Category Archives: Design

Defence of Dissertation in the Field of Visual Communication Design, MA Arja Karhumaa

Cover image of EPÄGENESIS: Tekstin muotoilu uusmateriaalisena kirjoitta/umisena. Tutkielma Y by Arja Karhumaa.

Cover of Arja Karhumaa's Dissertation second book Epägenesis: Katalogi X.

The audience is kindly asked to join at no later than 12:00. The defence will be recorded.

Zoom Quick Guide

Event language: Finnish 

Event page: In English In Finnish 

The dissertation is publicly displayed online 10 days before the defence here.

TITLE OF DISSERTATION

EPä/iGENESIS: Tekstin muotoilu uusmateriaalisena kirjoitta/umisena. Tutkielma Y

ABSTRACT

This is an artistic research into the materiality of typographic text. In everyday settings, the conventions of ordinary text documents render their writing almost transparent for their reader. However, at the same time, those conventions are so visual in nature that texts often become recognised even before reading, just by looking. As a designer and researcher, I expose these conventions in Epägenesis, an experimental writing project which is set in motion by appropriating found text from ordinary text documents.

In Epägenesis (eng. “Ungenesis”), the persuasive power of form is illuminated by my entangled gestures of writing, designing and reading, calling into question the established categories of ”form” and “content”. What is subsequently exposed is the situated knowledge and skilled practice of a text designer.

The dissertation consists of two books (X and Y), where X marks the practice-based part, and Y is this study which sheds light on the project. Together, X and Y define a space where practice and theory make new diffractive patterns, producing new knowledge where those two are inseparable.

The book Epägenesis: Katalogi X is a compilation of my experimental texts in four series: Alfa, Beeta, Delta and Gem. In writing these texts, I borrow methods and constraints from conceptual and procedural writing.

In this study, I reread my experimental writing in Epägenesis through theories and concepts which have been used in examining the visual and material aspects of typography. Linguistic and literary studies, art history, and visual and media studies have previously shown interest mainly towards textual artifacts that are recognisably material, i.e. unconventional. Multimodal research also recognises how texts are produced through various practices. In my research, I read typography through new materialist concepts, which suggest that text is always material-discursive regardless of whether its form is conventional or unconventional, transparent or prominent to its reader. New materialist thinking provides a frame where typographic writing is entangled with language and matter, with impact from both human and nonhuman. In my research, I am particularly interested in how this impact gets entangled with the notion of the public.

The history of typography is the history of printing, which carries with it many preconceived ideas about origin, author-ship, and value. The entanglements of writing, printing and typography deserve to be examined carefully in this exact moment when typographic practices and conventions migrate onto digital environments, where they emerge and transform in networks devoid of subjective authorship or discernable origin. This might be a turning point which will reveal that us humans never did our writing on our own. Not only do we write, but through material-discoursive agents something is always also epigenetically written into the world.

Showing evidence of the extensive impact of typography on the lives of publics is not easy, however my thesis begins to propose a certain “sociology of texts”. This is a space where categories of language and image, form and content, convention and invention, collapse. Instead, new differential, entangled relationships are recognised in how typographic choices impact our shared world and its patterns of variation and change. With multiple shifts in perspective, scale, and method, this thesis points to how the smallest punctuation marks are entangled with the vast phenomena of knowledge and power.

 

Image of Arja Karhumaa's work 'Nocturne'.

‘Nocturne’ by Arja Karhumaa.

THE DOCTORAND

Image of the doctorand Arja Karhumaa.

MA Arja Karhumaa.

Arja Karhumaa is a graphic designer who works at the intersection of writing, education, and research. Karhumaa has a history of design practice both in agencies and as an independent entrepreneur. Since 2010, she has focused not only on developing education in visual communication, but also on publication design, and writing that spans the territories of poetry, design, and scholarship. Karhumaa has been awarded with prizes and honorable mentions as well as prestigious jury positions both in Finland and in international competitions. She has worked at Aalto University since 2011 as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor.

Contact: Arja Karhumaa

 

 

NEW MEDIA DOCTORAL SEMINAR – Thursday, 18 March 2021, 16:30 – 19:30

Welcome to the third New Media Doctoral Seminar of 2021! The seminar will be held virtually on Zoom on Thursday 18th March from 16:30 to 19:30 (GMT + 02.00, Helsinki, EEST).

Mediated by Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, there will be two extremely interesting presentations with a Q&A discussion taking place afterwards.

Presentations are open for everyone, welcome!

PRESENTATIONS

‘Weaponized memes in China: Multimodal discourse analysis of the visual rhetorical appeals of Chinese political memes’

by Ningfeng Zhang

Picture of Ningfeng Zhang

New Media DA candidate, Ningfeng Zhang

ABSTRACT

This study aims to apply multimodal discourse analysis as a theoretical point of entry to define the taxonomy of different rhetorical appeals of political memes in China’s most popular mobile application Wechat. The study views “internet memes” as a form of visual rhetoric, planning to analyze them respectively from representational, compositional, and interpersonal perspectives. The material consists of 357 internet memes posted on Wechat and collected by 10 active Chinese Wechat users in China during July 2019 – January 2021, their referential contents covered a series of social and political events occurring in China, including the Hongkong protest, the outbreak of Covid-19, the Sino-West relationship during the pandemic period and so on.  Multimodal discourse analysis was applied to understand the visual contents, compositional forms, and visual arguments formed communicated via those memes, and ultimately concludes the different visual rhetorical appeals reflected in them. It is both a methodological and theoretical attempt to expand the understanding of the visual rhetorical study and how political memes function in the participatory media culture within a specific social, cultural, and political context.

BIO

Ningfeng Zhang is a doctoral candidate currently working as a new media researcher with Prof. Dr. Lily Díaz -Kommonen. His research interest focuses on the social, cultural, and political relevance and the generation mechanism of internet memes in the context of Chinese media environment, exploring the mechanism of how internet memes, as a form of visual rhetoric, a propaganda entity, as well as a facet of citizen journalism, generate, mutate and proliferate in a highly homogeneous media environment.

‘Intergroup Contact via Telerobtic Puppetry’

by Avner Peled

Picture of Avner Peled

New Media DA candidate, Avner Peled

ABSTRACT

Following the premise of Intergroup Contact, established by Gordon Allport in the 1954 publication The Nature of Prejudice, I am investigating forms of communication that can reduce prejudice between groups in conflict and improve intergroup relations. Technological mediation supports contact in violent conflict scenarios where organizing face-to-face contact is challenging, even more so in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Online contact forms suffer from a lack of agency, a limited set of nonverbal cues, and an impaired turn-taking flow. Virtual Reality supports user engagement but enforces a mind-body split and a dissociation from terrestrial grounds. I, therefore, propose remote-controlled robots (telerobots) as a way to add corporeal depth to mediated contact, situating a midpoint between online communication and a face-to-face meeting. For this research, the chosen form of implementation for intergroup contact is Telerobtic Puppetry. Puppetry (as well as virtual presence) evokes a hybrid state between object and subject, puppet and puppeteer. A hybrid object absorbs prejudice and problematizes it. Deindividuation of the puppet-avatar turns into a performance of group identities and categorization; a lack of signification opens up a path for self-expression. Design-based research and user surveying are now underway toward a telerobotic, textile-based puppet theater workshop and public performance event that occurs in two locations simultaneously.

BIO

Avner Peled is a creative technologist and media artist with a background in computer science, neurobiology, and philosophy. Currently, as Doctoral Researcher at Aalto Media Lab, Avner is exploring the use of telepresence robots as mediators for intergroup contact and conflict resolution in Israel and Palestine. He is also developing 3D web visualizations of big data for the New York Times.

The research is supported by the Kone Foundation.

Doctoral Seminar // 24.09.2020

New Media / Doctoral Seminar (DOM-L0006)

Welcome to the first New Media Doctoral Seminar of the semester!

Thursday // 24.09.2020

16:30-20:00

Join us in Zoom

https://aalto.zoom.us/j/61323477009

We start by having a catch up with the M’Labbers between 16:30-17:00

The presentations are OPEN TO EVERYONE and will start at 17:00

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Mediated by Professor Lily Diaz-Kommonen we will have two great presentations + Q&A discussion after the presentations!

Massimo Menichinelli (Doctoral Candidate / Aalto University / School of Arts, Design and Architecture)

Open and collaborative design processes. Meta-Design, ontologies and platforms within the Maker Movement

ABSTRACT

The emergence of the Maker Movement has taken place in the context of a design practice and research that is now open, peer-to-peer, diffuse, distributed, decentralized; activity-based; meta-designed; ontologically-defined; locally-bounded but globally-networked and community-centered. For many years the author participated and worked in the Maker Movement, with a special focus on its usage of digital platforms and digital fabrication tools for collaboratively designing and manufacturing digital and physical artifacts as Open Design projects. The author’s main focus in practice and research as a meta-designer was in understanding how can participants in distributed systems collaboratively work together through tools and platforms for the designing and managing of collaborative processes. The main research question of this dissertation is: How can we support and integrate the research and practice of meta-designers in analyzing, designing and sharing open and collaborative design and making processes within open, peer-to-peer and distributed systems?

The focus evolved and changed with three main phases: from facilitating collaborative design processes with 1) guidelines for a generic design approach, process and tools, to the use of 2) design tools and workshops that encode the methodology to developing 3) a digital ontology and the related digital platform. In the latter, the ontology for describing, documenting, sharing and designing collaborative design processes was developed as part of a broader conceptual framework, OpenMetaDesign, that builds the ontology on top of concepts describing design processes, and encodes it in a digital platform. The role of the ontology is to support the practice and research with a Research through Design approach that works not just on understanding the practice but also informing it, navigating it and continuously redesigning it. This dissertation is an exploration of the possible role, practice and profile of meta-designers that work in facilitating distributed, open and collaborative design and making processes in the Maker Movement. As a result, it provides insights on the practice and artifacts of the author and also a strategy and tools for applying the same exploration to other meta-designers. Following a Research through Design framework for bridging practice and research, the dissertation redefines Meta-Design in the Maker Movement as the design of digital ontologies of design processes as design material. Ultimately, the practice of designing a Metadata Ontology for Ontological Design through the design of bits (digital environments) and atoms (physical artifacts) with and for Open, Peer-to-Peer, Diffuse, Distributed and Decentralized Systems. Finally, it redefines meta-designers as designers, facilitators, participants, developers and researchers embedded in social networks that define their activities, profiles and boundaries for the ontologies they design.

 

BIO

Massimo Menichinelli is a designer and researcher who works on open, collaborative, and co-design projects and the systems that enable them since 2005. Massimo has published several books and scientific articles about Fab Labs, the Maker movement, Open Design and collaborative design processes; furthermore, he has given lectures and workshops in various countries including Italy, Spain, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Colombia, South Korea and Singapore. He worked on the development of several Fab Labs including the Aalto Fab Lab (Helsinki), the MUSE Fab Lab (Trento) and Opendot (Milan), and has facilitated more while working as a Director at Make In Italy Italian Fablab & Makers CDB Foundation where he researched and facilitated Fab Labs and Makers in Italy. He lectured on Digital Fabrication and Open Design at Aalto University, SUPSI (Lugano) and at the Fab Academy edition at WeMake and Opendot (Milan). He also worked as a project manager for research projects at IAAC | Fab City Research Lab / Fab Lab Barcelona, especially in the MAKE-IT, SISCODE and DSISCALE Horizon 2020 European projects, as coordinator of the DDMP – Distributed Design Market Platform project of Creative Europe and as project manager of Fablabs.io, the official and open source platform for the global Fab Lab Network. He currently is Research Fellow at RMIT University – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, in its European Hub in Barcelona, managing the Horizon 2020 MSCA-RISE project OpenInnoTrain.

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André Rocha(Adjunct Professor at the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon)

ABSTRACT

GROUU is a Research through Design process aimed at understanding the role of Tacit Knowledge (TK) in an Open Source Agriculture ecosystem. To do so, different iterations of the same system – GROUU – will be introduced to different real agricultural contexts and communities.

‌GROUU is also an Open Source modular system formed by a set of sensors and actuators. GROUU automates some agricultural tasks, like fertilizing and watering, to optimize it by recognizing success patterns from Sensor and User-Generated Data. Optimization is directly related to the amount and diversity of data and users.

This Research project explores the hypothetical formation of Digitized TK through a diverse implementation of Open Source Agriculture, and by assuming that some of the sensor data recorded throughout the process is formed by practical actions of the Farmer over its surrounding environment (the farm) and therefore by TK.

The project is divided into three stages:

  • The first focuses on GROUU’s adoption by diverse Users and tries to understand it by testing different dissemination strategies.
  • Then, it will address the engagement of users in the design process. Open Source is fundamental, but what about the engagement of the actual Users: Apart from Makers and motivated designers, how can Farmers and Farming communities engage in developing Open Agriculture?

The last step is about the possible implications and applications of TK in Open Agriculture:

    • On a technical level, to digitize and integrate it into Open Source Agriculture.
    • On a design level, to generate new Open Data streams between different agricultural contexts and communities:

Can Agricultural TK become Open Agricultural Knowledge? So, therefore, a Common?

Bio

André Rocha is Adjunct Professor at the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon.

André ran his own design office (EVOL/LEVO) between 2003 and 2017 when he decided to dive into full-time design education and research.As a senior designer, André has the privilege of working in a wide variety of contexts.This mixture turned him into a maker, enchanted by creative and productive processes.His research also tries to blend these, by continually looking at expanding design into/on fields such as informal education (fabschools.pt) or agriculture (grouu.cc).

The later – GROUU – being the project through which he pursues his PhD at Nova University of Lisbon / University of Porto Digital Media Program.He recently (2019) graduated from Fab Academy, an intensive 6-month digital manufacturing and rapid prototyping program led by Neil Gershenfeld at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA).

At the Higher School of Education from the Polytechnic of Lisbon, where he teaches Product and Interaction Design, he co-manages the local Fablab (Fablab Benfica), coordinates its participation in the Distributed Design Platform, and is in charge of Maker Faire Lisbon.

Lastly, as an Open Culture and Design activist, he co-founded DAR – a non-profit association – and is currently Open Design and Tech Lead at the Creative Commons Portuguese Chapter. At DAR, he was director, manager at the Fablab and ran a one hundred episodes interviews radio show/podcast about Open Culture. He is an active collaborator of the Creative Commons Global Network and an organizing committee member of the CC Global Summit since 2016.

Google News Initiative Fellowship

The European Journalism Centre is taking in applications for the Google News Initiative Fellowship.

The positions are paid summer placements for journalism, technology or design students who want to gain valuable work experience in leading newsrooms across Europe. In Finland, there are 2 newsrooms participating: Yle Kioski and Helsingin Sanomat. It’s a great opportunity that can allow your students to kickstart a career in the news industry as developers, data scientists, reporters for example.

The fellowship scheme is organised by the European Journalism Centre and funded by the Google News Initiative.

Timeline & important dates:

  • 1st April: Deadline to submit your application
  • April-May: News organizations review applications and contact the successful candidate.
  • Early June: All fellows participate in a one-day Bootcamp in Brussels.
  • Between June and September (8 weeks): Fellows join their host organizations.

For further information about the application procedure,  program and the participating newsrooms, please see https://journalismfellowships.eu

CHI PLAY 2019 | CALL FOR PARTICIPATION 6th ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

CHI PLAY 2019 | CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
6th ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

Submission deadlines

  • April 9, 2019: Full papers (4-10 pages
  • May 2, 2019: Workshop and Course Proposals
  • July 5, 2019: Rapid Communications Papers, Doctoral Consortium, Student Game Competition, Interactivity, Works-in-Progress, andWorkshop Position Papers

Barcelona, Spain, October 22–25, 2019 | https://chiplay.acm.org/2019/ | @acmchiplay | #chiplay19


CHI PLAY is the international and interdisciplinary conference, sponsored by ACM SIGCHI, for researchers and professionals across all areas of play, games, and human-computer interaction (HCI). We call this area ‘player-computer interaction’. The goal of the CHI PLAY conference is to highlight and foster discussion on high-quality research in games and HCI as a foundation for the future of digital play. To this end, the conference blends academic research papers, interactive play demos, and industry insights. Full paper acceptance rate is typically below 30%.

SUBMISSIONS 

As a SIGCHI-sponsored conference, CHI PLAY welcomes contributions that further an understanding of the player experience, as well as contributions on novel designs or implementations of player-computer interactions, including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Playful interactions and new game mechanics
  • Innovative implementation techniques that affect player experiences
  • Studies of applied games and player experiences (e.g., games and play for health,wellbeing, and learning)
  • Accessible and inclusive design and play experience  Advances in game user research and game evaluation methods
  • Psychology of players and typologies of games and players
  • Gamification, persuasive games, and motivational design
  • Virtual and augmented reality in games and play
  • Novel controls, input or display technologies for games and play
  • Tools for game creation
  • Innovations to advance the work of game designers and developers
  • Game analytics and novel visualizations of player experiences
  • Developer experiences and studies of developers
  • Industry case studies

Although CHI PLAY welcomes contributions on the effects of various technologies, software, or algorithms on player experience, technical contributions without clear indications of the impact on players or developers are not within the scope of CHI PLAY. The conference invites submissions including full papers, workshop and course proposals, interactive demos, work-in-progress papers, and Rapid Communications papers. Additionally, students are invited to submit to the student game competition and the doctoral consortium.

FULL PAPERS

Authors are invited to submit high-quality original work to advance the field of player-computer interaction research, in 4 to 10 pages in the new ACM SIGCHI Proceedings format, references excluded. Important dates (all times are 23:59 Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone (UTC -10:00)):

  • April 9, 2019: Full papers submission deadline
  • May 30, 2019: Reviews sent to authors
  • June 6, 2019: Rebuttal deadline
  • June 20, 2019: Decisions sent to authors
  • July  26, 2019: Final publication-ready papers due

CHI PLAY 2019 will not make a distinction between notes and papers, but encourages authors to use the number of pages necessary, with a lower limit of 4 pages and an upper limit of 10 pages. Paper length should match the size of the contribution. References do not count towards the page limit. All papers, irrespective of length, will undergo the same review process and are evaluated against the same review criteria. All accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings published in the ACM Digital Library and will be presented at the conference with a standard speaking length.
For further details please see the website:  https://chiplay.acm.org/2019/


///////////CHI PLAY 2019
6th ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
http://chiplay.org
Twitter: #chiplay19 //////////////

Design or Die – Creative Value Creation and Competitiveness

Quite often people in the creative sector are not very familiar with selling their doings nor they are aware of their IPR. The seminar will also discus how companies and public sector could make use of design in multi disciplinary product and service development, innovation processes and strategic planning. 

You are welcome to discuss with us on Tuesday 4 December 2018 at 10-13 at Harald Herlin Learning Centre. 

https://studios.aalto.fi/design-or-die-event

Register for participation RSVP 3rd Dec at 9 the latest

Program:

Welcome to Aalto
JUHANI TENHUNEN (Aalto)
Design or Die – project in short
ANU RAAPPANA (LAMK)
Creative Industry as Primary Industry – not Just a Supporter
PETRA TARJANNE (TEM)
Crossing Borders between Design Education and Work Life through Collaborative Experimentation
TARJA SALMELA-LEPPÄNEN (ULapland)
 
Three Perspectives for Creative Work and Selling
”Selling Design”,
”Designers as Sellers”,
”Designing B2B Selling”
MIKKO ILLI (Aalto), MARIA KUUSISTO (Sherpa)
IPR Toolkit for Designers
JUSSI ILVONEN (Ornamo)
Panel discussion and questions 10-20 minutes.

Post-doc in creative circular economies

Full time, 18 months Post-Doc Position based at QUB, Belfast

Short description of the project:

Advancing Creative Circular Economies for Plastics via Technological-Social Transitions (ACCEPT Transitions) 

Queens University Belfast

This is a unique multidisciplinary multi-scaled project that brings together polymer scientists, chemists, engineers, architects/designers, political scientists, psychologists, users and manufacturers – The architect/designer Post-doc will bring a design and curatorial approach to the process. 

The overall project aims to integrate innovation and creative thinking across technological, policy, consumer behaviour and supply chain management domains on a focused region of the UK ie NI. It aims to develop ‘socio- technological transitions’ that facilitate a just transition to a circular economy for existing and future plastics, by conserving and creating sustainable energy and materials, developing new products and green jobs, and supporting economic growth in NI and the wider UK. 

The Post-Doc role will involve working with the QUB polymer centre to design, develop and prototype a 3-D interlocking block using plastic waste to suit the principles of circular design. The role will involve collaborating with psychologists to test and collate manufacturer and consumer/user response to the resultant prototypes, and also being responsible for curating outcomes across the entire project into a public exhibition. 

The role requires self- and project management skills, a creative approach, good documentation practices, digital imaging skills and a willingness to learn new software where necessary. 

This is a unique chance to work with a diverse and supportive academic team alongside six other post-docs.  Ruth Morrow (professor of Archtiecture) will be supporting the role as one of the project Co-I’s

Contact ruth.morrow@qub.ac.uk

Defence in the field of New Media: MA Eva Durall

MA Eva Durall will defend her doctoral dissertation

Reflection and Self-Regulation Using Monitoring Tools in Learning: Critical Design Exploration on Self-Monitoring During Independent Study

Friday 2 November 2018
Otakaari 1x, room A1
Starting at 12.00

Opponent: PhD prof. Anders Morch, University of Oslo
Custos: prof. Teemu Leinonen

Discussion will be in English.

 


 

More information:

In this dissertation opportunities and challenges of using monitoring tools in learning are critically explored from a design perspective. The results are two-fold: a design prototype that uses self-monitoring in independent learning situations (Feeler), and identification of reflection and self-regulation as relevant skills for autonomous and independent learning that self-monitoring tools can support. In light of these findings, this research proposes a set of design principles to guide further designs of monitoring tools aiming to support learning.

Inspired by critical and speculative design approaches, the Feeler prototype presents an extreme, yet plausible case of monitoring physiological data, which consists in monitoring brain activity to detect learners’ attention and relaxation levels during independent study. The design of the prototype was influenced by human-centered tradition and the participatory design approach. The prototype allowed students to experience and researchers to study a hypothetical solution regarding the use of self-monitoring tools during independent study.

The tests conducted as part of this research brought light into the dominant values and socio-economic discourses associated to mainstream uses of monitoring tools, and supported students critically reflect about these tools. In this regard, this research highlights the value of critical and speculative design approaches to research and discuss emerging technologies in learning and teaching.

This research identifies several design principles, which are grouped around the key themes of self-knowledge, agency-oriented technology, reflection and self-regulation. These principles are exemplified with the Feeler prototype in order to help practitioners and researchers understand how the empirical findings can be translated into actionable ideas when designing monitoring tools. This research points at data-privacy and design for autonomy as important design implications for the design of monitoring tools in learning. There is also a need for further research on these.

Monitoring technologies enable the automatic collection and analysis of data to provide feedback about diverse activities and processes. Despite these technologies are increasingly present in different contexts of human life, for instance in the quantified self movement, in learning, monitoring tools are still an emerging technology. To date, most approaches to use monitoring tools in learning have focused on finding application areas without problematising the context of use. Little attention has been paid to issues like the nature of data and the inferences that are made based on them, the role of students in learning, and the conception of learning and technology. This dissertation addresses this research gap and provides an understanding of the issues related to the design of monitoring tools and the adoption of techno-monitoring practices in learning.

Welcome!

Media Lab Doctoral seminar together with the Department of Design!

Welcome to the first joint research seminar hosted by Department of Media and Department of Design. During the seminar you will be treated with inspiring and cutting edge research as well as some sparkling!

When? Wednesday 13 December, from 15:00-17:00.
Where? Johanna meeting room (116), Aalto University Harald Herlin Learning Centre, Otaniementie 9, Espoo (Otaniemi), 1st floor.

Presentations in the event follow the PechaKucha format: each presentation contains 20 slides that are shown 20 seconds each. Simple and inspiring!

DOM Presentations by:
Khalil Klouche: Designing for Information Exploration
Yrjö Tuunanen: Narrative Transparency in Online Journalism

DOD Presentations by:
Elif Öztekin: Eco-settlements as Niche Innovations for Sustainability Transitions

Responsible teachers: 
Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Professor of New Media, Department of Media
Miikka J. Lehtonen, Visiting Assistant Professor in Design Business Management

This seminar is open for everyone interested in contemporary research in media and design.

Welcome!

2nd Call for Papers: DRS Special Interest Groups on Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG)

Design Research Society 2018 
University of Limerick
25th-28th June 2018
 
 
Track Theme:
EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE IN COLLABORATIVE INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN RESEARCH
 
Arguably, design practice has transformed from one based on the production of artefacts to one that engages expertise and knowledge from multiple disciplines. Collaboration between stakeholders has become indispensible, and research has played a crucial role in exploring the changing territorial context of designing and making. This is particularly evident in the fields of New Materials, Smart Textiles and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI), where research tends to be conducted in teams comprising different disciplinary experts who may work across academic, commercial and public sectors, and may include designers alongside, for example, scientists, technologists, artists, business strategists and policy makers. Various partners are in dialogue with one another, developing, consolidating and enhancing knowledge while generating new opportunities for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.

The EKSIG track aims to examine collaboration within design research teams that comprise members with diverse disciplinary expertise. This is to understand how individual experiential knowledge, or knowledge gained by practice, is shared, how collective experiential knowledge is accumulated and communicated in and through collaboration, and how it is embodied in the outputs and may be traced back to the origin of the practice. The track also aims to illuminate making as the action of change in which matter and materials are transformed through collaboration, interaction or negotiation between the collaborative team and their material environment. Making within collaborations occurs in multiple forms, on many levels and in different contexts and, through making, meaning is made, communicated and shared. Learning is a process of change where existing knowledge and experience of a certain topic is reviewed, added or transformed. The track will explore how learning is transferred and articulated within multidisciplinary teams. Starting with an understanding of making and collaborative learning, it will discuss how we can create a greater awareness of our responsibilities as designers, researchers, consumers, teachers and members of society.

We welcome papers which exemplify interdisciplinarity through worked examples, and from researchers and practitioners whose work is centred on the experiential knowledge of collaborative work in interdisciplinary projects. We are interested in building a rich collection of case studies that may contribute to a more systematic approach for studying and integrating experiential knowledge into design practice and research. Submissions should focus on peer-level collaboration, illuminating its usefulness for the partners involved, and highlight the relationships built within the collaboration, as well as the approaches used and the new knowledge gained and transferred within the team.


Keywords: collaboration, design practice and research, experiential knowledge, interdisciplinary, making, materiality


Indicative references:

Abrahamson, D. & Chase, K. (2015). Interfacing Practices: Domain Theory Emerges via Collaborative Reflection. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 16(3): 372–389. DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2015.1052384.

Bhömer, M., Tomico, O., Kleinsmann, M., Kuusk, K. & Wensveen, S. (2012). Designing Smart Textile Services Through Value Networks, Team Mental Models and Shared Ownership. In Proceedings of the Third Service Design and Service Innovation Conference (pp. 53–63). Espoo: Laurea University of Applied Sciences.

Bowen, S., Durrant, A., Nissen, B., Bowers, J. & Wright, P. (2016). The Value of Designers’ Creative Practice within Complex Collaborations. Design Studies, 46, 174-198. DOI: 10.1016/j.destud.2016.06.001.

Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.

Mikkonen, J. & Pouta, E. (2016). Flexible Wire-Component for Weaving Electronic Textiles. In Proceedings of 2016 IEEE 66th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (pp. 1656–1663). DOI 10.1109/ECTC.2016.180.

Nimkulrat, N. & Matthews, J. (forthcoming 2017). Ways of Being Strands: Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Using Craft and Mathematics. Design Issues, 33(4).

Rutkowska, J., Lamas, D., Visser, F. S., Wodyk, Z., & Bańka, O. (2017). Shaping Loyalty: Experiences from Design Research Practice. Interactions24(3), 60–65.

Submission:

– Your paper will need to be between 5000 and 6000 words (maximum) in length excluding abstract and references using formatting applied in the template (see attached).
– All submissions must be in the English language.
– The online submission system will be open from 5th September 2017 and full papers must be submitted by midnight on 6th November 2017.

Key Dates:

– Submission system opens:  5th September 2017
– Deadline for full papers: 6th November 2017
– Notification of accepted papers:  8th February 2018
– Deadline for full paper revisions:  6th March 2018
– Final acceptance of revised papers:  27th March 2018
– Conference Dates: 25th-28th June 2018

Track Chair: Nithikul Nimkulrat, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia

Track Sub-Chairs:

Abigail Durrant, Northumbria University, UK
Camilla Groth, University College of Southeast Norway, Norway
Marte S. Gulliksen, University College of Southeast Norway, Norway
Kristi Kuusk, Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia
David Lamas, Tallinn University, Estonia
Janette Matthews, Loughborough University, UK
Jussi Mikkonen, Aalto University, Finland
Oscar Tomico, Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, Spain and Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Stephan Wensveen, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands


 
 
Contact
 
Any enquiries about the conference, please contact drs2018limerick@ul.ie
Any enquiries about the EKSIG track, please contact nithikul.nimkulrat@artun.ee