This week’s readings reflect design as a research tool as opposed to formulating a research method to design. Each author illustrates the process in which they evolved designs to solve their research problems.
In Lisa Gracott’s ‘Speculation, Serendipity and Studio Anybody,’ I liked the idea of freeing designers from the client web to enhance their creativity, thus creating a pool of ideas that can be used to satisfy the professional needs. Anne Burdick’s ‘Designwriting’ elucidates how relations can be spatially illustrated in design, while the experiments of Michael Naimark. ‘Sensory Anomalies’ seemed magical.
One word that resonates across all the readings is the word ‘space.’ Each author explains how their efforts involved filling of spaces and not just creating a design or a project for the client. Rob Tow introduces the term “void.” While, the other articles talk about filling the space, he talks about filling the void- the unpopulated area where nothing yet exists (Pg 136), which he elucidates using what he calls ‘strategic thinking’.
In “Spontaneous Cinema as Design Practice” by Rachel Strickland, Strickland writes, – Polylinear construction, enabled by digital technology, holds promise……permits discovery on part of the viewers.” (Pg 128) I recently enjoyed a movie called “Man with the Moving Camera” by Dziga Vertov. The film is about a camerman who roams around the city with a camera on his shoulders filming everyday urban life- the factories, women working, people traveling etc. I mention this film for several reasons. Firstly, although the films has no story, the progression is such that the viewers tend to make pattern of what is happening on the screen, eventually guessing what the next shot might be. There are few shots in a government records office. The first shot shows a couple registering their marriage. It is followed by one divorcing. When a grave is shown in the next shot, one knows that it would be followed by registration of a death record. When a series of shots show women working in factories, one assumes that the director is hinting at the women empowerment during the time of war. Now, this is a silent movie and yet viewers can decipher all this by the expressions and the pattern in which the scenes are embedded.
Thus, the viewers fill in empty spaces. If design research is about understanding, perceiving responses from the users, can the responses be pre-determined or can the design pattern be such that particular responses can be produced. I would assume that the viewers are to fill the empty spaces by laughing at the lines that are funny, but here the content itself is filling in the space. For eg- take a comedy sitcom, laughter is added at lines on which the viewer is suppose to laugh. Is this not a pre-determined response? If it is, then is it alright to have one and if yes to what extent can a response be pre-determined. What is then expected out of the viewers?
