oriented perceptions of virtual worlds we analyzed the reports of twenty-five business executives who recently spent considerable time training in and exploring Second Life a popular online virtual environment. We identify and discuss seven tensions reflected in their assessment of the organizational role of virtual worlds and situate these tensions in the prevailing computer-mediated communication discourse. Findings point to significant parallels with evaluative perspectives on earlier waves of Internet-based innovation insights from the existing literature on computer-mediated communication and an opportunity for theory generation through dialectical reasoning.
An Enlarged Pragmatist Inquiry Paradigm for Methodological Pluralism in Academic Design Research
As part of a process of academic legitimization design has made claims to be epistemologically and methodologically distinct from the Arts and Sciences. Among the multiple propositions that have been made about this distinctiveness little has been said about the fundamentally pragmatic nature of design research and practice. Pragmatism in both instrumental and critical forms is a robust epistemological and methodological terrain for design research which architecture and built environment disciplines have explored as a basis for their methodological pluralism. In the newer design disciplines of industrial interior and communication design theory fashions and the market (e.g. human-centred design interaction design retail design) predominate and the rich heritage and relevance of pragmatism is poorly understood. An expanded pragmatist inquiry paradigm incorporating visual and material argumentation and the opportunity for engagement with critical pragmatism offers away beyond the current “conceits” of design. Such a theoretically and philosophically informed epistemology has particular relevance to the current debates about scholarship in design as it proposes a provisional metanarrative– pragmatism – as the broad epistemological and methodological base for methodological pluralism in design research and practice.
Concepts and Realities: Marian
Paul Barnes' contribution to the conference Conceptual Type – Type led by ideas Copenhagen 19. November 2010.
Where are the idealistic fonts the artsy fonts the non fonts the political fonts the funny fonts the difficult fonts the fonts that do not look like fonts fonts that are frontiers of new belief?
We would like to focus on the ideas and concepts behind type. Rather than talk about type by asking who made it and what does it look like we will start a new decade by asking why do we make it and what does it mean?
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes art.'Sol LeWitt. 'Paragraph on Conceptual art' Artforum 1967.
We would like to borrow from Sol LeWitt's vision and replace ‘art’ with ‘type’ looking for the idea-type-machines of our time.
[From the conference call]
Conceptual Type: Type Led by Ideas
Human 2.0: Homo-Petroleosus Becomes Homo-Solarus
We have until 2025 to profoundly change the way we produce and use energy. We could hope that a confused array of carbon taxes voluntary individual actions hoped-for technological advances or beneficent aliens saves us from some climate and environmental catastrophe or we could look at the challenge as an engineer would. Engineers use reductionist logic to make complex design problems manageable so I’ll begin with that reductionist logic to create the background for our re-design.
Whole-Body Apoptosis
In order to minimize the prolonged debility of old age we should be designed to die abruptly and painlessly at some randomly determined time between 85 and 90 years old. This might help us trade the goal of living for as long as possible with the goal of living as well as possible.
Keeping Homo Sapiens 1.0
From a theological perspective the human animal is estranged. The feat of self-awareness leads also to the rejection of other human beings as non-persons. In this article I will first outline a theological concept of sin that is coherent with modern scientific findings. I will then discuss human bonding mechanisms and their evolutionary evolved limits. Finally I will argue that we ought not to improve homo sapiens but should still attempt to build an intelligence partner species (e.g. humanoid robots) that can teach us to be more tolerant and inclusive.
The Role of Design Artifacts in Design Theory Construction
As a discipline evolves intellectual issues come into focus and the outcomes of systematic inquiry grow in importance. The discipline of design is facing such a time as scholars researchers and practitioners are devoting attention to creating categories for design practice and design research articulating methods and processes and in some cases building new design theories. The field of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) is also experiencing an evolutionary broadening in scope that creates the need for design research. Many designers working in the HCI research community have expressed an increased interest in research through design a research approach that employs methods and processes from design practice. However without an agreed form of practice evaluation and outcome it is hard to consistently develop design theory from research to design outcomes. In this paper the authors begin to identify specific outcomes of research through design that form the basis for theory production. They present the research through design process and two different approaches of research through design (philosophical and grounded) that can lead to formation of design theory. They identify that extensible systemic approaches to research through design are the most promising ones for developing design theory and illustrate with examples.
Designing Human 2.0 (Transhuman) – Regenerative Existence
This paper explores regenerative existence for Human 2.0 – the transhuman. In building this focus the author addresses the use of emerging technologies as propitious in designing the amended extended and suspended human body. Here a first focus covers emerging biotechnologies for regenerative existence which play a large role in extreme life extension. A second focus covers the digital technologies for enhancing realities which will play a vital role in our adapting to immersive environments. In bringing these methods together this paper concludes that the concept of designing a future human body is not only plausible but will be in high demand around the year 2025.
Dealing With Diversity: Issues in Design Research and Design Research Methods
A Solution to the Back and Forth Problem in the Design Space Forming Process: A Method to Convert Time Issue to Space Issue
This paper discusses a method for converting time issue into space issue in the design process. During the design process we often determine something that can be evaluated only after the design process has proceeded for a while. However in some cases this kind of a problem (the back and forth problem) can be converted into a spatial problem. In this paper the author approaches the design space forming process in which the function is decomposed as an example of the back and forth problem by extending our previous mathematical discussion and using computer simulation. The author shows that conserving the similarity between the space for the required function description and the space for the decomposed function description is a key to solve the back and forth problem. This result indicates that forming an appropriate space for the decomposed functions for searching the design solution in an efficient manner is replaced by the criterion of similarity conservation. In other words it is possible to analyse the back and forth problem in the design process by converting it into a spatial problem.
Conceptual Hybrids: Type in the 1990s
Rick Poynor's contribution to the conference Conceptual Type – Type led by ideas Copenhagen 19. November 2010.
Where are the idealistic fonts the artsy fonts the non fonts the political fonts the funny fonts the difficult fonts the fonts that do not look like fonts fonts that are frontiers of new belief?
We would like to focus on the ideas and concepts behind type. Rather than talk about type by asking who made it and what does it look like we will start a new decade by asking why do we make it and what does it mean?
In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes art.'Sol LeWitt. 'Paragraph on Conceptual art' Artforum 1967.
We would like to borrow from Sol LeWitt's vision and replace ‘art’ with ‘type’ looking for the idea-type-machines of our time.
[From the conference call]
These Great Urbanist Games: New Babylon and Second Life
Constant Nieuwenhuys (aka Constant) twentieth-century painter and architect and founding member of the Situationist International is perhaps best known for his ambitious project of unitary urbanism New Babylon on which he worked from 1958 until 1973. This proposed city (which would theoretically cover the globe) was intended to prompt all people to express their creativity through their constant reconfiguration of its open and malleable living space. Explicitly designed for homo ludens in it social life was to be constituted by architectural play. But as Mark Wigley has noted “play was the whole point of New Babylon but not its mode of production”. As designer of this universalizing and revolutionary play-space Constant’s role entailed the contrivance of open-endedness and thus implicitly relied upon the very artistic authority that the Situationists had rejected (Constant left the Situationists in 1960). Today 50 years after he began his project we can witness similar ideals and contradictions in the virtual world Second Life an architected social space which also claims to be an infinitely malleable forum for creative expression. In this article the author traces to what extent the ideological foundations of both of these projects can be linked to postwar attitudes toward technology and authority on both sides of the Atlantic and explores how they each draw on notions of play in distinctive ways. Arriving at the same ideals and contradictions via separate but related paths New Babylon and Second Life reflect two responses to the challenges of design and post-bureaucratic hopes for the productivity of play.
Lab, Field, Gallery, and Beyond
Over the last 10 years we have seen a growing number of researchers integrating design experiments in their research inquiries. Initially this work borrowed heavily from neighboring fields employing a dual strategy in which design experiments and their evaluation were largely treated as separate processes that were often carried out by different people. More recently design researchers have developed several approaches that integrate design-specific work methods into research. This paper takes a methodological look at three such established approaches that the authors call Lab Field and Gallery. They are described and their similarities and differences analyzed. In conclusion whether design research today needs foundations based on the standards established for other disciplines is discussed.