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i Activating A Framework For Transcultural Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Design Education: Sino Australian Field Studies

by Ian McArthur | [email protected]

Student Number: 3183284

Supervisor: Professor Ross Harley

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales

Design: Ian McArthur © Ian McArthur 2014

ii Acknowledgements

Inherently the collaborative themes of this research imply many people have contributed to its realisation. For their crucial contributions I extend my sincere gratitude and thanks.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge my principal supervisor Professor Ross Harley for his unwavering support, guidance and encouragement even when the way forward was unclear. Ross consistently challenged my tendency towards a somewhat naïve utopianism and gave advice that helped negotiate difficulties that arose. Similarly, Professor Xu Fang offered critical insights I might otherwise have missed. Fang’s advice has proved both pragmatic and invaluable. With very few words Fang often brought clarity that revealed what I needed to do.

Among my colleagues at The College of Fine Arts, in particular I need to thank Professor Richard Goodwin for his mentorship, inspiration, collaboration and critical challenges. There are few other people I have learnt as much from. My friend and collaborator Brad Miller I must also thank for a remarkable capacity for articulating ideas and seeing things in ways that I don’t. His creative brilliance, expertise and generous capacity for listening have been critical to the realisation of this thesis.

Associate Professor Rick Bennett, Simon McIntyre and Karin Watson each provided me with collegial support beyond the call of duty. Professor Ian Howard, Professor Jill Bennett, Associate Professor Liz Williamson and other senior peers at COFA supported the research through the funding that made it possible. Additionally, of course none of this would have been possible without the students and other participants in Australia and China who were willing to engage with what was in many ways an unknown quantity. I thank them for believing that the projects were possible and worthwhile pursuing.

There are many people in China and around the globe who played crucial roles. Annie Morrad, Sabina Ernst, Paul Adams, Joy Yin and Harry Williamson helped me plant the initial seeds of this research. Feiying Ren, Jude Du, Amelia Hendra, Amelie Mongrain, Liu Yan, and Enno Hyttrek also are due particular thanks for their unique and skilled contributions and feedback. I wish to thank the faculty at The School of Fashion Art Design Institute at Donghua University in particular Associate Professor Zhu Jin, Associate Professor Liu Chen and Shu Zhao Wei. Thanks also to my peers at Fudan University; East China Normal University; Jinan University School Of Applied Design; Shandong University Of Art & Design; Wuhan University; Beijing Institute of Technology; The Communication University Of China; The University of Sydney; The University of Technology; and Raffles University in Shanghai and Sydney for being involved. Amongst the extensive list of esteemed references, the work of two scholars namely John Wood and Ezio Manzini deserves special mention. Their leadership has inspired, shaped and underpinned my preoccupations for the past five years.

I also extend sincere thanks to those who acted as mentors or otherwise provided resources and time: De-Luxe & Associates, Futurebrand, Superflux, Lev Manovich, Andy Polaine, Leong Chan, Espen Sivertsen, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Steven Heller; Angela Chang; Map-Office; Moving Cities, Binghui Huangfu, IDEO, Xindanwei, Xinchejian, Chaos-Studio, Good to China, Bridge 8, Lei Yang, The China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Art.

Finally and most importantly, the greatest respect and gratitude to my inspirational partner Susan and my beautiful sons Felix and Kit. If not for Susan, I would probably have never taken the plunge to move to China in the first instance. They have endured my absences and obsessions for the most part with more grace than I would probably be able to muster in their shoes.

iii Abstract

Our design and education systems are not equipped to help solve the wicked global problems that humans face in our complex, hyper-connected world. Current design and education frameworks do not generate the collaborative transcultural synergies we require to build shared vision for designing resilient global futures. This deficit stems from our colonial histories, an endemic lack of understanding between the major world cultures, and the design industry’s perpetuation of the neoliberal status quo through design education and practice. The most direct method of addressing this exigence is to educate those ‘becoming’ designers accordingly.

This research has responded to these conditions by challenging design students in China and Australia to collaborate in online and intensive blended studio environments. COLLABOR8 (C8) is a research platform that aims to create immersive transcultural collaborative learning spaces where trust can develop and synergistic shared vision can be mobilized. The thesis draws on three specific field studies (2008 – 2011) that are reflexively interrogated using triangulated data gathered from semi-structured interviews, web-based statistics, questionnaires, observation, and evaluation of the creative outcomes of participants to demonstrate the transformative potential of co-constructed adaptive learning environments as catalysts for transcultural design collaboration.

The research is underpinned by a theoretical approach based in Metadesign. An action research framework for activating transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration in design education is deployed as a pliant model that can be adapted for diverse cultural contexts. This model advocates sensitivity to appropriate technologies and media, strategies for managing language and cultural dynamics, understanding of culturally based expectations of learning, and the leveraging of synergies via of sharing images, histories, experiences, ideas, skills and culture as communication tools for building intercultural trust as a foundation for collaborative transcultural design thinking and action. This research framework provides practical tools for design educators desiring to engage in activating participatory spaces where design students from diverse cultural backgrounds are empowered to explore meaningful ways designers might work together on envisaging as yet unimagined futures.

Keywords: transcultural, collaboration, Metadesign, interdisciplinary, design education, complexity

iv Contents

Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Table of Contents v List of Figures vii Images viii

PREAMBLE 0.5 1

Chapter 1.0 Context

1.0 CONTEXT 14 Transculturalism and interdisciplinarity 19

1.1 THE PROBLEM 28 Challenging the Status Quo 30 1.2 THE FRAMEWORK 42 Desire, Change and Metadesign 53 Autopoiesis and Metadesign 58 1.3 METHODS 61

Chapter 2.0 Tao and Logos

Tao and Logos 73 Otherness and Elsewhere 75 Wooly, Flaky, Pretentious, And Un-Businesslike 79 Imagining ‘Otherness’ 85 Flow and Ontology 88 Finding Similarity 91 Culture and Metadesign 96 We Are Made of The Same Stuff 99 Trust 103

Chapter 3.0 Designing China

Designing China 109 Design and China’s Modernisation 110 From ‘Made In China’ to ‘Created In China’ 118 Craft Thinking 123 Beijing Design Week (2009 – 2013) 126 Design Education In China 131 The Origins of Design Education in China 134 Contemporary Design Education Challenges 137

Chapter 4.0 Wickedness

Wickedness 143 The Wicked Problem 146 The Challenge Of Neoliberalism 151 Exemplars Of Disjuncture: Mediating China 154 China, Energy and The West 162 Wild Urban China 164 Exemplars of Optimism: Local Initiatives 167 Slow, Local, Open, Connected 168 Interactive Beijing 171 Getting to Meta: Can Design Address Complexity? 173

v Chapter 5.0 Collaboration

Collaboration 178 Defining Collaboration 179 Design Collaboration 187 Design Education: Collaborative And Cooperative Learning 189 Collaboration and Technology 198 Culture and Collaboration 201 Complexity, Metadesign, Synergy 206 Transforming Design Education 212

Chapter 6.0 Field StudieS

Overview 218 6.1 FIELD STUDY 1 – Multiple realities, divergent expectations 221 Background and Aims 223 Structure and Processes 230 Culture, Media and Cognition 239 Language In C8 2008 240 Culture and Expectations of Learning Environments 245 “Multiple Realities...” 248 Levels of Collaboration Achieved in C8 2008 255 Fully Online Collaboration - Reflection and Conclusions 261

6.2 FIELD STUDY 2 – Encounter, Boundaries, and Interventions in the City 263 Background 264 Aims, Structure and Process 265 Cultural Difference in E-Scape Studio 270 The Emergence of Boundary Objects 274 Responses to the E-Scape Studio Brief 290 The Role of Trust 303 Intensive Blended Collaboration - Reflections and Conclusions 307

6.3 CASE STUDY 3 – Augmented Collaboration 312 Background 313 Aims, Structure And Process 320 Studio as a Networked Machine 330 Images and Sharing as Co-Languaging Tools 335 Cultural Politics - Critical Relations 339 Augmented Collaboration - Reflections and Conclusions 362

Chapter 7.0 Conclusions

Conclusions 368 The Research Questions 370 Framing the Convergence of Theory and Practice 371 A Framework for Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Design Education 378 Limitations of the Research 386 Relationship to the Literature 389 How Can C8 Research Be Applied? 390 Further Research and the Implications For My Own Practice 391

References

Appendix

vi List of Figures

Figure 1: C8 Research - Transcultural Interdisciplinary Collaborative Design Education is situated at the nexus of design education, transcultural design, collaborative design and interdisciplinary design

Figure 2: The relationship between traditional problems and skillsets and what designers face today (VanPatter, 2009, http://www.tem.fi/files/24443/VanPatter_792009.pdf)

Figure 3: Stember’s overview (1991) of the “different levels of disciplinarity” summarised by Jensenius (Jensenius, 2012, http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/)

Figure 4: Global Risks Map, World Economic Forum 2013 Insight Report (2013, p. 6)

Figure 5: Mapping the concerns of the research

Figure 6: Differences between Cooperation, Coordination and Collaboration, Mattessich & Monsey (1992)

Figure 7: Orientation to teamwork among US and Chinese co-workers (Huang, 2010). (See: http://www. connecteast.net/blog/managing-teamwork-in-us-.html)

Figure 8: Teamwork styles among US and Chinese co-workers (Huang, 2010). (See: http://www.connecteast.net/ blog/managing-teamwork-in-us-.html)

Figure 9: Announcement calling for participation in the Collabor8 Project 2008

Figure 10: C8 2008 website, screenshot, 18 June 2008

Figure 11: Student preferences for media types used in C8 2008 online lectures

Figure 12: Student responses on their level of understanding of lectures, briefs and discussions in C8 2008

Figure 13: Student responses regarding language and cognition in C8 2008

Figure 14: Daily logins by students in C8 2008

Figure 15: Daily posts to discussion boards in C8 2008

Figure 16: Conceptual design for a post earthquake school

Figure 17: Plantable paper product for packaging and other print outputs

Figure 18: Range of t-shirts made from bamboo featuring sustainable graphic themes

Figure 19: eSCAPE Studio website, screenshot, 28 October 2009

Figure 20: Table of vital considerations for collaborative transcultural interdisciplinary design education

Figure 21: The relationship between metadesign as characterised in C8 Research and the framework for transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration in design education

vii Images

Page 6 Design studio student cohort at Donghua University, Shanghai 2002 (Image: LDHU, 2002) Page 7 The Collabor8 Project (C8) logotype (Design: Ian McArthur 2008) Page 8 eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU, 2009) Page 9 eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU, 2009) Page 11 Images posted to C8 2008 website: Top (Australia) Below (China) Page 12 Top: Student post (China) to C8 2008 website Below: IDEO workshop eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU, 2009) Page 13 Top: Collaborative project, eSCAPE Studio 2009 Below: Data visualisation, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller, 2011) Page 38 Collaborative project RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Page 46 eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: Ian McArthur) Page 64 Top: eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: Ian McArthur, 2009) Below: RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur, 2009) Page 72 Below: Data visualisation, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller, 2011) Page 93 In the studio (Week 2), eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 108 ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Image: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009) Page 120 ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Images: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009) Page 125 Top left: Chinese Vintage on the Go - an exhibition of vintage Chinese brands. Top right: “Infatuated by Love”, Featured in an exhibition of works by designer Huang Yichuan Bottom left: “Backstreet”, Backstreet in gallery exhibition by design group JZSQ. Bottom right: Beijing Makerspace - an open ideas lab that provides engineers, developers, designers, artists, and DIYers 7×12 hours access to an Idea Lab with workshops and events, including a 10-day Prototype Workshop. Page 142 ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Image: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009) Page 143 Images posted to C8 2008 website (China) Page 157 Top: Shanghai 1990 (Image source: http://i.imgur.com/AqNdG.jpg) Below: Shanghai 2010 (Image source: http://i.imgur.com/AqNdG.jpg) Page 160 The image accompanying reports in mainstream western media of a screen in Tianamen Square. (Source: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)

viii Page 172 Fei Jun, Li Xinlu, (2013), Eco Air Bubble — Interactive Beijing 2013 Page 192 Studio interaction eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 220 Omnium website used to promote and recruit participants to C8 2008 (Design: Omnium, Ian McArthur 2008) Page 224 Promotional material for C8 2008 (Design: Ian McArthur) Page 231 Chinese language version of Collabor8 2008 Flyer (Design: Ian McArthur 2008) Page 236 Student post (Australia) - C8 2008 Phase 1 – Socialising Page 238 Student post (China) - C8 2008 Phase 1 – Socialising Page 250 Student post (Australia) - C8 2008 Phase 1 – Socialising Page 251 Student post (China) - C8 2008 Phase 1 - Socialising Page 258 Student work, Conceptual Design for a Post Earthquake School, C8 2008 Page 259 Student work, Plantable Paper Product, C8 2008 Page 260 Student work, Plantable Clothing promoting sustainable values, C8 2008 Page 266 Promotional material eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Design: Ian McArthur 2009) Page 268 Studio Interaction (Week 1) e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 272 Petcha Kutcha presentation by COFA student, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 277 Petcha Kutcha presentation by DHU student, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 281 COFA tutor working with DHU students e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 283 Boundary Objects: Using sketches and conceptual models to communicate ideas e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Page 285 Boundary Objects: Using sketches and conceptual models to communicate ideas e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Pages 292 – 294 The Red Bucket, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Pages 296 – 297 Urban Cell, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Pages 299 – 301 Cartographic Counterpoint, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Pages 304 – 305 Kuai Zi, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Page 308 IDEO Workshop - rapid prototyping ideas about developing cultural understandings e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Page 310 Video sketch (still), e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: COFA 2009) Page 311 Video stills, Collaborative project, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Page 315 Promotional material RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Design: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 317 COFA and DHU students meet at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 Page 318 Top: COFA and DHU students meet at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 Below: The site - Bridge 8, Shanghai, 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 319 Top: Urban Shanghai (Image COFA 2011) Below: Urban Shanghai (Image: Ian McArthur 2011)

ix Page 324 Petcha Kucha at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 325 RARE EARTH StudioLAB 201 (Images: COFA 2011) Page 326 Field trip to an urban farm in downtown area of Shanghai with Good to China, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Page 327 Field trip to an urban farm in downtown area of Shanghai with Good to China, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 328 Presentation on co-working by Xindanwei, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 329 Field trip to Shanghai hackerspace Xinchejian, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 334 Interactive Media Platform, Brad Miller, as configured for RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Brad Miller 2011) Page 342 Preparing the final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Page 343 COFA student work at the final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur) Page 344 DHU student works exhibited at final exhibition, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: DHU 2009) Page 345 COFA student work RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011(Image: COFA 2011) Page 346 COFA student works (process documentation), RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Page 347 DHU students work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: DHU 2011) Page 348 COFA student work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Page 349 COFA student work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Page 350 RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Page 351 Data visualisation of student process and works RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller, 2011) Page 352 Print based solution to contingencies encountered at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011, Image: COFA 2011) Page 355 The site at Bridge 8, Shanghai, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Page 388 mediated_moments, plasma_flow, Miller, McArthur, Hinshaw, Adams, 2012, Smart City GeoCity International Information Design Exhibition, China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Art, Beijing Design Week (Images: CMoDA 2012)

x xi 0.5 China is a particularly attractive source of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. For primarily financial reasons, participation in engaging with this market remains a priority across the higher education sector internationally. Yet, while servicing the global market for international students, few design educators have focussed on how we might foster new forms of transcultural design-led synergy to collaboratively solve complex global problems together. preamble Preamble

In November 2000 after a period of six years working as Head of Design at Hunter Institute of Technology (TAFE NSW) in Newcastle, Australia, I accepted an offer of the position of

Program Director of Graphic Design at La Salle DHU (LDHU)1. I had at the time almost no direct experience of Asia or any Asian culture. Aside from a curiosity about the applicability of online design education in China, the move was a leap into the unknown. The position was based at the Donghua University campus in the Changning district of Shanghai. However my earliest experiences teaching design in China were confusing and not especially pleasant. I found the expectations of the students I encountered and my own thinking about learning and teaching did not align. My approach was a holistic, student-centred approach to design. I saw my role as a facilitator rather than a ‘teacher’. This ran counter to the expectation students had that I would teach from the front of the room. So although we were fundamentally similar as humans our ways of understanding and being the world were often anomalous. I adapted and expanded my teaching strategies, but time revealed how much my naïve preconceptions of Chinese culture were based on assumptions, misinformation and misplaced cultural stereotypes I had ‘learnt’ from a lifetime of exposure to mediated information. Although the college attracted quite a cosmopolitan faculty, many students and local staff appeared to have grown cynical of western “lowai” teachers who could not effectively communicate with them or understand them. It was an interesting and contentious environment.

Despite significant experience as a manager in education systems, I struggled to reconcile the demands of the international (western) academic standards expected by LDHU’s

international higher education partner2. The divergent expectations of LDHU students, the local college administration, and those of the western partner highlighted conspicuous cultural differences operating at both the institutional level and at the level of the students. Polarity between Chinese and western cultural norms in regards to educational standards and intellectual property were of particular concern and needed careful negotiation to find an appropriate shared understanding acceptable to all concerned. In many instances the

1 Now known as Raffles University the college is the largest private design school in the Asia region. 2 Middlesex University provided accreditation for approved undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs at La Salle DHU.

Preamble 2 respective stakeholders were unable to reconcile the realities of each cultural context with their own expectations. The Program Director role extended me a unique opportunity to see such conflicts and contradictions from multiple perspectives, while the cultural context demanded adaptation to unfamiliar rules, ambiguity and myriad unknowns.

Life in China also unequivocally forced the realisation that the accelerating change it is undergoing was creating a multiplicity of impacts globally. This was at once shocking and exhilarating. Although China’s urban environments face the same complex challenges we see emerging around the planet, they manifest at an enormously amplified scale and speed and in particularly provocative forms. Each day exposed one to confronting panoramas of rapid urbanisation, environmental destruction and modification, and extreme contrasts of poverty and a burgeoning uptake of consumption on a massive scale. This raised critical questions that challenge the relevance and sustainability of traditional design and design education systems as a function of globalised neoliberalism, wild capitalism and unrestrained development in territories such as China. My own response to this lived revelation was, and remains, an excitement by the potential for developing more collaborative and synergistic ways of addressing the challenge through experimentation with transcultural design education.

By the time I left China my understandings of what design and design education is, could be, and in fact needs to be, had begun to shift toward what I now recognise as a mode of collaborative design thinking congruent with Metadesign. After three years I returned home convinced that the radical transformation underway in China had important implications for design education in all cultural contexts and that there were enormous challenges and opportunities in these unprecedented circumstances.

Back in Australia I observed an increased level, pace and pitch in the discourse around the so-called ‘Rise of China’ emanating from industry, locally and internationally. But this was contrasted with a fair amount of disinterest from designers, educationalists, and others I spoke to and worked with. In both cultures few appeared (to me) to realise that designers working in increasingly interconnected social, economic, and environmental systems must be able to communicate and create in transcultural and interdisciplinary ways to collaboratively envisage new types of solutions that address complexity at a scale we have no prior experience of.

Preamble 3 Through iterative design research I discovered that it would be possible to conceive and activate a research framework for interdisciplinary transcultural collaboration between participants and stakeholders in Australia and China. As I argue in this thesis, I also felt that this might in turn provide tools and strategies that can be applied as a culturally adaptive mode of collaborative design education globally. Through my experiences in China I understood that what I was proposing strongly implied a challenging and intensive immersion of participants in a different culture. In 2003, I began to formulate The Collabor8 Project (C8) the co-design platform that forms the basis of the research presented in this thesis.

C8 was initially a pilot collaboration between design students based at LDHU and design students studying at TAFE in the North Coast region of rural New South Wales. I leveraged my network of colleagues in China to help facilitate the process and managed to convince those around me in Australia to humour me. The earliest iterations of C8 used email and instant messaging as technological facilitators of idea exchange and content development. It was flexible, cheap and allowed me to begin to test my ideas in the context of design briefs that addressed cultural and sustainability issues and student and teacher assumptions through the expression of identity, experience and understanding from the personal perspective of one’s own cultural landscape.

Although the global situation is rapidly evolving, the situation remains where universities and design colleges in Australia and elsewhere face intense pressure and competition in their development of comprehensive and appropriate study offerings to attract international students. China is a particularly attractive source of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. For primarily financial reasons, participation in engaging with this market remains a priority across the higher education sector internationally. Yet, while servicing the global market for international students, few design educators have focussed on how we might foster new forms of transcultural design-led synergy to collaboratively solve complex global problems together.

In the chapters that introduce the thesis (Chapters 1 – 5), there may be perceived by readers a diversity and breadth of material that creates a diffusion of “...the logic and the concentration of the hypothesis and discussion” (Gong, 2014). It cannot be refuted that the themes are

Preamble 4 expansive and wide-ranging, however I argue that this is necessarily so. The breadth and diversity of themes in the literature reflect the nature of wicked problems and the complexity of the problem the thesis addresses. To narrow this would be to decontextualise the field studies. This characteristic of the research reflects the complex ambiguity of the problem of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration in the context of wicked problems. Fischer and Giaccardi (2004) refer to this in relation to Metadesign by asking,

“How we can deal with the active participation and empowerment of a subject, the profile of which tends to blur and dissolve beyond the limits of definite and independent professional domains, practices, and technologies?”

(Fischer and Giaccardi, 2004, p.7)

Despite the challenge of remaining coherent in the face of diverse, equivocal and intrinsically overlapping concerns, C8 Research seeks to map the minimum territory of considerations that the design educator requires to engage in transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration. The research does not seek to provide a detailed history of design or design education in either the West or in China. It makes no claim to present an extensive comparative analysis on how design education is perceived or delivered in western and non-western contexts. It is beyond the scope of the research to delve into the vast history of creative practices related to design- like activity in China throughout its myriad dynasties and 5000-year history. Although my own practice has its base in visual communication the work of this thesis is not to examine graphic design as a discipline practiced in China or the West.

This thesis examines and seeks to frame alternatives to the traditional paradigm of globalised western-style design education often imposed on or appropriated by emerging and non-western economies. I will argue that in our now rapidly urbanising, hyper-connected world we need adaptive models of collaborative, transcultural and interdisciplinary design education that equip and motivate design graduates to engage in modes of practice that upend the status quo. This will permit us to leverage the transformative potential of as yet untested combinations of culturally informed Metadesign to envisage new collective futures.

Preamble 5 Design studio student cohort at Donghua University, Shanghai 2002 (Image: LDHU, 2002)

Preamble 6 The Collabor8 Project (C8) logotype (Design: Ian McArthur, 2008) eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU, 2009) eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU, 2009) “During these days what we attempted to do was not that we tried to find out how different our culture is but that how we could make different culture operate in coordination in order to find better solution to the problem. And then we can create more value. …during these days together, we know and understand more about the way of each other…”

DHU Student, Sat 3 Oct 2009 Images posted to C8 2008 website: top (Australia) bottom (China) Top: Student post (China) Collabor8 - 2008 | Below: IDEO workshop eSCAPE Studio 2009 (DHU, 2009) Top: Collaborative project, eSCAPE Studio 2009 | Below: Data visualisation, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller, 2011) 1.0 Globalised technologically networked geopolitical and economic systems mean that humans across the planet are ever more interconnected and interdependent in ever more immediate ways. Despite this, driven by the extremes, consequences and contradictions of wild capitalism China, Islam and the ‘West’ are set on a collision course. the context 1.0 Context

The radical transformation of design practices over recent decades due to the impact of globalism and advances in technology has elicited an urgent need for an equally transformational shift in the way designers are educated. This introductory chapter provides a critical contextual overview and the theoretical framework for my thesis and it’s focus on transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration within the field of design education.The significance of the exploratory design-led trajectory I will subsequently reference throughout the thesis, as ‘C8 Research’ will be highlighted, in order to establish the case for an immersive, adaptive, networked and situated studio-based mode of transcultural, interdisciplinary collaborative design education. The aims of the research are also outlined in this chapter and supported by a discussion of the approach to design research methods deployed in the study.

The overarching aim of this PhD is to propose new ways design educationalists can challenge students from different cultures and social systems to work together (co-create) to envisage and develop ‘shared visions’ (Manzini, 2007, p.233) for as yet unimagined futures. The terms ‘design education’ and ‘design educators’ as defined and referred to in this thesis are informed by an interdisciplinary understanding of design practice and design education (Stember, 1991; Repko, 2011; Jensenius 2012). Therefore no particular emphasis has been given to design disciplines such as graphic design, architecture, visual arts, industrial design or multimedia in the activities undertaken in this research. This framing of design practice and education is closely congruent with the interdisciplinary culture of art and design education from which the field studies in this research have emerged. In this context design education specifically,

“…presents itself as providing an education in design that is broad and inclusive and integrated, rather than narrow and vocational, and one that engages with the strengths of the College of Fine Arts.”

(COFA Bachelor of Design Review, 2011)

As the degree programs at UNSW Art & Design have evolved there has been considerable debate within the design faculty about how to frame individual design disciplines. The design faculty has sought to de-emphasise the specific disciplines and place greater weight on

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 15 Figure 1: C8 Research - Transcultural Interdisciplinary Collaborative Design Education is situated at the nexus of design education, transcultural design, collaborative design and interdisciplinary design. recognising the designer as a critical practitioner rather than a discipline expert. This has lead to a position that,

“…we share a desire to inspire students - to find creative ways to engage the global entanglement of integration and specification that progressively blurs the operational boundaries of orthodox design, and is increasingly connected via digitally mediated spaces.”

(Bamford, 2011).

As a result the design education offered at UNSW Art & Design has seen increasingly focus on issues rather than the disciplines (object, environments, ceramics, graphics media and jewellery) that had traditionally, “…governed the program (and Studio names) since its origins” (Submission for the review of the Bachelor of Design, 2011). This issues based perspective has lead the faculty to understand that design as ‘taught’ at UNSW Art & Design should:

• focus on social, cultural and environmental issues throughout the degree

• include a mandatory percentage of courses related to such issues

• focus the program (and its Studios) away from specific disciplines

• focus new issue-based Studios on critical design practice

(ibid, 2011)

The overarching aim of this PhD is to propose new ways design educationalists can challenge students from different cultures and social systems to work together (co-create) to envisage and develop ‘shared visions’ (Manzini, 2007, p.233) for as yet unimagined futures. It seems important to note early that whereas much existing discourse around design for sustainability focuses heavily on environmental concerns such as waste, pollution and climate change,

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 17 How can design educators create spaces where transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration can occur in ways that promote shared vision around the wicked problems humans face?

Can culturally adaptive interdisciplinary design education solve some of the complex challenges of cultural literacy, trust and transcultural communication? C8 Research concerns itself with fostering more viable and sustainable collaborative and social relations between actors in different cultural and design contexts. Opportunities for students from non-west and west to engage in dialogue that deconstructs cultural difference are rare and collaboration between people from different cultures is inevitably subject to communication breakdowns because their realities are comprised of differing norms, symbols, and representations reinforced through education (Snow 1993, Sussman 2000). This is further complexified because many of us remain aligned to binary concepts of “otherness” and “elsewhere” that devalue our collective essential humanness.

My research into the literature has found that although transcultural modes of design education are beginning to be more visible there is a fundamental need for sources in relation to transcultural, interdisciplinary design education. This gap in the literature of design education is particularly the apparent when considering the Sino Australian context and more broadly west and non-west collaborations. This is a key component of the problem identified by the thesis.

TRANSCULTURALISM AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY

Transculturalism first appeared in Russia as a concept useful in comparative analysis of different cultures during the 1980’s, in part as a response to the “systemic crisis of the Soviet civilization” (Epstein, 1995, p.330). If as Hofstede (1997) argued, culture is, “…the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” (in Karnaukhova, 2013). Tranculture, “…depends on the efforts of separate individuals to overcome their identification with separate cultures” (ibid, 2013).

Pertinent to any study on culture involving Australia, multiculturalism on the other hand, is theorised by Epstein (2013, p.334), as establishing a, “…value equality among different cultures and their self-sufficiency”, whereas, “…the concept of transculture implies their openness and mutual involvement” (ibid. p.334). Epstein goes on to assert that,

“If multiculturalism insists on the individual’s belonging to a certain “natural” culture, which is biologically and biographically predetermined (“black culture,” “women’s culture,” “youth culture,” “gay culture,” etc.), “transculture” implies

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 19 diffusion of initial cultural identities as individuals cross the borders of various cultures and assimilate them.”

(Epstein, 2009, p.334)

The transcultural lens therefore offers researchers a divergent model for framing culture and cultural development as “an alternative to both levelling globalism and isolating pluralism” (Epstein, 1995, p.330). This modality, Epstein argues, allows us to transcend the limitations of traditional backgrounds constrained by “ethnic, national, racial, religious, gender, sexual and professional” mores and practices (ibid. p.330). Similarly Karnaukhova (2013) argues the transcultural enables a means to position the lens of inquiry so it establishes a,

“…realm beyond all cultures is located inside of transculture and belongs to this state of not-belonging (Epstein, 1995). Transculture is usually perceived as the mode of existence liberated from culture itself; however, transculture is not a rarified and isolated construct which is separated from real national cultures. Rather, it is more about the game which is essentially derivative and forbids the creation of new signs and values, so transculture aspires entirely to the sphere of creativity.”

(Karnaukhova, 2013)

This apparent freedom and open-endedness is deceptive and presents the researcher with an ambiguity that can be hard to manage. In dealing with this Epstein suggests that we must go to the edge of our own experiences as individuals because,

“We acquire transculture at the boundaries of our own culture and at the crossroads with other cultures through the risky experience of our own cultural wanderings and transgressions … Transculture is the sphere of all possible differences from existing cultures

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 20 Figure 2: The relationship between traditional problems and skillsets and what designers face today (vanPatter, 2009, http://www.tem.fi/files/24443/VanPatter_792009.pdf) inasmuch as we cognize them and distance ourselves from them. Transculture cannot be described in positive terms, as a set of specific cultural symbols, norms, and values; it always escapes definition.”

(Epstein, 2009, pp. 330-332)

Similarly, when discussing interdisciplinary aspects of this research ambiguity is present. The usage of the term interdisciplinary in the design context of C8 Research is congruent with the position of Jensenius (1990) who argues that,

“...interdisciplinary research addresses topics that are too broad to be understood by a single discipline, and have too many aspects than could even be addressed by a multi-disciplinary team working on a single subject.”

(Jensenius, 2012, http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/)

Figure 3: Stember’s overview (1991) of the “different levels of disciplinarity” summarised by Jensenius (Jensenius, 2012, http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/)

The actual meaning of the term ‘interdisciplinary’ is somewhat contested. In the view of Stember (1991), Repko (2011) and Jensenius (2012) the word interdisciplinary is sometimes used mistakenly to refer to processes that are in fact multidisciplinary. But whereas multidisciplinary processes are characterised by individuals from different professional areas of practice working together and drawing on their own disciplinary expertise, interdisciplinary implies a more integrated approach process and outcome. Repko (2011, p. 16) asserts that,

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 22 “Multidisciplinarity refers to the placing side by side of insights from two or more disciplines,” and cites Moran’s clarification (2010, p. 14) that in multidisciplinary processes, “the relationship between the disciplines is merely one of proximity…there is no real integration between them” (Repko, 2011, pp.16-17). Stember (1991) breaks down the structure of the term interdisciplinary by pointing out that,

“The word interdisciplinary consists of two parts: inter and disciplinary. The prefix inter means “between, among, in the midst,” or “derived from two or more.” Disciplinary means “of or relating to a particular field of study” or specialization. So a starting point for the definition of interdisciplinary is between two or more fields of study…”

(Stember, 1991, p.4)

Stember’s overview (1991) of the “different levels of disciplinarity” is summarised by Jensenius (2012) in the following manner:

• Intradisciplinary: working within a single discipline.

• Crossdisciplinary: viewing one discipline from the perspective of another.

• Multidisciplinary: people from different disciplines working together, each drawing on their disciplinary knowledge.

• Interdisciplinary: integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines, using a real synthesis of approaches.

• Transdisciplinary: creating a unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspectives.

(Jensenius, 2012, http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/)

As this research is situated within the field of design education it may be inappropriate to use the terminology of transdisciplinarity. In the view of Repko (2011, p.20) transdisciplinarity implies an approach to disciplines that is divergent from interdisciplinarity (Figure 3). Nicolescu, (2007, p.1) is cited in Repko as suggesting at least one interpretation of the

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 23 term advocates the creation of a “total system of knowledge that is completely “beyond disciplines”” (ibid, p.20).

Given the emphasis I give to complex and wicked problems in this thesis some ambiguity might be observed in relation to the above statement when we consider Repko’s second definition of transdiciplinarity (ibid, p.20). This is a perspective that argues for transdisciplinarity as a means to engage in,

“…“trans-sector problem solving” where the focus of study is a mega problem or grand theme such as “the city” or “ecological sustainability.” Such mega and complex problems require collaboration among a hybrid mix of actors from different disciplines, professions, and sectors of society (Klein, 2003, pp. 12, 19).7 In the United States, reports Klein (2010), transdisciplinarity is conceptualized as a form of “transcendent interdisciplinary research” (p. 24); the transdisciplinary team science movement is “fostering new theoretical frameworks for understanding social, economic, political, environmental, and institutional factors in health and well-being” (p. 24).”

(Repko, 2011, p.20)

In acknowledging the ambiguous territory of the transcultural and the interdisciplinary, C8 Research positions such constraints as mapping directly over the landscape of designerly research (Grocott, 2012), the nature of design (Wong, 2006), the concepts surrounding constructed otherness (Jullien, 2009), the undefined nature of wicked problems (Buchanan, 1992, the collaborative disciplinary combinations formed by the participants and the experiences documented in the field studies contained in this thesis. However, the same transcendence of distinct and specific cultural modalities allows for the development of a framework that is more flexibly adaptive to application in a diversity of contexts and accords with the aims of this research.

It is with these challenges in mind that C8 Research seeks to provide design insights, fresh perspectives, and tools that re-frame design education at the value and process levels to build a robust framework for collaboration and interdisciplinarity in transcultural design contexts

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 24 (See Figure 1). I will argue that it is crucial for design educationalists to encourage student engagement with design issues at both local and global levels through participation in new forms of networked interdisciplinary socially focussed communities of practice and interest that coalesce in spaces designed to seed this process.

The research describes, documents and theorises experience gained in immersive collaborative online and blended studio projects carried out by students and academics studying a range of creative disciplines related to design in colleges and universities in China and Australia. Three specific interdisciplinary online and blended projects (2008 – 2011), conducted under the conceptual framework of The Collabor8 Project (C8) are interrogated as a series of field

studies1. Triangulated data has been gathered from web-based statistics, semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, discussions, observation, and evaluation of the outcomes of projects undertaken by participants in response to creative design briefs dealing with culture, collaboration, sustainability and urban environments.

Since its inception in 2003, C8 Research has operated as a platform for identifying and recording pragmatic, theoretical and philosophical insights about cultural and communication issues encountered in collaborative interactions between ostensibly very different groups of undergraduate and postgraduate students and faculty. The research outcomes have contributed to the development of culturally adaptive pedagogical strategies and insights applicable for

use in situated transcultural2 design education. In its’ design and refinement of transcultural co-creation processes, C8 actively promotes long-term relational linkages between students, faculty and institutions in Australia and China. However the broader intent of the research is to develop a framework that can be adapted and applied in diverse cultural contexts.

The challenge of realising ‘shared visions’, useful common knowledge, and a worldwide collaborative research program within design and design education is central to this thesis’s research objectives. A holistic approach to this totalising project implies that designers from

1 Although C8 was instigated in 2003 by Ian McArthur and UK based academic Annie Morrad as a means to challenge students in China and Australia to collaborate together online, the field studies discussed in this dissertation were designed within the context of this PhD. 2 The C8 field studies utilised the terminology of ‘cross-cultural design’ with its emphasis on communication between cultures. Within this thesis I have preferred the term ‘transcultural’ to infer a more reciprocal and converging mode of design thinking and practice.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 25 differing cultural and language traditions, and from diverse communities of practice, must engage together in a joined-up way to develop common ideas on what sustainable ways of living might be like. Consequently, they must identify

and work in spaces3 conducive to this purpose. C8 Research argues that the most direct method of addressing this urgent need is to educate those ‘becoming’ designers accordingly. This means a design pedagogy that promotes cultural and collaborative literacy to enable graduates to thrive in open, multicultural co- creation environments, resist the status quo, and reform current practices, must be rapidly developed and widely adopted. The key research questions posited in the research are:

1. How can design educators create spaces where transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration can occur in ways that promote shared vision around the wicked problems humans face?

2. Can culturally adaptive interdisciplinary design education solve some of the complex challenges of cultural literacy, trust and transcultural communication?

Design educators are obliged to design new educational spaces where the unpacking cultural otherness to identify how we can more effectively design a shared future might occur. Goodwin (2011, p.2) confirms that the embrace of, “…a multi-cultural practice of design and all its associated problems with legibility and politics should be a goal,” of design educators engaged in the conception of new forms of design education. Informed by Australia’s ongoing exponential dependence on rapid economic growth in China for economic well-being, this research acknowledges the growing significance and implications of China’s emergent position in the world and the concomitant need for forms of transcultural design education that reflect the likely future of networked practice in what has been described as “The Asian Century”.

I focus on China as the cultural context of my research into transcultural design collaboration in part because of my personal and professional history and

3 The term ‘spaces’ is used in reference to both real and digital environments.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 26 experiences. But I do so also because the unprecedented scale and rapid pace of transformation combined with the effects of globalism have created unique and provocative circumstances where creativity, design and design education have crucial roles to play in shaping China. China is the fastest urbanising country in the world (Mars, 2006, p.7). The McKinsey Global Institute’s ‘Preparing for China’s Urban Billion’ Report (2009) forecast that by 2025 China will have 8 megacities, 11 economic clusters of, on average, 60 million people each (representing 60% of total urban investment) and over 900 smaller cities. China’s rapid urbanisation is an exemplar of the need for practitioners and educators to work in ways that reflect the ‘joined-up’ (Wood, 2008, p.3) nature of our relationships to the world and the need to be cognisant of the organic, biologic nature of the cities humans create. We can already see that the effects of China’s re-emergence and what happens in China pose significant impacts for everyone on the planet. China’s transformation has conspicuous global economic, political, social, cultural and ecological implications and so understanding China and how to collaborate with its people is crucial for sustainable global futures.

Globalised, technologically networked geopolitical and economic systems mean that humans across the planet are ever more interconnected and interdependent in ever more immediate ways. Despite this, driven by the extremes, consequences and contradictions of wild capitalism China, Islam and the ‘West’ are set on a collision course. Unless these diverse models of culture and capital find constructive engagement, economic, social and ecological collapse are realistic scenarios (Nolan, 2006). This situation is inextricably coupled with the growing urgency of an emergent global crisis in which designers, and by implication design educators, are complicit and overall continue to perpetuate. The dominant silo-based traditions of design as a mechanical-object ethos in a world characterised by biological connectedness (Dubberly, 2008) is at the heart of the crisis.

As a profession that has tended to operate from within disciplinary silos, designers have become ill equipped to solve many kinds of complex problems challenging humans in the 21st Century alone (see Figure 2). At the extreme edge we face what theorists have described as wicked or complex unstructured problems. Originally coined by the philosopher Karl Popper, the terminology of the wicked problem was adapted by Rittel and others during the 1960’s to describe a class of design problem that was fundamentally indeterminate (Buchanan, 1992, p.15). In part the deficiency of contemporary design to deal with complexity is due to the design education process – generally we teach to simple problems.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 27 1.1 Our design and education systems are not equipped to help solve the wicked global problems that humans face in our complex, hyper-connected world. Current design and education frameworks do not generate the collaborative transcultural synergies we require to build shared vision for designing resilient global futures. the problem 1.1 The problem

Although some designers, theorists and educationalists focus on the fields of collaborative (Scrivener, 1994, 2000; Lahti et.al., 2004; Eppler, Pfister, 2010) and interdisciplinary design (Harrison et.al., 2006; Mackay, 2004; Blevis & Stolterman, 2009) it has remained problematic to negotiate the range of cultural factors and communication issues that come into play in transcultural design processes - especially in collaborations between western and non-western designers (Schadewitz, 2009, McArthur 2008, 2009). We are yet to reach the situation where designers are able to work collaboratively between cultures in a manner that authentically reflects the hyperconnected nature of the world we live in and our actual needs for going forward towards a collectively ‘sustainable’ future.

In recent years there has been some attention given to what has typically been termed ‘cross- cultural collaboration’. Some of this research has come from within the disciplines of design and design education (Schadewitz, 2009; McArthur 2008, 2009, 2012; McArthur, McIntyre, Watson, 2011; McArthur, Miller, 2012). However, globalised work practices have tended to focus most discourse on fields such as user experience, web development, collaborative media and product design. These fields most naturally align with, not only the need for products that appeal to a global market, but also the need for a means of production that will lead as smoothly and quickly as possible to the outcome of consumption of products and services.

Few academics (Hill, 2005; Watts, 2009; Stuckey, 2012) have published material documenting transcultural or cross-cultural design education processes and their focus has tended to be on teaching students how to design for users living in other cultural contexts. Although transcultural modes of design education are becoming more visible there is a fundamental need for more sources in relation to collaborative approaches to transcultural, interdisciplinary design education. This gap in the literature of design education is particularly the apparent when considering the Sino-Australian context and more broadly west and non-west collaborations.

Despite interest in cross-border collaboration from within industrially focussed design disciplines, accompanying research in the area of design education has not been exhaustive. To date many design educators are not really addressing these problems preferring to teach to the

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 29 traditional problem solving models and skillsets that Friedman and Van Patter described as the “burning platform” of design (2003, p.7).

CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO

The role of designers in society has transformed into a multidisciplinary hybrid unforeseen even a decade ago. Ubiquitous digital processes and networks now permeate industry, most social institutions and our daily lives. “Within industry, strong disciplinary skills are taken as given and problem solving abilities, communication skills, collaborative strengths, creative and innovative thinking have all become mandatory within information economies”

(McArthur, Miller, Murphie 2013, p. 380)4. However, such definitions of the contemporary paradigm of design practice are usually made within design thinking aligned to the globally accepted industrial context/fetish of ongoing economic growth, capital, GDP, and shareholder returns. The quite visible consequence is that design produced in the service of the dominant industrially driven corporate and geopolitical economic agenda has increasingly proved itself unsustainable. As such, the current model of practice and the education programs that feed this destructive template are in a difficult and increasingly ethically untenable position.A more astute reading would acknowledge that design is actually a social process as well, and one that can be characterised as having consequences, some intended and some unforseen. Professor Peter Stebbing of HfG Swaebish Gmeund argued at the Cumulus Conference in Shanghai (2010) that the design curriculum must change to reflect that design is a process involved with many connections. Stebbing suggested that because designers cannot work without effects, we have to start to work in a much more joined-up way recognising that biology is the basis of our survival system. Corresponding with the changes in the designer’s role, education is also changing and design educationalists must recognise that, “…there are no economies without environments but there are environments without economies…” (Stebbing, 2010).

One of the major challenges is that the majority of designers evidently continue to think in terms that do not form the connections (the joining up) between what they produce, the consequences of their own practices, values, affiliations and preoccupations, and the bigger planetary picture (Findeli, 2001, p.15). In actuality, generally the degree of interconnectedness inherent in human activity, global systems, social, political and environmental ecologies, combined with our continued and stubborn separation of ourselves from nature is not addressed in design education or design practices that continue to maintain the status quo.

4 This was identified in a study of FTSE 200 companies (Gillingson & O’Leary 2006)

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 30 Fundamental to problems within contemporary design thinking is that, what we already generally recognise as ‘sustainable’ is actually allopoietic (Crinion, 2008). Allopoietic systems necessarily deplete their environment in that they are organized to produce things other than themselves and are fundamentally unsustainable (Zelini, 1995).

Practicing within the rapidly evolving complexity of the post-capitalist global economy, most designers remain engaged in producing more of the same…more products, more services… more ‘stuff’. The assumption of unending economic growth that this process is based upon is, in its current form, unviable over the long term and a dramatic recasting of all systems of production, transaction and consumption is inevitable. In reality many of the challenges facing organisations, communities and governments cannot be solved by creating more products, services, or related experiences, however human-centred they might be. As expressed by VanPatter (2009), “…Product creation is often a solution to a problem that 21st century humans do not have.” Design theorist Ezio Manzini (2007, p1.) ascribes the situation in the following terms:

Given the urgency, dimension and complexity of the problem to be faced, we must conceive an articulated research programme: a worldwide collaborative research programme into design for sustainability, targeted to catalyse and focus all the available design energies. But unfortunately, looking around, I do not see anything like that: on one side, I see the majority of designers (and design researchers) happily continuing to work in a business-as-usual mode, oiling the wheels of a catastrophic consumption machine. On the other side, I can recognise a minority who are trying to do something for the good, moving in different directions, but often wasting their energy and enthusiasm in projects that do not bring real contributions to the creation of useful common knowledge…There are probably several reasons for this worrying situation, but in my view, one of the major ones is the lack of shared visions. In other words, there is a lack of common ideas on what possible, sustainable ways of living could be like.

(Ezio Manzini, 2007, p1.)

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 31 Figure 4: Global Risks Map, World Economic Forum 2013 Insight Report (2013, p. 6) A deluge of information about the myriad problems contemporary humans face pours from our newspapers, televisions and computer screens daily. The risks they represent are unambiguously outlined in policy influencing documentation such as the recent eighth edition

of the World Economic Forum Insight Report, Global Risks 20135 (Figure 4). Although by no means a definitive inventory, the scope of the global crisis can be illustrated by noting the recent European debt crisis, rising unemployment, housing foreclosures in the US, the contentious bailout of the world banking system, accelerating commodity prices, climate change predictions proving to be rather conservative, mass extinctions, the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, water and food security, the risk of epidemics, ageing populations, endemic racism, and mass migrations presenting unprecedented challenges to urban infrastructures. This overall combination of interconnected factors tends to produce, “…a sense of a world in turmoil…and yet the structures and processes of neoliberalism that have come to dominate the majority of our planet through the past thirty years seems to rumble on.” (Julier, 2013, p.215).

Despite the perhaps common view that problems at this level are not necessarily ‘design’ problems, there is a growing body of design practitioners who are focusing on complex issues. As early as 2006 the Design Council (UK) published what it described as a “RED” paper on an emergent field of design practice known as Transformation Design. Informed by the work of pioneering designers such as Ezio Manzini, John Thackara and Gary Van Patter, the paper (Burns, Cottam et.al., 2006) confirmed the role of design in addressing complexity at a global level. The authors acknowledged that,

“…Complex problems are messier and more ambiguous in nature; they are more connected to other problems; more likely to react in unpredictable non-linear ways; and more likely to produce unintended consequences. Tackling climate change is a good example: any solution would require many individuals and many global institutions to change behaviour on many different levels.”

5 http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2013-eighth-edition

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 33 (Burns, Cottam et.al., 2006, http://www.designcouncil.info/mt/RED/ transformationdesign/TransformationDesignFinalDraft.pdf)

This stratum of complex and wicked problems have been described as ‘Design 4.0 problems’ by Van Patter (2009) who also argues that the, “…synchronization of methods and tools to the scale and complexity that we now face as humans is a process that is underway around the world.” Interestingly these voices suggest that the role of designers is also transforming and that there is a growing tension in industry between the traditional view of what designers do and the emergent field of complexity where design has a significant role to play if designers step up to the task (Burns, Cottam et.al. 2006, p.23).

Although this points to opportunities for the design profession to reinvent itself for the global paradigm, the discourse tends to constrain itself to a western Eurocentric context. The ‘diversity of diversities’ (Wood, 2009) the world’s cultural landscape represents however challenges and complicates such an overly western perspective. The reality is that like the

other BRIC6 countries, China’s re-emergence has become a global focus signifying complex regional economic, political and cultural challenges to the existing global hierarchies. Historically, despite the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), western countries and corporations dominate the global economy and set the precedents and values of what it means to be a responsible “global citizen”.

Somewhat paradoxically, China is viewed by many commentators with trepidation or bemusement while simultaneously being seen as an economic saviour to the west in the post GFC landscape. In 2013 The People’s Daily Online published an article by Li Zhenyu suggesting, “The hidden potential of the 1.3 billion Chinese consumers, once unleashed, will make China the world’s largest consumer market and the top export destination for other major economies…” (09/09/2013). China is the subject of intense global scrutiny exemplified by

6 BRIC refers to the fastest growing world economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China. In economics, A Wikipedia entry provides this definition: “BRIC is a grouping acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, Iindia and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC#References

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 34 the fact that many major international news websites such as CNN and The Guardian feature

sections devoted to China news7.

Despite its’ globally dispersed population and the level of media attention China receives in the west, China remains one of the most misunderstood of cultures. Most common foreign perspectives about China rely on assumptions based on western ontologies. Kishore Mahbubani (2012) asserts that this is a western problem that applies across many cultural contexts,

As the world becomes inexorably smaller, denser, more interconnected and more complex, the biggest danger the world faces is western groupthink, which fails to spot the thousands of nuances that are vital to interpret international affairs. Crisis after crisis would be avoided if the west could learn to understand these nuances better.

(Kishore Mahbubani, Financial Times, 20 April 2012)

Keane too reminds of, “…the dangers of the folly of relying on traditional understandings of East and West…”(2009, p.3). In communication research contexts there is a tendency for academic categories to become hardened and this, “…constitutes a problem in understanding China’s emergence, which is now the focus of a large number of researchers across several disciplines (geography, economics, political science, and culture)” (ibid p.3). Much western discourse published in the mainstream media informing western opinion and perspectives about China tends to focus on the tremendous socio-economic transformation underway. This is typically represented as an unprecedented economic opportunity for foreign interests. Atsmon and Dixit (2009) writing for the global management consultancy McKinsey and Company illustrate this economically-driven view by highlighting that, “…for many companies around the world, wealthy Chinese represent a rare opportunity in an otherwise

dismal picture.”8 Similarly, The “Australia in the Asian Century” White Paper (2013) published

by Australia’s Labor Government9 of the time confirmed in its prioritising of economics over

7 CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/asia/china/index.html; The Guardian: http://www. theguardian.com/world/china

8 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/understanding_chinas_wealthy 9 Archived at: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/133850/20130914-0122/asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 35 Figure 5: Mapping the concerns of the research social and cultural links, a general orientation to see Asia’s economic success as a vehicle to build prosperity at home. As much as such opportunities tantalise western economists, politicians and others including designers, they are also problematic. The intensely relational nature of Chinese society relies heavily on the building of trust over time as a foundation of all interactions. This highlights the issue of trust that is vital for building the conditions for successful collaboration that are the core concerns of this research (Figure 5).

Although a detailed discussion of the history of relations between the west and China extends beyond the scope of this thesis, it is important to understand how historical events have shaped the perspectives these two world cultures hold about each other and how this might influence

our propensity for collaboration. Garrett and Fingar (2013), suggest for example10, that in the case of relations between China and the United States of America, cooperation is crucial for the world going forward. However they warn of, “…serious differences and dangers of growing strategic mistrust between our countries...” (18/10/2013). This tension has its roots in a litany of historical events dating from the 18th Century when western forces invaded China and so began a century long period of economic turmoil. Arguably the most defining events shaping Chinese distrust of foreigners were the Opium Wars waged by the British between 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 (Lovell, 2011). This culminated in 1880 with the tragic situation where 120 million out of 380 million Chinese people were addicted to opium (Lovell, 2011). Cross-cultural business consultant Joy Huang (2010) writes that,

Following the two lost opium wars, the country was forced to allow opium trade, opened ports for unlimited foreign trade and conceded Hong Kong to Britain via “unequal treaties”. Chinese were discriminated and treated as inferiors in their own land during this time. This is what is referred to as the “Century of Humiliation” in China’s history. It is also what contributes to the resentment and distrust Chinese feel towards the west until this day.

(Huang, J., 2010, http://www.connecteast.net/blog/understanding-chinese-trust.html)

index.html 10 http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/09/18/the-us-and-china-must-work- together-to-ensure-global-peace-and-prospertity

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 37 Collaborative project, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Moreover, when we examine the nature and origins of the trust issues and the unease between China and the west - and more broadly, Asia and the west - we can discern that the extent of the problems are the result of a range of diverse but interconnected factors. These include our imperialist and colonial histories, cultural differences, cultural stereotyping, prejudice, fear of unknown or unfamiliar people and ways of living, divergent social, economic and value systems, and mediated disinformation. The unprecedented scale and speed of change in China, and unremitting global economic shifts in power away from the west are also crucial influences.

Despite the fact that cultural literacy is apparently well developed in diplomatic and government circles, international corporations at management levels, and within the cosmopolitan subcultures that many designers are part of, there remain ongoing instances where emblematic communication breakdowns occur at the highest levels. In 2013 for example, Australia’s high-level relations with the governments of both China and Indonesia became strained due to communication breakdowns. This resulted in a clearly expressed lack of trust on the part of the Chinese and Indonesian governments in regard to what they perceived as inappropriate behavior and comments by Australian politicians. Given the global challenges societies across the planet face, transcultural communication and collaboration is a very important area for research that is receiving relatively little attention.

In an essay on ‘New Sinology’ published online, The Australian

Centre on China in The World11 posits a view that western understanding of China (Sinology, or Hanxue 汉学/漢學 in Chinese), “…has a venerable history that dates back to the late- Ming dynasty in the sixteenth century.” This optimism is countered

11 http://www.thechinastory.org/new-sinology/

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 39 however by the troubling proposition that predominant and solipsistic Euro-American academic conventions anticipate in the current global convergence that if, “…the Chinese are becoming more and more ‘like us’ then there is perhaps limited need to understand better the fundamental underpinnings of Chinese ways of seeing, thinking and acting.”

Despite an emergent and confident worldliness and optimism on the part of Chinese designers (and the population more broadly) and instances of innovation within design industry and academia (Yongqi, 2009, pp.87-88), the same influences of distrust and cultural misunderstanding operate at this level. This constrains meaningful communication, promotes the perpetuation of disinformation and prejudice resulting in less authentic transcultural design collaboration than we will need to address complex global problems. This limitation is perhaps symptomatic of a broader cultural disjuncture indicative of what Linda Jakobson, director of Australia’s Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program describes as, “…a gulf between the way the world see the rise of China and the way the Chinese themselves view their future” (Hall, ABC Radio, Tuesday, February 5, 2013). The problem is significant and stems from the complexity of our societies and cultures, our histories, and an overall lack of awareness of each other. Consequently, we lack mutually shared visions about what our collective futures might look like. Yongqi and Manzini (2009) give us some cause however for optimism by maintaining that,

“China is experiencing the most rapid change in the world, and at the same time. China may also be the most ideal place to realize any strategies for change. We need to “She (set up)” a right and good “Ji (vision and strategy)” for our future, enables people live as they like, and in a sustainable way.”

(Manzini, 2006, cited in Yongqi 2009, p.90).

Manzini and Yongqi suggest that in a world where people in both west and non-west are finding that modern life and rapid change have led us in unsustainable directions, “… the need for sustainable development may be one of the few universal ethics in the world…The whole world today depends on sustainable solutions for its salvation, and China is no exception.” (ibid, p.90).

Unfortunately however, when we look at traditionally minded designers and design educators working within the system of economics established by global capitalism, in both western and

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 40 non-western cultural we see the prevalence of unsustainable design practices and outcomes. This status quo functions to preserve its dominance despite the complex ecological, urban, social and waste problems the products of design create. Mainstream commercial and industrial design practice continues to evolve in ways that fundamentally support and promote the interests of neoliberalism and the system of globalisation and global capitalism (Julier, 2013, p.215) it has supported since the 1980’s (Duménil, Lévy, 2011).

Many complex challenges are manifesting in urban environments across the planet. Consequently cities have become increasingly important as crucial sites for collaborative action concerned with the transformation of design practice, design education and a re- visioning of what a sustainable urban-centric future means. The prediction that by 2050 75% of all people will live in cities (Jones & Wingfield, 2010, p.3) illustrates the need for urgent action around the role of the designer in relation to urban environments. Designers must conceive cities as living systems and treat them accordingly. In contrast to this holistic conception of design, Modernism has treated the world as if humans existed outside nature as an omnipotent overseer of all we survey. Artist and architect Richard Goodwin argues that the human position, “… defined outside nature and controlling nature is a religious construct and fraught with problems…” (Goodwin, 2011, p.2). Despite our complicity with state and industry in generating the plethora of overwhelming complex social and ecological problems, design educationalists and designers are actually well-positioned to implement adaptive, technologically augmented laboratories where intercultural trust, synergistic communication, and the collaborative design of our shared future can be initiated.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 41 1.2 Metadesign thinking drives the creation of a transcultural social context where collaborative and interdisciplinary design become modes of, “integrating systems and setting actions in order to create environments in which people may cultivate “creative conversations” and take control of the context of their cultural and aesthetic production” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.343). framework 1.2 Framework

As we will see in subsequent chapters C8 Research works, with other stakeholders and partners to create intensive, experimental, networked and situated learning environments where students, academics and practitioners from diverse cultural and language backgrounds can develop shared understandings and envisage new scenarios through collaborative modes of practice. To date field studies have been conducted in both online spaces and ‘real’ urban spaces in China. This form of lived experiential studio learning is deeply congruent with theoretical and speculative approaches to design activity and thinking that have previously been defined as Metadesign. The role of Metadesign in designing educational spaces that provoke culturally adaptive synergies-of-synergy (Fuller, 1975, Wood, 2007, 2008, 2009) critically frames C8 Research as it is presented in this thesis. It is therefore important to substantiate how Metadesign has been understood and how it has developed as an idea in order to make the case for how it can be applied in transcultural and interdisciplinary design education.

There are many interpretations of what Metadesign actually is. Lisa Giaccardi (a leading contemporary academic authority on the field) alerts us to the problematic potential of Metadesign by suggesting that, “Every time the word metadesign is used, it causes even more confusion than the word design” (2005, p. 343). In a sense incertitude about Metadesign is not surprising given the complex etymological foundations of the word itself. The word ‘meta’ has Greek origins meaning, ‘with’, ‘across’ or ‘after’. More recently ‘meta’ has meanings denoting a change of position or condition implying the possibility of transformation, including self-

transformation12. Giaccardi confirms that, “…semantically, the principle meaning of the Greek word meta- when used as a prefix is “change of place, order or nature,” before reminding us of other related terms such as metalinguistics, metadata and metamorphosis (ibid, p. 343).

Busbea (2009) attributes the first usage of the term Metadesign toAndries Van Onck, a graduate at Ulm who, basing his idea on the semiotic theories of C.S. Pierce and Charles W. Morris, “…posited metadesign as analogous to a metalanguage—“a language used to talk

12 From a definition of Metadesign located at: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/7933931

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 43 about language” (ibid p. 112). However, Metadesign has remained a contentious concept. Somewhat portentously, Jean Baudrillard defined Metadesign as “… the political ideology of design” (1981, pp.201-202) and was concerned about its ramifications. Busbea (2009) suggests that,

“For Baudrillard, metadesign represented a late stage in the evolution of the industrial object; a stage at which the use value of things was giving way to their sign-value, where everything was beginning to partake of the same organizational logic; becoming part of the same combinatorial, commutative milieu—one that was ultimately synonymous with the economic and political system of exchange.”

(Baudrillard cited in Busbea, 2009, p.103)

This somewhat ominous but plausible supposition was countered by more optimistic analysis by the academics Moles and Van Lier (cited in Busbea, 2009) who held perspectives on Metadesign that in contrast represented a, “…distinctly post-capitalist view of the world: a system that unlike capitalism was not based on the caprice of a market economy” (ibid, p. 112). It is this socio-humanist tendency in Metadesign that is consonant with the aims, design thinking, processes and procedures in C8 Research.

Pre-empting contemporary design thinking, the philosopher Henri Van Lier was one of the first to theorise Metadesign as an environmental discourse that sat within a broader socio-cultural context (ibid, p. 112). Similarly, Abraham Moles (1967) was concerned with making a sociological analysis based in his observations that design was in crisis – a “crisis of functionalism” arising from a structural conflict between the functionalist legacy of the Bauhaus and the acceleration of mass production and consumerism. Moles advocated an expansion of functionalism in a manner he argued was consistent with Metadesign where functionalism of the object would separate itself from purely material and ergonomic concerns. He advocated that,

“…The sociology and psychology of objects, general sociology, political economy, the ethics of the adaptation of the individual to the

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 44 world, move toward the construction of an enlarged neo-functionalism, which is in conflict with the neo-kitsch of the consumer unconscious.”

(Moles, A., Sept.-Oct., 1967, pp. 10–11)

Despite Baudrillard considering Van Lier’s and Moles’s ideas, “…to be the worst kind of naïve neo-humanism…” (Busbea, 2009, p.115), theory about Metadesign subsequently evolved significantly and has been applied in the field of design across disciplinary contexts including graphic design, industrial design, information architecture, and systems design (Giaccardi, 2005, p.6). But it is important to stress that Metadesign operates beyond design disciplines. Since the early 1970’s, the diversity of theoretical and practice-based applications of Metadesign has expanded and contemporary discourse around Metadesign is now informed by research that has emerged from the fields of biology, architecture, media studies, sociology and cybernetics.

I posit that there exists a constructive synergy between the ideas expounded by Van Lier and Moles in their thinking about Metadesign, and the holistic, critical and reflective pedagogical approaches of Rogers (1969), Freire (1973, 1978, 1985) and Schön (1983, 1987) that have informed my own practice in learning and teaching for design. Moreover, within the broader body of theoretical perspectives that comprise the literature around Metadesign, the work of a relatively small and diverse group of voices including Youngblood (1986), Fuller (1975), Thacker (2004), Maturana (1997), Spuybroek (2002), Giaccardi (2004, 2005), Fischer (2004), and Wood (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) resonate meaningfully in the context of C8 Research.

Other definitions of Metadesign focus on generative tools, computational models, and networks (De Kerckhove; 1995, Maeda, 1995; Soddu, 1989) involving users in facilitating (for example) the refinement and personalisation of products. Some interpretations introduce the possibility of mass customisation (Giaccardi, 2005). The concerns of C8 Research however, are socially and culturally focused and inherently align with conceptions of Metadesign as co-creation. If we choose to act with this understanding of Metadesign, the process of design becomes participatory - in the words of Giaccardi, “…a shared design endeavor aimed at sustaining emergence, evolution and adaptation…” (ibid, p.347). It is within this higher-

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 45 eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: Ian McArthur) order mode that Metadesign becomes representative of the more reflexive and collaborative joined-up approach to design I have previously alluded to. Deployed in this way, the design of communication between agents, and the spaces they work within, actively fosters synergies founded on culturally diverse inputs that design educators have yet to advance as a means to foster new idea ecologies.

Media theorist and educator Gene Youngblood emphasised the cultural and communication context of Metadesign. In 1993 he proposed that a peaceful world with a healthy environment

would only be achieved by revolutionising communications13. He wrote of Metadesign in the context of media arts and foregrounded the potential of the social situation to challenge the status quo:

“Metadesign reconciles art and politics: it empowers art to be politically effective. Metadesigners work with cultural context, not political issues. They work not to exclaim a political idea but to establish situations in which any idea may become politicized merely by its presence in that context. Their goal is to empower rather than propagandize.”

(Youngblood, G., 1986, Metadesign: Toward a Postmodernism of Reconstruction. Ars Electronica Catalog. Linzer Veranstaltungsgesellschaft)

Like Van Lier and Moles before him, Youngblood was proposing the idea that Metadesign is a tool for transforming society. Building on this, I wish to argue in this thesis that such a communication revolution is likely to be limited in its effectiveness, possibly unethical in terms of inclusion and accessibility, and disconnected in global terms if it does not ‘seed’ a transcultural communications revolution. The notion of social transformation also emerges in the work of Thacker (2002, 2004) who claims that Metadesign does emphasise the ethical over the instrumental, though not in any moral sense. Rather, Thacker argues that Metadesign processes must create the conditions for a flexible, social mode of existence that represents a, “…critical and creative investigation into the possibilities of transformation of human beings and culture” (in Giaccardi, 2005, p.6). Giaccardi’s own definition frames Metadesign to

13 1993 interview on KNME-TV, Albuquerque, NM, excerpt can be viewed in Secession from the Broadcast (2012) documentary, trailer at http://vimeo.com/15435334

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 47 acknowledge both the generative and the participatory trajectories of the literature. In doing so, Giaccardi suggests that as,

“…the design of a “metaproject,” metadesign shares with generative and evolutionary design the focus on the design of initial conditions or “seeds.” In this sense, it methodologically comprises both generative and evolutionary design. However, metadesign transcends them by incorporating the principles of participation and emergence, and changing the way in which systems and content are designed.”

(Giaccardi, 2005, p.20)

This implies the ‘expanded’ design space Giaccardi’s detailed reading of Metadesign alludes to, is not merely a new design methodology, but a culturally focused formation, “…engendered by information technologies and ultimately concerned with expanding the creative process of emergence and invention of the world…” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.348). As I will discuss in relation to the field studies in this thesis, the notion of creating an expanded co-design space is critical in C8 Research. This also corresponds to ideas expressed by Dutch architect Lars Spuybroek (cited in Giaccardi, 2005) who sees Metadesign as a set of practices for constructing dynamic spaces where people can unpredictably and creatively interact with their environment (ibid, p. 345).

Situating this thesis in relation to the existing literature, “…as a form of cultural strategy informing and integrating different domains” (ibid, p.348), C8 Research seeks to establish a framework for instigating, exploring and framing that will ideally generate future iterations of collaborative studio processes and procedures deployed by design educators in diverse cultural contexts. In this sense, Soddu’s proposition that Metadesign is a generative or ‘seeding’ process (1989) is key. However, where Soddu frames the designer as a sort of master controller, my approach has been more sympathetic to the holistic and participatory ethos that we have seen expounded by Youngblood (1986), Giaccardi (2005) and Maturana (1997).

Within the context of models of teaching and learning, Metadesign is congruent with the pedagogical propositions of DePaula, et al. (2001), Bruner (1996, 2009a, 2009b), Brown et al. (1994), Rogoff et al. (1998). Foregrounding ‘learning communities’ rather than didactic modes of teaching, Bruner is cited by Fischer and Giaccardi as arguing that,

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 48 “…the most impoverished paradigm(s) of education is a setting in which “a single, all-knowing teacher tells or shows presumably unknowing learners something they presumably know nothing about” [Bruner, 1996].”

(Fischer and Giaccardi, 2004, p.16)

Here the notion of education as a seeding process (dePaula et al., 2001) becomes pedagogy, “…that explores metadesign in the context of university courses by creating a culture of informed participation [Brown et al., 1994]” (Fischer and Giaccardi, 2004, p.16). In C8 Research the use of online platforms (Bennett, 2007; Bonk et al. (1998, 2004), McIntyre, 2008; McArthur, 2007, 2008, blended studios and networks (McArthur, I., McIntyre, S., Watson, K., (2007), and responsive technologies (McArthur, I., Murphie, A., Miller, B., 2013; McArthur, I., & Miller, B., 2012) builds on and is consonant with Fischer and Giaccardi’s notions of augmenting,

“…community-based learning theories [Rogoff et al.,1998] with innovative collaborative technologies. Participants shift among the roles of learner, designer, and active contributor. The predominant mode of learning is peer-to- peer, and the teacher acts as a “guide on the side” (a meta-designer) rather than as a “sage on the stage.”

(Fischer and Giaccardi, 2004, p.16)

This Metadesign driven approach positions the design studio as a situated seeding platform where all the participants, faculty, students, mentors and industry engage in a process where all inputs are valued and activated in defining and proposing solutions to the design problems being explored. As Fischer and Giaccardi, assert the studio outputs advance, “… an evolving information space that is collaboratively designed by all course participants, past and present” (ibid, p.16). The approach requires the design educator to relinquish some control over the process and the deliverables.

As in all meta-design activities, the meta-designer (i.e., the teacher) gives up some control; there is little room for micro-managed curricula and precise schedules. The courses-as-seeds model requires a mindset in which plans conceived at the beginning of the course do not determine the direction of

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 49 We live a culture centered in domination and submission, mistrust and control, dishonesty, commerce and greediness, appropriation and mutual manipulation ... and unless our emotioning changes all that will change in our lives will be the way in which we continue in wars, greediness, mistrust, dishonesty, and abuse of others and of nature. (Maturana, 1997) learning but instead provide a resource for interpreting unanticipated situations that arise during the course [Suchman, 1987].”

(ibid, p.16)

In the field studies discussed in this thesis, Metadesign thinking underpins the creation of a transcultural social context where collaborative and interdisciplinary design become modes of, “integrating systems and setting actions in order to create environments in which people may cultivate “creative conversations” and take control of the context of their cultural and aesthetic production” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.343).

The transcultural and interdisciplinary approach to seeding collaborative design used in C8 Research is in concert with other contemporary rationalisations of Metadesign. In particular the work of John Wood has been influential. Wood describes and substantiates Metadesign as,

“…an emerging conceptual framework within which designers will be able to work together in a more coherent and holistic way. Why? Because designing greener products and services will not be enough to remedy the environmental crisis that we face in the 21st century. We need more ‘joined-up’ ways to feed, clothe, shelter, assemble, communicate and live together. This will mean re-thinking the way that designers are taught, practice and organize themselves. It also entails re-designing design itself.”

(Wood, J., 2010)

The notion of the joined-up is especially important. Jones and Wingfield (2010) assert that, “Metadesign is a systemic, inter-disciplinary and emergent design process aimed at transcending existing specialist boundaries to create more joined-

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 51 up solutions for the benefit of society and nature” (2010, p.2).As a response to these burgeoning theories about design praxis, this thesis argues for augmenting such frameworks with an explicit transcultural component. This will help deliver the transformative design education required to promote a holistic collaborative approach to all aspects of the designer’s role and its’ relationship to a globalised and densely interconnected world. It is imperative that students entering the field be encouraged to embrace internationalist modes of collaborative practice as pliant templates for social design action rather than follow their predecessors in upholding design as an instrument of a divisive neoliberal status quo.

Collaboration is central to the Metadesign framework and this is most clearly evident in the way Metadesign is defined by John Wood. Wood’s model focuses on fostering wisdom, promoting diversity, and capitalising on developing a synergy-of-synergies (Fuller, 1975). I’m arguing that a global ‘synergy-of-synergies’ is critically dependent on intercultural understanding and a transcultural mode of collaboration. The theme of collaboration will be discussed fully in later chapters, however here it is important to note that this aspect of practice has moved to the centre of discourse around design and crucially intersects with the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary design. Scrivener (2009) citing Dykes, Rodgers and Smyth (2009) argues that,

“…contemporary design does not conform to the disciplinary boundaries inherited from the last century. Instead, facilitated by new developments, such as communication and cooperation media, new potential for collaboration has opened up and is encouraging new types of design practice that operate across disciplinary boundaries.”

(Dykes, Rodgers and Smyth, 2009, pp. 99 - 116 in Scrivener, 2009, p.77)

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 52 In this thesis I augment this idea by outlining how such an argument may also be expanded to include new types of design practice that operate across – or rather between cultures, as well as disciplinary boundaries. Key to this is having the desire to embrace such a conception of practice.

DESIRE, CHANGE AND METADESIGN

Being wholly complicit in the creation of a plethora of overwhelming wicked social and ecological problems (Buchanan, 1992), designers and design educationalists must confront the ethics of the design profession being the servant of industry. There is now abundant evidence to confirm, that industry in too many instances, operates from an agenda that is not in the interests of humans and other species inhabiting an increasingly fragile planet. Recent high

profile industrial controversies such as the BP Gulf oil spill14 and Foxconn’s worker suicides15 highlight the realities of capital-driven agendas tailored to increase global brand shareholder profit while having the effect of depleting the natural, social and cultural cosmologies of the planet. From all evidence, this is characterised by an apparent disregard for the rights of workers, consumers and communities, and the wider ecologies in which they exist. Divorced from a realistic and sustainable social context, it is increasingly apparent the material abundance promised in unending global economic growth is fundamentally unsustainable. Petter Næss (2006) points out that,

“…there is a fundamental contradiction between a profit-oriented economic system and long-term environmental sustainability. The `solutions’ that are proposed by mainstream environmental economists as well as their `ecological economy’ colleagues do not solve the central problems, but serve to further highlight the difficulties of changing capitalism towards sustainability. In a profit-oriented economy, capital accumulation is a prime driving force, and non-growth for the economy at large tends to result in serious economic and social crises.”

(Næss Petter, 2006, p. 197)

14 A list of links to reports and editorial about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010 http:// www.delicious.com/mcarthurian/BP 15 A list of links to reports and editorial about the Foxconn worker suicides 2010 http://www. delicious.com/mcarthurian/Foxconn

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 53 To many designers such structural challenges across all systems seem too complex to deal with – so they continue as they have done. Others take refuge in denial. Most systems of design education remain focussed on preparing students to enter industry. Yet, all practitioners must ultimately act decisively from a position of ethical optimism tempered with a sense of reality, or risk redundancy as the miscreants of the profession.

In his essay 16 “Metadesign”, Humberto Maturana (1997) reflects that the changes we want, or need to make, are in our own hands. Maturana argues, “…our conscious and unconscious desires, determine the course of our lives, and the course of our human history.” (ibid) We are not the victims of circumstance, and change is in fact up to us to choose.

We live a culture centered in domination and submission, mistrust and control, dishonesty, commerce and greediness, appropriation and mutual manipulation ... and unless our emotioning changes all that will change in our lives will be the way in which we continue in wars, greediness, mistrust, dishonesty, and abuse of others and of nature.

(Maturana, 1997)

Our desire, and our desire to be responsible for our desires, is absolutely central to the question of whether as designers and design educators, we are willing to begin the transition from design as status quo, towards design as Metadesign. We cannot blame technological evolution, structural determinism, the market, or our cultural context.

“We human beings live in conversations, and all that we do as such we do it in conversations as networks of consensual braiding of emotions and coordinations of coordinations of consensual behaviors. In these circumstances, a culture is a closed network of conversations which is learned as well as conserved by the children that live in it...we become one kind of being or another according to how we live.”

(Maturana, 1997)

16 Refer to: http://www.inteco.cl/articulos/006/texto_ing.htm

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 54 Maturana’s inference is that although we become the kinds of people we become because of the way we live in a culture, as reflective beings, we can choose to become aware of the way we live and the kind of human beings, or in our case, the kind of designers we want to become. Our outcomes depend on the conversations we choose to have, and the kinds of emotional connections we develop. C8 Research to date, posits that it is the conversation of sharing of images, stories, experiences and culture that begins to enable the requisite levels of trust that can create the conditions for collaboration to emerge. It follows that should we choose to, design educators have the capacity to collectively and individually establish and facilitate outcomes that reflect our position (through conversations) in relation to the crisis of the catastrophic consumption machine the profession feeds. The imputation for design education programs is undeniably political – to be a designer not actively engaged in the re-envisioning of design praxis, is to remain a component of the problem. It is to be a problem creator.

Therefore, despite the stereotypical industry perspective of an implied academic impotence, we are together able to implement transformational change incrementally through the values we impart, the conversations we have, and the challenges, experiences and practices we provide to our students. If we continue to educate for industry nothing will change. If we make it our project - our vision - to redesign design, there is the capacity at the grass roots level to begin to facilitate small changes that iteratively introduce new design values and ways of working as a designer in society. In this manner design educators can begin to circumvent the destructive processes we have been enmeshed in to date. The creative destruction of industry norms through a reconsideration of traditional studio teaching norms is inherent in C8 Research. C8’s embrace of a transcultural and interdisciplinary focus provides a way for design educators to frame design practice as being about more than new products and services. By exposing participants to an intensive level of complexity (e.g. the urban environment of the Chinese mega-city) and cultural immersion, armed with a brief that encourages them to find collaborators, identify a social issue or problem that needs attention, and to experiment outside and inside the perceived limits of their own practice explodes the box perpetuated by the traditional design curriculum. This process begins to challenge to the status quo of designer as servant of industry. This Metadesign-led pedagogical approach operates at the nexus of culture, discipline and collaboration as an adaptive model for shared, lived, social, intercultural and educational transformation (Ward, 1991; Freedman & Stuhr 2004) through

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 55 co-design. The crucial nature of this global project should not be underestimated. Suggestions that fostering transcultural collaboration by design is not a priority, denies the human reality of fear, prejudice and racism present in most, if not all societies, and the massive challenge that condition presents to economies, cultures and environments. As Cameron Tonkinwise (camerontw) noted, “so are we all just hoping that a revived world economy (with sustained unsustainable fundamentals) will stop people being so xenophobic” (9 January 2014, 1:08pm, Tweet).

The lived aspect of ‘becoming’ a designer is crucial because regardless of online or blended modes, learning must provide a means to discover, understand and engage with the world beyond our often narrow, everyday experiences. Lave asserts,

“…being human is a relational matter, generated in social living, historically, in social formations whose participants engage with each other as a condition and precondition for their existence, theories that conceive of learning as a special universal mental process impoverish and misrecognize it.”

(Lave, 1996, p. 149)

Academics must consider the ultimate value of limiting our students’ learning to the scope of our own teaching within largely abstract problems separated from socially situated practices and ways of being. If we want to both positively transform design and empower our students to create shared visions in their process of becoming, we must as educators recognise that,

“…learning is an aspect of changing participation in changing “communities of practice” everywhere. Wherever people engage for substantial periods of time, day by day, in doing things in which their ongoing activities are interdependent, learning is part of their changing participation in changing practices.”

(Lave, 1991. p.150)

The change C8 Research seeks to instigate in curriculums and practice reflects and promotes the social, interpersonal and facilitative modalities of designing. The approach to design education discussed in this thesis emphasises the development of knowledge, skills and

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 56 understandings that are communication-centred, adaptive, trans-disciplinary, intercultural, experiential, reflexive and socially engaged at a metabolic level.These qualities are encouraged through, “…reconsideration of learning as a social, collective, rather than (an) individual, psychological phenomenon” that offers “…the only way beyond the current state of affairs…” (ibid. p.149).

A recent wiki entry posted to Wikipedia states that the aim of the Metadesign methodology, “…is to nurture emergence of the previously unthinkable as possibilities or prospects through the collaboration of designers within interdisciplinary ‘Metadesign’ teams. As defined by Metadesigners Network (metadesigners.org) the Metadesign framework encompasses the following components:

1. To create a framework for design practice that fosters greater wisdom. 2. To address primary human needs (e.g. food, shelter, mobility) in a joined-up way. 3. To find design methods that encourage a more ecological society. 4. To find new ways to increase biological diversity. 5. To find new ways to hinder entropy at the urban metabolic level. 6. To work towards some form of creative democracy. 7. To inspire and cultivate a ‘diversity-of-diversities’ within relevant organizations. 8. To transform the ‘diversity-of-diversities’ into a global ‘synergy-of-synergies’.

Source: http://Metadesigners.org/tiki/Metadesign-Introduction17

Within the hitherto unfamiliar social dimension of immersive and networked transcultural learning and teaching, lay the seeds for transforming traditional design practice through Metadesign. Learning how to work collaboratively in contexts where language and cultural difference significantly influence processes and outcomes, learners are challenged in ways that are also transformational. Typically, these experiences may enable discoveries that challenge preconceptions and assumptions about design, creativity, themselves, and importantly, about other people. Intense interaction between the ‘multiple realities’ (McArthur, 2008) the participants exist within creates the potential and the stimulus for increased understanding and collaborative shared visions to emerge. Through such experiences, C8 Research suggests, design students are far more likely to emerge with increased levels of cultural literacy and

17 This entry is no longer available at this URL.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 57 be far better equipped to contribute in a consciously joined-up way to the global project of positive social, urban and ecological transformation.

AUTOPOIESIS AND METADESIGN

The conception of Metadesign as proposed in this research seeds the development of a kind of self-generating system where collaborators respond to a series of provocations and a design brief that sets up a context for enquiry. It is a process that stimulates curiosity about the other agents in the space, and the beginnings of sharing relationships. Interpreted this way, Metadesign is a process of, “…what the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela call autopoiesis, a living organism’s reproduction and change guided from the inside” (Maturana, 1997 in von Busch, 2008, p.257). This view of collaboration as a self-organised process emerging from a synergy of diverse interacting agents, “…redirecting and transmitting flows of energy…” (ibid, p.257) from the external environment is congruent with perspectives on design practice that draw on the study of ecologies and systems exemplified by the work

of John Wood via the Attainable Utopias Project (2008)18. Wood recognises that the complex future challenges humans face, “…are simply too big to be handled, even by specialists, within the diverse but isolated disciplines of design…” (ibid p.257). This underpins the view that it is imperative that a wider collaborative and interdisciplinary approach embracing open design practices coalescing into a synergistic ecology of harmonising practices be developed (Wood, 2007).

Metabolic conceptions of Metadesign as a self-organising social process within nature rather than separate from it, also have roots in Gaian Theory (Lovelock, 1972, 1979). With it’s origins in the work of James Lovelock in the 1970’s, the Gaia Theory has an inherent relationship to what we refer to as sustainability in it’s allusion to complex holistic ontologies and interrelated living systems. Lovelock (1995) asserted that, in the main, “…scientists today recognize that Earth’s lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere are dynamically interdependent

18 Self described as a vision-tank related to the Metadesigners Open Network (archived 2002- 2008): http://attainable-utopias.org/tiki/tiki-index.php

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 58 systems: self-organizing and inseparably interconnected.” Gaian Theory proposes that the world in all its complexity is in fact an organism – with the ability to maintain and regulate itself. It is a living system.

Stock and Campbell (1996) described the entire human society as an autopoietic super organism, embedded within an autopoietic Gaia. They see this organic, metabolic framework as useful for discussing societies, organisations and communities - how they form, and how they maintain themselves. Varela and Maturana, (1972) introduced the idea of autopoiesis or “self-making” to describe processes by which a system maintains itself and achieves autonomy through a process of constant negotiation with it’s environment. Only autopoietic systems replenish their own environment and thus can become self-sustaining. In contrast, allopoietic systems necessarily deplete their environment because they are organised to produce things other than themselves (Varela & Maturana, 1974; Crinion 2008).

The theory of autopoiesis has been appropriated widely and controversially to describe self- organising systems in general, including social systems (Luhmann, 1995). Like Complexity Theory, autopoiesis represents a systems perspective, and we find it discussed in very diverse research contexts from science, medicine, sociology, cybernetics, biology and artificial intelligence. However, the term also appears in the discourses of design, communication, education, collaboration, cultures and creativity.

The “Bill of Rights for the Planet,” developed by William McDonough Architects for The World Expo in 2000 describes autopoiesis as a code of social existence whose “…meaning is to continue to communicate.” If the communication succeeds the ecology of human society is healthy. If the communication fails, “…the system becomes diseased, falling apart at its wounds.” (1992, p. 5). Nicholas Luhmann placed communication at the core of his theoretical propositions regarding autopoietic systems. Gunaratne (2008, p. 183) argues that Luhmann’s work implies, “…Social systems are systems of communication (or events, the raw materials for which are communications), and society is the most encompassing social system.” Each society maintains identity through a constant process of meaningful communication to itself (Ibid.). Meaning is derived from the history of a system’s ‘survival’. The meanings themselves have meaning because of a history of ‘selections’ or decisions by the system.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 59 Lucas (2000) suggests, “With today’s emphasis upon sustainability it is clear that a focus upon autopoiesis is both invaluable and necessary if we are to correct the many errors caused by our misunderstanding of the nature of systems, evolution and learning.” This is further substantiated by Stafford Beer’s assertion in the preface to Autopoiesis: The Organization of the Living (Varela & Maturana, 1972, 1980) that,

“If we are to understand a newer and still evolving world; if we are to educate people to live in that world; if we are to legislate for that world; if we are to abandon categories and institutions that belong to a vanished world, as it is well- nigh desperate that we should; then knowledge must be rewritten. Autopoiesis belongs to the new library.”

(Beer, S., 1980, Preface in Varela and Maturana, Autopoiesis: The organization of the living)

Within the Metadesign framework deployed in this study, autopoiesis is a lens for considering the social interactions and synergies present (or not) in situated collaborative learning and teaching. Graduates informed by lived understandings about how to reflexively work in unfamiliar cultural terrain are more likely to have a greater capacity for negotiating meaning collaboratively within the diversities that comprise our interconnected living systems. As we will see, the experience working at the liminal thresholds of social experience, between diverse cultures and locations, can be characterised as exhilarating, dynamic, problematic, ambiguous and provocatively transformational.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 60 1.3 The immersive, experiential, ‘learning by doing’ at the core of the C8 field studies corresponds simultaneously with the facility of action research to enable the pursuit of both action and research outcomes at the same time (Allen, 2001), and the qualitative and reflexive modes of designerly knowing (Grocott, 2005).

methods 1.3 Methods

As I have demonstrated in my discussion of the research context and the Metadesign framework underpinning this thesis, C8 Research is fundamentally involved with creating positive environments where participants are encouraged to conceive a culturally inclusive, social and ecological future for design through collaboration. In recent years leading design theorists such as Manzini, Penin et.al. (2010), have argued for design professionals to actively engage in the task of creating positive environments where the likelihood of, “…new ways of living and producing is promoted through creativity, design thinking and co-design processes” (2010, p.14).

Over the past decade ‘Design Thinking’ has attracted much attention from educators and in industry as a method for adding value to the development of products and services. The American design firm IDEO has been arguably the most high profile exponent of design thinking as a methodology for design practice and research that places people as the central focus. This represents an evolution from the traditional way design has been deployed in industry where,

“…design has been treated as a downstream step in the development process—the point where designers, who have played no earlier role in the substantive work of innovation, come along and put a beautiful wrapper around the idea.”

(Brown, 2008, p.2)

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO argues that designers are now being involved in the development of products, services and strategies from the outset where they are much more involved in the generation of good ideas that, “better meet consumers’ needs and desires” (ibid, 2008, p.2). This positions design as a strategic tool, rather than a tactical method that in the past has limited the value of design’s contribution. Used in this way design can lead to “dramatic new forms of value” (ibid, 2008, p.2).

Framed as a strategic mode of designing, in the context of this thesis design thinking operates in concert with the frameworks and methods outlined in this chapter. As Brown confirms

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 62 “The iterative process of prototyping potential solutions allows the researcher to tackle the kinds of ‘fuzzy’ problems and situations that are not easily defined at the outset but can be considered by proposing into the research situation” (Rittel & Webber, 1973) .... ~ '11111111111111...... ,.• 0 ~

Top: eSCAPE Studio 2009 | Below: RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur) (ibid, 2008, p.3), in order to place people at the centre of the design process the design thinker must be characterised as (1) Empathic – able to see the world from multiple perspectives; (2) Integrative – deploying both analytical processes and the ability to “see all of the salient—and sometimes contradictory aspects of a confounding problem and create novel solutions that go beyond and dramatically improve on existing alternatives (ibid, 2008, p.3); (3) Optimistic – believing that there is at least one solution that will improve existing circumstances; (4) Experimental – able to make innovative leaps beyond incremental improvements and (5) Collaborative – recognising that “increasing complexity of products, services, and experiences has replaced the myth of the lone creative genius with the reality of the enthusiastic interdisciplinary collaborator” (ibid, 2008, p.3). Brown also concludes that many of the most effective design thinkers “don’t simply work alongside other disciplines; many of them have significant experience in more than one (ibid, 2008, p.3).

C8 Research and the methods employed are informed and can be characterised by an approach to design and design education congruent with and imbued by these qualities. However where design thinking as defined by Brown and others is typically discussed within the context of business in C8 Research the qualities of the designer as design thinker are deployed to challenge how design is used to support unsustainable paradigms of unending economic growth. The role of the design educator in seeding such a transformation in the design professions should not be underestimated. I argue that it is vitally important that this process

is instigated within the design school because, as Manzini19 (2010) questions, design schools are the laboratory of the new, and if this project of social transformation does not happen in the design school where will it happen?

A key challenge for design researchers is making the case for rigorous practice-led methods that can be substantiated in the wider academic community. The work of design theorist Lisa Grocott has been inspirational while grappling with the challenge of explaining C8 Research in a coherent and valid research language. Grocott (2012) openly acknowledges what are often perceived as ambiguous processes in design research. This inherent ambiguity can be difficult to accept for those working outside the disciplines of art, media and design who are more familiar with the qualitative and quantitative research methods framed within academia as

19 Ezio Manzini made this statement several times when speaking at different venues at the 2010 Cumulus Conference in Shanghai.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 65 legitimate and acceptable (Haseman, 2006). Within the research methodology I will discuss here, findings and insights have been triangulated through qualitative methods that encompass data gathering techniques including semi-structured interviews, online surveys (see Appendix 1), observation, the design process itself and reflective evaluation of the design outcomes from each of the three field studies. However, the research methods have overall remained closely aligned to a modus operandi that acknowledges, deploys and respects, “…the nature of enquiry embedded within the domain of design” (Grocott, 2012, p.16).

The heuristic processes of discovery inherent to the situated experiential design learning in the C8 field studies accords with what Grocott (2012, p.18) describes as the speculative, inquisitive & adaptive modalities of the way many designers work. Grocott cites Swann’s assertion that,

The designer often telescopes a mass of fragmented bits of information and then usually after a period of incubation invents a coherent and often elegant proposition that embodies all or most of the rag-bag of bits.

(Swann 2002, p.54)

The reflective act in design characterised by Swann (2002) as a “period of incubation”, is an important theme in C8 Research. In design research projects there exists, “…an emphasis on becoming, the project recognizes the value of operating in a suspended state of figuring out, rather than determining a fixed position on how designers’ should undertake research…” (p. 16). Grocott refers to this process of figuring out quite literally as “figuring” (2012, p.2) and links this critical and elusive process of becoming to the inherent nature of the way many designers work through a project, “…in conversation with the situation…” (ibid p.20).

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 66 The close correspondence between action research and design research can be seen in Grocott’s revision of, “…the conventional action research cycle of: plan > act > observe > reflect…,” to accommodate the figuring out. She achieves this in a move that draws on both Ethnography and Grounded Theory so, “…it becomes possible to define a purposeful yet intentionally revisable action plan: propose > make > discuss > reflect.” (ibid p.16).

Ethnographic research is generally understood as long-term research representing and investigating peoples and cultures by making observations and documenting aspects of their modes of living, life patterns, uniqueness and similarities. The three field studies discussed in this thesis have been immersive and culturally specific, but held over relatively short intensive durations, so I have been cautious about linking action research and ethnography in relation to C8 Research. My research methods have however intersected with common approaches to ethnography by including observation and participatory approaches that retain an analytical and observational position (Tacchi et.al. 2003, p.9). The field studies have been followed by intensive periods of reflection and documentation that have allowed for describing, writing about, exhibiting and interpreting the project outcomes. Tacchi et.al. (2003), posit that research is a process that, “…continuously involves observing (and asking and listening) and reflecting on (making sense of) what we observe” (2003, pp.2-3). Ethnographers do look for patterns, describe relationships, understandings and meanings, and take holistic approaches to this task (Tacchi et.al. 2003). In this research it has been critical to look at, “…the whole social setting and all social relationships…to contextualize these in wider contexts (e.g., the wider economy, government policies, politics, etc.” (ibid p.9) in ways that are similar to methods used by the ethnographic researcher.

My research methodology therefore operates at the nexus of action research and iterative, reflexive design thinking. Appropriately, a key component of action research frameworks is collaboration. This, “…enables mutual understanding and consensus, democratic decision making and common action” (Oja & Smulyan 1989 p.12). The immersive, experiential, ‘learning by doing’ at the core of the field studies corresponds simultaneously with the facility of action research to enable the pursuit of action and

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 67 research outcomes at the same time (Allen, 2001). The approach is also simultaneously consonant with qualitative and reflexive modes of designerly knowing (Grocott, 2005). Correspondingly, my research process has taken a multi-modal approach forming a spectrum of interrelated collaborative activities (planning, coordinating, designing, teaching, observing, assessing, interviewing, documenting, reflecting, discussing, writing, presenting and interpreting). As part of an integrated research program,

“…these modal shifts can do more than provide a space by which the practitioner can independently ‘notice’ new insights; multi-modal enquiry can help the audience to potentially see things from a new perspective by advancing a new conceptualisation of the content.

(Doloughan 2002 in Grocott, 2012, p. 20).

Taking the opportunity to disseminate C8 Research by publishing and presenting internationally has aligned with Grocott’s suggestion that such activities open up, “…a discursive phase whereby the researcher can evaluate the potential of insights based on how the ideas resonate with his or her peers” (ibid p.20). This has proved to be the case in relation to insights gained from peer feedback in China, that has been instrumental in challenging assumptions about collaboration and perceptions of cultural stereotyping that were evident at several junctures. This has served to substantiate the methods employed by permitting the research to avoid overly western positivist approaches to describing research outcomes. As I will explore in Chapter 2, cognitive biases can reasonably be expected to introduce cultural stereotyping thereby limiting the potential usefulness and application of the insights gained through the research process.

This too goes to the crux of the issue of working collaboratively in an authentic manner between or across cultures. Situations in this context interpreted through a purely western lens are unlikely to yield ‘facts’ that will be pertinent to all stakeholders in the collaboration. This perspective accords with the idea that,

“…when we assert the practical purposes of action research and the importance of human interests; when we join knower with known in participative relationship; as we move away from operational measurement into a science of experiential qualities

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 68 (Reason & Goodwin, 1999), we undercut the foundations of the empirical positivist worldview that has been the foundation of Western inquiry since the Enlightenment [Toulmin, 1990 #1436]. In doing this, we are part of the current shift from a ‘modern’ to a ‘postmodern’ world, and we need to engage with the current debate about worldviews and paradigms. We need to look at the practical consequences of modernism; at the implications of the ‘language turn’ which has pointed to the importance of language in creating our world; and, in our view, point to a third possibility, a participatory worldview...”

(Reason & Bradbury, 2006, p.5)

Therefore, although action research lends itself to a diverse range of practices, it may be difficult to justify or apply in terms of purely western positivist academic traditions. Grocott (2012) to explores this arguing that, although design researchers do of course need to generate and communicate results that are accessible to others, “…A design- oriented approach is less interested in whether the research is ‘repeatable’ but does seek to produce insights whose relevance for others can be corroborated” (Grocott, 2012, p.20). So too, Reason and Bradbury (2006) point to the critical need for an absolutely inclusive global approach by suggesting,

“…that action research is a participatory, democratic process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes, grounded in a participatory worldview which we believe is emerging at this historical moment.”

(Reason & Bradbury, 2006, p.2)

The decision to adopt an action research pathway, combined with iterative and reflexive design thinking is congruent with the transcultural and collaborative premise of the research. As interpreted here, a key purpose for action research is the generation of practical and useful knowledge, applicable to the way we live. This implies ‘useful knowledge’ should increase well being in an economic, political, psychological, and spiritual sense for both the individual and for the communities concerned. Moreover, this should be seen to contribute to, “…a more equitable and sustainable relationship

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 69 with the wider ecology of the planet of which we are an intrinsic part” (ibid p.2). This resonates with both the nature and goals of C8 Research and the broader design research field where questions about the rigorousness of research practices are often called into question. Similarly, the congruence of action research with Metadesign as a means for designers to seed positive social transformation seems clear.

The research design itself is a vital component in creating a transformational space for critically and reflexively sharing knowledge, culture, life experiences, wisdom, visions and aspirations. Social and intercultural learning about design framed in this manner challenges ingrained notions of cultural ‘otherness’ and prejudice, and forms a base from where participants begin to find the common ground essential for authentic collaboration. In this design specific context, Allen’s assertion (2002) that the action researcher is simultaneously a practitioner and an interventionist, have some resonance.

The iterative process has followed a discursive trajectory using strategic thinking to design and implement the series of field studies conducted online and on the ground in China. This was supported by web based applications and databases used for sharing information, documentation, and for collaborative interaction. The overall methodology as described, is a research strategy that corresponds with and acknowledges (1), “… that the creative (design) process offers an approach to knowledge seeking that usefully establishes the conditions for realising what has not been seen before. (Scrivener & Chapman, 2004, in Grocott, 2012, p.18); (2) “…the speculative emergent, adaptive nature of the design process...” (ibid p.18); and (3), “The iterative process of prototyping potential solutions allows the researcher to tackle the kinds of ‘fuzzy’ problems and situations that are not easily defined at the outset but can be considered by proposing into the research situation” (Rittel & Webber, 1973, ibid p.18).

This introductory chapter highlights the deficiency of design and design education systems in developing innovative ways to foster transcultural collaborative synergies that might help to foster joined-up ways of working necessary to tackle

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 70 the complex global problems humans face. It has established the significance of the problem of design and design education as status quo. The chapter has also provided a detailed overview of the aims and objectives of the thesis, the research questions it seeks to address, research methods, and a preliminary discussion of the relevance of cities to the study. More specifically, a theoretical underpinning for the thesis drawing on seminal texts pertinent to Metadesign has been outlined and tethered to an educational context and research methods based in both action research and iterative design thinking. The transcultural context for the study has been identified in the C8 Research platform where participants fromAustralia and China are challenged to co-create responses to open design briefs in a series of three field studies.This introduction opens the way for a discussion of the core themes of the thesis in the following chapters. The second chapter will introduce the first of three core themes pertinent to the transcultural interdisciplinary design space of C8 Research.

Chapter 1 - Context, Problem, Framework, Methods 71 RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller) 2.0 Despite increasing interconnectedness economically and electronically, many humans are yet to demonstrate a constructive transcendence of social constructions of a dichotomous ‘East’ and West. Is this even possible? tao and logos 2.0 Tao and Logos

An honest acknowledgement of how human perceptions of cultural difference and similarity constrain us must inform any authentic attempt to design culturally adaptive practices and pedagogies that meet the challenges of transcultural literacy, trust and communication. Realising this positions designers and design educators so they can contribute more meaningfully to developing the innovative co-design strategies needed to map, understand, and address complex problems in The Asian Century. Such an acknowledgement is useful to forming an understanding about the often contradictory, cultural operating systems of west and non-west at a broad societal level. It is also critical at the level of organisations such as governments and universities and for individuals such as the participants in C8 Research. This chapter highlights real cultural differences, but also points toward significant human similarities. I will discuss this in terms that reveal both challenges and opportunities for creating conditions for the emergence of as yet untapped transcultural synergies central to a framework for designing new configurations of design collaboration.

The chapter examines the west’s history of dominating the global cultural landscape, and highlights how this has shaped the significant challenges designers and design educators face in successfully co-creating in transcultural contexts. The theoretical framework developed in Chapter 1 is woven through this discussion to promote a consideration of how and why Metadesign as an ethos might be deployed to seed transcultural design practices in education. Drawing on Chinese and western literature and theory, the chapter alludes to a complementarity between Chinese cultural modalities and Metadesign thinking. This is framed in a manner suggesting that, should they choose to, designers and educators do have viable opportunities to unlock new ways of thinking, practicing and understanding our place in designing more robust and resilient futures.

Despite increasing interconnectedness economically and electronically, many humans are yet to demonstrate a significant transcendence of social constructions of a dichotomous ‘East’ and West. Is this even possible? In Manuel Castells’ exploration of contemporary networked society, culture is created and consumed by individual agents. Castells says (2000, p.21) that within the global communication flows of the networked society, “…because there are few common codes there is systematic misunderstanding. It is this structurally induced cacophony

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 74 that is celebrated as postmodernity.” Through Castells’ lens, the only common code is the network itself. The ongoing presence of open or strategic conflicts between the west and non-western world is indicative that more understanding of how transcultural communication and collaboration actually works would be useful and positive to sustaining a liveable future for humans and non-humans. The ongoing foregrounding of a discourse of difference is not conducive to harmonious interconnectedness, or constructive in developing a more joined- up synergistic way of thinking about global challenges. Framed within the push and pull of transcultural discourse, Metadesign’s possibility of collaborative synergies offers us alternative strategies for networked human (and non-human) agents to design such a future.

The challenge of communication between the west and China is highlighted by Francois Juillien (2009) who reminds us that, “China is often presented to us in this category of the inverse or flipside [envers]. Because that way we don’t step out of our thought: since the opposite is nothing but the reversal of our position” (Juillien (2009, p.183). Juillien’s observation is pertinent to C8 Research in that he highlights a central question (ibid, p.183) by asking, “…how can we knit together an encounter between two patches of thought that are ignorant of each other, as is the case with Chinese and European thought, and introduce a mediation between them?” Responses to this question are inevitably complexified because, as I will discuss further, interpretations of information, concepts and experiences are fundamentally shaped by the semiotic structures embedded within cultural environments, and as such, that which is encountered cognitively by two people from different cultural/semiotic contexts does not necessarily correspond (Rahimi, 2002).

Otherness and elsewhere

C8 Research argues that, in the recognition of ourselves in the ‘Other’, as designers we are more effectively empowered to consciously ‘choose’ to engage in building the authentic ‘people-to-people’ relations that are the essential foundation for establishing mutually beneficial economic, environmental and social well-being. Maturana (1997) proposed that as humans, the culture in which we live constitutes the medium in which we are realised. Equally however, humans live in conversations where we are reflective agents. By engaging in a reflexive deconstruction of Otherness we become more aware that we may choose the way we live, “…according to our aesthetic preferences, and live in one way or another according to the human identity we wish to conserve…” (1997).

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 75 “China is often presented to us in this category of the inverse or flipside [envers]. Because that way we don’t step out of our thought: since the opposite is nothing but the reversal of our position...” Francois Juillien (2009, p. 183) As in the ‘real world’ of practice, within academic and research contexts these processes prove to be particularly problematic, and have been so historically due to the hegemonic influences and forces of colonialism. Spivak (1988, p.77) goes so far as to refer to Foucault’s assertion (1965) of a form of epistemic violence against “the Other”, and suggests it is important that,

“…the subtext of the palipsestic narrative of imperialism be recognized as ‘subjugated knowledge’, ‘a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task, or insufficiently elaborated: naïve knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity’

(Foucault, 1965, p. 82 in Spivak, 1988, p.77)

In Geographies of Postcolonialism (2008), Sharp expands on Gramsci’s notion of the

subaltern1 in positing that, “Western intellectuals delegate other, non–Western (African, Asian, Middle Eastern) forms of knowing — of acquiring knowledge of the world — to the margins of intellectual discourse, by re-formulating said forms of knowing as myth and as folklore.” Under colonialism, the subaltern has had to affect western ways of knowing the world and to articulate their experience of the world within the ‘validated’ constraints of the west. Recent post-colonial discourse acknowledges the constructed ‘Other’ (if it exists) has a voice and the capacity to express itself (Bignall & Patton, 2010). However, because such expression is often coded in ways that westerners, in particular, may be unable, or not equipped to hear, this voice is commonly forgotten, ignored, or erased.

Even more problematic is the westerner’s attempt to represent the voice of others. Already stifled in colonial histories, the other may remain silent and inarticulate despite attempts on the part of western intellectuals to restrain themselves from speaking on their behalf (ibid p. 5). Going to the heart of the challenge for C8 Research to articulate itself in ways that successfully elude the critique of cultural stereotyping and inadvertent orientalisation, Bignall & Patton (2010) point to the inconvenient reality that,

1 Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) used the term subaltern in defining social groups considered socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland. It is now used widely in critical theory and post-colonial discourse.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 77 “…the act of ‘speaking about’ oneself, others or particular aspects of the world involves constructing and delimiting a representation of the object of one’s speech, which renders it manageable and comprehensive, but also threatens to ossify into a set of assumptions and understandings, a habitual knowledge outside of which one eventually finds it hard to think. It also becomes difficult to ‘hear’ alternative representations when they are spoken, because they do not neatly fit with established ways of making sense. In the context of postcolonialism , the problem of representation is highly politicised because many of the world’s established and ossified forms of representation emerged and were consolidated with colonialism; for the ‘West’ to think outside of these established structures of meaning and ‘hear’ the alternative sense of the Other involves a certain effort and a political and ethical choice, which rarely seems to be made – either because the effort required to register the existence of the problem is ‘too great’, or because the West has a vested interest in remaining ‘deaf’ to the alternative worlds ‘spoken’ by post-colonial subjects.”

(ibid pp.5-6)

How we choose to approach, understand, and describe our, “…progressive construction of alterity…” (Jullien, 2009, p.182), is manifestly important in C8 Research. Immersion in the world of the constructed ‘Other’, and a journey of experiential transformation, may be the only ways to at least attempt to occupy the postcolonial in a substantial and meaningful way. It is through a desire to engage with the ambiguity of the constructed ‘Other’ that designers and design educators can activate and amplify transcultural modes of collaborative practice that reflect the actual nature of our relationships to the world. This requires us to question what Jullien (ibid p.182) identifies as, “…the pre-notioned, or the pre-categorized, or the pre-questioned, that is to say, that which constitutes our theoretical pre-suppositions.” Recognising the

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 78 other as an embedded linguistic and philosophic instrument Jullien posits the ‘elsewhere’. He states,

“Elsewhere is indeed a given: the Chinese and European worlds didn’t communicate with each other until relatively recently. The other, as it has been known since Plato’s Sophist, is the tool of a philosophical grammar, the necessary instrument of every dialectical elaboration. … the elsewhere establishes itself, while alterity or otherness, if there is any, is to be constructed, and here this entails an operation of reflection—reflection in the proper sense— between the two fields concerned.”

(ibid p.182)

Unfortunately, as Jullien (ibid.) and other contemporary commentators such as Hall (2013) suggest even at this juncture in human history with unprecedented interconnectivity, our histories and socio-cultural constructs constrain our perspectives, confine us to stereotypical representations of cultural ‘Others’ that do not reflect necessarily the physical or social entities they ostensibly represent (Mullin-Jackson, 2011; Abrahams, 2002).

Woolly, flaky, pretentious and unbusiness-like

It is implausible for researchers to identify an overarching static definition of culture.The term and concept of culture shares a similar level of slipperiness with that of ‘design’. Mole (1995) is cited by Aoki & Aydın, 2006) as arguing, “…culture is a woolly, flaky, pretentious, unbusiness-like, mildly derisive word like intellectual or bureaucratic…”(in Aoki & Aydın, 2006, p.4). Mole defines it as, “…the way we do things around here…” (ibid p.4) based on attitudes, values, norms and the behaviours of people. Chen & Starosta (1998) concur that culture is characterised by values and norms, and these differ in accordance with variances in, “…national, organizational, regional, ethnic, religious, or linguistic affiliation, and by gender, generation, social class, and family levels” (ibid p.4).

Contemporary mainstream ideas about culture difference typically draw on Hall & Hall’s theory (1990) of a continuum of cultural characteristics ranging from high context to low context. In this model, Asian cultures such as Japan and China are classified as high-

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 79 context cultures while the western societies, including Germany, USA, UK, and Australia, are defined as low-context cultures. In high-context cultures, everyone knows how to behave in a variety of situations without explicit instructions. Liu Qingxue (2003) described high- context cultures as changing little over time, because of tradition and history. They are, “… cultures in which consistent messages have produced consistent responses to the environment” (Liu Qingxue, 2003, p.23). This means that, “…for most normal transactions in daily life they do not require, nor do they expect, much in-depth, background information” (ibid p.3). In low-context cultures people need to constantly negotiate to formulate ad-hoc solutions (Aoki & Aydın 2006). Another theoretical framework commonly used to apprehend cultural characteristics is Hofstede’s concept (1980) of a spectrum of five cultural dimensions. These include: 1. power distance; 2. uncertainty avoidance; 3. individualism vs. collectivism; 4. masculinity vs. femininity; 5. long-term orientation (Hofstede, 2001, p.29). Hofstede’s work converges with a body of research (Morling & Lamoreaux 2008; Oyserman et al. 2002; Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan, 2009) suggesting that overall, “…Westerners tend to have more independent, and less interdependent, self-concepts than those of other populations.” (Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan, 2009, p.21). It is interesting to note that in comprehensive studies of cultural difference by Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan (2009), “Westerners emerge as unusual, frequent global outliers, on several key dimensions. The experiments reviewed are numerous, arise from different disciplines, use diverse methods, and are often part of systematically comparable data sets...” (ibid p.29).

Hofstede’s work on culture (1980, 1997, 2001) is the most widely cited research (Jones, 2007) and is seen as the most rigorous analysis of cultural difference amongst scholars and practitioners across disciplinary fields where cross-cultural considerations are important. Jones (ibid, 2007) also suggests that the quantity of academically informed understandings of culture, “are too numerous to count, each one having a relevant claim to a meaningful understanding of the terms of culture.” Jones (ibid.) points to Olie’s identification of over 164 different definitions for culture documented up to the year 1951 (Olie 1995, p. 128). On his website Hofstede (n.d.) writes of culture that,

“Our shared human nature is intensely social: we are group animals. We use language and empathy, and practice collaboration and intergroup competition. But the unwritten rules of how we do these things differ from one human group to another. “’Culture” is how we call these unwritten rules about how to be a good member of the group. Culture provides moral standards about how to be

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 80 “If humanity is to be saved, we must focus on our affinities, the points of contact with all other human beings; by all means we must avoid accentuating our differences.” (Borges, 1984) an upstanding group member; it defines the group as a “moral circle”. It inspires symbols, heroes, rituals, laws, religions, taboos, and all kinds of practices - but its core is hidden in unconscious values. We tend to classify groups other than our own as inferior or (rarely) superior. This applies to groups based on national, religious, or ethnic boundaries, but also on occupation or academic discipline, on club membership, adored idol, or dress style.”

(Hofstede, G., n.d. http://geerthofstede.eu/)

Hofstede’s study of culture commenced in 1967 and initially surveyed national value differences across 40 countries in the context of the multinational corporation IBM. This was subsequently expanded to 50 countries. Hofstede’s initial findings identified there were four key ‘dimensions’ of culture that form,

“…four anthropological problem areas that different national societies handle differently: ways of coping with inequality, ways of coping with uncertainty, the relationship of the individual with her or his primary group, and the emotional implications of having been born as a girl or as a boy”.

(Hofstede, G., n.d. http://www.geerthofstede.nl/dimensions-of-national-cultures)

By 2001 Hofstede’s concept had evolved to include the aforementioned spectrum of five cultural dimensions: 1. power distance; 2. uncertainty avoidance; 3. individualism vs. collectivism; 4. masculinity vs. femininity; 5. long-term orientation (Hofstede, 2001, p.29). Subsequent studies resulted in Hofstede augmenting his initial findings with an additional sixth dimension – indulgence vs. restraint. On his website Hofstede (n.d.) now defines this theoretical proposition as explained in the following list:

1. Power Distance: Power distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society’s level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and inequality, of course, are extremely fundamental facts of any society and anybody with some international

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 82 experience will be aware that “all societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others”.

2. Uncertainty Avoidance: Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth: “there can only be one Truth and we have it”. People in uncertainty avoiding countries are also more emotional, and motivated by inner nervous energy. The opposite type, uncertainty accepting cultures, are more tolerant of opinions different from what they are used to; they try to have as few rules as possible, and on the philosophical and religious level they are relativist and allow many currents to flow side by side. People within these cultures are more phlegmatic and contemplative, and not expected by their environment to express emotions.

3. Individualism: Individualism on the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after her/himself and her/his immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The word collectivism in this sense has no political meaning: it refers to the group, not to the state. Again, the issue addressed by this dimension is an extremely fundamental one, regarding all societies in the world.

4. Masculinity: Masculinity versus its opposite, femininity, refers to the distribution of emotional roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women’s values differ less among societies than men’s values; (b) men’s values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 83 maximally different from women’s values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women’s values on the other. The assertive pole has been called masculine and the modest, caring pole feminine. The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are more assertive and more competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men’s values and women’s values.

The fifth dimension: Long-Term Orientation: Research by Michael Bond and colleagues among students in 23 countries led him in 1991 to adding a fifth dimension called Long- versus Short-Term Orientation. In 2010, research by Michael Minkov allowed to extend the number of country scores for this dimension to 93, using recent World Values Survey data from representative samples of national populations. Long- term oriented societies foster pragmatic virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular saving, persistence, and adapting to changing circumstances. Short-term oriented societies foster virtues related to the past and present such as national pride, respect for tradition, preservation of “face”, and fulfilling social obligations.

The sixth dimensions: Indulgence versus Restraint: In the same book a sixth dimension, also based on Minkov’s World Values Survey data analysis for 93 countries, has been added, called Indulgence versus Restraint. Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms.

(Hofstede, G., n.d. http://www.geerthofstede.nl/dimensions-of-national- cultures)

As Jones (2007) alludes to a number of studies (Chu & Ju, 1993; Wong & Ahuvia, 1998. Dorfman & Howell, 1998; Graves 1986; Olie 1995; Søndergaard 1994) have yielded data that contests Hofstede’s claims on a range of issues including

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 84 the relevancy of his survey methods, assumptions of cultural homogeneity, political influences, his one- company approach/context, and statistical integrity.

Matthews (2000) provides further insight more specifically related to the Chinese context in their discussion of The Chinese Value Survey (CVS) formulated by Bond (1988). CVS was developed by Bond and a cohort of researchers collectively known as The Chinese Culture Connection in response to their perceptions around the need to “…to measure and evaluate cultural values within the setting of a Chinese social value system that is derived from the Confucian ethos” (Matthews, 2000, p.117). The research tool forms an instrument designed to be used in contexts where Asian life values dominate and as a complimentary lens to studies including Rokeach’s (1973) Rokeach Value Survey (RSV) and the work of Schwartz (1992) (ibid, 2000).

Imagining ‘Otherness’

Historically, western thinking has used Otherness (the ‘East’, or the Orient) to define itself against what is different to its’ intrinsic value systems. The notion of the Oriental represents an Otherness that possesses, as it always did in the western imagination, a promise of the exotic, the mysterious, and crucially, the profitable. Inherently western, such deeply ingrained constructions characterise the discourse, popular ideas, and memes common in daily global information flows that predominantly represent western interests and perspectives. This ubiquitous, mediated global communication process perpetuates ‘mythic’ notions of the ‘East’, of China, of Otherness, via the machinations of western corporate and political entities. This has been observed by academics and theorists as tending to deepen distrust, and misunderstanding between people (Nolan, 2010; Walby, 2003; Vukovich, 2013; Kellner, 1995).

For the westerner, Zhang Longxi (1988) suggested, China, “…as a land in the ‘Far East’ becomes traditionally the image of the ultimate ‘other’…”(1988, p.110). He too, reiterates how our knowledge and understandings are conditioned by the systems in which we are immersed. Pointing out the difficulties of escaping the limitations of, “…the confinement of the historical a priori, the epistemes or the fundamental codes of Western culture…” (ibid p.110), Zhang Longxi argues that the westerner needs to differentiate the self from otherness – from the ‘alien’. This differentiation delimits the boundaries of western culture in the occidental mind and defines it as a self-contained system. He asks (ibid p.110), “What can be a better sign of the ‘other’ than a fictionalized space of China?” Borges postulates this need stems from, “…the idea of a precise, artificial language built on a strictly logical system of numbers or symbols…” (1984, p.101) and suggested this originates from Descartes, that is, from within the western philosophical

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 85 tradition and its desire to classify and compartmentalise all the phenomena of the world. Borges was by all accounts particularly concerned with the way humans make much of their differences and wrote,

“If humanity is to be saved, we must focus on our affinities, the points of contact with all other human beings; by all means we must avoid accentuating our differences.”

(Borges, 1984, p.12, in Zhang Longxi, 1988, p.113)

In western thought since Ferdinand de Saussure, thinking and language have been understood in oppositional binary terms (Zhang Longxi 1988, p.110). Westerners use languages as systems comprised of terminologies that define and categorise by differentiation. We tell something apart from the many, by its’ difference. In the west, difference is manufactured as,

“…men (sic) make their own history…and extend it to geography: as both geographical and cultural entities - to say nothing of historical entities - such locales, regions, geographical sectors as “Orient” and “Occident” are man- made…”

(Said, 1978, p. 4).

The mythic idea of Asia as representative of something ‘Other’ has therefore been very enduring in the western mind. However, clearly non-western cultures exist with their own histories, separate from the histories and images of western traditions.

Although many modern western democracies boast culturally diverse populations, historically, in terms of how they are governed, the way societies are structured, and the overriding values recognised, Anglo-Saxon, Latin and Greco-Roman cultural traditions are most prominently represented. Operating within ontologies that demand particular ways of interpreting the world, despite the pluralism of postmodernity, individualistic rationalism and Cartesian logic still prevails. Similarly, contemporary Asia is comprised of diverse societies where, notwithstanding globalism, historical and cultural traditions and languages form the foundations of society. Although it may be false to say that Asian societies do not value the

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 86 individual, people are, “…conscious of a strong responsibility to society; there is no dichotomy between the individual and society, or the internal and the external” (Liu Shuxan 1998, p.59). Such characteristics tend to emphasise the primacy of nation, community, family, and the self over the more “rugged individualism” (ibid, p.59) valued in western societies.

Many non-western cultures are widely perceived to value a collective “we” consciousness where personal identity is influenced and shaped more fundamentally by social systems than is typical in western societies. Most particularly, in Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHC) individuals live within a fluid relational context where one is more, “…emotionally dependent on families, institutions and affiliations; and individuals trust group decisions” (Liu Qingxue, 2003, p.25). Schollon & Schollon, (2000) are cited in Liu Qingxue (ibid, p.25) as hypothesising that, “Asians tend to be more aware of the connections they have as members of their social groups, and therefore, they tend to be more conscious of the consequences of their actions on their members of their groups.” They observed that during interpersonal communication, agents in CHC are more likely to demonstrate behavioural characteristics that may appear (to western sensibilities) to include indirectness, explicitness, saving face, concern for others, group cooperation and group decision-making.

Bond (1987) further confirms the “collective thought process in Chinese traditional culture that values the opinion of the group over the individual” (Scharoun, 2008, p.71). Similarly Bond suggests, the influence of the group can be seen in risk avoidance behaviours of individuals in Chinese culture. Rather than the individualist risk-taking that is valued in western cultures, risk in Chinese contexts is typically undertaken by a group rather than an individual from within the group (Bond, 1987, Scharoun, 2008). Bond (1987) and Scharoun (2008) suggest however that these cultural differences do not extend to a divergence in perceptual faculties in relation to visual stimulus pertinent to design practice and design education such as colour perception.

However Masuda (2010) counters such perspectives by suggesting that within the fields of psy¬chophysiology and neuroscience studies have evidenced,

“…that culture deeply influences attention. Results of an eye-tracking study indicated that East Asians were more likely than were Westerners to allocate their attention to the surrounding information. When given the aforementioned animal recogni¬tion task, Chinese participants made more sacca¬dic (rapid nonfocused) eye movements to the background scenes than did those from the United States, even

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 87 though the task was to evaluate the target objects. These results suggest that context- oriented attention is deeply internalized among East Asians, and for this reason, they cannot help referring to contextual information even when they do not have to.”

(Masuda, in Goldstein, 2010, p.342)

Because humans are so strongly influenced by their own cultural context and ossified mediated histories, there are strong tendencies for humans to make incorrect assumptions about members of other cultural groups. Our cultural, political, economic and social cosmologies have well documented histories shaped in part by misunderstanding, disinformation, mistrust, incompetence, insensitivity and exploitation due to such assumptions. This is what Jullien (2009, p.182) alludes to through his afore-mentioned notion of the ‘pre-notioned’, where we enact a pre-categorising or pre-questioning process within which, we make assumptions based apon uninformed ‘theoretical’ pre-suppositions. Kishore Mahbubani (2009) observed,

“The Western mind is a huge world, but even in that huge world, you are actually trapped in a mental box. For those who live in the West, you assume that you can understand the world just by looking at it through Western perspectives, which gives you a limited view of the world.”

(Kishore Mahbubani, 2009, http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/123.html)

It may equally be argued that the non-west makes similar assumptions about the west (Xu Fang, 2010). The potential for dangerous cultural stereotyping is omnipresent. Establishing for example, that individualism is not a uniquely western trait, and that the tendency to collectivism is not a purely Asian characteristic is crucial. Clearly, “…all people and cultures have both individual and collective dispositions” (Liu Qingxue, 2003, p.25).

Flow and ontology

Historically, those living in CHC have generally acknowledged what they perceived as the illusion of western duality. Disavowing a separation of the individual from environment, CHC consider that humans and non-humans are intrinsically part of the complex ecologies comprising the planet and beyond (Zhang, 2007; Chen, Mashhadi, Ang, & Harkrider, 1999;

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 88 Nisbett, 2003). Ames (1998) described this world-view in the following manner.

In the dominant world view of classical East Asia, we do not begin from the dualistic ‘two-world’ reality/appearance distinction familiar in classical Greek metaphysics, giving rise as it does to ontological questions such as: ‘What is the Being behind the beings?’ Rather, we begin from the assumption that there is only the one continuous concrete world that is the source and locus of all of our experience, giving rise to cosmological and ultimately ethical questions such as: ‘How do these myriad beings best hang together?’

(Ames, R. (1998). East Asian Philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.))

Within the rational traditions of western logic the individual has historically been as separate

from the environment. Positivism 2, a recurrent thematic within western thought, makes the still dominant assertion that science is the only valid form of knowing. This originated in the epistemological perspectives of Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Compte rejected outright any claims to knowledge not based on direct observation. In the post-colonial era, western positivists, in their rejection of metaphysical and spiritual dimensions of existence, have followed in the footsteps of the major western philosophers. Patomaki (2002) observes that many major philosophers and critical theorists, inspired by figures including Hume, Smith, Kant, Hegel and Marx,

“...have been united in their assumptions that (1) the truth about human possibilities can be found in the existing Western texts and practices; and (2) that the rest of the world is bound to follow the lead of Europe or the West”

(Patomaki, 2002, p.89)

2 The characteristic theses of positivism are that science is the only valid knowledge and facts the only possible objects of knowledge; that philosophy does not possess a method different from science; and that the task of philosophy is to find the general principles common to all the sciences and to use these principles as guides to human conduct and as the basis of social organization. Positivism, consequently, denies the existence or intelligibility of forces or substances that go beyond facts and the laws ascertained by science. It opposes any kind of metaphysics and, in general, any procedure of investigation that is not reducible to scientific method. (Abbagnano, N. (1967). Positivism. In P. Edwards (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Vol. 6, 414-419). New York: Macmillan.)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 89 This attempt at an ongoing western philosophic dominance has however, not been a process free from resistance. O’Sullivan (2001, p.318) points out, “… Modern western culture is probably the first culture to attempt to function without an overriding view of the cosmos.” But frequently, other cultures that have a larger cosmology embedded in their mythic structures have been labelled in the west as retrograde or primitive.

“From a scientific point of view, it established western scientific thinking as superior to the thinking of other existing cultures. The label of primitive also gave European cultures an excuse and apology for their imperialism and colonialism.

(ibid p.318)

In “The Concept of Ideology” Chilean sociologist Jorge Larrain (1979) incisively challenged the positivists’ reliance on science observing that, “…one of the features of positivism is precisely its postulate that scientific knowledge is the paradigm of valid knowledge, a postulate that indeed is never proved nor intended to be proved” (1979, p.197). Dhavalasri Shelton Gunaratne (2005) attributed the resilience of non-western cultural identities to the autopoietic process I referred to in Chapter 1, in relation to Metadesign and living systems. Gunaratne argued that the principle of,

“…Autopoiesis is the reason why nation-states are able to preserve their distinct cultures and will not succumb to westernization in the guise of globalization. This idea is consistent with the fundamentals of Eastern philosophy: diversity within unity, complementarity (yin–yang), impermanence, dependent co-arising, harmony (dynamic balance) and so on…”

(Gunaratne, 2005, p.759)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 90 Finding similarity

In considering the potential for ameliorating what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2009) describes as the “radical incommensurability” between western

and Chinese philosophy3, I will discuss this so-called dichotomy in terms of Tao and Logos. Deeply complex areas of study in themselves, their relevance to C8 Research is their potential to contribute insights about the underlying motivations, interests, capacities, tendencies, methods, experiences, responses and perceptions of designers, researchers, faculty and students in transcultural collaborative contexts. We are warned that when comparing western and Chinese philosophies, “…Oversimplifications, excessively stark contrasts, and illicit assimilations count as the most frequent sins” (ibid 2009). Theorists who oppose notions of a radical incommensurability between western and Chinese philosophy, “…will level the charge that it presupposes a hyperdramatic contrast between traditions” (ibid 2009). My own consideration and reference to Tao and Logos in the context of C8 Research is intended to help inform a reflexive understanding of how the lived cultural dimension of situated experience is instrumental in shaping interactions and outcomes between culturally diverse groups. Tao and Logos permit us to discern some of the broad principles underpinning the world-views that permeate their respective cultural contexts. Due consideration of Tao and Logos as ways of understanding the world is thus useful for mapping latent synergies that under auspicious circumstances hold the capacity to facilitate relational transformation, collaborative attention, and the building of trust via a sharing of experience and memory.

Inversely, hackneyed misperceptions about cultural difference will constrain positive transcultural interactions at all scales from global to the local. Edward Said (2001) hypothesised that ongoing and future conflict between the major world-cultures can be characterised as fundamentally cultural. He said,

“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs,

3 Refer to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ comparphil-chiwes/

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 91 but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines.”

(Said, E., 2001, p.18)

These fault lines may also appear at the scale of the design studio resulting in outcomes where the formation of authentic collaborative thinking may become compromised and unattainable, or is simply ‘designed’ out. Conversely, designers and design educators cognisant of the contradictions and informed by appropriate underpinning literacies, will likely be more reliably equipped to participate in culturally adaptive creative processes that re-modulate aporia in meetings between agents from diverse cultural contexts.

In western thought, ‘Logos’ has numerous meanings. In the context of philosophical discourse it signifies, “… the rational, intelligible principle, structure, or order which pervades something, or the source of that order, or giving an account of that order” (Honderich, 1995, p.511 cited in Wang, 1996, p.125). The etymology of the word is it’s Greek root as a verb meaning, “I am saying”, with the noun denoting language. The ancient Greeks are said to have used the term to signify a range of meanings including “Language, saying, interpretation, balance, principle and reason” (Leung, 1998, p.140). Logos is widely understood in contemporary western contexts to act in a metaphorical sense to refer to reason and the rational (Wang, 1996, p.122).

‘Tao’ in Chinese philosophy represents a process of ‘becoming’, neither static, or in any sense of material substance. Tao, (or Dao), signifies ‘the way’, or ‘the road’. Taoism represents one

of the three philosophical systems of China 4, and may be traced in the philosophical sense to the philosopher Zhuangzi in the 4th Century BC. Key texts are the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi. The rule of order in the process of Tao is based in achieving balance and harmony (Leung, 1998, p.135). However, to live as a Taoist, cannot be considered ontology, because the concept does not relate to being (ibid p.132). Metaphorically, Tao might be conceived of as a journey, walking a road where an endlessly unfolding horizon continually changes the process of the journey. In situated experience one is required to, “…adapt to the situation and thus create harmony. If one cannot respond correctly and miss (sic) the harmonious point, one may

4 The other two being Confucianism and Buddhism.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 92 Image: In the studio (Week 2), eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) stray from the path and disrupt the process” (ibid p.132). Irrespective of how one’s experience of the world changes, the fundamental nature of Tao is that harmony always exists and cannot be altered. Individuals pass through experience, meeting each other on the empty path or at intersecting points in the multiplicity of paths they may traverse.

“If these different paths represent different ways of thinking, the concept of Tao indicates that they do interact with each other. Furthermore, one who walks on one path can enter another path at the intersections so that Tao makes mutual understanding and inter-penetration possible.”

(Leung, 1998, p.132)

Tao is an infinite process of thinking where Emptiness and Nothingness define the essential character of the world. This contrasts with a western world-view that understands the experience of ‘being’, essence, and substance, as reality (ibid, p. 144). Yet, although they may superficially seem irreconcilable as divergent world-views, as Leung highlights (ibid. pp.143-145), Tao and Logos do share a number of common denotations. While avoiding any claim that Tao and Logos are the same, Leung’s critical analysis (1998) of the symbolic meaning and philosophical significance of Tao and Logos suggests the following similarities:

• Both describe this world as changing. Reality is a flux or a process. • Both describe the changing world as a process that produces its opposite. • Both describe the world as a world of balance and harmony. • The changing world is a process following some forms or order. The Tao and Logos are those kinds of order. • Both describe the ultimate reality of the world as infinite within the finite or eternality within the flux of changing.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 94 • Both identify the human heart-mind or soul with the ultimate reality. • Both emphasise that human beings should listen to the ultimate reality, through which the soul can be nurtured.

A plausible equilibrium between Tao and Logos might be discerned by acknowledging the parallels between Tao’s emphasis on flow, change, and process, and the complimentary ‘unity of opposites’ in western thought. This can be seen as dating from Heraclitus (Capra, 1976, pp.125-130), present in the discourse of Hegel and Marx (Sayers, 1980, p.2), and implicit in Continental Philosophy’s rejection of the view that science was the only way to make sense of the world. Continental Philosophy’s tendency to historicism suggests a correspondence between 20th Century western thought and Taoism in that the, “…conditions of possible experience are variable and determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history” (Rosen, M., in Grayling, A.C., 1999, p.665). In the early 20th Century quantum physics further revealed the potential limitations of western thinking previously understood to accurately and rationally describe the nature of the universe and human experience.

Although the focus, scope and capacities of C8 Research make discussion of quantum physics unviable, it is useful to note the rationalist critique of Capra’s theories about a relationship between Taoism and quantum mechanics (Scerri, 1989; Lederman, 1993). Peck (2012) however proposes that, notwithstanding scientific perspectives, when designing more sustainable ontologies that may reconcile the myriad tensions and interests of opposites, abandoning enlightenment-influenced rationalism frees us to explore the, “…emerging bases of agreement between…anti-rationalist epistemologies and the classically rationalist field of quantum mechanics” (Peck, 2012, p.1).

In a sociological analysis of diplomacy and international communications, Gunaratne (2005) further refuted pure rationalism, pointing out that Capra’s theory of living systems (1996) permits us a means to consider, “…the unity of all things…” (2005, pp.750-753). To support

this Gunaratne cites Herbert’s identification of eight metaphors5 that function in contrast to

5 “Herbert observed that in contrast to the Newtonian model, quantum theory gives us at least eight metaphors to guide our understanding of reality: 1. There is no deep reality. Quantum phenomena and the measuring device produce quantum attributes (Bohr and Heisenberg). 2. Reality is created by observation (Wheeler). 3. The world is an undivided wholeness (Bohm and Capra). 4. There are an ever-increasing number of complete universes: the many worlds interpretation (Everett). 5. The world

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 95 Newtonian physics, “…to guide our understanding of reality” (ibid p.752). The third of the eight metaphors refers to ideas put forth by physicists Capra (1977) and Bohm (1973) that the world is an undivided wholeness. Viewed through this lens, the western science of quantum mechanics seems to share a view of the world that can be characterised by interconnectedness.

“Inasmuch as physicists have failed to refute the quantum hypothesis since Max Planck presented it in 1900, we have every reason to defer to the view of Eastern philosophy that everything in the universe is (potentially) interconnected.”

(Gunaratne, 2005, p. 750)

These ideas admonish perspectives based in what Tu Weiming framed as an arrogance of rationality on the part of western philosophy since The Enlightenment (Yu & Lu, 2000, p.379). They promote a view that, “…new physicists and the ancient sages of the East (sic) appear to view the nature of the universe in similar fashion” (Gunaratne, 2005, p.750). The latent synergistic possibility inherent to these convergent tendencies, as they relate to Tao and Logos are complimentary to the thematics and the aims of C8 Research.

Culture and Metadesign

By creating spaces where synergistic ways of interpreting culture can seed joined-up approaches to design thinking, C8 Research seeks to demonstrate that the situated experience of simultaneous similarity, difference, and interconnectedness permits us to begin to, “… demythologize the myth of the Other” (Zhang, 1988, p.110). Within the context of transcultural design education the encouragement of new forms of synergy may be extrapolated to represent a framework for creating a productive equilibrium denying an insurmountable radical contradiction between Tao and Logos. This ethos can promote lived experiences that equip designers, should they desire, with meaningful strategies to creatively co-language practice as a rich transcultural ecology of ideas (McArthur, Murphie, Miller, 2013).

obeys a non-human kind of reasoning or quantum logic (Finkelstein). 6. The world consists of ordinary objects that exist even when not observed – neorealism (Einstein, Schrödinger, Planck and de Broglie) but which are connected by faster-than-light fields (Clauser and Aspect). 7. Consciousness creates reality (Wigner, von Neumann, Stapp and Goswami). 8. Unobserved entities have tendencies to exist but are not completely real – ‘duplex universe’ (Heisenberg).” (Herbert, 1985 in Gunaratne, 2005, p. 752, Current Sociology, 2005, Vol. 53 No. 5)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 96 Maturana (1997) understands culture to represent, “the configuration of emotioning,” to which we belong, and that which we conserve. For Maturana, social constructions of reality are ethical imperatives. As human agents we can choose to be, “…Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens amans, Homo sapiens aggressans or Homo sapiens arroggans, according to the culture that we live and conserve in our living…”, (ibid) Accordingly, we may choose to change our culture to change the kinds of humans we are by designing new configurations, “…of emotions that give(s) the culture that we live its particular character” (ibid). For contemporary designers, the inference is that we have the capacity to choose to be collaborative agents within emergent global networks. We are free to choose more social, participatory and collaborative modes of practice outside the status quo. When addressing complex design problems, this choice creates the possibility of emergent, shared vision informed by leveraging untapped, expanded, cognitive and intuitive capacities. These implied transcultural social configurations have to date been constrained by colonialist histories that silence the possibility of authentic collaboration. In this sense, “…Like art, Metadesign has the potential to open up new relational dimensions and create a grounding reality in the course of human history” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.5).

Metadesign is an approach to design thinking that, “…represents a critical and creative investigation into the possibilities of transformation of human beings and culture” (Thacker, 2002 cited in Giaccardi, 2005). The need for a realisation of deeper intercultural relations, understandings and co-operation in order to meaningfully address complex challenges, has also been recognised by agents representing cultures and disciplines outside design practice. Increasingly, many of these voices are emerging from China and the Asia region. In 2001, Tu Weiming, Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University, and Research Professor and Senior Fellow of the Asia Centre at Harvard University, suggested with engaging optimism that,

“As we move beyond the dichotomies of globalization and localization, developed and developing, capitalism and socialism, we become an increasingly interconnected global village. By transcending the assumed dichotomies of tradition and modernity, East and West, and us and them, we can tap the rich and varied spiritual resources of our global community as we strive to understand the dilemmas of the human condition.”

(Tu Weiming, The Tasan Lectures, Korea, November 2001)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 97 Kishore Mahbubani, Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, asserted (2009) that human society should seek to establish a fusion of civilisations rather than the clash of civilisations we see played out across the world on screens daily. There are of course considerable challenges to such a utopian fusion actually occurring anytime soon.

“…This is why the world desperately needs an educated global citizenry committed to saving Planet Earth. This can be done. In the past three decades, we have created the largest number of educated human beings ever in human history. And we have created new tools of social media to link educated minds from every corner.”

(Mahbubani, K., 2012, The Future We Want, Rio +20 Summit)

Promising social and cooperation technologies aside, central to the concerns of such commentators is the belief they share that Orientalism still widely persists. Edward Said (1985) explains Orientalism as a term relating to a number of overlapping domains that are defined by: (1) the evolving cultural relationship between Europe and Asia; (2) Western scientific traditions and specialisations focusing on Oriental cultures; and (3) ideological assumptions, images and ‘fantasies’ about the Asian region and people living there (Said, 1985, p.90). Said asserted the commonality between these three aspects of Orientalism is,

“… the line separating Occident from Orient … less a fact of nature than it is a fact of human production, which I have called imaginative geography. This is, however, neither to say that the division between Orient and Occident is unchanging nor is it to say that it is simply fictional.”

(Said, E., 1985, p.90)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 98 Chin-Chuan Lee (2001, p.18) highlights a common Chinese perspective on the dangers of the tendency for the west to generalise about the Asia region due to its significant historical and geographical heterogeneity. Lee cautions (ibid p.8) that although the Asian region can be categorised geographically as encompassing East Asia, South East Asia, and South Asia, generalisations about the nature of Asian experiences should, despite the best intentions be viewed with skepticism. Moreover Lee asserted that Orientalist discourses,

“…tend to reduce the dynamic and complex interplay of media and democratisation in Asia into sterile and unfruitful conceptual fundamentalism. Such fundamentalist concepts include the “end of history”, “liberal democracy”, “Asian values”, “Confucian culture”, and “clash of civilizations”. Without going beyond these Orientalist discourses, I am afraid that our understanding won’t advance very much.”

(Chin-Chuan Lee, 2001, p.8)

Mahbubani (2012) criticised the west as failing to understand the many subtle distinctions inherent in international affairs, pointing out that, “…As the world becomes inexorably smaller, denser, more interconnected and more complex, the biggest danger the world faces is Western groupthink…” (Financial Times, 20/04/2012). He suggests that crisis after crisis could be avoided if westerners could recognise the thousands of nuances vital to understanding better. In Asia impediments to a broad-based and balanced understanding are often attributed to a west-centric media, whose content is a discourse channelling the vested interests of Euro- centric capital. On this Gunaratne (2005) expressed the view that the global communications infrastructure in place in the first decade of the 21st Century is lopsided, making it, “…difficult to escape the continuing reality of domination” (2005, Foreward) However, Gunaratne (ibid) again, refers to the autopoiesis inherent in the world’s social systems as a natural defence system that fends off the cultural annihilation of ‘non-Europe’ through globalisation.

We are made of the same stuff

Ambassador Zha Peixin at the Chinese Economic Association Annual Conference (14 April, 2003) noted that from inside China, globalisation is largely seen as a double-edged sword that brings opportunities and challenges, advantages and disadvantages. However, regardless of

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 99 domestic perceptions about the benefits and constraints brought to bear by globalism, China’s emergent role within the world economy situates it as one of the most important systems in the global landscape. There is intense economic and geo- political interest in China’s complex, rapid transformation from around the world. China’s re-emergence has been significantly reshaping all sectors of industry and many national and regional economies. Unfortunately, it can be argued that much of this engagement appears to be characterised by dual rationalist assumptions that, “… the market justifies everything…” and, “…that progress is a value that transcends human existence” (Maturana, 1997).

Unsurprisingly, the international design market has become increasingly affected by the re-emergence of China and other Asian economies as key drivers of product development, production and innovation. As the opening of new markets intensifies more western designers and academics (including Australians) are looking to engage with China, but as westerners who have spent a significant amount of time in China will recognise, successful integration with the Chinese context may only be achieved on terms that may well be unfamiliar to the western mind. Inevitably imbued with the histories, assumptions, tendencies and preconceptions of Logos, many westerners struggle to comprehend the priorities, processes, protocols, agendas, capacities or expectations of Chinese social and professional environments. For design educators sending graduates out into an increasingly Asia-centric world, to engage in this ‘struggle’ is important. As Gunaratne (2007) reminds us, albeit in the contexts of journalism and governance, it is essential that we recognise the wisdom of the cultural aggregates of west and non-west are complimentary to each other. From a Metadesign perspective, the very real potential of combining the useful wisdom of both cultures to seed collaborative design thinking is where design educators can work towards realising new forms of Fuller’s ‘synergies-of-synergy’ (1975).

Tu Weiming (2013) reminds us that, “…Our genetic codes clearly indicate that, by and large, we are made of the same stuff.” (2013, p.502). However, the complexities and challenges of intercultural dialogue are such that it is only with education that cultural literacy develops. It is ‘vis-à-vis’ the direct experience of other and elsewhere that, design students will acquire the requisite skills and sensitivities to successfully interact or have any basis for successful innovative design-led transcultural collaboration. The reality is that there are many things that we need to learn about each other and ourselves before the collaborative ecology that the C8 Research

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 100 platform seeks to cultivate can achieve a sustainable momentum. This means that some of our deeply held convictions and understandings about, “how things are done around here”, must be reconsidered and reprioritised.

Human bonds between people are of utmost importance in Asia as much as anywhere and are valued highly in a more subtly complex, culturally embedded manner, than the world of contracts, liabilities, policies and bureaucratic particularities relied upon, expected and enforced by westerners. Despite the significant influence of western industrial and political practices and processes in the region, and observations by some that modern Asia has ‘moved on’, the high-context relational dimension of Asian cultures is unlikely to recede. In introducing his theoretical framework for a model of Chinese social behaviour, social psychologist Kwang-Kuo Hwang made an allusion to this in stating,

“… A review of recent research shows that Chinese and other similar societies follow rules that deviate from those of the West. In such societies norms of reciprocity (bao) are intense, but these norms are heavily shaped by the hierarchically structured network of social relations (guanxi) in which people are embedded, by the public nature of obligations, and by the long time period over which obligations are incurred through a self conscious manipulation of face and related symbols…”

(Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, pp.944)

As an example, Australia’s relative lack of explicit acknowledgement of and understanding of such cultural foundations remains a constraint on our potential to engage in a deeper long-term relationship with the region.

Australia’s awareness and consciousness of Asia and its interactions with the region have largely been shaped by multiculturalism (Jayasuriya, 1990; Wise, 2010; Joppke, 2004). Multiculturalism emerged as a concept in Australia during the 1970’s, and in public policy terms was a response to “manage, control, and regulate” demographic and social transformations that has merged in the Post-World War 2 period (Jayasuriya, 1990, p.51). As characterised by Ang the apparent “self-congratulatory stance” of multicultural discourse (ibid. p.36) stems from a desire in Australian society to shake off its, “…explicitly racist history of Aboriginal annihilation and the White Australia policy, which barred non-white peoples,

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 101 particularly’ Asians’, from entering the country” (ibid, 1996, pp.36-37). This is in itself not a strictly Australian phenomenon as public awareness and debate around multiculturalism, “...in Europe and most English-speaking settler states (especially Canada and Australia) have prominently been debates around coping with migration- based ethnicity” (Joppke, 2004, p.239). Australia’s discourse around multiculturalism has officially been one of ‘celebrating cultural diversity’ and ‘tolerance’ (Ang, 1996, p.36).

Although predating more recent rhetoric and policy positioning Australia as part of the Asian Century by over a decade, Ang’s observations on multiculturalism (ibid. pp36-49) resonate strongly. The discourse of multiculturalism has inverted the racist tendencies of Australia’s past, driven by economically motivated policies and the desire to position the country as part of Asia resulting in more positive images and perspectives on Asian cultures and the peoples of Asia (Ang, 1996, p.36). As such Australia’s ambitions in Asia imply it is critical to transcend the limits of mere tolerance of otherness. However, Ang laments that,

“No matter how ‘multicultural’, Australian national identity still bears the traces of orientalism- a Eurocentric discourse renowned for its feminization of the ‘Orient’- despite all well-intentioned efforts to wipe them out.”

(ibid, 1996, p.47)

As The Asian Century rapidly gains momentum with all it’s attendant challenges and opportunities, the advantages of facilitating the development of a more culturally literate population is clearly highly desirable.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 102 Trust

Although interpersonal norms in Chinese society are undeniably changing in response to dramatically increased interaction with the global economy, the intense emphasis on mutual trust holds an especially significant status as a foundation on which relationships are built. Kwang-Kuo Hwang (1987) confirms that there are, “…several forces leading to change but also some sources of continuity, which help maintain these patterns regardless of political and economic context” (1987, p.994). Within this evolving economic, social and cultural landscape, trust development requires an investment of time not familiar to most westerners with many unwilling to engage in this activity. As argued by Jason Yat Sen Li (2011), given the overriding relational dimension in Asian cultures, without strong authentic relationships at people-to-people level, it is unlikely that Australia will reach it’s full potential. He says for Australia,

“…to be a sophisticated and fully integrated player in the affairs of the region. We need to improve our Asia-literacy: our ability to understand and interact with the societies in our region...”

(Yat Sen Li, J., 2011, The Adelaide Festival Centre, UniSA 8/9/2011)

Although framed in terms that give primacy to national economic interests, western nation states such as Australia are acknowledging the kind of disposition, skillsets and literacies that will be required of their populations in order to engage with the transformative opportunities and challenges of The Asian Century. In Australia, this is manifesting in calls for more effective education for Australia’s workforce to build Asia capabilities through language education, Asia relevant content across disciplines, internships, and work experience opportunities. The advocacy role that Australia’s education system might play in fostering opportunities for a significant deepening of our engagement with Asia seems an obvious focus. Yet in Australia, we see a concerning lack in cultural and language literacy in regard to Asia. Study

of Asian languages for example, is diminishing in schools 6. Despite Australia’s

6 Asian language study lagging in Australia: PM - Tuesday, 5 May, 2009 http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2561657.htm

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 103 geographic proximity to Asia and the presence of diverse Asian communities and cultures within Australia, many still have difficulty challenging widely held assumptions about Asia. False suppositions are perpetuated through the media, language, histories, alliances, interests

and relationships locally and internationally7. Furthermore, often unconscious, dualistic assumptions rooted in our histories inform our practices, communications and understandings about trade, culture, governance, defence and immigration. These remain impediments to deeper, more informed integration into the Asian region. There are no easy answers to this persistent and unfortunate state of affairs, but the problem of developing a more symbiotic relationship with Asia is crucial enough for Australia’s future to warrant deep reflection. As we see expounded in Australia’s recent white paper, “Australia in The Asian Century”, we must re-examine our approach, and the histories and expectations upon which it is built, (Chubb,

2013)8.

Conversely, in China policy reform is underway to, “…emphasise the ‘going out’ of culture, calling for an enhancement of ‘cultural competitiveness’ and a larger Chinese presence at international cultural markets” (Ma, 2012). This is a strategy developed by China’s central government to exert, “…a comprehensive approach to popularise Chinese culture worldwide, particularly through exchange and cultural export” (ibid). Ma says that most of the Chinese content presented in the international market, “…focuses on traditional aspects such as Confucianism, traditional festivals, kongfu and acrobatics, while ignoring the contemporary dimension” (ibid). She questions whether this approach helps China, or whether it reinforces cultural stereotypes of China, creating further biases in the west. By focusing on it’s cultural traditions over more contemporaneous representations of China that may reflect more universal themes and values, Ma is concerned that China is limiting the sustainability of it’s process of soft power development beyond it’s state borders because, “…Compared with traditional culture, the modern aspect, or pop culture is more accessible to the world, and for this reason is more diverse and invigorating” (ibid). Ma concludes, that because China lacks a visible contemporary popular culture, “Going out is a difficult challenge” and suggests that efforts

7 A useful reference in regards this situation can be found in Gwynne Gilford’s analysis of recent international reports (2014) about sunrises being broadcast on the screens in Tianamen Square due to Beijing’s pollution: http://qz.com/168705/westerners-are-so-convinced-china-is-a-dystopian- hellscape-theyll-share-anything-that-confirms-it/ 8 Refer to Australia’s Chief Scientist Ian Chubb’s address for the 2013 Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) lecture: http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2013/08/speech-australian-centre-on- china-in-the-world/

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 104 should be increased to create a positive cultural ecology that encourages a more visible and diverse contemporary culture. This call for a more universal, and arguably internationalist approach, is a theme other Chinese theorists have referred to in a broader socio-economic context. Tu Weimin (2001) argued for moving beyond the specifics of personal, local, national and regional affairs and the inherent divisiveness of economic and strategic self-interest, but seems to express concerns about the impact of globalisation on cultures.

“…At this critical moment in history, global forces beyond our comprehension easily overwhelm us and … immobilize us, as if we cannot escape the predicament of the two extreme forms of destruction - domination and disintegration.”

(Tu Weimin, 2001)

In identifying a framework for addressing these concerns, the ‘cosmopolitan’ is one cultural discourse that avails itself as a potential means for evading some of the negative effects of globalisation while creating a creative, adaptive cultural diversity. Skrbis & Woodward (2007) identify that globalisation and cosmopolitanism are closely intertwined. Cosmopolitanism is delineated by Skrbis & Woodward (2007) as a kind of disposition that,

“…involves various cultural symbolic competencies, subsuming the crucial cosmopolitan skill of code switching. We take this to refer to an individual’s ability to know, command and enact a variety of cultural knowledges and repertoires – to switch cultural codes as required as part of cultivating a sense of intercultural mastery that one possesses, but is not necessarily possessed by (Hannerz, 1990: 240). Chaney’s (2002) description of shifting aesthetic and cultural economies and associated privileging of forms of cultural citizenship, suggestive of the skilful, contextualised and aware deployment of cross-cultural symbols is a feature of the cosmopolitan disposition.”

(Skrbis & Woodward, 2007, p.732, The Sociological Review, 55:4 2007)

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 105 The cultural skills and literacies of the cosmopolitan, represent graduate attributes that produce competent and sensitive global citizens. Beck (2005) ascribes a set of understandings inherent to cosmopolitanism that it might be argued, form a strong basis for considering how collaborative transcultural design skills should be framed. Beck’s model suggests that,

“…Cosmopolitanism (unlike globalism) does not entail a timeless levelling or elimination of all differences, but rather exactly the opposite – the radical re-discovery and acknowledgement of the other…”

(Beck, 2005, p. 285)

This alternate apprehension of otherness asserts the following qualities as emblematic of the cosmopolitan disposition:

• Acknowledging the otherness of those who are culturally different (other civilisations and modernities); • Acknowledging the otherness of the future; • Acknowledging the otherness of nature; • Acknowledging the otherness of the object; • Acknowledging the otherness of other rationalities.

It is impossible to disregard the critical relevance of Beck’s model. Its dimensions clearly avail themselves as relevant to a holistic approach to the design of a shared and sustainable global future. To design—to create, to improve, to preserve, to care for the world and all its inhabitants—is an act grounded in a fundamental commitment to life and a belief in the importance of the future (Buchanan, Doordan, Margolin, 2004). Similarly, Metadesign can be seen as “…a form of cultural strategy informing and integrating different domains…” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.15). Culturally adaptive design pedagogies and practices that permit new, more cosmopolitan configurations of design-led co-operation to flourish have a greater scope to foster the joined-up thinking that is a fundamental precondition for envisaging inclusive and more sustainable global futures.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 106 In this chapter I have established the importance of developing a deeper understanding of the underlying philosophical dispositions of western and Chinese cultures. This allows us insight into the colonialist histories and discourses that have dominated, negated, and silenced other ways of understanding the world. These ongoing conditions place unique challenges in front of those wishing to implement transcultural design collaboration in education. C8 Research proposes that more authentic, constructive and meaningful transcultural collaboration is possible, if agents consciously immersed in a situated encounter, use communication processes designed to reveal and emphasise our similarities over our differences.

In the following chapter I will focus on the unfolding Chinese design milieu. While the history of design in the west is relatively well known, the dearth of material available to scholars on Chinese design histories challenges our understanding of what design means in that culture. China’s emergent place in the world implies a deeper acknowledgment of our respective design histories will be an important foundation for collaborators. Therefore this chapter will also discuss China’s design history. This is outlined using the small amount of available literature. Contemporary design practice and design education in China are discussed against a background referencing complex global challenges, China’s rapid urbanism, and its influence on the trajectory of the global crisis.

Chapter 2 - Tao and Logos 107 ICOGRADA WORLD DESIGN CO\IlG~ESS l()()<)~~ ~i.U\"'~

ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Image: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009)

Icograda World Design Congress 2009 Beijing Grand Opening and Keynote Presentations at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) 3.0 ...it is now clear that as an economic activity, design and the creative industries, are seen to be important enough to comprise a major component of China’s ongoing economic reforms. designing china 3.0 Designing China

The history of western design is comprehensively documented and discussed (Forty & Cameron, 1995; Walker, 1989; Dilnot, 1984; Meggs & Purvis, 2011; Raisman, 2003, Margolin, 1998). In the case of China, and many other non-western territories this is not the case (Turner 1989). Rather than try to ameliorate, this chapter discusses important aspects of China as the cultural and design context of this research and discusses China’s approach to design in the context of its modernisation. I will refer to recent developments within the China’s creative and cultural industries and discuss key policy drivers, the design industries, Beijing’s Design Week, emergent grass roots initiatives, and Chinese design education. The pedagogic emphasis of C8 Research necessitates the inclusion of a brief historical overview of how Chinese design education evolved, and the influences it has incorporated. Although it is beyond the scope, interests, and focus of C8 Research to provide a detailed history of design in China, I will note some of the factors and events that have shaped the sensibilities and concerns of modern Chinese design. Although this history is not comprehensively documented, such a discussion enables a better understanding of what design practice and education means in China. This can assist in developing greater understanding about design education in China as an important step in developing a framework for transcultural interaction, co-creation and collaboration.

With the above factors in mind, I will also argue that the west has yet to develop a full understanding of the global implications of China’s embrace of design as a productive force for societal change. As well as the literature, I will draw on observations from my own professional experiences in China between 2001 and 2014. My theoretical and conceptual framework based in Metadesign is also further considered in this chapter to argue the case for collaborative design education between cultures as a means to developed shared vision.

DESIGN AND CHINA’S MODERNISATION

Deng Xiaoping’s defining reform agenda of the Four Modernisations (introduced by Zhou Enlai in 1963), and the subsequent decades of China’s ambitious and unprecedented modernisation has remained a contentious fascination for the western world (Wang, 1989, p.49). This is still the case in 2014. Design however, is understood differently in China than it is in the west, and this is something I seek to impart in this chapter.

Chapter 3 - Designing China 110 China’s radical transformation has occurred across all areas of society and in particular in the fields of agriculture, industry, science and defense. These are all activities that have on the surface at least, little to do with typical notions of ‘design’ in both the west and China.

However, as anticipated by Wang (1989)1, it is now clear that as an economic activity, design and the creative industries, are seen to be important enough to comprise a major component of China’s ongoing economic reforms. In fact China’s demand for design has accelerated to an extent, “…previously unthinkable” (ibid., pp 49-50). During the last decade, perhaps the major defining factor influencing this recasting of design was China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). China became a member of the World Trade Organization on the

11 December 20012. This event signaled in China a need to establish design as an economic priority. Based in Hong Kong as the then Dean of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic, Lorraine Justice (2003) observed that,

“... China knows that in order to compete in the World Trade Organization they will need to improve design efforts so their products can compete in the world market. This information will be like a bullet from a silencer to the West if people don’t realize what this effort in China means in the large scheme.”

(Lorraine Justice, 2003, www.nextd.org)

However, as Wong (2006) argues, it is difficult to understand design and design education in China without recognising China’s efforts to modernise, and the significance of, “…the impact of the modernity that foreign powers brought to China…in the context of contemporary Chinese history” (2006, p.4). China’s modern design history is complex, ambiguous, and largely remained undocumented prior to the process of ‘opening up’. In 1989, Shou Zhi Wang (1989, pp.49-78) provided a rare retrospective of modern design in China. Wang observed that there was actually no real modern movement of design in the country until 1979, and that until that point in its history, China had “simply missed” the opportunities it had to modernise (ibid p.52). According to Wang, this missed opportunity was due to a range of factors including:

1 See Shou Zhi Wang’s Chinese Modern Design: A Retrospective, Design Issues, Vol. 6, No. 1, Design in Asia and Australia (Autumn, 1989), pp. 49-78 2 Refer to China’s WTO Country Information at: http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/ countries_e/china_e.htm

Chapter 3 - Designing China 111 “…The original meaning of Chinese word “She Ji (design)” was “to establish a strategy”; it originated from military affairs (Yang, YuFu, 1997, 3 ). “She Ji (design)” was dominated by two different classes in ancient China, the literati and the artisans. The former mainly used “She Ji” on the level of ‘Tao’ (Philosophy, ideology), focusing on military, political, social and cultural purposes, and the latter mainly used design on the level of ‘QI’ (Materiality), covering the fields of technique, arts and crafts.” (Yongqi Lou, 2008, pp. 86 – 87) (1) hostile attitudes to non-Chinese cultural influences (dating from the late Ming and Qing dynasties); (2) foreign aggression and expansion in China since the 1840s; and (3) the ongoing mishandling of the economy under the Communists from 1949 until the late 1970’s coupled with the overarching influence of the Soviet Union on the economy (ibid p.52).

Prior to the opening up period from 1979, the most influential force shaping modern conceptions of design in the Chinese world came from centuries-old traditions of art and crafts (Wang, 1989, p.52). For the preceding three decades China had been isolated from design developments occurring in the outside world. Historian Matthew Turner (1989) reminds us that design literature is predominantly a product of the developed world, specifically the OECD region, and it is concerned mainly with it’s own industrial and commercial development. Turner (1989) asserted there is little or no historical discourse on the design histories of China, India or,

“…a hundred other places that lie outside the triad of Western Europe, North America and Japan. The effect is as though no significant design had ever taken place in the rest of the world, except in the remote sense of the vernacular, or in oases of Western influence.”

(Turner, M., 1989, p.79)

Wang (1989) maintained that China’s lack of design scholarship had been perpetuated because the design profession in The People’s Republic was almost completely in the service of the Communist Party Propaganda Department. Wendy Siuyi Wong (2001, p.51) suggests that, as the perspectives of Turner, Wang et al., were actually published, they therefore largely represent the only record of the situation prior to the transformational introduction of economic and political changes across Mainland China and Hong Kong in the 1980’s. The rapid economic development that followed had the effect of increasing interaction between the mainland and Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau from 1979 (Wong, 2001, p.51) and this further stimulated the Chinese design scene’s exposure to western influences.

In design research investigating the typographic representation of Shanghai, Xiang Qian (2012, p.23) argues that by the 1920’s the urban, commercial and cultural development of Shanghai under Western influences had led to a synthesis of Chinese traditions, and Western fashions and artistic styles. Xiang Qian observes however (ibid. p.23), that the “Shanghai Style” attracted

Chapter 3 - Designing China 113 little discussion amongst Chinese historians because as a merging of Oriental and Western influences, “…it was not appreciated by all Chinese at this time, particularly the traditionalists who looked down on this modern fusion” (ibid.p.23). None the less, Hai Pai culture or Shanghai style came to be recognised as playing a, “…vital part in the development of Chinese Modern Art, which brings with it a new language of design” (ibid. p.23). Xiang Qian notes also that,

“Hai Pai” culture was actually a derogatory term for this Shanghai blend, and was first given by Beijing artists. They called their own style ‘Jing Pai’ which meant the culture of Beijing. They saw ‘Beijing style’ as being traditional and looked down on Shanghai style as being a more commercialized, decorative and certainly less discreet style.”

(ibid, p.23)

Minick and Ping assert that, “The roots of the Shanghai style, in particular, can be traced in part to imported designs of American and European Art Deco of the Twenties” (1990, p.44). This leads Xiang Qian to conclude that, “Shanghai style acts as a stylistic mediator between concepts of traditional and modern, Western-Eastern (sic) mixing. It is a stylistic cross between China and the West” (2012, p.24).

The commerce of design in this era was greatly curtailed by the Japanese occupation of Shanghai (1937 – 1945) and the following post-1949 era of constricting communist rule. During the Maoist-era of the 1950’s and 60’s severely the artistic and cultural life of the country was often violently suppressed. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that design would emerge as something other than a means of developing CCP propaganda.

Scharoun (2008) observes that as the CCP came to power under Mao Zedong in 1949 foreign involvement and influence in Chinese artistic expression and

Chapter 3 - Designing China 114 advertising was officially discouraged. Citing Cheng (1996), Scharoun describes how,

“…Under the leadership of Mao Zedong (1949-1976), the CCP implemented a distinct aesthetic philosophy, one that drew heavily from regional folk design and traditions (Minick and Ping, 1990). Minick and Ping (1990, p.92) describe that “(Mao) encouraged artists to reject the direct and unquestioning importation of foreign images in favor of a genuine artistic language responsive to China’s own condition and people.” Graphic Design during this period was focused on delineating the new class distinctions of Peasant-Worker-Soldier through realistic portrayals of China’s land and its people”

(Scharoun, 2008, p.12)

Under these conditions the overriding purpose of visual communications in China became one of propaganda designed to promote and spread the word of the Communist regime (Scharoun, 2008).

Lin (1968, p.167) observed that China, like most societies, has always had some form of censorship in place. The issue of censorship in relation to art, culture and media production has been widely discussed in western literature on China (Stockmann & Gallagher, 2011; MacKinnon, 2007; Lorenzon, 2013; Qiliang He, 2010; Keane, 2006, 2007, 2013; Kraus, 2004, 2014; Pauwelyn, 2010). Many assessments by Western commentators are accounts of China’s governmental repression as seen through the lens of Western democratic principles. Some Asian voices have questioned whether this is appropriate. Mahbubani (2008) observed a kind of undemocratic double standard on the part of Western governments unwilling to share governance of global institutions. Although Mahbubani states that, “Western democratic principles, rule of law and social justice are the world’s best bets” (ibid. p.121), equally, the Western world, “…must cease its efforts to prolong its undemocratic management of the global order and find ways to effectively engage the majority of the world’s population in global decision-making” (ibid. pp.121-123).

As Keane asserts (2013), the Chinese state justifies it’s interventions on the basis of “… protecting public morality and well-being” (ibid, p.128). However, in recent decades, the Internet and its accompanying proliferation of platforms such as blogs and social media has

Chapter 3 - Designing China 115 succeeded to a certain extent in opening up new spaces for “…collaboration and conversation on subjects not directly related to political activism or regime change” MacKinnon, 2008, p.31). As MacKinnon suggests the role that these forms of mediated interaction will take in China, “…is more likely to involve political evolution—not revolution” (ibid.). Keane writes,

“The core of most communication scholarship of China over the past five decades has been ‘structures of dominance’; in turn this is linked to a positivist communications studies tradition that attempts to ascribe behavioural effects to watching, reading and using media. I say ‘attempts’ because the effects tradition according to Pietelä (2005) does not adequately meet the complexities it intends to explain. Very little ‘empirical evidence’ has been mounted to test the proposition that the Chinese ideological apparatus is totalitarian or even hegemonic. Sophisticated audience analysis is particularly problematic in China for international researchers unless there is some institutional assistance in reaching the audience. Textual analysis or content analysis of news media has served as the de facto evidence base…The ‘effects’ of control are mainly inferred from events such as content crackdowns, strict models of content censorship, and seemingly rigid policy regimes. Control may have been systematic in the past but viewers and audiences in China have greater choice these days. Moreover, it is evident that Chinese people, like people in the free nations, actively negotiate meanings from their media. Users of new media become makers of meanings, like youth in the US, Europe and Australia.”

(Keane, 2009, p.3)

In Western media since the emergence of the Nationalist Regime in the 1930’s and the subsequent, “…victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949” (He, 2010, p.244), the accepted discourse remains that of draconian Chinese authorities. Regardless some have observed that despite the very real manifestations of media and artistic censorship this is not quite the whole reality. Keane (2004) notes that Richard Kraus, a political scientist has been critical of Western publishers – in particular, Penguin who he accused (2004, pp. 130-134) of falsely characterising the Chinese author Mo Yan as a dissident in order to increase sales of his work in the west. Mo Yan’s book “The Garlic Ballads” due to its timely relation to anti- government riots had been removed from distribution in China. Kraus (ibid.) also critiques assumptions by some that censorship in the West (the United States) is usually assumed to be

Chapter 3 - Designing China 116 a result of genuine obscenity whereas Chinese censorship is typically portrayed as being on a strictly political basis. Subsequently, it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which official censorship and even self-censorship on the part of Chinese participants in C8 occurred. The events that overtook Field Study 3 (see Chapter 6) resulting in the withholding of projection equipment may have been due to concerns on the part of authorities as to the intended use of the technologies – a form of censorship but again this remains difficult to confirm.

Inevitably, the imbalance in audible historical voices about design outside western territories gives rise to the question of whether design in the case of China, is in fact a form of neo- imperialism (Turner, 1989 p.79). Discussing the marginalisation of design histories outside “privileged and prejudicial” modernist Euro-American benchmarks of what constitutes design history, Wen Huei Chou (2006) posited that,

“The cultural imperialism of the majority of the corpus of design history is with no doubt, as it is also written by those who constituted the discipline. But it doesn’t mean that artifacts and an associated system of values did not develop in other cultures.”

(Wen Huei Chou, 2006, p.3)

Turner (1989) too had expressed concern that there remained the situation where, “…by Western definitions, there can be no real history of design outside the First World.” His questioning of why there seemed to be, “…no evidence that the First World’s monopoly on the history of design is about to be shaken…” (Turner, 1989 p.79) appears to be valid but this situation is fortunately increasingly challenged. During the past two decades, China and its relative importance in global geopolitical terms has shifted dramatically. As we will see, this shift is being driven by the rapid and officially sanctioned developments underway in China’s urban coastal hubs. This extends to how design is perceived within China, and how Chinese design itself is seen by the world.

Even the superficial contact with contemporary China experienced by tourists, reveals the scale of the radical transformation underway. Although extraordinary positive change has been achieved, Chinese society faces complex challenges in many provocative forms. A shortlist

Chapter 3 - Designing China 117 of concerns would include, rapid and often unplanned urbanisation at an unprecedented

scale3, water and food security, an aging population, pollution and serious environmental concerns, extreme disparity between rich and poor, and the ever-present danger of social instability. China is also still coming to terms with how its political influence and economic interdependence sit within broader global systems and flows (McKinsey Global Institute, 2009). These complex intensities of contention and opportunity are each undergoing meteoric contemporaneous change, and have already exhibited wide-ranging implications for global markets, employment and migration, ethnic cultures, and social, industrial and environmental ecologies. Many of these forces and their significant impacts are fundamentally connected to the outputs of the design industry. Therefore, they also raise questions about the nature of design and the role of designers. Extrapolating this, it can be argued that, how design is deployed within the Chinese context is critical to how successfully, sustainable and liveable futures will unfold globally.

FROM ‘MADE IN CHINA’ TO ‘CREATED IN CHINA’

It is beginning to be widely understood that the design professions are enjoying a period of great support from the Chinese authorities that now recognise its value as a benefit to the Chinese society, and its potential as a driver of the economy. China’s former premiere Hu Jintao famously announced in 2006, his vision for the country to make the transition from “Made in China” to “Designed in China”. China’s former premiere, Hu Jintao famously announced in 2006, his vision for the country to make the transition from “Made in China” to “Designed in China”. Six years on, 2011 marked the year of the commencement of China’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan. As outlined in the preface of The 2011 Yearbook of China’s Cultural Industries published by, The Communication University of China (CUC), this was seen as representing, “…a New Starting Point in History” (Preface, 2011, p.1). Recent years have seen a ground-breaking push for the creative and cultural industries across China to become, “…the new forces driving the local economic growth, and gradually to be turned into the pillar industries of the national economy of the country.” (ibid p.1). Supported by the state and a raft of policies designed to promote and rapidly grow creative and cultural industry

3 For a comprehensive overview refer to DCF special issue, Urban China #35: How to be holistic? 花好四万亿！ http://www.scribd.com/doc/12941401/4-Trillion-for-urban-China-

Chapter 3 - Designing China 118 related expansion, the intention is anticipated in government circles to have, “…an unprecedentedly far-reaching influence on the future of the country” (ibid p.1).

On the 23rd of July 2010, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of The Communist Party of China (CPC) established the target of developing the full range of cultural industries in China as the primary industries of the national economy. This was set out in terms that will represent radical changes to the domestic and international context the Chinese economy operates within. The impact of the policy changes has been swift with local and regional authorities across China responding quickly to directives from the central authorities to establish and implement the policy, economic triggers and suitable conditions to expedite rapid changes in industrial direction.

In Beijing and Shanghai, massive material and political resources have been devoted to what leaders term “Chuangyi jingji” (the creative economy). It is seen as a key strategic focus for advancing urban development. The results, at least in economic terms, present data suggesting a number of cultural industry sectors are experiencing, what has been described by The Institute of Cultural Industries at CUC (2011), as “explosive growth”. The CUC researchers responsible for The Yearbook of China’s Cultural Industries (2011), cite economic figures pointing to revenues for the year exceeding some 953.6 billion yuan, with numerous industries (notably film, radio and television, press and publishing, new media, and gaming sectors) smashing previous trade records and setting unprecedented levels of new enterprise entering the market. Based on the economic data gathered, this transition is portrayed as indicating, “… the huge potential and bright prospect of the development of the emerging cultural industries of strategic importance…” (ibid).

It is of interest to note the relatively small acknowledgement of design itself as a creative industry in the data from CUC. No reasons are explicitly provided and the entries that do document design activity concentrate on Beijing where details of the economic scale of the design industry and achievements for the year in economic terms are noted in relatively brief form. This regional focus counters earlier assertions by design historians such as Wong (2001) that, “…Chinese design history should be studied as one unified whole rather than individual studies of several separate entities” (2001, p.51-52). Wong sees Chinese design histories as being more meaningfully

Chapter 3 - Designing China 119 " Design as Productive Force" Exhibition Opening at National Museum of China

Icograda World Design ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Images: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009) Congress 2009 Beijing Keynote Presentations understood as, “…encompassing a whole region rather than a set of discrete local histories…” (ibid p.51), because the common and overlapping experiences of individual regions (and disciplines) is difficult to unravel and separate.

Moreover, given the academic focus of CUC on telecommunications, advertising, animation, publishing and broadcast media, the low profile of design as a discrete sector in the data published might be justified on the grounds of a lack of experience in the field, or as deference to authorities more equipped to expound on the topic. Enquiries directed towards CUC researchers about the status of design in their research agenda returned assurances (2 August 2012) that although CUC’s research focus is not in design, “…CUC is one of two universities in China (that) has 5 first class disciplines offering PhD, Master degrees in art theory, music and dance, drama & film, fine art & design.” This acknowledgement of the design profession’s legitimacy within the gamut of cultural and creative industries suggests there may be other reasons, including the possibility of a lack of relevant data. For example, Yongqi Lou (2009) indicates there are weaknesses in the way design has been understood and implemented in China. He asserted that,

“…The boom of Chinese design education and practice is closely related to economic development. However, if not for the weakness in mechanism, design could play a more active role in a broader socio-economic and cultural stage; the importance of design has not been fully exploited. Social, economic, political and ecological awareness in design education and practice are rare and outdated.”

(Yongqi Lou, 2009, p.87)

The remedy for this Yongqi Lou (2009) asserts, is expanding the role of design as a strategic tool to shape policy. He believes that to realise this goal, the design discipline, “…needs to adopt a more open attitude, participate in socio-economic innovation, and integrate itself into the Chinese political and social system” (ibid p.87). The allusion to strategy expressed in these views is important and relevant for a number of reasons. Possibly the most significant is how the notion of strategy is central to the etymology of the term ‘sheji’ (设计) and its roots in the craft traditions that have dominated Chinese cultural expression throughout its history.

Contemporary Chinese design historians (Yuan 2003, Wang, 1995) are cited by Wong (2005) in establishing that at least in the case of visual design, “China has a long tradition of modern graphic design equivalent arts

Chapter 3 - Designing China 121 “…Most people don’t really know what design can do for them...” Wang Min and craft work (see Yuan, 2003; Wang, 1995) or the work of “gongyi“ 2005, p.567). Wong (ibid, p567) suggests that iconic symbols like those of the I Ching and the yin-yang icon form classical representations of very early graphic works in China. Wong (2005) refers to this confirming that,

“Confucian tradition defined artistic excellence through the mastery of poetry, music, calligraphy and painting” and so “[I]t is also a key by which the Chinese designer develops a broad interdisciplinary understanding of the design process and is able to form a strong and unifying link between concept and creation” (p. 12).

(Wong, 2005, p.567)

Similarly, Minick and Ping (1990, p.11) echo this and point to the deeply embedded notion of balance in these marks and link them to Confucian ideas about the relationship between the artist and the scholar.

CRAFT THINKING

One of the difficulties design always faces is the universally indefinable nature of the word itself. In English, ‘design’ is a concept that defies static and definitive meanings. In the Chinese context this is also the case. As discussed in Wong (2006) the term design, as a noun, “…does not have a natural equivalent or a directly translatable term in most Asian languages including Chinese” (ibid p.1) Any attempt to examine modern Chinese design must therefore take into consideration both the western and Chinese cultures due to the major influence of western design on Chinese design histories. Because of the inherent ambiguity, Wong (2006) argues it is, “…impossible to apply and adopt what is existing and understood…” (ibid p.3) without alternating cultural perspectives. In China, what we understand as modern design is routinely perceived as a western idea and practice.

Because the word design has no natural equivalent meaning in most Asian languages (Ghose, 1990, p3), in the case of China, we are obliged to contextualise Chinese design practice through the lens of it’s craft traditions and long history of artisan practices – the “gongyi” tradition. Gongyi is formed by the combination of “gong” meaning to create form through production and technique, and “yi” which refers to the skills of art (Wong, 2006,

Chapter 3 - Designing China 123 p.2). “Gongyi” is used to refer to a broad spectrum of craft practices within the modern manufacturing context, and was in the early 1900’s, incorporated within the education system

by the Qing government4. (ibid p.3). Arguably more familiar in the contemporary context is the equivalent word for design “sheji”. This term is used most commonly today in Mainland China and,

“…was believed adapted from Japanese, “sekkei,” as a translation of “design” in English during that period. Like the word “design” in English, “sheji” can be used as a verb or noun. “She” means “strikes, establish, set up,” and “ji” means calculate, plan, scheme.”

(Wong, 2006, p.3)

Yongqi Lou (2008) expands on this in a way that draws attention to the strong links between traditional and historical notions of sheji. Chinese thinking about design has been in part shaped by the experience of the country’s military failures at the hands of the British during the Opium Wars. Those conflicts ultimately triggered a century of catastrophic social revolution that devastated the traditional culture and its social structures. Subsequently westernisation and globalisation became mainstream influences in China, a phenomenon that accelerated significantly after the period of opening up and reform commenced (2008, p.86).The history of Chinese design and design education has followed this evolving pattern in Chinese society with designers and design educators co-opting practices and theory from Europe’s Bauhaus and Beaux Arts movements, while retaining a compromised allegiance to the craft traditions. While suggesting this was an over-capitulation to western influences Yongqi Lou (2008) notes that historically,

“…The original meaning of Chinese word “She Ji (design)” was “to establish a strategy”; it originated from military affairs (Yang, YuFu, 1997, 3 ). “She Ji (design)” was dominated by two different classes in ancient China, the literati and the artisans. The former mainly used “She Ji” on the level of ‘Tao’ (Philosophy,

4 An extension of “gongyi”, “gongyi meishu” was appropriated from the Japanese kanji (Circa late 1920s) and used to refer to the applied arts (Yuan, 2003).

Chapter 3 - Designing China 124 128 130

Top left: Chinese Vintage on the Go - an exhibition of vintage Chinese brands. Top right: “Infatuated by Love”, Featured188 in an exhibition of works by designer Huang Yichuan Bottom left: “Backstreet”, Backstreet in gallery exhibtion by design group JZSQ. Bottom right: Beijing Makerspace - an open ideas lab that provides engineers, developers, designers, artists, and DIYers 7×12 hours access to an Idea Lab with workshops and events, including a 10-day Prototype Workshop. 184 (Images: Beijing Design Week 2012) ideology), focusing on military, political, social and cultural purposes, and the latter mainly used design on the level of ‘QI’ (Materiality), covering the fields of technique, arts and crafts.”

(Yongqi Lou, 2008, pp.86-87)

Deep traditions of arts and craft date back through centuries of artistic production (Wong, 2006) that form a rich linage throughout Chinese cultural heritage. Therefore craft practice and thinking remain prominent themes informing design in China today. The combination of design as a strategic tool, craft heritage and design history, are key influences informing contemporary perspectives about design within modern China. This way of framing design discourses has been particularly apparent in recent high profile events such as the annual Beijing Design Week (BJDW) that has been used to promote the benefits of design to the public and industry. In 2012 the theme “Craft Thinking” was the foundation of the curatorial vision for BJDW. Creative Director, Aric Chen (2012) stated that,

“By Craft Thinking we don’t only mean to celebrate heritage, preservation and process, though that’s certainly part of it. More broadly Craft Thinking is about developing a constant awareness of what we are doing and how we’re doing it, whatever it may be – whether it’s cooking a meal, creating a product, or even building a city. Craft Thinking requires doing things authentically and responsibly, and it applies to everyone, at all levels of society.”

(Aric Chen, 2012)

This perspective of design reveals a consonance with contemporary notions of design practice that correlate the act of design as imbuing all aspects of people’s lives (Papanek & Fuller, 1972, Manzini, 2010). Moreover, given the high levels of support provided by the government, BJDW is significant to industry and society in China because it provides a highly visible lens through which to understand the emphasis the Chinese government is placing on the strategic role of design in shaping China’s future.

Chapter 3 - Designing China 126 BEIJING DESIGN WEEK (2009 – 2013)

The ICOGRADA World Design Congress held 24-30 October 2009, at the inaugural BJDW introduced the event theme of ‘Design as a Productive Force’. The response to the extensive program of design-focused events at the congress itself and around the city of Beijing demonstrated a rapidly expanding interest in design amongst China’s urbanised general public. It also suggested government policies to use design to shape the society are making inroads in educating the populace about the benefits of design. It was a message that was hard to ignore even internationally. The level of media saturation about BJDW 2009 is evidenced in the statistics documenting the promotion of the event reported by The Central Academy of Fine

Art (CAFA)5 who were the state designated organisers:

• More than 100 articles on BJDW were featured in various media before and during the event. • 360,000 search results about BJDW were generated online thanks to the promotion of web media. • Event information appeared on 4000 public TV screens all over the city, 8 large outdoor screens, 19,000 times on buses equipped with Mobile TV and on 35,000 small TV screens in Beijing’s subway lines, three times per day. • 13 million impressions were made daily online. • 200,000 visitors were attracted to the event. • 174 delegates from 156 media agencies registered to attend.

The event established no doubt that the central government have design on their radar as a tool for societal change with the extended theme of the event being “Design • Development • National Strategy”, articulating the sanctioned view that design will drive the economy. This was a message aimed at,

5 Refer to: Icograda World Design Congress 2009 Beijing & the 1st Beijing Design Week Program Review

Chapter 3 - Designing China 127 “…bringing more enlightenment to governments, experts, media and the public, trying to inspire power of thought in different communities and triggering more extensive and forward looking thoughts…Stances and actions taken by the Chinese government serve as a barometer, helping Chinese enterprises improve their capabilities in design creativity to attract international resources of wider range, higher quality and higher efficacy; building a high-quality platform for long-term cooperation for the development, research and application of China’s economy, society and new technology.”

(Icograda World Design Congress, 2009, Beijing & the 1st Beijing Design Week Programme Review p.18)

Similarly, at BJDW 2012, promotional banners, advertising, and extensive online and traditional media coverage were highly visible around the city ensuring that all the public were aware of the event, it’s scope, and its significance. While being interviewed for CCTV2 at BJDW 2012, I was advised the audience reach was in the vicinity of two billion viewers. Justin

McGuirk of the UK’s Guardian Newspaper6 reported,

“At any of the dozens of design weeks around the world, a politician will be wheeled out on the opening night to make soothing noises about the value of design to the economy. It is doubtful, however, whether any of these events receive quite the level of political backing that Beijing Design Week does.”

Widespread public awareness of the benefits of design notwithstanding, Min Wang Professor of Graphic Design (CAFA) says that in China, “…Most people don’t really know what design

can do for them...” (Bloomberg Business Week, September 30, 2009)7. There is some evidence to support a view that this observation may apply across industry sectors where the potential and value of design is not yet fully understood, and designers are seen as a resource for

6 Refer to: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/oct/04/beijing-design-week-chinese- creativity 7 Refer to Venessa Wong’s article at: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2009-09-30/chinas- new-focus-on-designbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

Chapter 3 - Designing China 128 exploitation. A conversation with Paulo Moreira e Silva, design educator and member

of the international design collective BUNCH8, observed (BJDW, 2009) that while operating a design practice in China,

“…we had a lot of difficulties with clients and I do think a lot of that was down to the cultural differences…they tend to jump into the project and control aspects of the project that are not relevant to the client or at least that they are not so prepared to deal with…”

(Moreira e Silva, P., 2009, Interview, BJDW)

Moreira e Silva (2009) also suggested that in his experience working as a practitioner

and a design educator in Singapore, China and Malaysia9, “…there is a perception of design in Asia that is very focused on seeing the designer as a visualiser or a Mac operator...” (ibid 2009) This however, it must be noted, belies the diversity of disciplinary practices operating in China particularly and reflects a disciplinary specific Euro-centric perspective.

Encouragingly however, during BJDW 2012, alongside the expected high profile international designers exhibiting and speaking about their work, at a great many events, an emergent community-orientated social design ethos was evident in the work shown by younger designers working across a diversity of disciplines. As McQuirk (2012) concluded,

“…it is clear that the event privileges a young scene – many of these designers are still in their 20s, and are keen to shake off any stereotypes being imposed on them, either by westerners or the Communist party. More independent-minded than their predecessors, this is China’s design future. And things are moving fast here.”

(McGuirk, J., The Guardian, 4 October 2012)

Sustainability is a prominent theme in design discourse globally, and openness to creative design ideas promoting a more integrated ‘grass roots’ social and ecological

8 Bunch website: http://www.bunchdesign.com/ 9 Moreira e Silva has worked continuously in Asia as a design practitioner and senior design academic from 2002 - present

Chapter 3 - Designing China 129 focus, was very visible across the program of events at BJDW 2012 and 2013. This is epitomised in the more experimental activities around Dashila, an area of the city near Tiananmen Square that for much of the city’s history, was Beijing’s commercial centre. It is an area that Beijing’s authorities are keen to revitalise. In 2012, the project “Dashila(b)- oratory” aimed to be a platform for a collaborative, open approach to urban development with the intention to, “…encourage Dashilar to move independently yet coherently towards a strong yet flexible goal of creating a sustainable community with depth and diversity.” (2012 BJDW Guidebook, p.79), Events included augmented reality walks around the area, local and international designers re-appropriating a hutong for the purpose of reflecting ‘rejuvenation’ through design, and lectures, talks and workshops with an emphasis on those with practices embracing “…a commitment to craftsmanship and new innovations through handicrafts” (ibid p.81).

Elsewhere across Beijing a diverse range of pop up events, maker spaces, experimental product showcases, seminars and major exhibitions provided opportunities for Chinese and international designers to interact with the public and each other. On this evidence BJDW points to an increasingly healthy design ecology that, draws on craft traditions, embraces new technologies, and is open to innovative modalities of thinking about design as a means to shape awareness and behaviours in economically and socially sustainable ways.

McGuirk (2012) questions if the politicos at the prestigious opening events were really aware about the grass roots, craft-centred scene they were promoting. More likely, given the history and context of how ideas about design as an economic process have proliferated, the bottom up strategy is directed and intentional. It is seen by authorities as the most efficient way to grow a local design culture – literally from the ground up, with international inputs from design stars such as The Campana Brothers to inspire and fertilise local initiatives. Additionally, as McGuirk himself notes (ibid), Bejing has traditionally been the centre of “art, culture, furniture and fashion,” and playing to strengths borne of this history makes economic sense.

Given the significant disruptions of China’s recent cultural past, it is not surprising that there exists a perceived need to build a design industry from grass roots up. The success of BJDW and its associated rhetoric imply this approach is leading to, the emergence of an increasingly vibrant maker-culture, craft and improvisational design initiatives, hacker-thons, and a young creative and increasingly international and interdisciplinary design community. If this is

Chapter 3 - Designing China 130 actually the case, the design scene in China may prove to be very fertile ground featuring opportunities to create a contemporary discourse that challenges dominant western conceptions of design practice and design education.

DESIGN EDUCATION IN CHINA

Design education in China is contentious - a political issue. As we have seen design itself is increasingly seen as a force for shaping industry, cites, and society, and this perspective is reflected in the education policies of the Chinese Government. As early as 2003, Lorraine Justice was discussing signs of the shift of the status of design in China. Justice argued (2003) that the demand for qualified designers from the many thousands of factories between Shanghai and Hong Kong instructed by the government to create products, make a profit, and not lie dormant, was unprecedented. Equally unprecedented was the associated complexity it brought to the global design industry. In an interview with Gary van Patter of Humantific (2003), Justice indicated that China’s thousands of factories,

“…are eventually going to have their own design departments or design consultants helping…to put out their own products... China does not have enough designers to design products, let alone provide design leadership. The world doesn’t have enough designers to supply China…”

(Lorraine Justice, 2003, www.nextd.org)

The question was how to supply the emergent demand for designers and design. During the 1990’s the number of design courses available in Chinese universities dramatically expanded in response to, China’s opening to foreign investments, increasing demands for

Chapter 3 - Designing China 131 higher quality products, and an overall recognition on the part of the Chinese government that in order to compete in global markets, design would have to play a significantly greater role in Chinese society and industry (Yuet-Ngor, 2001).

On October 8 2006, Business Week reported there were approximately 400 universities with

design programs, producing an estimated 10,000 design graduates annually10. Min Wang (2009) observed that, “With almost a million students studying design in universities, design

education is a national issue…” (Bloomberg Business Week, September 30, 2009)11. Although around 30% of graduates may not enter the industry (Xu Fang, 2010), the implication for exponential growth in the future of the design industry in the large numbers of students and courses is clear. This rapid escalation in China’s design capacity has caused concerns in the global design industry, most particularly in the United States where there has for some time been a fear that designers in China will attract an ever larger amount of the global design work available (Ann, 2004).

Bloomberg’s Business Week’s Special Report, “China’s New Focus on Design” (Wong, V., September 30, 2009), reported that although China has caught the United States and western Europe in significant economic areas, much remained to be achieved in terms of the lag in design thinking exhibited in Chinese design schools. The article did offset such concerns by noting the role of government in using policy to shape design and design education. Wong wrote that,

“…the central government is developing a design policy to help China move beyond a manufacturing economy and forward in implementing cross-disciplinary education and bridging left- and right-brained thinking. As in other sectors, schools are beginning to train a new wave of design managers “with Chinese characteristics” who can apply design thinking in a context that fits China’s commercial and political landscape.”

(Wong, V., Bloomberg Business Week, Special Report, September 30, 2009)

10 Refer to: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-10-08/designed-in-china 11 Refer to: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2009-09-30/chinas-new-focus-on- designbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice

Chapter 3 - Designing China 132 The terminology of “Chinese characteristics” used in the Bloomberg report refers to an official policy of the Chinese government. Deng Zhaoping (1984) spoke of the critical importance of developing a form of socialism with a specific Chinese character. Deng argued that the minimum target of China’s modernization program was to achieve “ a comparatively comfortable standard of living by the end of the century. By a comparatively comfortable standard we mean a per capita GNP of US$800.” (ibid). Pointing out that despite appearances to other economies, this goal was in fact a hugely ambitious target for China to set itself, Deng argued that it was crucial for China to have taken the path of Socialism as follows (ibid).

“ Some people ask why we chose socialism. We answer that we had to, because capitalism would get China nowhere. If we had taken the capitalist road, we could not have put an end to the chaos in the country or done away with poverty and backwardness. That is why we have repeatedly declared that we shall adhere to Marxism and keep to the socialist road. But by Marxism we mean Marxism that is integrated with Chinese conditions, and by socialism we mean a socialism that is tailored to Chinese conditions and has a specifically Chinese character.”

(Deng Zhaoping, 1984, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol3/text/c1220. html)

However, what ‘Chinese characteristics’ refers to may be more complex than political or economic rhetoric suggests. The subsequent decades of rapid transformation in China could suggest a broad adherence to the policy expounded by Deng. It should be noted that Deng had qualified his rhetorical assertions, acknowledging the complex challenges involved by stating that,

“We shall accumulate new experience and try new solutions as new problems arise. In general, we believe that the course we have chosen, which we call building socialism with Chinese characteristics, is the right one.”

(Deng Zhaoping, 1984, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol3/text/c1220. html)

Chapter 3 - Designing China 133 At the time of publication, Western designers may have taken some solace in the Bloomberg report’s quoting of Frog Design’s Executive Director John Rousseau saying that experience in the developed world suggested that the anticipated transition underway would not be easy or swift, because in China,

“…many schools have focused on the craft of design, with little interaction with business, communications, and computer science (and) design graduates often are ill-prepared to collaborate with other professionals”

(Wong, V., Bloomberg Business Week, Special Report, September 30, 2009)

However, as evidenced by the emergence of global design events such as Beijing Design Week it may be argued that change has been swift. Although lack of interdisciplinary interaction and collaboration has also been an experience that manifests in design and design education in the so-called developed world, Rousseau (ibid.) additionally highlights the aforementioned theme of craft as a crucial factor shaping design in China.

THE ORIGINS OF DESIGN EDUCATION IN CHINA

It is not by coincidence that BJDW 2012 presented craft thinking as a central contemporary thematic on the Chinese design landscape. As a result of centuries of creative production, arts and crafts have enjoyed a central position in the canon of Chinese cultural heritage. Contemporary scholars acknowledge Chinese creativity as representing a blending of the ancient traditions emerging from Chinese fine art and folk art, with styles and techniques appropriated from Japan and Europe (Wong, 2006). This integration of cultural influences is fundamental to understanding how Chinese design and design education have evolved.

The Ming Dynasty is credited with ushering in an era of inward-looking isolation in the 1400’s that lasted until China was, “…forced open by Western powers in the mid- 1800s…” (ibid p.4). It was during this violent and tumultuous period that China was confronted with the technological advances from the west, and commenced its ensuing discourse between its traditions and modernity. Some in China argue (Yuan, 2003;

Chapter 3 - Designing China 134 Wang, 1995) that there has always been a long tradition presenting an equivalent to modern notions of graphic design, in particular pointing to the centrality of balance as a unifying principle in Chinese design within arts and craft practice. This is generally evidenced citing the Confucian emphasis on,

“…artistic excellence through the mastery of poetry, music, calligraphy and painting… also a key by which the Chinese designer develops a broad interdisciplinary understanding of the design process and is able to form a strong and unifying link between concept and creation”

(Minick and Ping, 1990, p.12)

As the fundamental tenets within international design education are understood today, this may be a coherent argument, but Wong (2006, p.4) suggests in the early years of the 20th Century, modern western design represented to Chinese authorities, the potential for advances in technological development and technical skills for the people.

Formed in 1918, The National Beijing Art School was first government art school with a dedicated design department in China. Successive directors educated in Europe introduced western ideas advocating they be integrated with Chinese traditions and ‘spirit’ (Wong, 2006, p.5). This was thought to be a process that would mobilise a new and contemporary Chinese art practice. These views are evident in the industrial and commercial environments of the day. In particular, by referencing the work of one key director of the school, Lin Fengmian, we can see the introduction of the concept of design.

Lin’s work exhibited qualities of both the western and Chinese painting of the day and he was considered an important artist in China. Lin wanted to reinvigorate Chinese art through greater understanding of the art of the west. His idea was to teach a new form of Chinese art informed and balanced by the achievements of western artists. Wong (2006) indicates that because of the impact this approach had on the commercial and industrial outputs of the era, design, “…did not stop at the terminology of profession and activity, but rather, (acted) as a signifier that reflects

Chapter 3 - Designing China 135 the national identity” (ibid p.5). However, simultaneously, this initial period of arts and design education also suffered due to inadequate levels of funding, an unstable political, economic and social climate, and the low status of ‘gongyi meishu’ as a profession.

This low status seems to have been an ongoing challenge. Despite a small boom in both public and private art and design education between the years 1911 and 1917 in some urban centres - notably Shanghai, there was an acute shortage of qualified teachers and a general lack of interest in research and study of arts and design theories (ibid p.5). The strong traditions of Confucian teachings and practices also continued to have a broadly dominant influence that contributed to the general failure of modern education reform despite attempts to introduce, “… the “cultural task of molding a ‘modern’ Chinese ‘person’…”, (Borevskaya, 2001 in Wong, 2006, p.6). Ultimately all such new developments were stymied by the interruption of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 – 1945).

Under the Communists, who established The People’s Republic of China in 1949, a system of centrally controlled education was implemented nationally. Art and design enjoyed more patronage, albeit under what was a recreation of the Soviet model of education, controlled by the propaganda machine of the government. By the time the Communists had come to power there were twelve arts and design schools nationally. The former National Beijing Arts School was restructured to become the Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA), along with two other key institutions, The Central Academy of Arts and Design (Beijing), and the China Academy of Arts, which was based in Huangzhou (Yuan, 2003). Although these schools did not simply copy Soviet education uncritically (Ding, 2001), with severely diminished creative freedoms and no commercial economy to speak of, art and design education, “…suffered greatly together with the whole nation” (2001, p.173). By the time China began to open up to the world in 1978 under the rule of Deng Xiaoping, China found itself waking up to an industrialised world that had moved inexorably on, and faced an enormous challenge to find out what had happened, and how to catch up.

Chapter 3 - Designing China 136 In the years immediately following the Open Door Policy, art and design institutions in China began to develop relationships with overseas designers, design groups and agencies. Designers from Hong Kong (Wang, 1999; Anderson, 1998; Yuan 2003) and books about design began to infiltrate the country. Wucius Wong, the American-educated Chinese design educator introduced his influential design textbooks, “Principles ofTwo-Dimensional Design” and “Principles of Three-Dimensional Design”, and these events resounded across the design schools of the country resulting in rapid curriculum reform. Most notable was the influence of the teachings of the Bauhaus, whose theories were introduced via Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan and disseminated quickly throughout China (Wong, 2006, Yuan, 2003).

Throughout the 1980’s great progress was made especially in the graphic design discipline. Yuan (2003) confirms that by 1989 China had approximately 1,100 art students and 686 design students who graduated in that year. This represented around four times the number of students studying art and design at the start of that decade. The 1990’s brought even greater levels of consolidation with the emergence of a new graphic design style in China that integrated, “… traditional Chinese design principles with Western sensibilities, making it a perfect match for the global economy that China was entering” (Wong, 2006, p.7). Despite this massive growth, Wong argues that due to a broad based lack of understanding of the value of design education in traditional art schools and amongst students, the emerging needs of China’s rapidly reforming market economy remained unmet.

That we now see Chinese designers working at an international level, attests to the sophistication of the industry. This is particularly the case for graphic designers who have, over the past two decades, attracted many international accolades and prizes. Chinese design has integrated the modern international language of western design. Although we do see niche demand for what might be described as ‘old school’ Chinese design in subcultural markets (such as the recent “collective memory” trend amongst demographics that grew up in the

1980’s 12), the uptake of high end western design is marked, as the emergent middle class become conspicuous consumers. That said, it is still fair to argue that the general awareness and acceptance of design as a public good in China still lags behind the understanding of an elite level of university trained designers.

12 For a comprehensive analysis of Chinese subcultures refer to: http://chinayouthology.com/ insights

Chapter 3 - Designing China 137 CONTEMPORARY DESIGN EDUCATION CHALLENGES

Although great progress has been made over the past two decades, Wong (2006) believes it is urgent that Chinese designers strive to establish their own creative design language in the future. A study conducted by Shung-Yu, Yuet-Ngor & Lo (2000) revealed what they described as endemic problems in Chinese design education that severely compromised the nation’s design education system and the subsequent ability of Chinese business to capitalise on entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and participate competitively in the global economy. They found that there were a number of foundational problems in Chinese design education that were readily identifiable by the design industry in China. The study’s recommendations are summarised below as including:

Teachers at all levels of education should be provided with training in creative and critical thinking and the facilitation of these skills in their students.

Design should be made distinct from fine art in order for students to appreciate its significance in the everyday lives of all people. This should be manifested in students using a broader range of specific design and thinking skills as well as drawing ability.

Design schools should reorganize to provide staff with exposure to new methods of teaching that are student-centred and promote creative and critical responses from students.

Chinese design school would benefit from an, “…infusion of ideas from overseas…,” (ibid p.178) requiring interaction between Chinese design educators and designers and educators from western cultures.

Design educators in China should be given higher salaries as a measure to ensure they are able to focus on their improving and refining their teaching rather than taking on professional work outside the academy.

Greater emphasis on in-service education, professional development and

Chapter 3 - Designing China 138 postgraduate studies for design educators in design education should be encouraged.

(Shung-Yu, Yuet-Ngor & Lo, 2000, pp.177-178)

These recommendations were framed in a manner that acknowledged the constantly evolving nature of design as a cultural phenomenon with suggestions that older Chinese design schools might develop their acknowledged strengths by integrating them with new ideas, and that newer schools, “…could be more radical in exploring innovative models and methodologies from other design traditions” (ibid, p.179). Although the industrially focused perspective of design practice that shaped this study and it’s conclusions is somewhat at variance to the philosophy of Metadesign underpinning C8 Research, its research findings are helpful to understanding many of the realities and constraints on contemporary design education in China. These of course are important considerations that inevitably influence the relative success or failure of transcultural collaborations between Chinese and western design education programs.

A decade on from the research published by Shung-Yu et al. there is increasing evidence that much has changed inside the Chinese design education system. Domestically, design has attained a newfound status as a subject for study, and is now recognised widely in China as a distinct and valuable professional discipline. The level of international institutional partnerships and twinning degree programs in China’s universities has continued to rise. In design education this has tended to lag behind other academic areas. Perhaps the most obviously successful initiative has been the Sino-Finnish Centre at Tongji University in

Shanghai where the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory13 was established in 2010. We have seen how design and design education in China have become a political focus. This has accompanied increasing attention on the challenges and opportunities China presents globally, as the social, environmental and economic implications for the world of China’s transformation become more apparent.

13 The Aalto-Tongji Design Factory in Shanghai was established in October 2010. This is an innovative twinning model that has been implemented at Shanghai (Aalto-Tongji Design Factory), Melbourne (Swinburne Design Factory), and Finland (Aalto Design Factory). Refer to: http:// designfactory.aalto.fi/network/we-partner-with/

Chapter 3 - Designing China 139 Yongqi Lou (2009) agrees that, “…the whole world is focussed on China. The big market together with the great platform for design practice and research has attracted designers and researchers all over the world” (2009, p. 87-88). Similarly, there is reciprocity at work in a more outward looking contemporary Chinese design culture. Yongqi Lou (2009) notes that in the past some have argued that, in the era of globalisation, “…Far Eastern (sic) designers are duty-bound to put forward their views as critical regionalists” (Frampton, 1992). Despite Frampton’s orientalising language, Yongqi Lou concurs that Chinese designers are now adopting more open ways of thinking, “…in order to explore the route of original Chinese innovation…This quest for a “cultural consciousness” indicates the opportunity for original Chinese design thinking to flourish” (2009, p.88) Citing Harbermas (1987),Yongqi argues that, “thinking Chinese and acting international….” will be the character of the upcoming new generations of Chinese designers, “…based on their own life world” (ibid, p.88).

Authentically collaborative exchanges between western and Chinese designers are still very new so there are relatively few precedents. Prefacing a very useful discussion and comparative analysis of the divergent modalities of Chinese and western design thinking, Xiangyang Xin (2011) asserts that, “A good understanding of Chinese design and design education becomes very important for designers and industries outside of China in order to interact with China appropriately and effectively.” (ibid 2011) There is a lack of published material in both Chinese and English that might facilitate a greater understanding of how Chinese and western designers think and practice as designers within their own cultural contexts and this has created an ‘idea-exchange gap’ (ibid 2011) preventing a holistic understanding that would be mutually

beneficial14.

Understanding our respective design and design education histories as well as the common ground shared by both western and Chinese designers and design students, we have greater possibilities for envisioning how they might collaboratively develop new transcultural processes for the complexities of the 21st Century. This would contribute to the evolution of a global design environment where culturally literate designers can more effectively engage in developing transcultural ‘shared vision’. With this culturally specific focus in mind, the potential for Metadesign to leverage synergies-of-synergies (Fuller, 1975, Wood, 2007) is an appropriate lens through which to identify collaborative methodologies and processes for designers practicing in complex transcultural design contexts.

14 Refer to: http://www.idsa.org/chinese-design-and-design-education

Chapter 3 - Designing China 140 In this chapter we have seen how the history of design in China has unfolded to the point where it now operates in ways that are influencing government policy as an economic driver and a tool for strategic social change. It is evident from this discussion that despite the significant level of global attention on China, it has a complex and ambiguous relationship with the west. The embrace of design on the Mainland speaks both to the ongoing influence of the west and the crucial importance of China’s long history of craft based traditions. In the next chapter I will seek to highlight complex wicked problems that confront strategic design thinking and continue to limit the potential for transcultural and interdisciplinary design cooperation. I will refer to examples that illustrate how mediated assumptions on the part of western and Chinese governments, industry and publics combined with an apparently limited capacity for critical perspective and co-responsibility around China’s energy consumption and rapid urbanisation relative to other developed economies, represents very particular wicked problems that contribute substantially to constrain mutual understanding and shared vision about how to co-design ways forward.

Chapter 3 - Designing China 141 ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Image: Beijing Design Week Review, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009)

Exhibitions of the 1st Beijing Design Week at the Village in Sanlitun Images: Student posts (China) C8 2008 4.0 “We face huge forces of disruption, the rise and fall of generations, the spread of social media technologies, the urbanization of the planet, the rise and fall of nations, global warming, and overpopulation. Together these forces are eroding our economic, social, and political systems in a once-in-a-century kind of way.” Bruce Nussbaum (2011) wickedness 4.0 Wickedness

Having discussed the evolution of design and design education, and the crucial role design is seen to play in shaping China’s future I now begin to focus on the complexity that China’s transformation presents. In the last chapter I highlighted how the Chinese government now perceives design to be a primary economic driver for the country. It is supporting a grass roots approach to building up not only the design industry but also the creative and cultural industries more generally. Given the influence western design has exerted in China, we have also seen that design as a force for change in China is inextricably tethered to its relentless push for modernisation since 1979. However as I have shown, despite the large numbers of design graduates China is producing, there have been some problems in meeting the needs of the society through design education.

In this chapter I will examine the emergent complexity China represents in the world. This is crucial as C8 Research is predicated on the proposition that China’s radical transformation is of global significance because of the complex upstream design challenges it poses and the opportunities it simultaneously presents. This position aligns C8 Research to understandings of design as an interdisciplinary tool for creating societal change. At the global scale, “… challenges exist—not as isolated one-off entities, but rather in interconnected constellations” (Van Patter, February, 21, 2012). To begin I will discuss complexity as it relates to design through the lens of Rittel’s concept of wicked problems. Wicked problems are explored in this chapter as a means to contextualise and augment linear and interdisciplinary design thinking and I will make reference to the opportunities afforded by collaboration and Metadesign based approaches to facilitating design education and practice. Wicked problems are critical to understanding the context and complexity of transcultural and interdisciplinary design collaboration. It should be noted that it is not appropriate or accurate to frame wicked problems as a “design methodology” and this thesis makes no attempt to do so.

In this chapter I will also explore the constraints and complexities designers and design educators face as they practice within the context of global neoliberal economics. This prefaces a critique of how the assemblage of western media and governments perpetuate intercultural misunderstandings. I provide recent examples of media reports that by omission or design propagate assumptions that problematise critical perspectives and deny distributed

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 145 responsibilities for China’s energy consumption, air pollution and urban development. I then focus on two upstream design problems of global significance to illustrate how wicked problems are manifesting in China in potentially catastrophic forms. The example of China’s human energy consumption and carbon emissions is linked to economic data establishing that significant levels of the output of contemporary designers are manufactured in Chinese factories from components imported to China by western manufacturers. Secondly, unprecedented rapid urbanisation across China has also established a precedent for a kind of rampant and informal development driven by market forces.

Striking a more optimistic view of what is possible, the chapter concludes with discussion of two models of social and participatory design that have emerged in China and elsewhere offering insights into how designers and educators might proceed in seeding forms of design practice congruent with possibility of shared vision. This takes the form of an examination of emerging platforms with a particular focus on Manzini’s ideas (2009) around the Slow, Local, Open, Connected model (SLOC). This highlights that designers engaged in mapping and responding to complexity must possess deep skills in upstream framing congruent with a meta-perspective of practice. I follow this with a second example in the form of an overview of Interactive Beijing (2013), a participatory design-led platform for encouraging design students and others to develop innovative ideas on how interactive media can contribute to designing social change.

The Wicked Problem

Originally coined by the philosopher Karl Popper (1959, p. 250) the terminology of the wicked problem was adapted by Rittel during the 1960’s to describe a class of design problem that was fundamentally indeterminate (Buchanan, 1992). “At best they are only re-solved—over and over again” (Rittel & Webber, 1973, cited in Ruggell & McAllister, 2006). Reflecting most specifically on, “…challenges involved in making decisions within immensely complex social circumstances—building highways through cities and designing low income housing projects, for example,” (ibid) Rittel & Webber (1973) argued that urban design and public policy- making were fields dense with wicked problems, but they were not the only such fields. Rittel (1972) identified wicked problems as being characterised by ten properties he listed as:

(1) Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, but every formulation of a wicked problem corresponds to the formulation of a solution. (2) Wicked problems have no stopping rules. (3) Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false,

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 146 only good or bad. (4) In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations. (5) For every wicked problem there is always more than

one possible explanation, with explanations depending on the Weltanschauung1 of the designer. (6) Every wicked problem is a symptom of another, “higher level problem.” (7) No formulation and solution of a wicked problem has a definitive test. (8) Solving a wicked problem is a “one shot” operation, with no room for trial and error. 1 (9) Every wicked problem is unique. (10) The wicked problem solver has no right to be wrong - they are fully responsible for their actions.

(Rittel 1972, cited in Buchanan, 1992, pp.14-15)

The wicked problem model was initially conceived in resistance to more linear models of design thinking that have been largely, “…based on determinate problems which have definite conditions” (Buchanan, 1992, p.15). In such linear modes of design process designers, “… identify those conditions precisely and then calculate a solution” (ibid p.15). Rittel argued that many, if not most, design problems were in fact wicked problems. It is important to note that in this model ‘indeterminacy’ is not the same as ‘undetermined’. Rittel’s notion of wickedness implied that the inherent indeterminacy in design problems represented a scenario, “…with no definitive conditions or limits” (ibid p.15). G.K. Van Patter (2010) describes the wicked problem in a complimentary manner as being an upstream, “unframed challenge”, as opposed to problems suited to traditional modes of design thinking that deal with well defined or “framed” challenges (products, services etc.). He postulates that,

“…MetaDesign (or MacroDesign) requires skills applicable to the fuzzy terrain that is upstream from briefs and upstream from product and service presumptions. It was a way to show the activity space of framing challenges and opportunities as a different geographic terrain requiring different methods, tools and skills…”

(Van Patter, G.K., 2010, http://issuu.com/nextd/docs/2_rerethinking.design)

Wicked problems are also alluded to in recent comments by Bruce Nussbaum (fastcodesign. com, April 5, 2011) who noted there is an overall inadequacy in the popularly expounded

1 Weltanschauung represents the individual intellectual perspective or philosophy of the designer as an integral part of the design process.

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 147 “…Today there is growing awareness that, as the scales of challenges grow, more stakeholders are involved, more diverse forms of knowledge are involved, and, thus, more facilitation of co-creation across many disciplines is needed.”

Van Patter, G.K. (2012) notion of “design thinking” to empower humans to address the multiplicities of problem clusters unfolding globally. Nussbaum (2011) observed that,

“We face huge forces of disruption, the rise and fall of generations, the spread of social media technologies, the urbanization of the planet, the rise and fall of nations, global warming, and overpopulation. Together these forces are eroding our economic, social, and political systems in a once-in-a-century kind of way.”

(Nussbaum, B., fastcodesign.com, April 5, 2011)

Among many professions, with its contemporary emphasis on interdisciplinarity, design practice possesses many of the qualities associated with wicked problems (Ruggill & McAllister, 2006). In their setting forth of the wicked problem model Rittel & Webber highlighted the essential challenge of interdisciplinary phenomenon common to many disciplines. “As anyone who has collaborated with people outside her area of expertise will acknowledge, interdisciplinary collaboration itself is among the wickedest problems of all” (ibid). C8 Research, and this thesis, argues that fundamentally transcultural collaboration – to work with people outside one’s cultural context, presents designers with even further complexity that makes traditional approaches to design thinking processes inadequate. G.K., Van Patter (2012) points out that, as design problems become more complex more perspectives are required to address them. He notes that,

“…Today there is growing awareness that, as the scales of challenges grow, more stakeholders are involved, more diverse forms of knowledge are involved, and, thus, more facilitation of co-creation across many disciplines is needed.”

(Van Patter, G.K., February 21, 2012, http://www.humantific.com/lost- stories-applied-creativity-history/)

Recent design thinking is seeing considerable shifts toward what Buchanan (1992) terms, ‘the modality of impossibility’ and the, “…impossibility of relying

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 149 on any one of the sciences (natural, social, or humanistic) for adequate solutions to what are the inherently wicked problems of design thinking” (ibid, p.20-21). Wood (2008) posits the optimistic idea of ‘thinking the unthinkable’ as a fundamental principle of Metadesign - framing design thinking as a powerful political tool for the quotidian. Wood (2008) asserts that,

“…In a fast-moving materialistic society, we tend to conflate the ‘unthinkable’ and the impossible’. However, when we try to describe the ‘impossible’ more clearly it may become more ‘discussable’. Once we try to discuss it, it will slowly become more ‘thinkable’. Once the ‘thinkable’ proliferates it will become more attainable. Once the ‘attainable’ is perceived to be attractive it becomes more feasible. In short, if we believe that something is possible it has more chance to work than if we believe it to be impossible.”

(Wood, J., 2008, pp.5-6)

As Buchanan (1992) points out, a fundamental challenge for designers is that, to design is to be engaged in the task to, “…conceive and plan what does not yet exist, and this occurs in the context of the indeterminacy of wicked problems…” (ibid p. 18). The slipperiness of design, itself as a discipline is open to, “…radically different interpretations in philosophy as well as in practice…”, and it is this inherent flexibility of design that, “…often leads to popular misunderstanding and clouds efforts to understand its nature” (ibid., p.19). While designers regardless of culture are typically practical intelligent professionals and academics, there remains the potential for those, “…trained in the traditional arts and sciences…to be puzzled

by the neoteric2 art of design” (ibid p.20). Despite its ambiguous nature, design continues to transform cultures in all its external and internal manifestations. Steadily, the discipline of design thinking is permeating everyday life, becoming more and more accessible to the masses as they are in turn transformed by it.

Parallel to this overall positive, by being embedded within the processes that have created the ‘consumer society’ experienced and understood by most across the developed world, “… designers were persuaded to ignore the big issues such as social relations, food production and distribution” (Wood, 2008, p.2). So the profession and the design educational programs

2 “Neoteric” is a term often associated in western culture with the emergence of new liberal arts. Neoteric arts are arts of “new learning.”

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 150 that feed the status quo know quite a lot about so-called sustainable ways of designing. They have dematerialised products, created customer experiences through service design, and have introduced ideas of slower, cleaner design. However, these, “…otherwise excellent innovations are insufficient to reduce the net environmental damage caused by globalization” (ibid p.3).

The cHALLENGE of Neoliberalism

Julier (2013) situates the design profession as status quo squarely in the context of neo- liberalism. He states that we might well, “…understand the rise of design over the last thirty years as one of the fruits of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is defined here as a, “…theory of political economic practices” (Harvey, 2005, cited in Julier, 2013), dedicated to realising, “…the free global flow of capital and goods, the bringing down of barriers to this, and the speeding up of this movement” (ibid, p.230). Neoliberalism as defined by Julier, “… mythologizes the idea of the world as a frictionless, unbounded space. In reality neoliberalism is relentlessly territorialized” (ibid p.230). In this process, capital and the means of production are continually moved from place to place. Each of the territories that capital is moved to in this process are characterised by particular materialities and cultural practices (Escobar, 2001; MacKenzie, 2009, cited in Julier, 2013, p.230).

By these understandings, neoliberal practices have spread around the world and have been applied across political frameworks. Julier (ibid p.220) in particular cites its success in the context of Pinochet’s dictatorship over Chile in the early 1970’s. Characterised by deregulated markets and depleted state controls, the neoliberal alignment with design inevitably ushers in, “…new consumer goods and their repackaging, new shopping malls and media products” (ibid p.220). The privatisation that follows creates demand for design services providing products, logos, branding, collateral materials, mobile phone apps, and websites. The primacy neoliberalism gives to economic flows, the stock market, intellectual property, patents and corporate interests overall leads to further need for market differentiation, and it is these forces that drive and intensify innovation and entrepreneurialism on the part of individual and corporate design professionals. This situates designers and design culture within the wider social and economic processes as both a product and descriptor of the neoliberal ethos.

Julier (2013) delineates a set of thematics that define design within the neoliberal construct. They are: (1) Intensification – describing a density of design intervention; (2) Co-articulation

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 151 – referring to the “marrying up of concerns and practices” in ways that strengthen both; (3) Temporality – describing the way speed, slowness or open-endedness may be dealt with; and (4) Territorialisation – which describes the scale through which responsibility is conceived (2013, p. 227).

Neoliberalism is very porous and adaptive, both emblematic of mainstream design culture but inclusive of radical modes of practice, design activism and experimental forms of design. The ongoing transformation of design cultures and practices within the neoliberal framework is multi-layered and complex, often characterised by the open-endedness and indeterminate qualities we see described in Rittel’s wicked-problem model. However, this problem landscape still permits us choices about how we practice and the kinds of contributions we are able to make as designers.

Sutton (2009) is cited by Julier (ibid p.228) to remind us that the designer is often engaged in the development of “meta-data”. Within branding processes designers work on developing systems, specifications and manuals that are implemented by others. “This means they don’t necessarily always design the end-product; rather, codes or guidelines are created that are subsequently applied by someone else” (ibid p.228). Commerce turns these singular intensities designers create into IP protected artifacts that are manufactured and distributed en-mass. In actuality,

“…one could argue that the designer is always working with individual artifacts (through, for example, protoypes, drawings, or specifications) that are subsequently serially reproduced. They are fashioning singularities. Commerce turns these singularities, or intensities, into intensities through their circulation…”

(Lash, 2010 in Julier, 2013, p.228)

Thrift (2004) describes this process as the manufacture of affect. This is of great importance within the argument put forth in this chapter because strategically amplifying the affective in design has the potential to enrich the cognitive and embodied engagement with material – and as in the case of C8 Research – the learning experience – so that although this mode of design acts within circumstances that are pre-existing it, “…becomes a way of transforming

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 152 outlooks…” (Julier, 2013 p.228). By subverting the status quo’s strategy of intensive design intervention, design educators in particular have tools that can engage human agents both cognitively and viscerally at an emotional level to create intensities that can transform behavior, change perceptions, and mobilise cognition leading to practices that are politicised in a manner orientated toward new ways of living and new kinds of design practice.

This modality of practice seeks to offer more than products or services and aims to give focus, “… to wider concerns that might be articulated in general, rhetorical terms: “I’m worried about the ways that private cars create pollution and global warming”; “There should be more possibilities for the community to meet”; and so on” (ibid p.229). By designing outputs (or spaces, or experiences) that can impact by offering a means to act and think on complex problems the designer or participant is engaged in a co-articulation. This co-articulation is represents Metadesign’s participatory potential in material and experiential form (Marres 2011, p.516 in Julier, p. 229). By making available to participants the possibility to engage in what Julier describes as, “…a performative engagement in public life” (ibid 229), the designer steps beyond the status quo to engage in conceiving outputs potentially more beneficial to social systems rather than corporate organisations.

Neoliberalism’s adaptive co-opting and exploitation of even it’s own crisis allows it to re-territorialise and with it re-territorialise design culture and practices. We can see this ongoing process unfold in economies such as China. Unfortunately the neoliberal agenda does not appear to be transforming into a more restorative post-neoliberalism – the fundamental divergences between the needs of capital and the needs of the environment are too great and the growth model of economic development is still entrenched in most societies (Peck et al, 2009 in Julier, p.227). Dilnot (2003) asserted that,

“One of the terrible consequences of late capitalism is that it persuades us – to a degree impels us – to live in a perpetual present, excising both historical and futurological understanding. The present today means ‘the economic modernization of China’ – a good and laudable goal given the material impoverishment of the vast majority of China’s citizens for most of this century.”

(Dilnot, 2003, p.18)

As Dilnot anticipated (ibid p.18-19) China, has encountered very severe ecological crises in recent decades impacting on its development and environment in the widest sense, and most visibly in

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 153 large urban centres such as Shanghai and Beijing. The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) “Designing China.” Seminar (2009), highlighted the importance of China in the world and for the designer by stating in it’s introductory outline that,

“Design is more than just a matter of combining aesthetics and functionality. Today, more than ever, the stakes of design are very high, raising at every turn urgent economic, political, social, and philosophical issues. The relation between design and its context is particularly salient in a rapidly transforming space like contemporary China...not because China leads the world in the field of design, but because China today is where design issues are raised in perhaps their most problematic and provocative form.”

(UCHRI, “Designing China.” Seminar, 2009, http://uchri.org/events/ uchri-summer-seminar-in-experimental-critical-theory-vi-designing- china/)

As those statements acknowledge, part of the complexity of understanding and discussing China’s transformation is the speed and scale of the changes underway. As the society continues to move toward what it sees as more sustainable levels of development by focussing more on internal domestic markets, there is evidence that such shifts in focus are already seeing economic impacts around the world in economies such as Australia reliant on exporting the raw materials needed to run a primarily manufacturing economy supplying the world. The state of China’s economy is an enduring theme in economic discourse because the implications of China’s wicked social, economic and environmental problems are likely to have social, political and ecological ramifications around the world.

Exemplars of disjuncture: Mediating China

It is most important for designers and design educators to understand and contextualise China’s role in the global production flows within which they are active agents. This requires a critical acknowledgement of how globalised design and production processes operate. In a study of China’s role in global production

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 154 networks Ma & Van Assche (2011) highlight how in recent decades many multinational corporations, “… have integrated China into their global production networks by moving labor-intensive processing plants to the country for export purposes” (2011, p.152). The widely acknowledged impact of China, India and other developing economies over recent decades has been their potential to offer global corporations involved in designing and manufacturing consumer goods and technologies, a means to exploit the availability of cheap labour for production and assembly. As alluded to earlier, the capacity of global capital to relocate production facilities to territories offering the cheapest labour and production facilities is well documented (Keane, 2006, 2009; Jullier, 2013).

From a domestic perspective China’s decision to slow its manufacturing sector might be taken as completely understandable given the devastating social and environmental effects of being the world’s factory. Dilnot (2003) predicted that, “… major problems will manifest themselves globally, as well as in China, by, say 2015, and perhaps much earlier and that this will begin to require a new kind of scientific, technological, and planning effort in which design is centrally involved” (2003, p.18) In the ubiquitous monitoring and

media coverage of air quality in China’s major urban centres3 most particularly Beijing we are seeing this prediction become visibly apparent. Moreover, these modalities, flows and effects of mass-scale production and consumption have other contentious impacts on industry, trade and employment in the developed world,

most visibly in the United States4. This contributes to assumptions on the part of concerned western publics, academics, media outlets and governments about a range of issues that drive perceptions of China being a threat to western interests.

For example assumptions that the origins of China’s exports and the value created therein lies within China are often inaccurate. This is evidenced by the rapid growth in global production networks that in most cases, including China, rely significantly on inputs imported for assembly. This creates a complex set of analytic challenges, and to date, “…little research has been conducted to comprehend the sometimes significant biases that this assumption may create” (Ma & Van Assche, 2011, p.152). Ma & Van Assche (2011) suggest that in, “…the media and even in academic and policy circles, this has led to important misinterpretations of China’s role in the world economy” (ibid p.152).

The potential for strategic subterfuge and broad assumptions about China based on western interests and ways of understanding the world can be argued to have contributed to unconstructive discourse being

3 A Google search on the terms “China”, “air quality” (28 January 2014) returned 156,000,000 results. 4 Refer to: http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/decline-us-manufacturing-jobs-tied-shift-china-trade-policy

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 155 “… major problems will manifest themselves globally, as well as in China, by, say 2015, and perhaps much earlier and that this will begin to require a new kind of scientific, technological, and planning effort in which design is centrally involved.” Dilnot (2003) ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Images: Beijing Design Week Reveiw, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009)

Images: Top: Shanghai 1990 | Below: Shanghai 2010 (Image source: http://i.imgur.com/AqNdG.jpg disseminated via global media channels. The divisive perspectives and rhetorical assertions promulgated in many instances do not take into account the inherent interconnectedness, reciprocity and mutual corporate, government and consumer responsibility underlying the processes that have instigated and continue to drive challenging crisis trajectories such as climate change. In some instances falsehoods are published as fact as has been the case in a number of recent notable and widely distributed news stories. On January 17, 2014, The Daily Mail published a story that stated, “The smog has become so thick in Beijing that the city’s natural light-starved masses have begun flocking to huge digital commercial television screens

across the city to observe virtual sunrises.” 5. The story was also published in Time, CBS, and

The Huffington Post in the United States6. As was countered in more reasoned but less visible

responses to the story by Paul Bishoff published by the website TechinAsia7,

“…In truth, that sunrise was probably on the screen for less than 10 seconds at a time, as it was part of an ad for tourism in China’s Shandong province. The ad plays every day throughout the day all year round no matter how bad the pollution is…”

(Bishoff, 2:00 pm, January 20, 2014).

Gwynn Guilford wrote (Quartz, http://qz.com/ 20 January, 2014), that these kinds of stories are eaten up by western readers who, “…love Chinese “airpocalypse” stories.” (ibid 2014). By connecting, “…the themes of pollution and the government’s Orwellian-tinged attempts to control daily life, the Daily Mail offers a double-whammy of Western reader stereotypes about China” (ibid 2014). Guilford notes that although a number of news outlets have subsequently updated their news posts on the story, none of them have changed headlines or acknowledged the story simply was not true. She asks, “…Does that mean that accuracy and accountability don’t matter for click-bait pieces about China that “feel” true? Unfortunately for readers, that seems to be the case” (ibid 2014).

5 Refer to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540955/Beijing-clouded-smog-way-sunrise- watch-giant-commercial-screens-Tiananmen-Square.html 6 These stories can be seen at the following URL’s: TIME: http://world.time.com/2014/01/17/ sunrise-in-smoggy-beijing/ ; CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/beijing-turns-to-virtual-sunrise- due-to-polluted-air/ ; The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/beijing-fake- sunrise_n_4618536.html 7 Refer to Bishoff’s report at: http://www.techinasia.com/beijing-residents-watching-fake- sunrises-giant-tvs-pollution/?utm_source=fpost&utm_medium=highlight&utm_content=top&utm_ campaign=featuredpost/?utm_source=fpost&utm_medium=highlight&utm_content=top&utm_ campaign=featuredpost

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 158 It is not surprising that images of state power such as the two massive screens in Tiananmen

Square are used to depict China as a “dystopian hellscape” 8 in the western media. Successive dynasties of the Chinese government have also wielded propaganda to persuade the Chinese society of the “spiritual poison” of western influences (Wang, 1989, p.66). The history of Chinese graphic design cannot be separated from the evolution of propaganda as a tool of the state (Wang, 1989). This itself is a topic of ongoing discussion in the western media as can be

seen in a recent opinion piece by Murong Xuecun (New York Times, December 20, 2013)9. Murong, (pen name of Hao Qun) who predominantly writes about social issues in China, suggests recent propaganda in Chinese cities focuses on themes designed to reinvigorate the moral authority of the party through nostalgic Maoist slogans (e.g. “Sing the praises of the party”, or “Sing a folk song for the party.”) and to promote the idea of The China Dream (“The China Dream, my dream,” “The China Dream: the dream of a powerful nation,” “Fulfill the China Dream with intelligence and hard work.”). These are messages that might be interpreted to focus on domestic matters of nation building and social wellbeing. Murong argues that despite their crudeness, “…they will influence the way people talk and think” (ibid 2013).

On January 24 2014, a story by Hong Kong based Senior Correspondent for the American publication, The Global Post, Benjamin Carlson was published that discussed the use of

clichés by western journalists covering issues in China10. Carlson’s report states,

“…journalists have a habit of deploying politically charged clichés without regard to the ideological luggage they carry. In doing so, they unwittingly advance the agenda of China’s Communist leadership.”

(Carlson, B., The Global Post, January 14, 2014, 00:32)

Carlson (@bwcarlson) subsequently tweeted, “My (brief) field guide to China clichés.Trying to stir the pot a bit with this one...” (6:22 PM - 14 Jan 2014, Tweet). One can only speculate

8 Gwynn Guilford used this expression in the response to the popularity of the articles on social media in the west: http://qz.com/168705/westerners-are-so-convinced-china-is-a-dystopian-hellscape- theyll-share-anything-that-confirms-it/ 9 Refer to: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/opinion/sunday/murong-the-new-face-of- chinese-propaganda.html 10 Refer to the story “A field guide to hazardous China clichés” by Benjamin Carlson at: http:// www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/140108/field-guide-hazardous-china- cliches

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 159 Image: The image accompanying reports in mainstream western media of a screen in Tianamen Square. “The LED screen shows the rising sun on the Tiananmen Square which is shrouded with heavy smog on January 16, 2014 in Beijing,” China. (ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/beijing-fake-sunrise_n_4618536.html what Carlson’s interest in ‘stirring the pot’ might be. A response by Faye Wang to the article

on the Quora website11 argued there were a number of falsehoods or misperceptions asserted as fact in Carlson’s article in particular his claim that the Chinese government had little to do with “lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty”. Carlson argues that,

“…Chinese people weren’t “lifted” out of poverty. They lifted themselves. The Chinese economy’s incredible growth since 1980 came about not because of some omniscient Communist Party planning, but because the party backed off from the crushing, destructive Maoist policies.”

(Carlson, B., The Global Post, January 14, 2014, 00:32)

Wang counters this by pointing out in her response to the Quora question requesting more clichés, that although there are indeed cultural truisms used by western journalists, there were fundamental untruths, or at best dubiously informed conjecture contained in Carlson’s article.

“…To say that Chinese people “lifted” themselves as if it happened naturally, is a gruesome disrespect to those who worked so hard to change China in early 1980s. They’re effort, their policy and the power of Deng and Zhao, they moved mountain to push China out of the brink of total destruction…”

(Wang, F., Quora, Monday, January 28, 2014)

C8 Research argues that these recent instances of disinformation published as fact by western media continue to normalise the dissemination of inaccurate information by western corporate interests. This reflects the conflict potential in Nolan’s assessment (2006) of the economic, social and ecological challenges our societies face. These examples highlight the ongoing difficulties we face in authentically communicating and aligning our diverse economic, cultural and social needs and realities. This also extends to preventing humans from the west and China developing joined-up modes of thinking about complex global problems. C8 Research posits that design educators should acknowledge the design profession’s complicity with the processes and values that are both communicating and perpetuating the status quo at both the

11 Refer to Faye Wang’s response on Quora at: http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cliches- that-have-been-run-into-the-ground-by-the-Western-press-when-writing-about-China

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 161 level of the everyday (the media) and at the meta-level of corporate enterprise and governance. This can be seen in perceptions of China that have been filtered down via global media channels and in the machinations of the geo-political and industrial assemblage.

China, Energy and the west

The introductory statement of China’s Energy Policy 201212 reads, “Energy is the material basis for the progress of human civilization and an indispensable basic condition for the development of modern society.” The Chinese economy and the concurrent increases in demand for energy from its urbanizing middle class is broadly understood to present enormously complex challenges and consequences for the planet. As we have seen, this idea has caused divisive perceptions to proliferate beyond China’s borders. In the global community this contentious issue has become emblematic of a North-South divide where developed countries are seen by developing countries as more responsible for current levels of carbon emissions because their per capita rates of emission are historically higher. In the case of China a recent PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency Report (2012) on Global C02 emissions shows,

“Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) increased by 3% last year, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes in 2011. In China, average per capita CO2 emissions increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes CO2. Taking into account an uncertainty margin of 10%, this is similar to per capita emissions in the European Union.”

(PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency report on Global C02, 2012)

The report indicates “CO2 emissions in fact decreased – in the European Union by 3%, in the United States by 2% and in Japan by 2%”, revealing that China’s domestic energy, economic, and environmental dynamics are under intense scrutiny. China has been identified as the largest

carbon emitter on the planet since 200613. With the top emitters as China (29%), the United States (16%), the European Union (11%), India (6%) and the Russian Federation (5%), and

12 China’s 2012 Energy Policy (Oct. 24, 2012) can be referred to at the website of the Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China: http://www.china.org.cn/ government/whitepaper/node_7170375.htm 13 Refer to: http://www.pbl.nl/en/dossiers/Climatechange/moreinfo/ Chinanowno1inCO2emissionsUSAinsecondposition

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 162 Japan (4%) the potential for geo-political discord has increased. Current International Energy

Agency (IEA) estimates14 (2011, p.40) substantiate this suggesting the, “…existing energy- related infrastructure is likely to lock the world in on a dangerous climate path unless there’s a serious course correction by 2017” (ibid cited in a report by Tu, Zhang & Livingston, The Diplomat, February 16, 2012).

China argues that, it is in fact, a responsible global citizen assuming its obligations in regard to, “…oil, natural gas, coal, electric power, renewable energy, technology, equipment and energy policy” (China’s Energy Policy, Oct. 24, 2012). China’s rhetoric in relation to the energy policy (ibid 2012) points out that its development is dependent on cooperation with the rest of the world. The policy argues that, “…the prosperity of the world has need of China as well” (ibid 2012). The policy specifically states that the international community, “…should work collaboratively to maintain stability…to ensure the security of international energy transport routes and avoid geopolitical conflicts…” (ibid 2012). Hinting at the potential for conflict highlighted by Nolan (2006), the policy calls for the countries most involved, to work through dialogue and consultation to avoid politicisation of energy explicitly stating that, “…the use of force and armed confrontation should be avoided” (ibid 2012).

The policy goes on to identify that, for the foreseeable future, “…China’s industrialization and urbanization will continue to accelerate, and the demand for energy will go on increasing…” (ibid 2012). China’s aspiration as outlined in the policy, is to develop a moderately prosperous society. However, the policy acknowledges that maintaining the energy supply required to achieve this goal in a world of diminishing resources means China will face ever-greater challenges. Di Lucchio (2010) observed that,

“China represents a very emblematic expression of contemporaneity: on one hand, as a growing society, Chinese people desire to obtain the same availability of goods and benefits of the western societies, on the other, as one of the most industrialized countries in the world, they need to gain a control of its development to avoid a productive “over-dose” that might be harmful both at the social and the economic level.”

(Di Lucchio, 2010, p.126)

14 Refer to: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO2011_WEB.pdf

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 163 What appears to be omitted in the critique, is that China’s status as the world’s factory, has been driven and made real, by foreign owned multinational corporations, suppliers and subcontractors, who leverage the labour-intensive processing and assembly carried out by small and medium-size enterprises, and large scale factories within China. These design and production processes exist as an ongoing response to ever increasing demand for more and cheaper goods from international markets.

Such complex reciprocal relationships imply that global solutions to the crisis will require cooperative innovation and meta-level design thinking that balances the interests, perspectives, and needs of all stakeholders – western and non-western. The World Bank Report, “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided” (November 2012), conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, discusses these complex dangers to humanity with a particular focus on climate change and global warming. The report argues that, “…large regional as well as global scale damages and risks are very likely to occur…”(ibid p.64), well before the levels of warming identified in the report are reached. The report aims to identify the scope of the challenges widely acknowledged to be, “…driven by responses of the Earth system and various human and natural systems” (ibid p.64). The conclusions of the document suggest that the developing world will be most adversely affected because their adaptive capacities are weaker than those of the developed economies and advises that only, “…early, cooperative, international actions” (ibid p.64), can build the adaptive capacity required to ensure global equilibrium, and the avoidance of the catastrophic consequences of a 4°C rise on global temperatures.

Wild Urban China

Before outlining aspects of complexity in China’s hyper-urbanisation as a second exemplar of the catastrophic problems the world faces, it is important to reiterate that there are no historical precedents. This contributes greatly to understanding the undefinable open-endedness of the complexity or wickedness. China’s particular

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 164 accommodation of late capitalism’s uncompromising neoliberal socioeconomic processes (Shuo Wang, 2008) has seen it drive urban development in ways that are not clearly understood, either within or outside China. A pervasive reason for this is the unprecedented levels of bottom up informal development underway. This is running concurrent with the Central government’s ‘official’ top down program of accelerated urbanisation.

For China’s authorities, urbanisation represents economic and social sustainability. The need for a strong domestic economy has been seen by the CPC as being directly dependent on fast urbanization (Mars, 2009). Its response to the apparent social demand for new cities has been a tremendous acceleration of China’s overarching development plan. Mars, Hornsby et al. (2008) posit the hyper-speed transformation is happening far too quickly, and as a result is largely unconsidered. In a sense, they point out what is already widely known by observing that,

“China is in the midst of breakneck transformation. The last 30 years of astonishing economic growth and political and cultural reform have been driven by the world’s biggest ever-urban boom. The new China is now halfway built: within the next 30 years the world’s most populous nation will most likely take centre-stage as a global superpower, with hundreds of millions of new urbanites flooding into the rapidly swelling cities.”

(Mars, Hornsby et al., Preface, The Chinese Dream, A Society Under Construction, 2008)

Mars, Hornsby et al. (2008) point to announcements by the CPC in 2001 that the country would, “…build 400 new cities of 1 million inhabitants each by 2020, or 20 new cities a year for 20 years…” (ibid 2008). As we contemplate the subsequent mass urban migrations already underway, Julier’s theme of temporality, where, “…the way speed, slowness or open- endedness may be dealt with…” (2013, p.227), becomes pertinent to reflection on China’s ambitious agenda. The concern is that accelerated hyper-speed development leaves a swathe of social, economic and political impacts in its wake, underscored by housing shortages, uncontrolled speculation, and the ravages of ongoing construction and demolition on social

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 165 and environmental ecosystems15. Mars questions this approach to development and reflects that,

“…After precisely 30 years of flash urbanization we need to ask if this is still a desired, even acceptable model. We need to assess the specific qualities of high-speed growth and the type of environments and society it produces. Unfortunately there are no precedents. We cannot evaluate the direction of this fast moving train based on the conditions it left behind 30 years ago. Nor can China determine its intended direction based on what other countries have achieved.”

(Mars, 2009)

Old-paradigm modes of economic development can no longer be seen by China (or any other country) as models because they bear no resemblance to the ‘joined-up’ realities of the highly interconnected global context. “The minute interconnections between individual prosperity and collective (even global) progress have surfaced…” (Mars, 2009). All economies are inherently interconnected with their environments and urban conditions. However in the case of China, Mars asserts,

“…the success of the socialist market hybrid is increasingly at odds with the blurred rural-urban hybrid it produces. The new landscape is complex and dynamic… the top-down economy and its planning apparatus, a powerful bottom-up economy, has generated a pervasive organic growth …While China macro-plans its cities and icons, aggregated micro-projects expand the urban landscape in the form of more Market-driven Unintentional Development, or MUD.”

(ibid 2009)

China’s formula of encouraging grass roots entrepreneurialism seeded by large- scale incentives has yielded a very successful, but undefined socialist market hybrid

15 Refer to Urban China #35, Urban China: How to be holistic? 花好四万亿! Edited by Neville Mars, with contributions by the DCF and numerous international designers and institutes. The publication can be accessed at: http://burb.tv/view/Magazine_Urban_China

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 166 economy (ibid 2009). While western capitalism struggles to recompose itself post 2008, there exists, “…a real opportunity to mindfully define the socialist market economy. But there is a precondition: that we consider and map how it will likely shape society and landscape” (ibid 2009, p.5). The problem in achieving this is that China’s radical transformation, combined with the levels of informal uncontrolled market driven development underway, presents a confronting array of wicked problems that defy traditional modes of planning and design. In the face of what is occurring, disciplines such as urban design seem impotent. China’s circumstances continue to change rapidly and typically in ways that are only really just becoming apparent to the rest of the world, even as they are impacted upon by the changes. The comprehensive design, research and education system needed to answer how best to produce the future landscape is still not in place (ibid 2009, p.5).

Exemplars of optimism: Local initiatives

As we saw in the previous chapter’s discussion of Beijing Design Week, a home-grown mode of Chinese design by a younger generation all too aware of the impacts of China’s radical transformation is well positioned to mobilise new practices to seed change. The hyper-speed urbanisation of China provides an unprecedented social, political and economic context in which to test new ways of framing and practicing design. I will discuss two exemplars that illustrate the potential of collaboration and participatory design to engage more holistic forms of design thinking that are aligned to the theoretical framework underpinning this thesis. As examples they operate in an optimistic counterpoint to sometimes overwhelming dystopian perspectives of our collective futures.

Optimism, is a critical design knowledge. It is important to note there are very positive collaborative design initiatives underway where designers and others are thinking about how to tackle problems that are part of the larger picture of global complexity. The initiatives I will refer to here include design projects that existing within or are related to design education.

This movement of like-minded clusters includes projects such as, Amplify16, Metadesigners

16 http://amplifyingcreativecommunities.net/

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 167 Open Network 17, Attainable Utopias18, The Transition Movement19, Sharism Lab20, and DESIS

Network21. The impact of these organisations has been visible inside China as well. This is

most obvious in the cases of the DESIS Network that has four participating design schools22 on the Mainland, and Sharism Lab with it’s base in Shanghai. and Sharism Lab with it’s headquarters in Shanghai. Additionally, a particularly notable initiative based in Beijing and

called Interactive Beijing23 will be discussed because of its focus on the issue of air pollution referred to earlier.

Slow, Local Open, Connected

The SLOC model was instigated by Ezio Manzini and has been proliferated via DESIS a, “… network of schools of design, companies, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions that are interested in promoting and supporting design for social innovation and sustainability” (Manzini, Penin et al, 2010, p.14). DESIS is conceived as, “…a network of partners collaborating in a peer-to-peer spirit.” (ibid, p.14). In particular DESIS has gained momentum

in China, Brazil, Columbia, Europe, USA, Africa 24. There is one DESIS Lab established in Australia at the University of South Australia. Given the complexity, scope and scale of the global crisis, the situation is challenging but we do have the opportunity to build on the work carried out by over recent decades by, “…institutions, enterprises, non-profit organisations and a multiplicity of individuals and their associations…” (Manzini, 2010, p.8). Manzini, Penin et al. (2010) have advocated for design professionals and educators to engage in the task of creating positive environments where the likelihood of, “…new ways of living and producing” (2010, p.14-15), is promoted through creativity, design thinking and co-design processes. This is a scenario, “…in which final users, local institutions, service providers and dedicated product manufacturers are all actively involved” (ibid p.16). Based on the socio-technical

17 http://metadesigners.org/ 18 http://attainable-utopias.org/ 19 http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ 20 http://sharismlab.com/ 21 http://www.desis-network.org/ 22 DESIS Labs are established in China at Tongji University, Jiangnan University, Southwest University and Hunan University 23 http://interactivebeijing.com/ 24 See www.desis-network.org/

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 168 equation, Small, Local, Open, Connected (SLOC), a collaborative, social innovation paradigm of practice is emerging globally, and the actors involved, Manzini argues,

“…are moving toward similar ideas of well-being and production: an active well- being based on a sense of community and shared goods and a production system composed of networks of collaborative actors that is based on a new relationship between the local and the global…”

(Manzini, 2010, p.9)

The vision presented by these four terms (Small, Local, Open, Connected) is easy to understand, as the words themselves are simple and clear in their transmission of what human society might become. They are also underpinned by key drivers of global change described by Manzini (2009) as, “…the emerging complex relationships between globalization and localization, the power of the Internet, and the diffusion of new forms of organization that the Internet makes possible” (ibid p.10). They also intimate the necessity to build on past achievements. We do, out of necessity, have to begin with ideas of the local and the community, that the ‘local’ is about. The ‘small’, in the equation refers to the node within the network. The node is local, but ‘connected’ to global flows of information, people, and communication. This is a local no longer local, in the traditional sense of the word. The

cellular characteristic of small in this networked context is a double-edged sword25 in a sense, but equally, the network makes it possible for the local and small to be effective and flexible. The potential for collaborative networks is another key possibility for operating in rapidly transforming environments. This hints at the potentially paradoxical relationship of the local to the global (ibid p.11).

The connected local, is best configured, not as an isolated and inward looking local, shut off and protected from the world and ‘otherness’, but a cosmopolitan local. It is important to see the whole of global flows, and the crisis of traditional place. Whereas local might once have signalled, ‘the village’ or ‘the small town’, complete with mostly self-sustaining economy and internal culture, globalisation and the interconnectivity we are experiencing has transformed

25 Manzini and Appaduri (2010) have discussed the negative aspects of small as a conduit for the network to become a means for constellations of terrorists to become as “powerful as a big army”.

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 169 the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of local. This has often resulted in a dominatingly negative reaction toward traditionally local interests and positions, fundamentalism, protectionism, and unconstructive isolated notions of identity. This destructive tendency is however made plainly retrogressive by the achievements of creative communities, “…that invent unprecedented cultural activities, forms of organisation and economic models…” (Manzini, 2007, pp. 233-245).

In citing successful examples of SLOC in the European context, Manzini (ibid pp. 233-245) reminds us that we are most familiar with examples from the food and wine industries where

the niche markets have clustered around the slow food movement26. This type of cosmopolitan localisation is outward looking, and connected to the networked global socio-economic system. Through this lens, the connected local and the creative community come together to example how humans might co-design a more resilient and liveable futures. ‘Open’ refers to the connective power of the Internet combined with the collaborative model of the open source movement. This is an unprecedented synergy where,

“…collaborative networks are characterised by motivations and ways of doing that were unimaginable until a few years ago. Now they appear to be possible and capable of catalysing large numbers of interested people, of organising them in peer-to-peer mode, of building a common vision and a common direction. They are able to develop even very complex projects on a global scale (as in Wikipedia) or on a local one (as in Meet-Up, SmartMobs and the BBC Action network).”

(ibid 2007, p.237)

From within a discourse focussed on the situation in China, Yongqi Lou & Diaz (2010) reiterate Manzini’s suggestion (2006) that design processes must be extended into, “…new territories and dimensions in order to address the many problems and opportunities of a rapidly changing world” (2010, p.23). They observe that China is one of the most pressing instances of this change most importantly with regard to the aforementioned rapid urbanisation underway there. Also citing the influential McKinsey Global Institute’s report (2009), Yongqi Lou &

26 “Other examples, are the essential oils of the Provence region, Murano glassware, Casentino wool etc., all products that carry with them the spirit and history of a place and a community to the end user.” Manzini (2003) Design Research for sustainable social innovation

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 170 Diaz (2010) further emphasise that,

“…Current research predicts that 350 million people will be added to China’s urban populations by 2025—more than the current population of the United States— yielding a total of one billion people living in China’s cities by 2030… This kind of growth will necessitate the construction of some 270 mass transit systems and 40 billion square meters of floor space in five million new buildings—50,000 of which could be skyscrapers, or the equivalent of ten New York Cities.”

(Yongqi, Lou., Diaz, C., 2010, p.24)

When one considers the impact of an addition to urban space equivalent to ten New York cities, on a planet already dealing with the strain of seven billion people, we can only conclude, that due to China’s enormous size and massive population even projects at the level of the local have the potential to create global impacts.

Interactive Beijing

The Interactive Beijing platform (2012) is a germane example demonstrating a willingness on the part of a group of Chinese designers to leverage the power of design to effect positive social change. Interactive Beijing was launched by Fei Jun, Associate Professor in Interactive Media Art and Design at CAFA Media Lab. The project is fundamentally concerned with the harnessing the potential of interactive media to effect change and has a close affiliation with the China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Art (CMoDA) – itself a platform for innovation in China. The project has engaged with professional designers from around the world inviting them to present their work and Chinese students have been the primary participants in the workshops offered in the context of Beijing Design Week.

In 2013 Interactive Beijing deployed the theme, “Our Air, Our Responsibility!” for their involvement in Beijing Design Week. The project was activated through an innovative social

media campaign seen both inside China and internationally27. The program featured design

27 Interactive Beijing’s You Tube campaign can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCZ0z4tsWA7uk1gMWY86cY9w. Their Facebook page is located at: https://www.facebook.com/ InteractiveBeijing

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 171 Image: Fei Jun, Li Xinlu, Eco Air Bubble — Interactive Beijing (Ib) 2013 http://en.cafa.com.cn/smart-city-2013-international-design-exhibition-and- symposium-of-beijing-design-week-to-be-unveiled-at-the-china-millennium- monument.html inputs from local and international design thinkers. Interactive Beijing is moving towards a model of intensive situated design education that is participatory, if not collaborative in a transcultural sense just yet. By calling for suggestions from the public - no matter how “crazy”, to tackle the problem of air pollution, Interactive Beijing tacitly leverages Metadesign’s collaborative, synergistic thesis to engage Beijing’s diverse communities by encouraging participants to take responsibility for “Our Air”, and engage in action and ideation as an antidote to simply waiting for the authorities to solve the issue.

The outcomes of Interactive Beijing were exhibited in the Smart City Exhibition at BJDW

201328. This offers the platform significant visibility and access to stimulate public and government awareness via the extensive media coverage the event attracts as one of the main exhibitions at BJDW. Curated by CMoDA, the Smart City exhibition is seen in China as leading critical discourse on global and local smart city initiatives from around the world. In showcasing these important innovations, the Chinese public is exposed to practices and discussion that is investigating digital design’s role in advancing new ideas about urban life and speculation on it’s potential for creating social change. Understandably modest, given the complexity of the design challenge, the promise of Interactive Beijing’s participatory ‘hacking’ of the traditional design process is a tangible instance of Metadesign practice emerging in the Chinese context.

Getting to Meta: Can design address complexity?

SLOC and Interactive Beijing are design-led initiatives that seek to seed change by implementing frameworks that encourage designers and design educators to operate upstream from what has been traditionally understood as the remit of design practice. However there are myriad challenges that impede this from occurring. Despite our interconnectedness, humans perpetuate unhelpful social constructions through the ways we communicate about each other and each other’s complex cultures and environments. We have seen in this chapter potent examples of omissions and disinformation on the part of both mainstream media and governments that miscommunicate actual realities and intentions. This foregrounding of difference is not constructive or conducive to a creative mutually beneficial way of addressing the challenges we all share.

28 Refer to CMoDA’s website at: http://www.modachina.org/en/exhibition.html

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 173 The human world is manifesting confronting complex problems in the form of climate change, poor air quality, devastation of eco-systems, issues of food and water security, hyper-speed urbanisation, overconsumption, poverty, inequality, mass migration, and diminishing natural resources. Although I have focussed on just a few of these issue all are phenomena manifest in how contemporary China is understood. These complexities shape the perceptions and concerns of global publics, governments and industry both outside and inside China. Although at base, the result of historical, religious, cultural and political forces in concert with ongoing urgent economic imperatives, the continuing disjuncture between west and non-west indicates that we have not made much progress towards intercultural understanding.

An optimistic and designerly lens on complexity can be perceived in the work of Sid Parnes (1967), co-founder of the Buffalo School of Applied Creativity where ‘design thinking’ theory and practice framed problems as challenges and opportunities. Parnes felt that assumptions and long held attitudes and beliefs often blind humans to seeing the opportunities in a situation. This was highlighted by G.K. Van Patter who cites Parnes’ idea that,

“…it’s hard to realize all challenges we face because we are used to thinking of challenges as conflicts and we tend to blind ourselves to some of our problems in order to feel more comfortable. If we were to reverse the procedure, and think of problems as challenges or opportunities we might be less inclined to ignore so many of them.”

(Parnes (1967) in Van Patter, February 21, 2012, http://www.humantific.com/lost- stories-applied-creativity-history/)

The familiar landscape of modern design that has prevailed throughout the 20th Century continues to rapidly transform, and this has accelerated in the years following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008. Despite the continuing dominance of the neoliberal status quo, the last decade has seen some shifts within the international design profession, as political discourse inevitably becomes more focused on confronting social and sustainability issues. Design activity has clearly been, “…placed in a very critical social and economic context.” (Di Lucchio, 2010, p.125). Complex uncertainties, turbulence, conflict and technological evolution

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 174 are revealing a landscape where the meaning of the market has changed (ibid, p.125). In highly developed societies, whereas once the market implied a certain exchange or trade of goods, it now additionally represents a place of social exchange, a place where immaterial aspects of consumption are increasingly emphasised. Meanwhile, within China, as is the case in the other BRIC countries, a growing middle class have tended to embrace the aesthetic value of products as the most recognisable expression of social status (Morace, 2003). In considering the refocusing of design toward the social. Di Lucchio (2010) asks,

“… what does this change of ‘design focus’ mean in those countries economically emerged at the beginning of the new century? In particular, what does it mean in China, which is considered as the ‘factory of the world’?”

(Di Lucchio, 2010, p.125)

There are of course many interpretations of what design might mean in these circumstances. Di Lucchio (2010) sees contemporary design in terms of a, “…cultural mission to define the material outcome of contemporary society,” (ibid pp.125-126) according to current conditions which represent an omnipresent overdose of production, accompanied by a deeply enculturated need for constant stimulus. It can be argued that the design profession operates on two levels (ibid p.125). The first level encapsulates design as engaged in a perpetual push to explore all possible relations between technology and humans. This is defined by a self-perception of a kind of invincibility, where activity is centred on developing all the possible interfaces with emergent technologies in order to explore their consequences in the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of the everyday. This view of design is exemplified by interaction design (Raby & Dunne, 2001). Conscious of its shortcomings, it is a mode of practice that proposes solutions without presuming to function as a political instrument or tool for social change.

The second level of design is an ongoing attempt to ameliorate all the failures in contemporary industrialised societies. This understanding of design activity is related to the Design for Sustainability movement (Manzini & Jegou, 2003) and aims to predict and correct the negative impacts of human activities on global ecologies and systems. This mode of practice perceives itself to possess power and influence as a key agent to address the complexities of the problems contemporary developed societies face. Di Luccio (ibid p.126) recognised that the two levels

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 175 can overlap with interesting results, but they essentially maintain a disciplinary dichotomy that is framed by the scientific debate, design research, education programs, exhibitions, and conferences. This discourse, not surprisingly, does not offer definitive answers, but asserts that regardless of one’s position on the spectrum between these two poles, design remains primarily a translator between the increasingly challenging and intricately complex needs of society, and it’s relationship with the production of possibilities.

To conclude, we have seen that contemporary design problems can be seen through the lens of Rittel’s wicked problem model. These types of design challenges and opportunities lie upstream from traditional design problems such as product design, and prove resistant to easy or clear definition. This leaves them unframed and indeterminate. Because of our levels of interconnectedness, these complex issues tend to have global implications, and in the case of China’s radical transformation this is certainly the case. However, the kinds of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration that is required to give enough perspective on how to solve them, is often obfuscated because of misunderstandings and disinformation due to omission or design. This leaves publics, governments, and policy makers with unfounded assumptions or a lack of perspective on the realities that are being brought to bear in the flows of global neoliberal economics. Designers and design educators are of course, operating in the midst of this complexity. Many are engaged in maintaining the status quo but in some cases, as we have seen, optimistic initiatives are emerging. Interpretations of design itself are extremely varied and slippery, and are not independent of cultural mores and contexts. It is crucial to recognise that design as status quo, is not enough to address the wickedness humans find themselves embroiled in.

We need to design new collaborative models where diverse understandings of society, science, creativity and culture, can work together to find a shared vision for how we might adapt to complexity in a holistic and equitably sustainable way. This is an overwhelming prospect, however design educators in both western and non-western contexts have an important role to play in finding opportunities to making this impossibility happen.The following chapter will focus on collaboration and discuss how the design industries and design educators have thought about collaboration. As we will see, what has been largely missing from the discourse surrounding collaboration is a sustained consideration of the transcultural synergy that the preceding chapters have highlighted is so urgently needed.

Chapter 4 - Wickedness 176 We need to design new collaborative models where diverse understandings of society, science, creativity and culture, can work together to find a shared vision for how we might adapt to complexity in a holistic and equitably sustainable way. This is an overwhelming prospect, however design educators in both western and non-western contexts have an important role to play in finding opportunities to making this impossibility happen. 5.0 It may seem that little discussion of collaboration is actually necessary. Collaboration is perhaps one of the most overused of buzzwords in contemporary industrial and educational contexts. But it is an important one. That over-use has emerged out of paradigm shift - we shouldn’t devalue it. However, like the terms ‘design’ and ‘culture’, interpretations of what collaboration means vary and therefore warrant elaboration. collaboration 5.0 Collaboration

In the preceding chapter’s examination of wicked upstream design problems in relation to China’s transformation, we saw that there are a range of factors that operate as both challenges and opportunities for designers and design educators. Disjuncture in communication and understanding in and between the west and China about energy consumption, air pollution and rapid urbanisation were highlighted as quite visible exemplars of the limits to our current potential for shared vision about our collective futures. Although the examples of innovative design initiatives such as SLOC and Interactive Beijing are evidence that designers and design educators are beginning to reframe design as an interdisciplinary platform for social change, as noted by Ruggill & McAllister (2006), the nature of collaboration between disciplines is itself a wicked problem. When we add cultural considerations to this equation the challenge becomes even greater.

The previous chapters have discussed some of the significant issues that must be considered in relation to transcultural and interdisciplinary design collaboration between western and Chinese participants. In this chapter I will focus on collaboration itself, with a particular emphasis on how it might be framed in design education. However, I will not attempt to provide a comparative study of how design is taught in western and Chinese contexts. Given the thesis focus on transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration such an expansive topic forms another area of research. I will begin with some broad definitions of the relevant terminology before focusing on and discussing design and design education as a social process. The role of networked cooperation technologies for facilitating collaboration is then explored in terms of the literature and research in the field. I follow this via discussion of their relative advantages and challenges in relation to transcultural communication and collaboration for design education. The chapter ends with a discussion of a range of emerging themes and complex challenges related to culture and collaboration.

Defining Collaboration

It may seem that little discussion of collaboration is actually necessary. Collaboration is perhaps one of the most overused of buzzwords in contemporary industrial and educational contexts. But it is an important one. That over-use has emerged out of paradigm shift - we

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 179 shouldn’t devalue it. However, like the terms ‘design’ and ‘culture’, interpretations of what collaboration means vary and therefore warrant elaboration. Kvan (2000) suggests that collaboration, “…means working with others with shared goals for which the team attempt to find solutions that are satisfying to all concerned,” and that collaboration can also be defined as an act of joint problem solving (2000, p.410). This is of course very pertinent to design and design education. Donna Wood & Barbara Gray (1991) found, “…a welter of definitions, each having something to offer and none entirely satisfactory by themselves” (1991, p.143). Their analysis of a range of data led them to formulate a revised version of an earlier definition developed by Gray (1989, p.11):

“Collaboration occurs when a group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem domain engage in an interactive process, using shared rules, norms and structures, to act or decide on issues related to that domain.”

(Wood & Gray, 2000, p.146)

Wood & Gray (2000) give particular attention to the role of a convenor in facilitating collaboration (pp.149-154). The facilitation role is important to the success of collaboration in educational and organisational settings. An arguably more nuanced interpretation of collaboration was offered by Mattessich & Monsey (1992) who posited collaboration, “… is used in many ways and has a variety of meanings to different people” (1992, p.10). Their working definition of collaboration was framed as, “…a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organisations…”(ibid p.11). That relationship they argued, includes, “…a commitment to: mutual relationships and goals; a jointly developed structure and shared responsibility; mutual authority and accountability for success; and a sharing of resources and rewards” (ibid p.12).

Bronstein (2003) sought an interdisciplinary understanding of collaboration. Influenced by Berg-Weger & Schneider (1998) and Bruner (1991), Bronstein defined interdisciplinary collaboration as, “…and effective interpersonal process that facilitates the achievement of goals that cannot be reached when individual professionals act on their own” (2003, p.299). The emphasis on interpersonal processes, “…such as cooperation, communication, coordination, and partnership (Bruner; Graham & Barter, 1999; Kagan 1992; Malik & Ashley, 1981) in Bronstein, 2003, p.299) is noted as of particular relevance.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 180 The social nature of collaborative work is a central and unwavering theme in all of these scholarly understandings of collaborative practices. This is in a sense obvious, as pragmatically one cannot collaborate with oneself. As Bronstein (2003) draws to our attention,

“…A culture of collaboration does not just happen. It must be fashioned by many hands” (Seaburn, 1996, in Bronstein, 2003, p.304).

One of the complexities of being definitive about what collaboration actually represents, is the tendency to use the term interchangeably with ‘cooperation’, or even ‘coordination’. Mattessich & Monsey (1992) made useful distinctions (Figure 6) between these terms pointing to the ambiguities created in the differences between practical usage and academic disagreements about the terminology (1992, p.39).

Cooperation Characterized by informal relationships that exist without any commonly defined mission, structure or planning effort. Information is shared as needed, and authority is retained by each organization so there is virtually no risk. Resources are separate as are rewards.

Coordination Characterized by more formal relationships and understanding of compatible missions. Some planning and division of roles are required, and communication channels are established. Authority still rests with the individual organizations, but there is some increased risk to all participants. Resources are available to participants and rewards are mutually acknowledged.

Collaboration Connotes a more durable and pervasive relationship. Collaborations bring previously separated organizations into a new structure with full commitment to a common mission. Such relationships require comprehensive planning and well-defined communication channels operating on many levels. Authority is determined by the collaborative structure. Risk is much greater because each member of the collaboration contributes its own resources and reputation. Resources are pooled or jointly secured, and the products are shared.

Figure 6: Differences between Cooperation, Coordination and Collaboration, Mattessich & Monsey (1992)

Kvan (2000) accords that, although, “…the roots of the words are, of course, frustratingly similar…” (2000, p.410), the distinctions are important to recognise.

“…The Oxford English Dictionary defines collaborate as ‘‘to co-operate, especially in literary, artistic or scientific work’’, deriving from the Latin words col labore , to work along side one another… Co-operation, as the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, is “to work together, act in conjunction (…) to co-operate for (…) mutual benefit” from the Latin co operari, to work with or along side.”

(ibid p.410)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 181 Co-operation, Kvan (2000) points out, is an older concept dating from 1616 (Oxford English Dictionary), while the term collaboration appears in the English language only in 1860. This is also reflected in Mattessich & Monsey’s ideas about collaboration, and might mean collaboration is a more complex process than co-operation.

The notion of ‘collaborative teams’ is a common one in many fields. However, in transcultural design collaboration, the ‘team’ may be a problematic concept. Teams usually have a hierarchy - a leader and team members with well defined and allocated roles.Although The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (Third Edition) and the New Oxford American Dictionary (Second Edition) include definitions of the word ‘team’ as, “two or more persons working together”, both primarily define the term as denoting, “a set of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport”. The allusion to competition inherent in this definition is apparent in most people’s understanding of a team. This has, as we all must have experienced, become a characteristic of teams in most contexts including workplace and organisational contexts.

In the design industry, where used, collaborative design teams generally have team leaders, creative directors or the equivalent of this role. In less consciously hierarchical groups, leaders tend to emerge naturally. The person with the ‘vision’, or the individual with more ‘experience’ in creative contexts may be seen as the leader. Although framed within the context of teams, while introducing the concepts of synergy and sympoiesis, Wood & van Nieuwenhuijze (2006) also acknowledge that,

“…In truly synergistic collaboration, participants do not surrender their viewpoints or compromise their perspectives. It adds perspective to what they know, and offers new meaning in new contexts.”

(Wood & Nieuwenhuijze, 2006, Abstract)

Culturally specific traditions of teamwork pervade the language, processes, hierarchies, and other structures of organisations. In transcultural contexts this can perpetuate the communication disjuncture that is at the heart of the problems this thesis exposes and attends to. Huang (2010), a professional consultant in the business of providing culturally related consultancy services

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 182 Collaboration connotes a more durable and pervasive relationship. Collaborations bring previously separated organisations into a new structure with full commitment to a common mission. Such relationships require comprehensive planning and well-defined communication channels operating on many levels. Authority is determined by the collaborative structure. Risk is much greater because each member of the collaboration contributes its own resources and reputation. Resources are pooled or jointly secured, and the products are shared. to help companies manage business relations between China and the west , indicates such problems are common. Huang frames common cross-cultural problems in teams, as a scenario where,

“…a typical complaint goes like this: the Chinese think their U.S. colleagues focus too narrowly on their own jobs and do not help out each other. And the Americans think the Chinese stretch themselves too thin, are disorganized and unproductive.”

(Huang, J., 2010, http://www.connecteast.net/blog/managing-teamwork-in-us-.html)

As perhaps the respective epitome of high and low context cultures, the Chinese and American cases Huang cites, are very pertinent to this discourse. The origins of such stereotypes are rooted in the cultural backgrounds of the actants and are perpetuated in ways that feed the communication issues and assumptions I have discussed in relation to the broader social and political landscape. The result is a lack of cultural literacy that creates a relational dynamic that erodes trust and diminishes the potential for authentic collaboration and new synergies to emerge. In the context of teamwork within corporate environments, Huang (ibid 2010) argues that the cultural orientation to a person’s role in a team is the most important consideration. The western orientation to team roles is very defined and task focussed (Figure 7). Individuals are seen as high performers if they are able to complete tasks on time and be accountable for results (productivity).

U.S. The U.S. has a tendency towards a project – oriented style. During the project, roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and divided among team members. People meet at regular meetings to provide updates and exchange information. They then go off and concentrate on their own particular tasks.

China China has a tendency towards a people – oriented style. Roles and responsibilities are not quite as clearly defined. When encountering a problem, they reach out to their “friends” / colleagues for help regardless of the person’s role is. They themselves are therefore also the recipients of such requests. As a result, each person can be engaged in multiple projects that compete for their time and resources.

Figure 7: Orientation to teamwork among US and Chinese co-workers (Huang, 2010). (See: http://www.connecteast.net/blog/managing-teamwork-in-us-.html)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 184 Figure 8: Teamwork syles among US and Chinese co-workers (Huang, 2010). (See: http://www.connecteast.net/blog/managing-teamwork-in-us-.html) Huang (ibid 2010) concurs with my earlier observations regarding the importance of relationships and networks in China. Amongst Chinese team members, the team goals are important, the group tend to be project-focussed, and success shared by everyone (see Figure 8). This negates the potential for individuals to attract blame for mistakes or for a lack of performance. In western teams, accountabilities may be traced to individuals, whereas in Chinese teams this is less obviously the case. Interestingly, Huang (ibid 2010) advocates for a blended style of managing cross-cultural teams in the Chinese context, presenting a view that different styles of team approach are suited to particular types of projects.

As I will discuss in the following chapter, these factors are also relevant to an understanding of the cultural considerations design educators must grapple with when designing transcultural collaboration. In a second blog entry, Huang (2010) agrees that the trust quotient is paramount to cooperation in team-based contexts and points out that,

“…research studies have indicated that mutual trust is one of the top issues that stand in the way of successful cross - cultural teams. People do not readily trust others who are different - be it their looks, their languages or their backgrounds. Without trust, teams will not be productive, and partnerships will not be successful.”

(Huang, 2010, http://www.connecteast.net/blog/four-things-you-need-to-do.html)

In education, collaboration is sometimes seen as a ‘difficult’ process. In my experience, this may be especially the case for students. Many of their complaints mirror the concerns about trust that Huang identifies. This can be further exacerbated when participants come from diverse disciplines with different terminologies and modes of practice. But by integrating disciplines, new synergies emerge.

The mercurial nature of design creativity means that clearly defined roles may be more difficult to identify and control. In creative contexts it is common to observe a process whereby each collaborator, regardless of discipline, brings their practice and a critical perspective to the table that contributes meaningfully to the process and the outcomes. C8 Research seeks to combine transcultural knowledge, experiences, and perspectives with interdisciplinarity, in a non- hierarchical and authentically integrative way. This will I argue, permit Metadesign’s potential ‘synergy-of-synergies’ (Fuller, 1975, Wood, 2006) to be realised in new and hitherto unseen combinations. The exciting opportunity is, that despite the work that has been achieved in the

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 186 field to date, we are yet to see much of what the unprecedented collaborative combinations of culture and discipline are capable of producing in terms of design thinking and design education.

Design Collaboration

Although arguably design has always been to some degree collaborative, more recently there has been an increasing focus on collaboration as a mode of practice and education. Notwithstanding this, research into group dynamics has a longer history in fields such as social psychology and education, and consequently there is an abundance of material relating theory to practice in these broader contexts. Similarly, collaboration has attracted attention from, design researchers most particularly within the fields of product design (Chamorro-koc, Davis & Popovic, 2009); Human Computer Interaction (Greenbaum & Loi, 2012), and service design (Magnusson, 2003; Mager, 2008; 2009). Researchers have also investigated the potential for cross-cultural collaboration in digital and remote design contexts (Scrivener & Clark, 1992; 1993; 1994a; 1994b; 1994c; Bourges-Waldegg & Scrivener, 1998; Kvan, 2000; Perry & Sanderson, 2006; Pang, 2011). However, overall there remains a lack of attention on the role culture plays in collaborative design, aside from its potential to influence how users interact with digital interfaces, products, or collaboration technologies.

Research into online or remote technologically facilitated design collaboration has gained importance because globalisation, “…assisted by the now ubiquitous use of technology has driven the emergence of a world wide, digital workplace across most industry sectors, including design.” (McArthur, I., McIntyre, S., Watson, K. 2007). The McKinsey Quarterly (2007) pointed out that, “Much as technological and economic change is integrating capital markets globally, it is also creating a single global market for jobs that can be undertaken remotely”. In the case of designers, this has demanded an expansion of their traditional skill base in order to remain effective and competitive. Although this has not negated the notion of the design process being a reflective dialogue between the individual designer and their practice (Schön, 1985), communication, leadership in collaboration, and the ability to ‘co- create’, are widely acknowledged as key assets in the skill set of design professionals working in, “…the new emerging digital paradigm related to art, design, and technology.” (DiPaola, Dorosh and Brandt, 2004).

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 187 Wang, Shen, Xie et al. (2001) suggested that when a product, “…is designed through the collective and joint efforts of many designers, the design process may be called Collaborative Design (it may also be called Co-operative Design, Concurrent Design and Interdisciplinary Design)” (2001, p. 984). Similarly, the terms ‘co-design’ and ‘co-creation’ have also gained considerable currency. Again however, there is a tendency for definitions of such buzzwords to be ambiguous or complex, despite being widely used. The Design Council (UK) list co-design as being:

A set of tools used by designers to engage non-designers by asking, listening, learning, communicating and creating solutions collaboratively

A community centred methodology that designers use to enable people who will be served by a designed outcome to participate in designing solutions to their problems

A way to design a solution for a community with that community

The process of designing with people that will use or deliver a product or service

A partnership between designer, client and the wider community on a design project

Collaboration on a design project between client, end-user, deliverer and designer

The shift of design power from the client, via the designer, to the end-user

Collective thinking and designing that addresses a community’s issues

Products or services that have been developed by the people who will use them in partnership with a designer

Democratic design: A designer facilitating outcomes instigated by a community

Research based design: A designer taking decisions and delivering solutions based on ideas / feedback from a community

(http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources-and-events/Designers/Design-Glossary/ Co-design/)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 188 Sanders & Stappers (2008) define co-creation as, “…any act of collective creativity, i.e. creativity that is shared by two or more people” (2008, p.6). In their terms co-design is used in a specific manner to describe, “…collective creativity as it is applied across the whole span of a design process” (ibid p.6). Steen, Manschot & De Koning (2011) suggest that,

“In co-design, diverse experts come together, such as researchers, designers or developers, and (potential) customers and users—who are also experts, that is, “experts of their experiences” (Sleeswijk Visser, Stappers, Van der Lugt, & Sanders, 2005)—to cooperate creatively.”

(Steen, Manschot & De Koning, 2011, http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index. php/IJDesign/article/view/890/346#7)

Creative collaboration and co-design are therefore appropriate ways to refer to the kinds of cooperation that C8 seeks to engender. However, the notion of a collaborative ‘design team’, a terminology often referred to in industrial contexts, is less relevant when speaking about collaboration in the context of the C8 field studies where a range of alternative approaches to creating collaborative environments have been tested. This is an assertion I will return to later in this chapter.

Design Education: Collaborative and Cooperative Learning

As we have seen, design problems are increasingly interdisciplinary, wickedly complex, and require more than a visually attractive cloaking, or the arrangement of text and image. Complexity requires that designers and design educators move beyond their traditional understandings of what a design is and what a designer does. Clearly framed design problems set within single discipline-based contexts have typically been relatively simple, and can often be solved by one person, or teams of designers working from a similar skillset and knowledge base. In contrast,

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 189 “There are few sacred prototypes to follow, no best practice for export, no brand names that guarantee quality. Instead approximation and serendipity are the norm – the search for scientific precision is displaced in favour of informed improvisations, practical wisdom, integrated thinking and good judgement based on a shared sense of justice and equity, and on common sense. (Hamdi, 2004) as we saw in the previous chapter, the emergent upstream context of design requires a shift in approach that encompasses diverse, often non-discipline specific knowledge and processes running in parallel.

There are enormous implications for the design curriculum. Traditionally, designers are not usually trained to deal with the increasing complexity humans face. They are typically trained to design commercial products and environments, create visual communications and brands, and to develop web platforms, apps, and services. The overall objective of the design school has been to make graduates industry ready so they are able to go out and participate professionally in the commercial world. Critically however, in an increasingly post-disciplinary world, this is an outcome and an agenda that leaves design professionals and design educators facing serious questions about how we transform the profession so it remains relevant to the needs of societies and able to make meaningful contributions to visioning sustainable futures.

The agenda of C8 Research is to frame a collaborative mode of design education that promotes an ethos recognising our societal, cultural, urban, technological, human, and biological interconnectedness. It is critical that design educators from non-west and west collaborate on the project of producing design graduates equipped to work in ways that promote shared futures in concert with the living systems of earth. This mode of working would generate as yet unexplored combinations of knowledge to stimulate new synergies and generate change. This may appear idealistic, utopian, and many would argue unrealistic, in its ambition. The point is, it is vitally important to begin somewhere. In a discourse most pertinent to this argument at the heart of C8 Research, hacktivist Otto von Busch (2008) cites Hamdi’s notion of ‘the small change’. The strategic line of small change is seen by von Busch as a, “…special approach on how to do things” (2008, p.253). By following a design-led, bottom up approach we begin to see what works. As von Busch (2008) puts it,

“…Small change encourages small-scale initiatives, even without any plans to enlarge them or make them a part of a larger ideology. Most importantly it encourages people to get hands-on, to start immediately and to develop the practice through small experiments along the way. For the development practitioner Nabeel Hamdi, the small change is a feasible scale from which things can grow, and we need to study and work with methods on this scale to understand it better...”

(ibid p.253)

Like Wood, von Busch divines the potential, “…to create possibilities for emergence and synergies between small projects” (ibid p.253). It is through the creation of small organisations that larger organisations and movements are embraced and impact to create lasting change. Working in this way there,

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 191 -

ICOGRADA World Design Conference 2009 (Images: Beijing Design Week Reveiw, Central Academy of Fine Art, 2009)

Image: Studio interaction, eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) “…are few sacred prototypes to follow, no best practice for export, no brand names that guarantee quality. Instead approximation and serendipity are the norm – the search for scientific precision is displaced in favour of informed improvisations, practical wisdom, integrated thinking and good judgement based on a shared sense of justice and equity, and on common sense.

(Hamdi, 2004, p.xxii)

Equally important is the acknowledgement that there is much to be optimistic about. Optimism is a quality that is essential to the design practitioner and by implication, the design educator. This does not however mean that the designer should not be a realist. Despite the crisis, optimism and realism are not mutually exclusive. In line with this perspective, Manzini (2008) puts forth the idea that,

Being a designer means being an optimist: given the problems, all the problems even the most difficult, all we can do is to presume there is a possibility of solving them, not because we cannot see the difficulties (designers must also be ealists),r but because we have no alternative. To be designers we must make proposals, and we cannot but base these on such opportunities as we come across…It seems to me that, faced with a world drifting rapidly towards catastrophe, we need this designer realism-optimism more than ever. We have to see the problems, but also to think that in spite of everything, it is possible to solve them; we must get down to finding solutions.

(Manzini, 2008, p.1)

It is clear that optimism is a part of the designer’s skillset otherwise humans would not design, especially under the current global circumstances. We have to begin somewhere with this in mind. Manzini, Penin, Gong et al. (2010) position the design school as the laboratory of the new. Their argument is that the realisation of shared visioning requires that we recognise that design schools can act as free design agencies, promoters of diffuse design skills, investigating, activating, facilitating, envisioning, systematising, enabling and communicating social innovations.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 193 Manzini (2010) situates the role of designer as operating increasingly within a, “…broad, open and collaborative research program” (2010, p.11), seeking to implement sustainable socially orientated solutions where, “…the positive interplay between technological and social innovations could become a powerful promoter of sustainable ways of living and producing” (ibid p.9). Given the realities of neoliberal ways of framing the world in terms of a purely economic logic, it may be up to design educators to envisage viable alternative practices that do not limit design to the problematic industrial context. Such strategies will involve developing the potential for designers to engage with diverse disciplines and cultures in the design of, “…new economic models, new production systems and new ideas of well-being” (ibid p.8). This will necessitate an essentially cooperative and social model of practice where the actors involved in design processes, learn to create new synergies that produce a greater potential for collaborative openness.

Collaborative learning refers to an instruction methodology where students at various performance levels work together in small groups toward a common goal. The students are responsible for one another’s learning as well as their own. Thus, the success of one student helps other students to be successful (Gokhale, 1995). Vygotsky (1978) stated that in collaborative activities, students are able to perform at higher levels of cognitive functioning than when working alone. Problem solving strategies are also improved (Bruner, 1985) through cooperative learning approaches as the students get to experience differing perspectives and interpretations of the given situation. Peer interaction and support enable students to assimilate the knowledge and to engage their critical thinking capacities andtransform them into, “tools for intellectual functioning” (Gokhale, 1995, p.28). Dillenbourg (1999) holds that cooperative learning,

“…describes a situation in which particular forms of interaction among people are expected to occur, which would trigger learning mechanisms, but there is no guarantee that the expected interactions will actually occur”

(Dillenbourg, 1999, p.5)

In his view (ibid p.8) members of a group cooperatively divide the work to be carried out, solving sub-tasks as individuals to then regroup and assemble the components they have developed into a cohesive final outcome. The interaction between the partners occurs in

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 194 this manner synthesising the different knowledge and strengths that members of a group contribute to enhance the learning process. Dillenbourg & Schneider (1995) further established that collaborative learning occurs in situations, “…in which two or more subjects build synchronously and interactively a joint solution to some problem”. In collaborative learning, the extent and quality of the exchanges between students are emphasised as the important factors (Curtis & Lawson, 2001). In Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers (2006), Dillenbourg’s ideas are also cited, but with additional reference to Roschelle & Teasley (1995), who described collaborative learning as,

“…a process by which individuals negotiate and share meanings relevant to the problem-solving task at hand… Collaboration is a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem”

(Roschelle & Teasley, 1995, p.70).

This is a significant distinction, because it posits learning not as an individualised activity with a group setting, but as a social process. Although the group is comprised of individuals, the negotiation and sharing of information - the collective construction of knowledge to create shared meaning, is central to the process. Therefore as Stahl et al. (2008) suggest, “… collaborative learning involves individual learning but is not reducable to it” (2008, p.3).

That design too is a social process, is a widely accepted view in the field of design research (Amabile, 1983; Berger & Luckman, 1987; Bucciarelli, 1984; Chung & Whitefield, 1999; Cooper & Love, 1993; Cross & Cross, 1996; Dilnot, 1982; Dorsa & Walker, 1999, 2001; Papanek, 1984; Margolin and Margolin, 2002). As noted by Love (2003), the view of design creativity as a social or collective activity accords closely with constructivist ideas about knowledge construction. Although often thought of and discussed in terms that suggest it is a solely individual attribute, creativity does not exist in isolation. Rather it emerges out of a context. More explicitly, this context is derived from the, “…relationship between an individual and the world…as well as out of the ties between an individual and other human beings” (Fischer, 2004, p.152). The socio-cultural context shapes the individual’s creativity through ongoing interaction and experience (Engeström, 2001). This social dimension

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 195 to creativity requires a sufficiency of open-endedness and complexity to ensure adequate opportunity for reflection and learning through iteration. The iteration inherent in design processes emerges out of a critical process of reflection based on experience, observation, and testing (evaluation). Collaborative learning within design is therefore highly appropriate in the development of critical skills that enable students to access opportunities to, “…use higher order thinking skills and problem-solving skills in the construction of their ideas about practice” (Slotte & Tynjälä, 2005, cited in Chan et al., 2007, p.193).

As we have seen, the contemporary landscape of practice already requires skills and understandings that shift the emphasis of the role of a designer toward more collaborative modes of working. The complexity of upstream design problems requires communities of practitioners, rather than individual designers to create solutions (Fischer, 2004; VanPatter, 2005). Moreover, designers can no longer sustain their position as guardians of a set of mysterious, ‘magical’ processes that result in a design solution tailored to fit a client’s needs. Design thinking has become fashionable in business and business education, particularly in the USA and Europe, with business schools incorporating design subjects into their programs. It may, as some argue (VanPatter, 2009) be a case of change, or lose credibility in terms of professional leadership as other disciplines co-opt what has traditionally been seen as the realm of the designer. When working with agents from diverse disciplinary backgrounds we increasingly see the skillset of the designer redeployed as a facilitator of a range of processes that encompass a diversity of inputs. Despite these quite tangible shifts, the correlation between the design teacher as facilitator, and an increasing need to educate students about the transformation of the designer’s role towards that of a facilitator of diverse inputs, is less apparent than it should be in design school curriculums.

The global design and innovation company IDEO is very clear about the kinds of graduates needed and how this can be achieved. Their assertion is that higher education needs to realise the importance of interdisciplinary practice and work across disciplines, universities, and industries to increase the value of student’s experiences. IDEO maintain that institutions should teach rapid visualisation skills in association with the design methodologies required for large projects. Designers must be able to work with diverse agents from diverse disciplines and cultures, and be able to learn and adapt quickly to the circumstances, languages, and codes pertinent to the design problem and the situation. Moreover, this balance of problem framing

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 196 methods, and agile communication capacities, must be achieved while maintaining the craft skills of design students.

“Above all, higher education institutions must teach designers to be good learners. …IDEO hires those who demonstrate the ability to learn quickly. Projects often do not allow or demand that IDEO designers become 100% experts in a client’s area of expertise. Instead, IDEO designers must get up to speed quickly on enough of the issues while leveraging their design expertise...”

(Stillion, D., IDEO, 2000, p.34)

There are inevitably shortfalls and inadequacies in the education students receive. The skills they need to effectively work in the emerging upstream paradigm of professional practice are not necessarily the ones that are emphasised. Openness to change on the part of design schools and industry is essential in order to cope with the increasing complexity of the global terrain, and more evolved skill sets are needed to address challenges the design profession faces. Whereas designers and design schools have often worked within distinct silo-like disciplines, there is a real need for increased emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches. Further than this however, as Buchanan (2004) confirms, “…Design is no longer a self-contained discipline that can exist in isolation. Designers must understand and work closely with colleagues in other disciplines” (2004, p.35). This requires designers to be more adept at posing the question of ‘how’ a solution might be reached rather than conceptualising ‘what’ the end product might be (or look like).

VanPatter (2005) suggests that, “…the old days of linear processing,” are over, and where the designer was typically the stylist or “form giver” employed at end of a project, we are now seeing environments where all stakeholders are involved in parallel processes requiring an interdisciplinary approach from the outset. He argues that the key question today is whether designers actually have the skills to participate in, or lead complex projects. Design education has not been agile in responding quickly to the implications of these game-changing paradigm shifts. C8 Research augments VanPatter’s concerns by asserting the additional need to address the level of cultural literacy design graduates possess as they emerge into our hyper-networked world of wicked challenges.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 197 Collaboration and Technology

Design education can play a crucial role in fostering thought leaders who will be the facilitators of change in the world during the coming decades. As the rapid expansion of online education attests, a platform for delivering globally transformative social and culturally orientated education will more likely be achieved if it is assisted and facilitated through networked technologies. This is the territory of global information flows and the site where many young people around the world already reside.The ubiquity of the Internet, increasing use of online education, and the rise of social media would seem to support this assumption. I want to establish however, that C8 Research is not about technology. It is about relationships. Nevertheless, digital technologies do have an important role to play in making collaboration possible, and for it to happen in novel, exciting, and social ways.

There is now a plethora of digital technologies and collaborative tools that the educationalist might use to create project-based learning that brings design students together to co-create at local or global scale (Lauron, 2008). The development of cooperation technologies has been, and remains, extremely rapid and providing a definitive list may well be futile. C8 Research was initially founded on the use of simple web-based technologies to foster collaborative interaction. The role of the network permeates C8 Research as a technological facilitator of communication between students in diverse cultures and locations. This thesis argues that it is essential that design educationalists harness collaborative technologies for the purpose of bringing western and non-western students together to work collaboratively, share culture and develop mutual awareness of the communication challenges they will continue to face. Key to this is the question of how we build the levels of trust required to engender social change at local and global levels through the development of collaborative networks.

As most educators will know, there is an ever-increasing focus on the educational potential of online technologies. There has been much discussion about the potential of technology-assisted collaboration in learning. Much of the literature on collaboration in contemporary educational contexts is focussed on the challenges, pragmatics and opportunities of using online technologies in the classroom or as educational spaces in

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 198 themselves (Zhang, 2007; Chen & Mashhadi et al., 1999; Mäkitalo-Siegl & Zottmann, et al., 2010, McArthur, 2008, 2009, 2012); McArthur, McIntyre & Watson, 2007; Bonk et al., 1998, 2003, 2004; McIntyre, 2008, Hrastinski, 2008; Raban & Litchfield, 2009).There is intense interest in this field from around the world, and the potential of using the Internet to facilitate global learning online is widely recognised.

A signifier of this interest is The Global Education Conference1 , an event that broadcasts annually to a live audience dispersed across the planet. Described by its organisers as, “…a collaborative, inclusive, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels.” (http://www.globaleducationconference.com/), the event attracts a remarkable level of interest from the education sector. In 2013, the conference reported “…300 general sessions and 20 keynote addresses from all over the world with over 13,000 participant logins” (ibid 2013). The event harnesses global conferencing software (Blackboard’s Elluminate). This platform features powerful interaction features that technologically assist the display of presentation slides, audio sound, video conferencing, and live chat. The level of interaction possible is a rich reminder that the increasing accessibility of digital tools distinguishes the expanded possibilities of 21st Century learning, from the constraints of the past. To date, although the level of participation from around the world has been impressive, it is pertinent to note that there have been no presenters representing design education initiatives, and few references to design thinking are made. The conference has however given a voice to educationalists concerned that,

“…The modern education system is fulfilling only a small part of its main oler – to prepare us to face life in all its aspects and challenges. Throughout the years, while we invest most of our efforts in changing the education system by various programs, reforms, professional committees and improvements, one thing remains the same – us the teachers and the way we perceive ourselves and the world. Our perception creates the way we live in the world, and this experience is what we convey to our children and students. Expansion of our perception and consciousness is the key for the education revolution we are all looking after – and technology can play a key role in it.”

(Faibish, 2010, Global Education Conference)

1 Refer to: http://www.globaleducationconference.com/

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 199 That such a conference is possible and so well supported, is indicative that amongst educationalists many recognise that networked technology has created a lot of potential for global learning. Moreover, within this, the potential for collaboration between students in diverse cultures is manifestly apparent.

However, having the tools to collaborate does not necessarily mean you can collaborate effectively, or creatively. Online learning has long been a hotly debated topic amongst educationalists, particularly at higher education levels, and there has been much resistance to it from teachers. This has been the case in design faculties as much as any other field. It is however clear, that digital cooperation tools have become increasingly sophisticated, and provide student and teachers of all disciplines, a mechanism to experience aspects of other cultures should they choose to. The common challenge we share as educationalists in preparing a generation of digital natives is how to leverage the potential of this capacity. The ability to experience the reality of others in the world is a powerful tool for a generation that must be globally literate in order to survive and thrive.

When considered in the contemporary social context characterised by increasing use of social media, mobile technologies, and greater mobility more generally, design educators have an unprecedented opportunity to use these tools to frame design activities that function to adaptively engender empathy, and empower students through collaborative social action. This is however fundamentally dependent on the desire on the part of educators and institutions to engage in what is necessary to make this happen. As technology continues to saturate our everyday lives in ever more pervasive ways, the potential of collaborative learning increases. With the rise of social media, collaboration has become an imperative of sorts. Lovink (2007) illustrates what is increasingly apparent in our everyday experience by stating that,

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 200 “From cell phones to email, multiplayer online games, free software and open source production, social networks, weblogs, and wikis - our everyday lives are increasingly enmeshed with technology in which collaboration is constitutional and not merely a free option for the bored.”

(Lovink, 2007, p. 181)

From an educational perspective, Knezek (2010) argues that the Darwinian evolution of digital environments enables teachers to use strategies to reach students and immerse them in a deeper learning process through transformed learning environments that in turn transform the student experience. The transformative potential of the networked education space leaves us with the question of how we might achieve a space where diverse entities might collaboratively interact constructively, positively, and effectively in the connectivity between their respective cultural contexts, understandings, and cosmologies.

Liz Danzico (2010) observes that, “[C]reativity only exists in plural — there are many different ways to invent something new — and must always be understood in its cultural context” (2010, p.2). Similarly, cultural contexts shape expectations of what happens in educational processes both online and offline, and this has significant implications for the possibility of transcultural collaboration regardless of the disciplines being studied. There are however a considerable range of culturally aligned issues regarding the implications of introducing of new teaching technologies that may inevitably challenge cultural traditions and historical notions of culture (Ziguras, 2001).

Culture and Collaboration

As highlighted by Chen & Mashhadi et al. (1999) it is important to acknowledge that technology itself is no panacea for enabling an easy transition into educational activities for transcultural learning in any field. In their assessment of designing technologically- enhanced learning systems, “The pervasive influence of culture should be regarded as a significant concern…” (Chen, Mashhadi, et al. 1999, p.217). There is much to consider, and educationalists must remember that, “…an effective learning environment involves more than the use of technology - culturally mediated interaction and perseverance toward a shared vision

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 201 is an essential part of the learning process” (ibid p.228). Within the framework presented in this thesis, technology plays an important enabling role, but it is leveraged as a component within a pedagogic approach that emphasises the importance of culture, and does not promote the use of technology for its own sake.

When considering the range of issues faced in online and blended collaboration between students in Australia and China, C8 Research has found that student expectations of learning environments, individual learning styles, language and cognition, and the pedagogical approaches students are familiar with, have all become important areas for deliberation. It has for example, been widely documented that most Chinese classes are lecture based and students are less accustomed to participatory discussion. Students therefore participate quite actively mentally, but not necessarily with their mouths. Often the discourse of participation is strongly resisted by Chinese students (Mingsheng Li, 1999). In contrast, student-centred western teaching styles assume students will participate with their mouths, or in the case of online learning by participating in discussions. This forms a significant cultural difference at least in terms of perceptions about how learning happens.

In discussing the cultural dimension of information and communication technologies in Asian education systems, Zhang (2007) observes that indeed, educationalists from both western and Asian societies are using information technologies for a diversity of pedagogical purposes in their diverse cultural contexts. Zhang claims that even though, “…cultural differences are often subtle” (2007, p.301) observing and understanding variations assists educators to understand the limitations and opportunities this creates, and can inform the development of a more “… culturally adaptive approach to learning technology innovation.” (ibid p.301) Elaborating on the processes one might encounter in the Asian educational context Zhang observes that,

“On the spectrum of instructivism vs. constructivism, the Eastern learning culture locates nearer to the extreme of instructivist philosophy than the Western learning culture. Holding a belief that education should pass on what great minds have already discovered, Eastern schools have historically emphasized knowledge acquisition.”

(Zhang, 2007, p.308)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 202 Such tendencies are also reflected in Parish & Linder-VanBerschot (2010) who cite Friedman (2007) in stating that despite an apparently increasing global ‘flatness’ there is actually considerable cultural diversity amongst students generally (2010, p.2). This is to at least some extent an understatement. Despite globalism the cultural diversity of human societies is rooted in deep cultural values and modalities of thinking and being. Nisbett (2003), is cited by Parish & Linder-VanBerschot as noting that culture is likely to be inseparable from learning processes. Parish & Linder-VanBerschot, further reiterate that,

“A growing appreciation of cultural diversity is demonstrated by more than its acknowledgement and tolerance, but also by a desire to preserve that diversity as a valuable asset for addressing the many challenges faced by the global community now and in the future. Additionally, one can recognize a strong desire to preserve diversity in response to the threat of loss of cultural identity in the face of globalization and because of the benefits of community cohesiveness through unique cultural expression (Mason, 2007).

(Parish & Linder-VanBerschot, 2010, p. 2)

Societies do not have cultures they are cultures (Chen, Mashhadi et al, 1999, p.121). Inevitably, cultures have differing ‘world’ perspectives and assumptions about how to learn, live, and be in the world. Galtung (1977) refers to these as cultural and cognitive codes that are deeply embedded in specific civilizational forms as social cosmologies.

In many non-western contexts educational paradigms are more teacher-centered than western learning and teaching models and this can present significant constraints on collaboration. In instances of transcultural collaboration, this is not so surprising, as historically, western styles of education have attracted significant suspicion within Asian contexts as an inappropriate challenge to educational traditions (Zhang 2007; Ziguras 2001). Here too however, there are some apparent contradictions.

The Eastern tradition seeks harmony, order and well-being in a society by underlining social obligations of individuals and classes, who should behave in line with the social expectations of their social roles, spanning from seniors to young children, from governors to common citizens, for both male and female (Huang,

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 203 2002). Hence Easterners are more in favor of collectivism, urging individuals to surrender their own genuine interests for the sake of the well-being of the collectivity, being that a family or a state (Huang, 2002). This cultural tradition, together with other social factors such as economical structures, political systems and population pressures, has shaped a group-based, teacher-dominated, and centrally organized pedagogical culture.

(Zhang, 2007, p.302)

In western design education systems the emphasis is typically on the facilitation of learning as a student-centred process. This frames the teaching function as a meta process involving the design and management of meaningful experiences to motivate and stimulate students thinking and action, through immersion in project based, ‘real world’, or experiential situations. Although influenced by western education, the effectiveness of educational use of online technologies as a means to create dialogue and promote collaboration, may not yet be as appropriate in Asian contexts where, “…education has traditionally been more tightly structured and teacher-directed” (Ziguras, 2001). Friesner & Hart (2004) assert that in China, where the demand for online education is rapidly increasing, western educationalists need to be sympathetic to local modes of education to avoid infringement of cultural values. Ziguras (2001) further highlights, that in Asian contexts the cultural considerations required to create an effective transnational form of educational delivery have proved very problematic.

Since it emerged during the late 1980s, transnational higher education in Asia has commonly involved western educators teaching in unfamiliar cultural contexts using educational approaches developed for students from their own culture. Typically, very little attention or effort to tailor teaching for students used to very different modes of teaching has occurred (Kelly & Tak, 1998; McLaughlin, 1994; Wells, 1993). Belchamber (2008, p.63) for example, holds the position that too much attention to culture limits consideration of other factors in the educational environment and process. Concerned with the proliferation of cultural stereotypes about Asian students, classrooms and systems, Tsui, (cited in Graddol, 2006) also points to how Asian countries are redefining their cultures and this is occurring at the level of the individual as well. One might counter this somewhat by pointing out that all cultures are in an ongoing state of evolutionary flux.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 204 Bonk & Kim (2002), and Bonk & Wisher (2000) did acknowledge the role of culture in in their examination of collaborative modes of online learning. This has contributed to discourse about the construction of knowledge online, and the links between social interactions, and critical thinking. Kim, Kim, Park & Rice (2007) conducted a study into configurations of communication relationships in Korea through face-to-face, email, instant messaging, mobile phone, and SMS media. Aoki & Aydin (2006) suggest different cultural groups respond well in learning environments that offer media corresponding to cultural mores, values and modes of understanding the world. The situation remains however, where, as Chase, Macfadyen, Reeder & Roche (2002) suggest, despite, “…rapid advances in information and communications technology (ICT) approaches to networked learning, relatively little is known about actual experience in the field using these technologies to facilitate communications between individuals and groups from different cultural backgrounds” (First Monday, Volume 7, August 2002). The research into cultural factors impacting on online education and collaboration to date has really just established that the need for further empirical research is essential as industry and education become more global.

Robust theories about the implementation of effective transcultural collaborative learning – especially in the field of design, have not been established, and therefore the discourse has remained inevitably one of generalisations, assumptions, and cultural stereotypes. Nguyen, Terlouw & Pilot (2005) assert that despite the proven characteristics of collective tendencies in Confucian CHC such as China, Korea and Japan,

“…it does not necessarily follow that all forms of cooperative learning will surely succeed within a CHC environment. As a result of ignoring, stereotyping and underestimating cultural and educational characteristics, in CHC countries, the implementation of constructivism and one of its applications—cooperative learning—has ended up in failures, suspicion or re-sistance.”

(Nguyen, Terlouw & Pilot, 2005, p.403)

Although it has been clearly established in psychological research (Bond, 1986, 1991, 1996), socialisation studies (Lau & Yeung, 1996), and education studies, (Biggs, 1996; Watkins & Biggs, 2001) that there are distinctive cultural impacts on thinking and learning which emerge from early patterns of socialisation and education paradigms, individual differences must

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 205 always be taken into consideration (Jin & Cortazz, 1998, p.740). These factors affect the dynamics of collaboration in learning both within and between cultures.

Complexity, Metadesign, Synergy

The challenge for design educators is to design new platforms that utilise collaborative technologies in ways that bring students from diverse cultures together in new and relevant ways for the purpose of exchange and co-design. Matt Ridley (2010) thinks that despite the risks, the collaborative digital space is a site where contemporary creativity occurs. He responds to those counselling caution by asserting that,

“…now, thanks to the Internet, ideas can meet and mate globally and instantaneously like never before. What else is crowdsourcing but working with one another? The cross-fertilization of ideas between, say, Asia and Europe that once took years, decades, or centuries can now happen in minutes while Australia, the Americas, and Africa eavesdrop. The cloud is for everybody, whereas in the old days the sharing of ideas was reserved for the privileged elite. There is, as Stanford economist Paul Romer has argued, not even a theoretical limit to the number of combinations of atoms and electrons we can devise, and the rate at which we devise them is bound to accelerate.”

(Ridley, M., 2010, http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662632/when-ideas- have-sex)

Online collaboration between communities, whether they are communities of practice (CoP), communities of interest (CoI), or local communities, implies a sharing of information, ideas and resources via a network of connections. The idea of sharing has proved enduring in C8 Research. Issac Mao (2008), an entrepreneur and social activist in the social networking space, proposes the concept of Sharism as a post-capital ontology that increases porosity between public and private space online and offline through sharing. The issue of trust was flagged earlier, and as we will begin to see in the next chapter, sharing builds

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 206 trust, and is an essential ingredient in successful collaborations. The proposition Mao (2008) puts is that non-sharing culture misleads us with its absolute separation of our sense of private and public spheres. It makes creative action a binary choice between public and private, open and closed. Mao (2008) argues that although the theory of Sharism is, “…eclipsed by the many pragmatisms of daily life,” (2008, http://freesouls.cc/essays/07-isaac-mao-sharism.html) it finds its root in the field of neuroscience. Mao says that neural networks exist for the purpose of sharing activity and information, and in doing so, their processes present us with a viable model of the brain that can act as inspiration and a metaphor for, “ideas and decisions about human networks…” (ibid 2008). This is analogous to Nieuwenhuijze & Wood’s observation (2006) that,

“…Humans are integral part of humanity (humans can be compared to the ‘cells’ of the ‘body’ of humanity). Symbiosis is a natural aspect of our existence. Synergy can therefore be seen at many levels of our symbiosis as a culture.”

(Nieuwenhuijze & Wood, 2006, p.18)

At this point, another useful connection might be drawn to Chuen-Ferng Koh’s exploration of the potential of the Internet and networks as a holistic ontology. Koh (1997) brings a Deluzian perspective to his argument that,

The connections of a network seem to give it a quality of cohesion, so that it is neither a collection of isolated parts nor a strictly bound unity, but somewhere in between. In this in-between state, disparate elements begin to take on the ontological status of a singular entity, and the emergent characteristic of this entity is a shade of selfhood: self-regulation, self-governance, self-organization, and even self-perpetuation.

(Chuen-Ferng Koh, 1997, http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/jfk/ thesis/nch2.htm)

More pragmatically, Barrett (1996, p.12) is cited by Koh to establish his general definition of the Internet as, “…a global pool of information and services, accessible by means of locally executed interface software” (ibid. p.12). Koh augments this description of the Internet

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 207 saying it can be further characterised as being comprised of connections between “…physical machines working in conjunction with TCP/IP, a common ‘metalanguage’ or protocol, channelling information through various media” (Chuen-Ferng Koh, 1997). But of course, as the description of the Internet widens we discover we are actually dealing with,

“…nodes of all descriptions: personal home pages, government bureaucracies, movie databases, library catalogues, e-mail discussions, commercial interests, non- profit organizations — all in different languages…”

(ibid.)

We can forgive the omission of the educational here for the moment, because we have also discovered that we are encountering, “…something very like Deleuze & Guattari’s “… throng of dialects, patois, slangs, and specialized languages” (1987, p.7). Chuen-Ferng Koh (1997) argues the structure and components of the Internet as described in Barrett’s definition, help illustrate the complex form of the Internet as corresponding to Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomic multiplicity. Deleuze & Guattari (1987) describe a multiplicity as consisting of a

conglomeration of points that can be seen as a rhizomatic whole2. They assert that within this whole, the singular (the one) does not have a useful value except as part of the many (Chuen- Ferng Koh, 1997). Koh substantiates his claim that the Internet is a multiplicity by alluding to the situation where,

“…[N]obody knows how many people use the Internet, because ... it is a network of networks” (Negroponte, 1996: 181). Secondly, it does not sit well as a set of countable elements to begin with — for it is not a one; it is not even a many, but a one composed of many. Thirdly, many computers need to be connected before they become a multiplicity. The Net is just such a collective entity, a whole made up of a multiplicity of elements... all multiplicities within multiplicities.”

(ibid 1997)

The relevance of these propositions to C8 Research lies in a number of interrelated ideas. Firstly, and most practically, the Internet is the platform that most expediently facilitates the possibility of transcultural design collaboration. Conceptually, as the preceding paragraphs

2 This is discussed extensively in Deluze, G., & Guattari, F.,(1987) “A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 208 attest, the Internet can be holistically framed as a metaphor for human interconnectedness. Some researchers have begun to discuss the global network in terms of a, “…distributed intelligence emerging from the worldwide ICT network that connects all people and machines.” (N. D. http://globalbraininstitute.org/). Bernstein, Klein et al. (2011) discuss the potential and the challenges of what they describe as ‘the global brain’. They argue that as a concept it is, “…already important and likely to become truly transformative in domains from education and industry to government and the arts” (2011, p.1). C8 Research takes the position that perceiving our intercultural relationships through the lens of the network and the space of flows (Castells, 2000) permits us to move beyond the redundant and ultimately destructive dichotomous, binary perspectives of west and non-west I have discussed extensively in the preceding chapters. These are omnipresent forces that constrain the potential for designers and design educators from different cultures to collaboratively leverage their hybrid perspectives to address complex upstream problems. Such binaries simply prevent many design educators from even attempting to approach these opportunities and challenges. As Bernstein, Klein et al. (2011) observe however, the difficulty for all humans lies in our inability to reliably program the global brain (2011, pp.1-4). Couched in the disciplinary context of the programmer they identify apt metaphors that, “…reflect how people and computers can work together in the global brain…” (ibid p.2). These notions are resonant with the Metadesign thinking that underpins this research. They list their metaphoric notions regarding the global brain as:

1. An idea ecology – The global brain can host a constant ferment of idea generation, mutation, recombination, and selection, analogous to biological evolution.

2. A web of dependencies – Many important problems (such as product, process, and policy definition) can be viewed as collaborations, where multiple diverse agents try to solve interdependent pieces of a larger problem.

3. An intellectual supply chain – For some problems, we can view the global brain as a supply chain, where a sequence of tasks and information flows among people and machines can be specified in advance.

(ibid. p.2)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 209 When we release our dependence on the binary in relation to language, as we might in the moment when we are forced to communicate with another who does not speak our own language, we discover there are other ways to communicate, to share, and to understand. The complexity of the rhizome abandons the binary principle of dichotomy precisely because self-contained dichotomies prevent connections with other domains thus limiting communication and collaboration. The rhizome permits and facilitates the extension of links to, “…diverse modes of coding (biological, political, economical, etc.) that bring into play not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of differing status” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p.7). When considering the critical, complex issue of language in transcultural design collaboration, the C8 field studies have revealed that something like Deleuze & Guattari’s propositions (1987) about language in the context of the rhizome occurs. When we release our dependence on the binary in relation to language, as we might in the moment when we are forced to communicate with another who does not speak our own language, we discover there are other ways to communicate, to share, and to understand. As Chuen-Ferng Koh (1997) puts it,

“A rhizomatic study of language thus actively explores actual social spheres in which there is no single universal language, no homogeneity, but a complex interaction between all the articulatory modes, “not only linguistic, but also perceptive, mimetic, gestural, and cognitive” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.7)”

(Chuen-Ferng Koh, 1997, http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/jfk/ thesis/nch2.htm)

Interestingly, “…the majority of Internet traffic these days is in Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese, but little of this seems to flow into the dominant Anglo-Western understanding of ‘Internet Culture’…” (Lovink, 2007). Deleuze & Guattari’s allusion (1987) to diverse modes of coding in relation to a more open and universal understanding of language permits design educators, should they desire it, to engage in critical, creative responses to the challenge of language in collaborative contexts. Wood (2008) argues that Metadesign can, and should, be deployed to interpose at the level of language because it,

“…informs cultural values, and these inform aesthetic norms. Aesthetics helps us to experience the world in particular ways. All of these processes guide different behaviours, habits and trends”

(Wood, 2008, p.5).

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 211 Pragmatically of course, language is also a significant determiner of knowledge transmission and in the case of C8 Research, the level of sharing, and effective, creative collaboration that might be possible. Although this will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter, it can be noted here that the potential for collaboration is not contingent on language alone. Moreover, there are potentials for new languages of design to be forged in the process of transcultural collaboration. By working collaboratively on perceived boundaries such as language new synergies may form that are unprecedented, because of our historical imperialist hierarchies and binary understandings assumptions, and prejudices about people, cultures and the world.

Synergy, “…the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects” (The New Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition), is an essential ingredient for co-design and collaboration. Synergy is not dependent on hierarchy. C8 Research suggests that in order to realise authentic transcultural design collaboration, it is critical that the processes of co-creation be as free as is possible of hierarchical structures. Hierarchies within transcultural forms of co-design can tend to replicate the dynamics of colonialism. The communication disjuncture perpetuated by the assemblage of neoliberal economics, global politics, and communication flows that I have discussed in the previous chapters have made authentic collaboration between west and non-west appear to be a somewhat unattainable idealism. Designers and design educators most particularly, because they are less constrained by the cycles of commerce, “…can ‘language’ the opportunities for change by redrawing the known boundaries of what ‘is’ ” (Wood, 2008, p.5).

Transforming design education

At the beginning of the 21st Century it is very difficult to discern the overarching characteristics of the complex world we live in. Edmund O’Sullivan (2001) observes that humans are living on the cusp of a defining epoch possibly more momentous than the shift from the medieval world to the modern world. Correspondingly, the

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 212 educational frameworks we envisage must address the needs of students around the global community as we enter into unparalleled change. We need to be bold because to survive this watershed moment our education systems must be, “…visionary and transformative and clearly must go beyond the conventional educational outlooks that we have cultivated for several centuries” (O’Sullvan, 2001, p.391).

In the post-modern context, the grand narratives that present themselves as the one true story of the past, present or future are now largely viewed with suspicion (O’Sullivan, 2001, p.318). In congruence with the Metadesign ethos, C8 Research argues that the transformation of design education inherently requires us to begin to articulate new desires, tell new stories and to share new visions. These visions have to be realised in close collaboration with each other. This poses designers and educators a particularly significant challenge because,

“…We need stories of sufficient power and complexity to orient people for effective action to overcome environmental problems, to address the multiple problems presented by environmental destruction, to address the massive nature of human destructiveness, to reveal what the possibilities are for transforming these and to reveal to people the role that they can play in this project…”

(O’Sullivan, 2001, p.319)

Unlike the traditional model of design education, a Metadesign framework implies a radical transformation of education to a mode that is not merely based on principles aligned to the objectives of the marketplace and the growth of economic outputs. As O’Sullivan (2001) observes, the single-mindedness of the market economy ascendant within the broader spectrum of education has to date had an, “…incredible morbid affect on the lives of peoples all over the planet” (ibid p.319). In optimistic contrast, C8 Research seeks to deploy a mode of design education that emphasises cultural, social and idea ecologies over product design, collaborative synergies over individual silo-based practices, and openness to fostering a greater ‘diversity of diversities’ (Wood, 2007). Design educators can no longer engage in the degraded and exploitative neoliberal agenda that limits the scope and potentiality for new shared visions that do not correlate with it’s demands and shareholder interests. The existing imperative for design education to produce ‘industry-ready’ graduates must be countered and transcended to circumvent the inevitably constraining pursuit of more of what we currently have.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 213 Metadesign is a potentially corrective path for transforming design education. It permits a holistic, biological, and self-organising sensibility that already aligns with contemporary design’s attention on, “…information flow, on networks of actors operating at many levels and exchanging the information needed to balance communities of systems” (Dubberly, 2010, p.1). The ethos of Metadesign offers design education the opportunity to provide leadership in the creation of new formulations of education where the dominant correlation between development and market are challenged. Design educators must elevate their pedagogy towards an integrated co-visioning approach rooted in the presumption that all living systems and beings (O’Sullivan, 2001), “… are always in dynamic states of growth, decay and transformation” (O’Sullivan, 2001, p.319). C8 Research argues that a collaborative transcultural and interdisciplinary framework would maximise the capacity of global design education to manifest in transformative, synergistic forms that engage inclusively with diverse communities to co-design more resilient, wiser and self-sustaining urban and social outcomes.

This design narrative must be modest, ambitious, collaborative and inclusive of multiple and diverse voices. Enabled by the infrastructure of the Internet, we are now in an unprecedented position to work towards an integrated approach to a transcultural educational vision that will contribute to the raising of a design culture cognisant of it’s place in the Gaian cosmology (Lovelock, 1972, 1975) humans blithely exist within and continue to destroy. This form of holistic visioning has significant potential to inform design education and practice to a profoundly transformative extent. O’Sullivan (2001) posits ideas in a broader context that resonate strongly with this argument.

“…When we are talking about contemporary creativity; we note that it consists of activating, expressing and fulfilling the universe process, the earth process, the life process, and the human process within the possibilities of the historical moment. Our own historical moment demands that we come to grasp with the self-regulating autopoietic processes of our planetary system. As humans, we are now in need of a consciousness that allows us to see our own self-regulation within the larger autopoietic processes of the earth which is our matrix. Integral human development allies the deepest development of the primordial self with the deep structure of the cosmos.”

(O’Sullivan, 2001, pp.322-323)

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 214 Aligning with this perspective, C8 Research proposes that self-generating resilience within our human cosmologies (Crinion, 2008) will be more attainable if the cultural constructions ‘east’ and ‘west’ are deconstructed, resolved and brought into an equitable balance. The more that this process is embraced by education, the more likely it is that our globalised, urbanised and networked societies, cultures, and industries will act in concert to design and develop holistic future planetary solutions to our wicked environmental and social challenges.

At the level of the individual design student, the transformation created in the transcultural collaborative process can be profound and surprising. Wood & van Nieuwenhuijze (2006), allude to this in their discussion of sympoiesis in the context of co-authorship. They define sympoiesis as, “…an act of co-creation in which an insightful meaning emerges spontaneously or unexpectedly from the collaborative process” (2006, p.94). Wood & van Nieuwenhuijze (2006) suggest that in the act of co-creation,

“…true sympoiesis may be characterised by a ‘eureka’ moment, or by a sense of ‘flow’ (Cziksentmihalyi, 1990) that seems to eclipse other, more mundane experiences. This is a moment of “Collapse of the State”, in which complex understanding is simplified in a new integrative perspective.”

(Wood & van Nieuwenhuijze, 2006, p.94)

Sympoiesis was also discussed by Dempster (1998) in her theorising of sympoietic systems as the, “…emergent collective agency of systems with capabilities to co-organize, co-design and co-produce” (cited in Houghton, 2013). Initially conceived as a useful counterpoint to Varela & Maturana’s concept of autopoiesis (1980) where a living system is a self-generating, self- defined agent, Dempster (1998) argued that sympoiesis - constructed from the Greek words for collective and production - could be characterised as cooperative and amorphous (1998, p.4).

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 215 However, in the context of a transcultural framework for design education, a mobilisation of sympoietic co-operation would inevitably be contingent on our desire to be responsible for our desires, as suggested by Maturana (1989). Such a dramatic global pedagogic transformation could only be realised if we as design educators resist the status quo and foster desire for authentic co-operative development of transcultural literacies as a key graduate attribute. C8 Research highlights how shared vision could be possible if design education widely instigated programs where transcultural literacy and communication is combined with an emphasis on interdisciplinary co-creation focussed on social and ecological innovation and intervention, rather than managing the supply chain of graduates prepared to maintain our unsustainable preoccupation with rationalist, economic growth.

C8 Research asserts that when fruitful, the transcultural and interdisciplinary collaborative encounter actually transforms behaviour, cultural values and attitudes, and produces new aesthetic responses to the environment. Framed in ways that encourage design students to use their skillsets to make collaborative interventions that test their practice (Goodwin, 2009) in unfamiliar contexts, new forms of synergy are more likely to emerge in response to a design brief. This in turn, results in design experiments that can seed change over the long term even within the design student themselves. In a relational sense, successful collaboration in the transcultural context also seeds synergies in the future practice of the participants in ways that would otherwise be unattainable.

This chapter has sought to frame collaboration as it pertains to this research. I have established a focus on collaboration, co-design and cooperation in education via a discourse that has inevitably led to deliberation on the role of technologies, the influence of culture, and an exploration of how networks might be interpreted through analogy and metaphor. The relevance of complexity theories, autopoiesis, and living systems to collaborative design education and the wicked challenges humans face was discussed in relation to an optimistic agenda for transforming design education. I have also alluded to Metadesign’s emphasis on synergy and sympoiesis. This has led us to the point where, within the preceding chapters the significant considerations facing design educators wishing to create transcultural collaborative spaces have been outlined. This has served to contextualise the C8 field studies that will be introduced as the focus of the next chapter.

Chapter 5 - Collaboration 216 6.0 I initially instigated COLLABOR8 (C8) 设计吧 (pronounced Shè Jì Ba in Mandarin Chinese) with Annie Morrad, Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln School of Art and Design in the Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of Lincoln in 2003. The project aimed to challenge design students from universities and colleges in Australia and China to collaborate online in ways that reflect contemporary networked creative practices. field studies 6.0 Field Studies

Overview

The preceding chapter discussed collaboration and its attendant range of imputations for transcultural and interdisciplinary design education in a world characterised by ever-increasing interconnectedness, conflict, social and ecological crisis. I argued that despite its wide usage and currency across most disciplines collaboration is complex in both theory and practice, and in interdisciplinary and transcultural design contexts, a wicked problem in itself. Collaboration and related terminology were discussed in terms of issues related to teams and cultural tendencies in collaborative environments before examining creative collaboration in the more specific context of design. My deliberation on collaborative learning in design education established substantial reasons why collaborative research in design education is critical for transforming the role of designers through education designed to seed new ways to address complex problems. This served to highlight the need for preparing design graduates with collaborative skills in interdisciplinary and transcultural modes of practice and the increasingly important role of collaborative technologies in learning as exemplified by the Global Education Conference.

Having argued that culture influences collaboration in learning, I introduced evidence of ongoing problems with transcultural educational partnerships. This was delineated by pointing to inappropriate modes of transcultural education deployed by western universities in Asia. Here, the need for further research in the area was emphasised. I suggested that theoretical approaches to transcultural collaboration, informed by Metadesign, would help foster the development of synergy between diverse cultures. This was framed in relation to the networked world of the Internet, sharing, language, and notions of a global brain that are emerging in the computer sciences. Should they desire to embrace this constellation of interrelated ideas and apply them, design educators can begin to implement more sympoietic approaches to seeding design collaboration. I now turn my attention to discussing the three field studies that evidence my research.

This chapter describes, documents and discusses an iterative sequence of three field studies conducted under the nomenclature and ‘brand’ of The COLLABOR8 Project (C8) during the

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 218 period 2008-2011. C8 takes its premise from a fundamentally social and cooperative view of design practice. I initially instigated COLLABOR8 (C8) 设计吧 (pronounced Shè Jì Ba in Mandarin Chinese) with Annie Morrad, Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln School of Art and Design in the Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of Lincoln in 2003. The project aimed to challenge design students from universities and colleges in Australia and China to collaborate online in ways that reflect contemporary networked creative practices. Like myself, Morrad had taught extensively in China, and at the time the C8 platform was launched was based in Shanghai working as a design educator while I had returned to Australia to take up a position as Head of Art and Design at The North Coast Institute of TAFE. Each subsequent C8 project has represented the collaborative input of a significant number of international academics, artists, architects, designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, programmers, writers and other consultants.

Using a narrative approach I will focus on highlighting the issues, circumstances, observations and key findings emerging from the studies conducted. This is achieved primarily through a detailed narrative of the educational programs, processes and structures developed for each of the three studies. The research material contained in each field study presented in this chapter draws on papers published in international design and design education conferences in China, Europe and South America between 2008 and 2013. Reflecting the iterative design methodology employed throughout the research process, this chapter establishes key themes that highlight the findings and insights that emerged within each field study. For a comprehensive discussion of the qualitative methods used throughout this iterative action- based design research refer to the methods subsection contained in Chapter 1.

Field Study 1 (Creative Waves 2008 – Collabor8) focuses on a fully online approach with an examination of the types of media the different cultural groups tend to prefer. It also highlights the different learning and teaching styles expected by Chinese and Australian students and provides data on how each group used and felt about the media and the online environment. It examines problems encountered because of language difference and divergent culturally embedded expectations of education environments. It discusses examples from the student projects that emerged and what I will refer to as the multiple realities of the participants.

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Image: Omnium website used to promote and recruit participants to C8 2008 (Screenshot) Field Study 2 (e-SCAPE Studio) is concerned with a blended approach using an online environment and an intensive face-to-face studio in Shanghai at Donghua University. It examines the emergence of boundary objects that students use to negotiate language differences. It also highlights the effectiveness of blending online tools and immersive face- to-face studio as a means to generate the crucial levels of trust required for real collaboration. This is used to illustrate how it is possible to address the issues of transcultural collaboration and the transformation that is possible when collaborations go well. I also discuss aspects of four successful collaboration projects within the e-SCAPE Studio.

Field Study 3 (Rare Earth: Hacking the City) examines the potential of responsive environments and social media as intensive studio mechanisms for transcultural collaboration. It also highlights the challenges of transcultural collaboration at the institutional and political level and how clear lines of culturally sensitive non-hierarchical communication and participation are essential. Other challenges for cross border projects in bureaucratic processes and culturally based perceptions of collective projects are covered. The notion of co- languaging for design thinking is also explored in the context of this study.

Although the field studies are structured according to themes emerging from each project’s process and circumstances, two additional overarching, interrelated themes are present throughout the research. The first relates to the role of networked communication technologies in mediating both the relationships between the participants in each field study and the creation of the design outcomes produced. Secondly, in each field study the process of sharing alluded to in the previous chapter’s discussion of Sharism (Mao, 2008) is a consistent, positive element. As I will demonstrate, structured and mediated sharing of ideas, life experiences, personal and professional interests and culture in the form of images and stories provide crucial tools for establishing the level of trust necessary for effective transcultural design collaboration to occur.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 221 6.1 Initially, this study was seen as a vehicle to examine the relationships between cultural background, cognition and media types in transnational collaborative online design education. The study however revealed a more complex interplay of internal and external dynamics suggesting disjuncture existed in many students’ understanding of how to collaborate regardless of media used to deliver the lectures and briefs in the project.

field study 1 6.1 FIELD STUDY 1 - Multiple realities, divergent expectations

Background and aims

Field Study 1 critically reflects on a transcultural collaborative design initiative carried out in partnership with the Omnium Research Group and COFA Online at The College of Fine Arts

(COFA) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW). Creative Waves 2008 – Collabor81 was hosted by The Omnium Research Group and promoted internationally to participants and public as a platform to,

“…create awareness about the importance of cross cultural design practice by challenging students to work together to design surface graphics for sustainable applications in the development of contemporary ceramics, textiles, products and environments.”

(http://www.omnium.net.au/research/projects/)

The Omnium Research Group2 was in 2008 comprised of artists, designers, programmers, writers and academics working collaboratively to explore the potential of the Internet for online collaborative creativity (OCC) (Bennett, 2007). Established in 1999 The Omnium Research Group had been a leader in research into OCC, “…through a series of fully-online creative projects involving researchers, academics, professionals and students from all around

the globe” (http://www.omnium.net.au/research/)3. During the period 2006-2013 C8 Research has also been closely affiliated with COFA Online an academic unit (established 2003) at COFA. COFA Online has been responsible for the development and management of thirty fully online undergraduate courses, and an online multidisciplinary postgraduate degree. In recent years COFA Online also developed blended undergraduate courses for implementation

1 I will refer to this field study as C8 2008 from this point. 2 Refer to http://www.omnium.net.au/research/ 3 See Appendix 2A

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 223 presents

Australian and Chinese design students working together online to establish new ways of producing environmentally friendly, sustainable and cross-cultural graphic design.

Image: Promotional material C8 2008 (Design: Ian McArthur) Initially, this study was seen as a vehicle to examine the relationships between cultural background, cognition and media types in transnational collaborative online design education. The study however revealed a more complex interplay of internal and external dynamics suggesting disjuncture existed in many students’ understanding of how to collaborate regardless of media used to deliver the lectures and briefs in the project. across the COFA’s various schools. COFA Online has specialised in propagating innovative online learning and teaching approaches to offer students educational experiences that parallel evolving work practices in the creative industries. Teachers and students in COFA Online courses have been dispersed widely around the globe and as such recognition of the need to develop culturally sensitive approaches is high. COFA Online was also responsible disseminating their expertise in online learning and teaching via innovative online resources for educators wishing to integrate online teaching into their pedagogy. This has culminated

in the innovative Learning to Teach Online platform4. The program was funded as a research platform for observing the interactions of ninety-four visual communications and graphic design students from Australia and China over an eight-week period. The aims of the study were to:

• examine the impact of cultural background on the effectiveness of the online learning experience by determining cultural preferences and tendencies regarding the use of media.

• identify which media are more effective in improving student cognition of course materials across cultures.

• propose key considerations for design of online course content in regard to media for transcultural delivery.

Initially, this study was seen as a vehicle to examine the relationships between cultural background, cognition and media types in transnational collaborative online design education. The study however revealed a more complex interplay of internal and external dynamics suggesting disjuncture existed in many students’ understanding of how to collaborate regardless of media used to deliver the lectures and briefs in the project. Language, divergent student expectations, different levels and styles of knowledge production, and outside forces such as the Sichuan earthquake, are important areas of focus exposing what might be described as multiple realities within the project. This is apparent in the differing levels of intercultural experience, confidence and motivation to collaborate exhibited by students across five sub-

4 Refer to COFA Online Gateway: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto- episodes

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 226 cultural groups comprised of those located in Mainland China, Chinese students being educated in Australia, Australian-born Chinese (ABC), Australian Anglo-Caucasians, and students from other Asian and CHC being educated in Australia.

Online, cultural factors are widely recognised as being significant impediments to effective learning and teaching. Digital environments diminish visual, auditory and environmental cues to communication and therefore understanding, even amongst those of similar cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the potential for problems to arise should be uppermost in the deliberations of educationalists preparing online course material to be offered in collaborative, transnational contexts. In the case of C8, diverse complexities emerged refocusing the research agenda. This is in itself not surprising. Galloway (2008) suggests that, “…Not only are researchers challenged to identify multiple and shifting contexts, we will inevitably re/position ourselves in the process.” Galloway’s observation of the fluid and inherently experimental nature of research, accords with the ongoing experience of working on C8 Research over the past decade. This, as much as the literature in the field, suggests that the issues involved in developing effective transcultural collaborative online learning remain unresolved due to the inherent complexity in facilitating such an endeavour.

The acknowledgement that students should develop skill-sets that include cultural literacy aligns with broader graduate attributes pertaining to global citizenship that are embedded in UNSW learning and teaching policies. These state that UNSW strives to educate graduates as global citizens who are: (1) capable of applying their discipline in local, national and international contexts and (2) culturally aware and capable of respecting diversity and acting in socially just/responsible ways (UNSW Graduate Attributes 2010). This implies students should be exposed to situated experiences where they are required to adapt their actions, attitudes and practices to culturally unfamiliar circumstances.

A strong case for the importance of acknowledging and leveraging of such qualities in design graduates has been made throughout the chapters of this thesis. In terms of the larger agenda of the university system to produce industry-ready graduates, the challenges become amplified by the position of China as integral to the global economy. This has increased the urgency for the development of a culturally based design education for both eastern (sic) and western design students (Buchanan, 2003). However, although the need is apparent, the reality of

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 227 facilitating online educational experiences related to transcultural design collaboration remains problematic.

A wide range of responses were received after a call out for project participants (Figure 9) accompanied by meetings and presentations at Fudan University, East China Normal University, Donghua University in Shanghai, and The Communication University of China in Beijing. The meetings with faculties in China demonstrated that there was interest in the project from academics and they were willing to try and support the project in any way they were able to. Lectures were arranged so students could be informed on the opportunity to participate in the project and the students attending these events responded with some enthusiasm. Applications were received from 94 students from Graphic Design and Visual Communications programs in China and Australia.

Based on the processes deployed successfully in COFA Online undergraduate courses the applicants were placed into twelve teams comprised of individuals from both countries evenly distributed throughout. This proved to be a significant structural factor and the subsequent field studies used different strategies to encourage collaboration placing less emphasis on making teams and collaboration compulsory. The project had by the time of it’s launch attracted participants from art and design programs at universities and colleges in China and Australia including: Donghua University (DHU); Fudan University (SIVA); East China Normal University (ECNU); Jinan University School Of Applied Design; Shandong University Of Art & Design; Wuhan University; Beijing Institute of Technology; Beijing Communication University Of China (CUC; The University of Sydney; The University of Technology (UTS); and Raffles University in Sydney. The levels of involvement and commitment were diverse and ranged from small numbers of students participating in the projects through interest, to students enrolled formally into elective subjects.

The level of curiosity in C8 as a collaborative online platform from Chinese academics and students correlates with documented observations (Deng 2004; Ngor 2001; Wang 2007) that online education in China is seen as a potential panacea for the significant challenges that the government faces in meeting the demand for education. This is most particularly the case across the central and western regions of the country. Zhang (2005) confirms that as early as 2003, China was preparing to, “…leverage distance education to reach a broader audience

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 228 http://creativewaves.omnium.net.au/c8

Figure 9: Announcement calling for participation in the Collabor8 Project 2008 through the Internet” (2004, p.22). This is explicitly linked to economic development in the country (ibid). In this regard, as was illustrated in Chapter 2, design education is also seen as a high priority in China. Wong confirms that,

“…the central government is developing a design policy to help China move beyond a manufacturing economy and forward in implementing cross-disciplinary education and bridging left- and right-brained thinking. As in other sectors, schools are beginning to train a new wave of design managers “with Chinese characteristics” who can apply design thinking in a context that fits China’s commercial and political landscape.

(Wong, V., Bloomberg Business Week, Special Report, September 30, 2009)

The involvement of interdisciplinary creative professionals is crucial within the C8 framework. C8 2008 attracted involvement from academics and practitioners based in Australia, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and the United States who participated as lecturers, mentors or content providers. The project participants included representatives of De-Luxe & Associates (Sydney), Futurebrand (Australia), IDEO (Shanghai), Superflux (London), Lev Manovich (Los Angeles), Andy Polaine (Offenburg), Leong Chan (Sydney), Espen Sivertsen, (Copenhagen), Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (London), and design author Steven Heller (New York) and intercultural consultant Angela Chang (Sydney) who contributed their own content or acted as mentors participating in discussions with students during the studio process.

Structure and Processes

Whereas the earlier iterations of C8 (2003 - 2004) had utilised email, MSN and html as online technologies to facilitate exchanges between students and teachers in each country, C8 2008

employed Omnium Software™ 5 as the delivery platform (See Figure 10) for all aspects and phases of the online project. As an interface Omnium is accessible, easy to use and provides digital tools for online discussion, establishing team areas, providing downloadable resources, live chat, galleries, links, and file sharing.

C8 2008 deployed a pedagogic approach compatible within the educational and research cultures of The Omnium Research Group. This was achieved by adapting the model for OCC

5 Omnium Software: http://www.omnium.net.au

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 230 presents

“设计吧”项目是什么？

新南威尔士大学美术学院(澳大利亚) Omnium 研究中心正式成立了“设计吧” COLLABOR8 (C8)。“设计吧”是一个非盈利 的网上设计教育项目，项目将持续八个星期。 此项目是为了在澳洲大学和中国大学之间用互 联网进行设计和艺术合作项目打下基础。

“设计吧”项目向设计专业学生提出挑战，考验他们如何共同 COLLABORI 完成当代陶瓷、纺织品、实物和环境设计里的图式设计方案。 28 .April- 20 June 2008 提高对跨文化设计实践的重视性是本项目的目的之一。

“设计吧”项目是为谁准备的？ 澳大利亚和中国设计系学生在 “设计吧”项目向设计专业学生提出挑战，考验他们如何共同 互联网上共同合作创造具有持 完成当代陶瓷、纺织品、实物和环境设计里的图式设计方案。 续发展性的跨文化的图式设计 提高学生对跨文化设计实践，以及可持续发展的设计方案的重 视性是“设计吧”项目的目的

http://creativewaves.omnium.net.au/c8

“设计吧”项目什么时候开始？

“设计吧”项目计划在2008年4月28日开始，2008年6月20日结 束，共计8个星期

Image: Chinese language version of Collabor8 2008 Flyer (Design: Ian McArthur) developed by Bennett (2007) to accommodate the focus of C8 (see Appendix 2A). This proved to be an important decision that shaped C8 2008 in ways that provided a structure but also presented some constraints. The OCC model is comprised of five discreet phases: (1) Access and Socialisation; (2) Gathering; (3) Identifying; (4) Distilling and Abstracting; and (5) Resolving. Each phase of the OCC model requires students to respond to a design brief that contributes to their final collaborative project outcome. It is a clear and rational structure for delivering content to a cohort of online participants.

Throughout the five phases of this program, lectures were provided in a range of media formats including PowerPoint, audio podcast, video, text and image, .pdf and html. Design briefs requiring either individual or group responses were released at the beginning of each phase. The twelve teams of students involved were invited to respond to the design briefs using a range of media. Data was collected over an eight-week period and triangulated through observation of behavioural indicators (quality of engagement, participation, use of media types and levels of collaborative interaction), student interviews, and integration of targeted research questions into discussion points. An online questionnaire gathered qualitative and quantitative responses to questions on aspects of cultural background, cross-cultural design education; levels of cognition and participation; accessibility; preferences for media used in C8; aspects of collaboration in C8; and general feedback. Evaluation responses were gathered from twenty-one participants who completed the project.

Phase 1: Socialising In the initial phase of the project, participants were provided access to the C8 project website (See Figure 10) and asked to post a personal profile accompanied by a photograph or avatar. They could also upload examples of their work into an online portfolio. These simple socialising tasks familiarised them with Omnium’s technical interface and the process of online communication. News items were posted most days to announce new content, deadlines and instructions.

Even at this early stage of the project it became apparent that, in the words of one Mainland Chinese participant, “…there are some culture difference, some people are not used to post their profile online…” The Australian students in the project

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 232 tended to be more forthcoming and confident in posting information about themselves, their lives and their work.

The initial focus of interactions was on information sharing about Chinese and Australian culture through text and image. Within a designated timeframe of one hour on a specific day, all participants were invited to create a sequence of photographs illustrative of their location and culture. The success of this socialising task is evident in the diverse array of images posted in response. Strategies for effective collaboration and communication, and insights into cross-cultural experiences were then provided, and a game designed to encourage team interaction and collaboration formed the second activity. The task to ‘redesign’ a chair as a team elicited group and individual responses and it demonstrated in principle that, transcultural online collaboration was ‘possible’. It also highlighted the potential for problems to arise because of conflicting demands on time, communication breakdown, and varying understandings of the nature of the task.

Phase 2 – Gathering Participants were asked to find examples of graphics, products, environments, services, brands etc. they found inspirational, innovative and sustainable. They were encouraged to write briefly about their research and give feedback to each other. Lecturers and mentors also offered feedback and students had the opportunity to respond. The outcomes of this research activity built up to become a strong visual reference, but critically the level of actual discussion was often limited. It is impossible to calculate whether this would have remained the case because circumstances in the project spiralled out of control, stymied due to an unforseen external event in China of catastrophic magnitude. On May 12, 2008, the devastating Sichuan earthquake occurred significantly impacting the behaviour and focus of most participants in Mainland China, and altering the direction and nature of the project.

Phase 3 – Identifying The project process shifted at this point to focus on identifying sustainable design attributes by developing a set of criteria or considerations for sustainability. Participants also began individually to propose ideas for sustainable outcomes responding to a brief encouraging them to focus on their own interests and skills to develop a design concept. They were asked to select two preferred media from options including text, image, video, and animation, audio or interactive media to present their design proposal in a manner understandable to their peers.

In actuality this activity bled into the following phases with students taking longer than the two weeks allocated to this phase to post their responses. Responses from the Chinese students by this time had become

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 233 Figure 10: C8 2008 website, screenshot, 18 June 2008. Data was collected over an eight- week period and triangulated through observation of behavioural indicators (quality of engagement, participation, use of media types and levels of collaborative interaction), student interviews, and integration of targeted research questions into discussion points. An online questionnaire gathered qualitative and quantitative responses to questions on aspects of cultural background, cross-cultural design education; levels of cognition and participation; accessibility; preferences for media used in C8; aspects of collaboration in C8; and general feedback. Image: Student post (Australia) - C8 2008 (Phase 1 Socialising) more sporadic. Academic staff at Fudan University indicated that after the earthquake many students were given separate and additional earthquake related design projects that were understandably seen as a higher priority. Communications with other participants in Shanghai indicated that the magnitude of the event had greatly impacted on the population of the country as a whole, and a general dislocation of focus, activity, and motivation had occurred. The Chinese government also formally established a period of mourning. The C8 2008 design brief was subsequently augmented so students had the opportunity (as an option) to develop design solutions addressing the human need that had arisen so dramatically. This reflexive strategy was successful with several teams beginning to research, brainstorm and identify potential earthquake related design solutions.

Phase 4 - Distilling and Abstracting The collaborative nature of Phase 4 asked teams to discuss their design proposals and collaborative working process, passing information and files between each member and mentors for critique and amendments. One team proposed a design concept for a post- earthquake school. The collaboration in this team is evident in the discussions, posts and the project outcomes. In contrast other teams developed responses in collaborations that did not necessarily reflect the transcultural aims of the project in geographic terms. Rather these collaborations were amongst students from a range of cultural backgrounds located in mainly in Australia.

It became evident during this phase that there was a core group of students across the teams who were motivated, capable and confident enough, to continue to engage with the project. The teams were rationalised and reconfigured with active students grouped together and inactive students placed in teams still able to participate and access the project material should they wish to. Statistical data from the website indicates many Chinese students in ‘inactive’ teams continued to log in to the project but chose not to actively participate.

Phase 5 – Resolving The primary objective in the closing stages of C8 2008 was the collaborative resolution of the design concepts that had been developed in active teams. This was to be presented as a concept, model or prototype and posted using two media in a manner understandable to the whole group. The participants developed their projects in ways that must be acknowledged

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 237 Image: Student post (China) - C8 2008 (Phase 1 Socialising) as both individual and collaborative. In some instances collaboration was between students in Mainland China working with students located in Australia. In other instances collaboration was between students based in Australia only. Where students found they were unable (or were unwilling) to collaborate, the work posted reflects an individual effort.

Evaluation Phase The final evaluative phase asked participants to reflect upon the 8-week online process and to post feedback about their experience. An online questionnaire gathered qualitative responses to questions on aspects of cultural background, cross-cultural design education; levels of cognition and participation; accessibility; preferences for media used in the project; aspects of collaboration in C8; and general feedback. Data was gathered from the responses of twenty- one participants who completed the evaluation.

Culture, Media and Cognition

Responses to the evaluation revealed there was a diversity of sub-cultural groups in the project including those from Mainland China, Chinese students being educated in Australia, ABC, Australian Anglo-Caucasians, and students from other Asian and CHC born or being educated in Australia. It is therefore simplistic to identify the groups as ‘Chinese’ and ‘Australian’ in terms other than geographic location. The preliminary findings indicate that Australian respondents exhibited higher levels of ambivalence toward the format in which content was presented. Correlating with studies suggesting that Chinese youths experience the web more intensely than western peers (Doctoroff 2007), CHC students were more decisive in their preferences for particular media types than their Australian counterparts (See Figure 11).

Fig.11: Student preferences for media types used in C8 online lectures.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 239 Amongst CHC students, image files and .pdf documents were most popular followed closely by web-based material. Text files were the least favoured by this group. For the Australian students, text and image files were favoured followed by online media.Audio was more popular in China but both groups were equally ambivalent towards video as a delivery media. Responses indicated that accessibility was an important consideration related to media in terms of both downloading lectures and presenting information. Students in C8 2008 generally had access to broadband connections while on campus, but this dropped to approximately fifty percent off campus.

CHC student: it took me so long time for me to download mp3 file on my internet connection so I more prefer lectures to be PDF format.

CHC student: …Even though I wanted to upload video or audio file, it took me forever me to upload…

It is important to note at this juncture that the rapid evolution of Internet, broadband and mobile technologies since 2008 is clearly evident in the second and third field studies. By the third field study in 2011, students were uploading video in the context of C8 far more easily and quickly.

Language in C8 2008

It is difficult to establish the extent to which language differences were a factor in the levels of cognition of lectures, briefs and the interactions between the participants in C8 2008. By Phase 3, news items and discussions had generated large amounts of textual information primarily in English. From the outset C8 was promoted as being conducted in English and was seen by teachers and students in China as an opportunity to practice the use of written communication in English within a relevant professional context. Yi’An Wu (2001) indicates the importance of English at all levels of education in China cannot be overstated (2001, p.191). Millions of Chinese students take English language courses,

“…4 class hours a week, 18 weeks a term, for 12 terms in high school and 4-8 terms at university. For those not majoring in English, the goal is to function adequately in English at work, but not many have developed the necessary competence.”

(ibid p.191)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 240 Wu cites Qin (1999) arguing that despite the fact that English language education in China is a large business undergoing reform, more work needs to be done to meet the needs generated from China’s rapid development. Alongside implications in the areas of the economy, science and technology this also prevent China, “…from increasing contact with the outside world” (Qin, 1999 cited in Wu, 2001, p.191). Throughout C8 2008 translation assistance was available and accessible to all students. Rather than not communicate, students in China were also encouraged to express themselves in their own language. Responses from participants to questions about their level of understanding of the lectures, briefs and discussions in C8 suggest that most strongly agreed or agreed that they understood the material (see Figures 12 & 13).

Fig 12: Student responses on their level of understanding of lectures, briefs and discussions in C8 2008.

Fig 13: Student responses regarding language and cognition in C8 2008.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 241 Of interest is the response from Chinese participants to questions on how language was a factor in their understanding. The mixed responses confirm the bilingual capacity of Chinese students but equally imply that language is an important consideration. It was noted by one Chinese academic that the real challenge in relation to language was not to the students but to their teachers who found the level of English difficult and this impacted on the level of support they might offer.

Academic (Shanghai): “The biggest problem may be the language. NOT FOR STUDENTS BUT FOR TEACHERS. Chinese students usually rely on teachers more than the western. Most of the teachers can’t understand the project because of language then can’t participate it so well. Students only do it by interest of course won’t continue it well. I think you’d better get some important teachers’ support.”

This observation alludes to an aspect of language that is very significant as a constraint within a teacher-centred CHC context. The corresponding inability of most westerners in C8 to communicate effectively in Chinese was equally a limiting factor foregrounding the need for effective accessible translation. As one participant from Shanghai observed,

Participant (Shanghai): i think language is a big problem

Participant (Shanghai): and also chinese education style is too different also cause the problem

Despite these real concerns about language and culture as the dominant challenge to communication and collaboration in C8 2008, responses from Australian students suggest that informally, and outside the C8 interface, levels of communication between Chinese and Australian students using MSN were much higher and more frequent than inside C8 itself. This ‘back channel’ became a means for students to communicate, form friendships and discuss the project outside C8. Via this channel of communication, Chinese students are reported to have expressed confusion about C8. This suggests other factors (other than language) were also influencing the situation while simultaneously highlighting the potential for ‘real time’ or synchronous channels of communication to build collaborative transcultural people-to-people interactions.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 242 Academic (Shanghai): “The biggest problem may be the language. NOT FOR STUDENTS BUT FOR TEACHERS. Chinese students usually rely on teachers more than the western. Most of the teachers can’t understand the project because of language then can’t participate it so well. Students only do it by interest of course won’t continue it well. I think you’d better get some important teachers’ support.” Participant (Sydney): Although my team didn’t work together on the final outcome (as far as I know) we did a lot of chatting about our ideas via msn

and the chat function.6

Research into the role of language and communication within transcultural online communities is lacking. Even where participants in a community are bilingual the specific meanings of words (especially terminology) may be unclear (Cassell & Tversky, 2005). Cognitive structures are affected by cultural cues as well as language and this is likely to impact students’ ability to collaborate despite bilingual ability. This again points to the important role of mediators or translators. Translation services are however highly specialised, and in many instances it is difficult to locate translators well versed in the terminology or conceptual underpinnings of a particular creative discipline. Translation services are also expensive and need to be well budgeted for.

We can assume therefore that language is a crucial factor in the varying levels of collaborative engagement between the participants in C8. In transcultural collaboration projects such as C8, there are significant challenges for effective communication. Collectively, all participants in C8 2008 faced transcultural communication challenges. Design students from China experienced the opportunity to practice and develop their English language skills in communicating to native speakers. Australian design students experienced the challenge of communicating clearly and also of listening closely and actively to what was being said or not said. These are the skills required of anyone who seeks to engage with a cultural context such as China. Fortunately as C8 demonstrates, language difference is not so much of a challenge that it prevents engagement. As the out-going Australian ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, Dr Geoff Raby noted in 2011 while addressed a meeting of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Beijing,

“The good news, for those of us who struggle with the language, is that speaking Chinese is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being ‘China literate’. To be sure, it is an immensely valuable asset when dealing

6 Omnium Software features an instant (synchronous) chat function

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 244 with the Chinese. But to say that to work effectively with China and the Chinese one needs to speak the language is to set the bar too high. It runs the risk of deterring serious engagement.”

Dr Geoff Raby, ‘What does it mean to be China Literate?’, 18 May 2011.

These observations accord not only with my own experience of Chinese society but also tend to reflect aspects of the qualitative data gathered across the three field studies presented in this thesis. Undoubtedly, all the participants were challenged by language and other culturally based and circumstantial issues which emerged in the project. This is in fact the whole point of undertaking such a project - to learn about, understand, develop strategies and working practices that support collaborative transcultural processes for design.

Culture and expectations of learning environments

In addition to the challenge of language, the concomitant and complex issue of cultures within classrooms become important considerations because of the different styles of teaching usually experienced by both groups of students. Student, teacher and mentor expectations of what happens in classrooms appeared in C8 2008 to be reflected in how they approached the online environment. The pedagogy of C8 is based on holistic and student-centred approaches to learning and teaching, and key to the design of the project was its flexibility and open- endedness. This educational methodology entailed a reflexive, dialogical approach that, in itself introduced a dynamic where discussions in C8 became characterised by differing levels of complexity. Discussions about the lecture material were more focused and academic in nature amongst the lecturers, industry representatives and postgraduate participants with lively debates emerging on several fronts - particularly on the topics of sustainability and branding. By contrast undergraduate level discussion focused around the realities of making the project happen and was more generally conversational and practically orientated.

The discussions areas had two principle functions. Firstly, they formed a global area for conversation that was used to stimulate participant responses to the lecture content. After each lecture was released, focussed ‘Talking Points’ related to the topic or issue covered in the lecture were created. Participants were encouraged to respond with comments, opinions, new perspectives and links to related material they found online. Secondly, within each team a discussion area was used to facilitate group interaction and a collaborative focus at each point in the program that this was appropriate. As the design briefs were released, threads were created that focussed student attention on the task and provided a venue for collaborative

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 245 interaction. Students were also able to begin threads of their own in this area should they wish. Each team had a lecturer or a mentor who was responsible for facilitating its progress.

The goal was that students, lecturers, mentors and industry guests would interact in both discussion spaces. Over time the actual transactions that occurred in each discussion space took on particular characteristics increasingly indicative of the particular users attracted to them. These interactions highlighted the existence of sub-communities identified by (among other attributes) the depth and amount of discussion and responses to events, or in contrast, by their relative silence. The divergent levels of experience, skill, function and status between the agents in C8 form a complex dynamic shaped also by culturally embedded understandings of what is appropriate or indeed possible in terms of communicating. Organisational structures of all kinds including those in educational contexts in China, “…are very hierarchical and ‘status gap’ is a key consideration” (McArthur, 2007, pp.26–38).

Chinese students in C8 2008 did not assert their individual opinions to the foreign academics and designers involved. Concurring with Mingsheng Li’s observations that Chinese students resist discourse (1999), Fung Shung-Yu & Lo Choi Yuet-Ngor (2001) provide further insight, going so far as to assert that historically, education processes in China may be detrimental to design creativity. Citing Gardner’s study of art and design education programs in China (1991) they further confirm the top-down approach to education that has persisted in China. “Chinese children are given their knowledge and skills by adults and have few opportunities to acquire this learning through their own explorations and questioning…” (ibid p.174). Gardner (1991) argued that,

“…all traditional knowledge and skills that form part of the established culture are transmitted from the older to the younger generation and it is a one-way downward

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 246 process…This educational strategy is most conducive to the development of memory skills but is not likely to enhance abilities for inquisitiveness, analysis, critical enquiry and imagination.”

(Gardner, 1991, cited in Fung Shung-Yu, A., & Lo Choi Yuet-Ngor, A.,, 2001, p.174)

Similarly, it might be argued that the teacher-centred didactic approach to education process shapes the student in ways that foster a dependence on the teacher for a longer period. When this teacher-focussed approach to education is embedded within a high context cultural environment, Hofstede’s aforementioned (see Chapter 2) notion of power distance or status gap (2001, p.29) resonates strongly. With these factors in mind, the extent to which there were perceptions of an unwelcome emphasis on a student-centred western pedagogy over local Chinese socio-cultural and educational approaches is unclear. However, online discussions with active participants in the project highlighted the potential for this to be a reality in relation to the highly discursive student centred modalities of C8 2008.

Participant (Shanghai): we do not have the space to be ourselves as chinese Ian McArthur: in C8? Participant (Shanghai): no, i mean always in our really life Participant (Shanghai): so chinese students get lost in C8 Ian McArthur: so how to make them see they can have that space in there Ian McArthur:? Ian McArthur: that may be very important Ian McArthur: as it is a deep cultural thing Participant (Shanghai): like what i said, give them a story, design a situation for them, give them a boundary Participant (Shanghai): you might think it’s weird Participant (Shanghai): but boundary is a good way to give space Participant (Shanghai): ppl need that Participant (Shanghai): now they lost in air... no earth, no sky, nothing to hold Participant (Shanghai): it’s normal for western ppl, Participant (Shanghai): but for us, i think it’s not really comfortable

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 247 Zhang (2005) alludes to scepticism on the part of Chinese students about online programs – especially those from the west, due to negative perceptions about quality and credibility (ibid p.31). Although C8 did not present the issues about assessment security that underlies such perceptions it remains that student expectations of educational environments, learning styles, modes of knowledge production and the pedagogical approaches students are accustomed to, are important areas for consideration, and as such constitute, in the transcultural collaborative context, a range of diverse realities.

“Multiple realities…”

Metadesign seeks to create synergies-of-synergy (Wood, 2008, p.6) from diverse inputs. In C8 or any other transcultural collaboration the potential for sympoietic modes of co-creation to emerge is contingent on finding new ways of designerly knowing. This points to the potential for complex multifaceted learning communities to form and interact. Within this field study the emergence of synergy was challenged. However, as one industry participant observed,

“The thing that excites me the most about C8 … is your potential to harbour multiple realities - and have them interact in a positive way…”

(Espen Sivertsen, Industry guest, Sun 22 Jun 2008)

The word ‘reality’ is not used here to denote the broader philosophic associations of the term. Rather it should be seen as representative of cultural perspectives, values, experiences, circumstances, attitudes and understandings that in turn might shape, drive, or inhibit, interactions with others online. The following sections seek to discuss the insights gathered with regard to the most distinct groups of participants in C8 2008. It must be acknowledged that this is inevitably framed, albeit as consciously and reflexively as possible, through western eyes.

Reality 1: The Researcher and Convenor (Australia) As stated earlier C8 2008 was staged under the auspices of Omnium’s series of Creative Waves Projects. Accordingly, the preceding Creative Waves initiatives and the formal academic environment they sat within, to an unquantifiable degree, shaped our perceptions and expectations of what C8 represented and how it should be conducted. The convenor additionally represented an institutional perspective characteristic of UNSW and driven by research interests and funding agendas. Simply put, the investment (in time and funding) into C8 is significant and as such this still shapes the expectations of the research going forward. Additionally, my

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 248 own interests, capacities, and affiliations in China as the producer of C8 also fundamentally influenced and shaped the research focus and its mode of operation from the outset. Often this personal investment in their own research is not acknowledged by academics.

Reality 2. Students based in Mainland China During Phase 1 (Access and Socialisation) the students based in China enthusiastically shared posts in the discussion area articulating their interest in C8 and the opportunity to communicate with their peers in Australia. The nature of the posts highlighted how their approach to the task given was different to the Australian participants. In this initial phase all participants were asked to post a picture or avatar, and some information about themselves. Whereas Australian students ebulliently posted details about who they were, what they did, where they were from, their ambitions etc., the responses from China were shorter, did not give personal details about the student themselves and typically featured a general emphasis on greetings and expressions of hope for success of C8. At the time I was reminded of my earlier experiences working in China where I noticed that individual students were often reluctant to provide the administrative department their correct contact details and often substituted false information so they remained difficult to contact.

As stated earlier, the focus of the Access and Socialisation phase was on sharing information about each other’s culture. The diverse images posted in response to this socialising task are evidence of its success. Students in both countries engaged with this activity to a high degree continuing to post images depicting their location, culture and lifestyles even up to several weeks after this activity was staged. One student in China posted over 40 images. Drawing on this success in engaging Chinese students, sharing has repeatedly proved to be an important theme for stimulating engagement in subsequent C8 studios.

During the Gathering phase, after these early promising outcomes, on May 12, 2008, the catastrophic Sichuan Earthquake occurred. Inside C8, the number of logins to the project dropped from over 90 on the day preceding the earthquake, to less than 20 four days after the event on May 16. By May 15 the enormity of the event was evident. According to official government figures the final death toll was more than 69,000. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported that around 18,000 people remained missing and fifteen million people were displaced, including five million who were made homeless. Post-earthquake, the visible participation of students from China in C8 did not recover.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 249 Image: Student post (Australia) - C8 2008 (Phase 1 Socialising) Image: Student post (China) - C8 2008 (Phase 1 Socialising) As C8 continued the level of visible participation from students in China diminished. Data gathered from the C8 website however indicated significant numbers of participants in Mainland China continued to ‘lurk’ but not actively, or visibly participate (see Figures 14 and 15). In the weeks following the earthquake this became more apparent as the intensive collaborative stages of C8 were activated and the levels of interaction and the numbers of posts from China continued to decline.

Fig 14: Daily logins by students in C8 2008.

Fig 15: Daily posts to discussion boards in C8 2008.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 252 Reality 3. Students based in Australia Although aware of the earthquake’s magnitude, as the project progressed, students in Australia experienced confusion because Mainland Chinese students in their teams were not responding to their communications to them post-earthquake. The ‘silence’ was difficult for them to understand and assimilate and this caused a disjuncture that, despite attempts to clarify, support and work through had changed their overall openness to collaboration. This manifested itself in localised collaboration and self-generated responses to the design brief. Very few students took the opportunity to avail themselves of the cross-cultural consultant available to troubleshoot issues or miscommunications arising out of language or cultural differences.

Participant (Sydney): It was difficult because I guess it was a first time for a lot of us and we didn’t realise the ‘social norms’…the way that we should or could communicate…

This kind of response underscores a lack of cultural literacy that goes to the heart of why transcultural collaboration in education is so necessary in building the potential for symbiosis to flourish. Organisational culture also appeared to excerpt an impact on students in terms of their attitudes to learning. Amongst those located in Australia approximately half were students studying in a private design college. This cohort of participants was the most culturally diverse. The kinds of discussion, reflection and outputs of individuals from this environment were markedly different to students from Australian public universities. Students from public universities exhibited higher levels of frustration with the lack of collaboration in the process and appeared more concerned with the facilitation of discussion and cooperation with lecturers, mentors and industry representatives. This was exemplified by a small number of postgraduate students who were drivers of much of the discussion in the global discussion forum. In contrast the undergraduate students from the private design college were less visible in this context, preferring to communicate amongst themselves in team areas or outside the C8 interface using chat (MSN). Perceptions about the success of C8 from this group were significantly more positive than those from public universities.

Reality 4. Academics at Chinese universities Although largely absent from the discussion within C8, the level of support provided (at least initially) from lecturers at the Chinese educational institutions that were represented in C8, was very high if early levels of participation in the activities are seen as indicative. Approximately one third of the students in both countries engaged with C8 as an assessment event in their studies.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 253 As noted earlier, language was observed to present a particular challenge to this group within the project and highlights one of the key challenges to transnational collaboration where language is a significant differentiator. So too the impact of the earthquake appeared to set in train new priorities for the teachers at Fudan University in particular who provided their students with additional earthquake- related design projects. This response to the earthquake’s shattering dimensions is consonant with the level of grief experienced by the Chinese population and the level of empathy exhibited is perhaps a further signifier of the collectivist tendencies exhibited by the culture. As one Australian participant noted,

Participant (Sydney): I thought it was most interesting to see the Chinese perspective on things and the way they emphathised with particular subjects, especially after the tragedy it really made a difference to see how you could connect with a culture not only to support them, but to find ways to make a difference…

Reality 5. Mentors, lecturers and other content providers The international academics, designers and industry representatives contributed a rich array of learning resources in the form of lectures, presentations, interviews and readings. As participants in C8 these entities contributed a diverse range of pertinent learning material on topics related to living and working in different cultures, cross-cultural communication, sustainability and service design, creativity, design and publishing, branding, product development, design trends in China, and design in everyday life. In accordance with the research agenda these learning and teaching resources were provided in a range of media including video, audio podcast, PowerPoint and .pdf files.

Further supporting the learning content was the possibility for interactions with an equally international group of mentors, including a cross-cultural consultant experienced in “east-west” transactions, available to provide students with feedback and support. Experience with online communities amongst this group ranged from high to no previous experience. Each acknowledged the value of C8

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 254 but also the challenges, and they were open in their responses regarding the level and quality of student activity in their feedback. Reflecting on the nature of the feedback and discussion levels from Chinese participants he had observed during the project received guest lecturer Andy Polaine (2008) commented that,

“I think it’s that cultural thing of not challenging authority that is the bigger issue. We as lecturers or special guests didn’t really get much in the way of questioning responses or disagreement when we asked for it. Also I wonder if people are nervous about writing online what they really think about things like branding, censorship, media control, etc.

(C8 2008 Guest Lecturer, Andy Polaine, 3/10/2008)

Indicators drawn from the online survey, observations, and interviews show a diversity of student perceptions about the value of professional and industry inputs. There were instances where students in Australia were challenged by feedback from mentors and chose to ignore it or see it as irrelevant. Others wanted more feedback than was feasible. Given that the participation of the industry professionals and mentors was voluntary, their level of input was actually high. In the experience of the author, students are often aware of what they might want or need, but may not have enough perspective to see the ‘reality’ of a situation in terms of resources and context.

Levels of Collaboration achieved in C8 2008

An evaluation of the designed outcomes from teams and individuals in C8 2008 reveals a high degree of variance in the levels of collaborative engagement achieved. Similarly, the quality of the designs produced varied significantly with some students demonstrating a capacity to engage with each other after the earthquake to produce a collaborative outcome. The most successful of the transcultural teams did focus on an earthquake related design by developing a design concept for a post disaster school facility. This project (see Figure 16) was the most developed in terms of concept, detail, execution and rigor in terms of research with a comparatively high level of transcultural collaboration occurring between the participants in the team. The collaborative exchanges were across culture, geography and knowledge and skill levels. This conclusion can be substantiated by evaluating the level of online interaction evident in numbers of posts, discussion items, and the levels of file sharing recorded for the design team.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 255 Figure 16: Conceptual design for a post earthquake school.

A number of smaller groupings emerging from the fragments of larger teams post-earthquake, managed to produce projects exhibiting lower levels of transcultural co-creation. One such instance was a design concept for a paper product targeting designers. This design solution (see Figure 17) was intended for use in packaging and other print based outputs. Once used the product could be recycled by planting it in soil after which seeds embedded in the paper product would sprout.

This team achieved a comparatively lower level of transcultural collaboration. A smaller number of participants were involved in the project development and the collaborative design process occurred between students in the same school. Few collaborative exchanges were recorded across transnational contexts, although responses from the participants concerned revealed they self-identified as being from different cultural backgrounds. This group recorded moderate levels of online interaction evident in the numbers of posts, discussion items, and the levels of file sharing recorded.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 256 Figure 17: Plantable paper product for packaging and other print outputs

Figure 18: Range of t-shirts made from bamboo featuring sustainable graphic themes.

A third group of teams and individuals proved to be unable to sustain collaborative engagement across culture, geography or locally amongst their peers. The example (Figure 18) provided from this grouping is a range of print designs with ‘sustainable’ themes for garments manufactured from bamboo fibre. Despite three students being involved in the project at various points, the results of the process exhibited only minimal levels of collaboration across culture. Exchanges related to this proj- ect were within the same school and low levels of collaborative activity are indicated by discussion, posts and file sharing.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 257 Challenges Solutions

~ & After shock Anti-Earthquake tents structure (<6) -..... Rain -... Rain Distilling system (Washable & Waterproof Fabric) • Damaged transportation system J:IL Light materials, foldable materials which are easy for ..., transport ~ ,(.." Lack of the construction specialists ~ Easy to install. 6 workers, 2 days needed. Only a Lack of electricity .., minimum training is enough for installation. Odorous tent materials Solar Energy System and Fluorescent Signs ~ 0 Hot weather, easy for bacilli growing Seepage 23 l~ Gas poison (cook in the tent) Eco-friendly materials Small tents with more windows to ensure better ventilation. See page 19 L* Mosquito and insects ~ Solar cooking system See page so Lack of medicine & doctors ~ ~ ~ Medicine for cold, medicine for /,~~- Window screen See page 35 : ~ - ~ diarrhea, medicine for fever, cotton, ethanol, bandage, band-aid ~ First-aid bag with the most needed medicines.see page 48

Smart use of the local materials See page 43 Lack of cloths, and quilt '-"~ Provide an environment where the kids can decorate : ·;..._,_.''··their own classroom, and let them feel more sun shine. : ~· Seepage41 : .~;-.,.~ . T o fee I saf e : · )-..& ·

SOLAR LOVE Logo

Elements & Concept

,~·~ Sun: The idea of the plan is to provide the .. kids with the sunshine. Let them feel safe ·~- · and warm, and help them go through the ~ . .. darkness. + Heart: Deliver the concept of LOVE +

Home: The tent school means "HOME" to the kids.

The brand name and visualization is a combination of the above mentioned 3 elements. We want to deliver feeling of Sunshine. Sunshine==warm==hope The logo is designed in hand-drawing style and with warm tone, which is very acceptable to the children.

Image: Student work, Conceptual Design for a Post Earthquake School, C8 2008 ~ PdPaper

p

Po' Paper

The meaning for the name 'P02' is 'the paper which produces oxygen (02)' The name P02 actually corporate with the characteristic of the product as well, The P02 paper products have the second life as a plant therefore these products can save the amount of the wasting paper product and it also produces oxygen when it become a plant form

------

------Final Logotype

Image: Student work, Plantable Paper Product, C8 2008 With bam n boo stationary is to be printed onto recycled paper and printed with soya based ink to maintain the sustainable idea

www.withbamnboo.com

A: 123 Fal

With compliment slip

Image: Student work, Clothing promoting sustainable values, C8 2008 Fully Online Collaboration - Reflection and conclusions

Within the C8 2008 Field Study it is apparent that the realities of facilitating transcultural online design collaboration involve a multiplicity of challenges. Media is a factor, but it is part of a far more complex picture. The early success of the socialising phase demonstrates that processes allowing students to respond to the opportunity for expression of personal experience and articulation of one’s own culture is an effective pedagogical strategy that builds higher levels of engagement and trust in the process. A structure addressing student expectations with respect to their experience of educational contexts is also essential.

Additionally, the role of the lecturer within each cultural context emerges as a critical factor. Although C8 was sanctioned in the universities represented and some programs included the project as an assessment event a significant level of the student participation was voluntary and many of those who participated did so out of interest in collaborating with students from another culture. Approximately one third of applicants engaged with C8 as an assessment event in their studies. The initial level of support provided by lecturers in China was very high if early levels of participation can be seen as indicative. Faculty at Fudan and Dong Hua universities acknowledged that although C8 was highly regarded, the pressures of academic programs ultimately took precedence in student attentions alongside their concern with the quake victims. Post-earthquake, the focus of assignments Mainland Chinese students were required to carry out had shifted to include other projects responding to the situation.

Overall, the findings of this study suggest that successful online collaboration between western and CHC design students may be achieved only if academics recognise it’s importance and can collaborate themselves to develop a pedagogy representative of all relevant cultural inputs. If online content can be presented to students using their own language and delivered in a way that is consistent with their culturally derived experiences of learning environments, it is likely they will subsequently have a stronger basis for collaborating with others. Educational designers must be cognisant of the cultural implications inherent in student expectations of what learning is, and respond using appropriate, inclusive methodologies if transcultural collaboration is the objective. This cultural adaptivity implies:

• collaborative involvement from lecturers and inputs representative of the cultures involved.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 261 • content presented to students in their own language via text or translators versed in design thinking.

• processes that acknowledge diverse culturally-based student expectations of learning environments and different styles of knowledge production.

We must work toward finding common ground where design collaborations and transcultural cooperation can occur online. This is now crucial in preparing students for work within the ever more complex global, technological landscape of contemporary design practice.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 262 6.2 The PorosityC8 e-SCAPE Studio (2009) collaboratively integrated two COFA initiatives, C8 and Porosity Studio in collaboration with the design faculty of Donghua University (DHU) in Shanghai. It provided an important research opportunity to make comparisons between the effectiveness of the previous fully online transcultural collaborations and what could be achieved between students who met in the “real” world as well as online.

field study 2 6.2 FIELD STUDY 2 – Encounter, boundaries, and interventions in the city

Background

Field Study 2, the PorosityC8 e-SCAPE Studio (2009) collaboratively integrated two COFA initiatives, C8 and Porosity Studio in collaboration with the design faculty of Donghua University (DHU) in Shanghai. It provided an important research opportunity to make comparisons between the effectiveness of the previous fully online transcultural collaborations and what could be achieved between students who met in the real world as well as online. The design of the e-SCAPE Studio process was also informed by reflections and insights gathered in C8 2008 in regards language, diverse student expectations of learning environments, and consideration of the multiple realities that shape collaborative engagement between cultures. Strategically, e-SCAPE Studio also promoted more formal co-operation between COFA and DHU at the institutional level.

Professor Richard Goodwin’s Porosity Studio was established in 1996 to provide opportunities for students from the disciplines Fine Art, Design, Media Studies, Architecture, Urban Design and Engineering to explore multidisciplinary practice. Porosity Studio has been held in Beijing at The Central Academy of Fine Art and Tsinghua University, Rotterdam at The Willem De Kooning Institute, Den Haag at Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, Milan at the Milan Politecnico, and at Cardiff University, United Kingdom.

The collaboration greatly enhanced the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration in the e-SCAPE Studio’s transcultural environment. Goodwin, an artist and architect, described the e-SCAPE Studio as allowing students to,

“...test their practice at the scale of architecture and the city...The relationship between the city and public space remain key concerns for the studio – hence the name Porosity which speaks to the need for architecture to be porous in relation to public space.”

Goodwin, e-SCAPE Studio Design Brief (2009)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 264 The e-SCAPE Studio provoked students to explore a range of problems at different scales (the body, the cross-cultural object, the building, the street, the motorway) in downtown Shanghai and conceive a solution as an “e-SCAPE” or new interpretation.

“The studio is not looking for Utopian visions for Shanghai. It seeks your engagement within the laboratory of interdisciplinary design and Shanghai as a city. This engagement involves the selection of a site or scale at which to work and for you to write your own brief for an imagined project… Fundamental to the overall philosophy of the studio are the principals of transformation, sustainability, questioning public space, and the primacy of art or poetic thinking.”

Goodwin, e-SCAPE Studio Design Brief (2009)

For research purposes empirical and qualitative data was collected throughout the 12 week semester and triangulated through observation of behavioural indicators (quality of engagement, participation, levels of collaborative interaction), semi structured video and audio interviews (see Appendix 1B), and integration of targeted research questions into discussion points. A survey questionnaire gathered responses to questions on aspects of cultural background, transcultural design education; levels of cognition and participation; accessibility; language; aspects of collaboration in e-SCAPE Studio; and general feedback. Evaluation responses were gathered from all participants from COFA and DHU who completed the project.

Aims, Structure And Process

e-SCAPE Studio was conducted over COFA’s 12-week semester. Its flexible structure adapted to DHU students working to own their academic calendar. Faculty working on the project included four lecturers from DHU and four lecturers from COFA representing the disciplines Visual Communication, Design, Digital Media, Sculpture, Environments and Product Design from each school. Students, faculty, research grants and in-kind support from both universities funded the studio. The aims pertaining to blended transcultural pedagogy in e-SCAPE Studio included:

• observing and identifying factors influencing transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration between COFA and DHU students in both real and digital environments.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 265 i9:itPe! ~ COFA OMNIUM. p,rgsity COLLABOR8 www.om.nium.net.au UNSW

Image: Promotional material eSCAPE Studio 2009 (Design: Ian McArthur) • integrating online technologies as tools for research, conceptualisation, documentation, and collaborative and social interaction.

• fostering deeper cooperation between Australian and Chinese academics and institutions to promote culturally appropriate blended approaches to teaching and learning.

• improving levels of transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration in bilingual blended environments by leveraging C8 research findings to date.

The e-SCAPE Studio challenged participating students to seek innovative ways to address a range of problems and scales within the city. The title of the studio alluded to environmental landscapes and the notion of a “scape” or perspective on an issue and the possibility of escape. Students were encouraged to consider a response to problems of global warming, rapid urbanisation or the Global Financial Crisis and develop a solution in the form of an ‘e-scape’, or new interpretation of landscape. The potential for aspects of this scape to be permeated by the data-driven, ambient and ubiquitous digital networks spanning the city in an increasingly complex invisible matrix was also highlighted. We were interested to explore development of strategies for mapping the virtual, invisible and online dimensions of the digital city considering the potential of these emergent spaces, how they might be used, and how they intersect with the real urban landscape.

In contrast to the five stage OCC model used in the online C8 2008 field study, the PorosityC8 eSCAPE Studio had three distinct phases: (1) eight weeks of collaborative online research; (2) two weeks of intensive collaboration in studio at DHU Shanghai; (3) two weeks of online reflection, peer review and documentation (see Appendix 2B). Initially students developed online profiles, discussed the readings provided, discussed research, documented mapping strategies, and conducted peer reviews of progress using a bilingual Omnium™

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 267 Image: Studio Interaction (Week 1) e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Figure 19: eSCAPE Studio website, screenshot, 18 October 2009. web interface. COFA students attended four face-to-face tutorials to plan, discuss research and hear lectures that were subsequently shared online as video to students in China.

In week eight of the project twenty-five students and five COFA faculty members met twenty- five students and three faculty members from DHU in Shanghai for the two-week intensive studio. The studio was held on the DHU university campus but used the city of Shanghai itself as an urban laboratory for design experimentation. All participating students were asked to prepare two presentations to share. The briefs were provided in Chinese and English. The

first presentation, a Petcha Kutcha7 style introduction, was about their life and aspirations. Following the second presentation outlining their individual thinking about the studio brief, students were encouraged to find like-minded collaborators. Collaboration was consistently promoted but not demanded.

The first week of the studio featured lectures and workshops by visiting local and international artists, designers and architects including Map-Office (Hong Kong), IDEO (Shanghai) and Moving Cities (Beijing). Concentrating specifically on conceptual development the workshops facilitated collaborations in small groups with tutors and mentors. Video documentation of the proceedings was shared online enabling remote access and review. The second week focused on highly intensive project production culminating in an exhibition at DHU. During the final two weeks of the semester, reflection, documentation, and peer review of the works and the studio process occurred online. Following eSCAPE Studio a second exhibition was held in Sydney showcasing and re-contextualising the work.

Cultural Difference in e-SCAPE Studio

As has been demonstrated throughout the preceding chapters there are crucial differences in culture, values and ways of being in the world between China and the west. Although the relationship between China and Australia is quite strong especially in the areas of trade and cultural exchange this remains the case. It may be argued the relationship is defined by contrasts, contradictions and relative cultural maturity. China is one of the oldest civilisations

7 The Wikipedia entry for Petcha Kutcha is as follows: PechaKucha or Pecha Kucha (Japanese: ペ チャクチャ, IPA: [petɕa ku̥͍ tɕa],[1] chit-chat) is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). The format, which keeps presentations concise and fast-paced, powers multiple-speaker events called PechaKucha Nights (PKNs) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PechaKucha, accessed March 7, 2014)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 270 on earth. Despite undergoing the intense period of rapid transformation since the 1980’s, China has 5000 year-old history of traditional practices and thinking which supports a strong sense of it’s own identity in the face of globalisation. Chinese students are in a position to draw on this rich history in terms of their individual and collective self-identity. For highly individualistic Australian students in the studio this sense of a collective cultural identity appeared to be something they had not realised previously.

COFA Student: “Instead of saying China is a big country with a large population my new friend … said, “China is a big family”. Sort of blew my mind…”

In contrast, Australia as a contemporary society with a history of western settlement dating from 1778, a mere 236 years (as of 2014), is in a comparatively embryonic stage of cultural development. Although considered a western country contemporary Australia sees itself as a young society (notwithstanding the ancient and regrettably diminished indigenous culture) where cultural identity is still ambiguous, problematic and difficult to carve out (Castles, 1997; Marginson, 2002). Unsurprisingly, cultural identity appeared in the online discussions of Sydney students early in the research phase.

COFA Student:“So what is belonging? What is my culture? What is it that makes me Australian? …my generation is the product of real cross-cultural contamination, cross-pollination and transformation in relation to the way heritage and tradition is reflected in our work. We are in the midst of a paradigmatic shift where notions of culture, place and our environment are becoming less about our historical cultural background and more about the cultural influences in our daily life, our habitus if you like. What we see, do, read, eat, think and hear are becoming our new cultures.”

Such realisations and reflections are critical for young emerging designers. As I discussed in Chapter 2, traditionally, western logic has seen the individual as distinctly separate from their environment. Contradicting this, CHC reject western duality in acknowledging that humans are intrinsically part of the complex ecologies comprising the planet and beyond. Gunaratne (2005) suggests that emergent levels of connectivity lend credence to the invisible reality asserted by quantum physics that everything in the universe is interconnected, a central belief in CHC. To foreigners, this dimension of Chinese culture is somewhat mysterious despite the hyperbole we might often see presented as concrete knowledge, particularly in corporate

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 271 Image: Petcha Kutcha presentation by COFA student, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) “So what is belonging? What is my culture? What is it that makes me Australian? …my generation is the product of real cross- cultural contamination, cross- pollination and transformation in relation to the way heritage and tradition is reflected in our work. We are in the midst of a paradigmatic shift where notions of culture, place and our environment are becoming less about our historical cultural background and more about the cultural influences in our daily life, our habitus if you like. What we see, do, read, eat, think and hear are becoming our new cultures.” (COFA Student) business circles or in western media. The ambiguity inherent in much engagement with CHC is not familiar or comfortable to most western minds.

Mahbubani (2004) asserts, if human society is to survive, a fusion of civilisations is required. The Hannover Principles for Sustainable Design (2000) developed for World Expo 2000 noted that humans must use new knowledge and ancient wisdom to manage the care and maintenance and the ongoing physical transformation of the planet. For contemporary design educators the challenge is to equip our graduates for mobilising creative, synergistic ‘whole world’ solutions to the complex issues human society faces. Through collaboration, young artists, architects and designers from west and non-west will see our world in new ways making the facilitation of such fusions a meaningful educational objective.

The emergence of Boundary Objects

The transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration within PorosityC8 is founded on approaches to learning that focus on the social and emphasise pedagogy over use of technology for its own sake. This ethos has inspired all C8 projects to date including those that have been fully online. Within C8 Research, digital technologies have been used with the intention to encourage community formation and build resources enabling very different cultural groups of students to create new knowledge together.

As described in Field Study 1 Chinese students have consistently seen C8 projects, and in particular the C8 online platform, as representing opportunities to practice English language. However, language and coherent communication between culture in C8 has become a topic for debate with differing perspectives being expressed by both students and teachers involved.

DHU Student: “Language and culture is no barrier – it’s the level of people – in many cases I have less communication with my friends and family but doing this I am very happy - this is the most interesting and happy course during my university life…”

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 274 COFA Student:“It’s an issue but I think it is also an issue if you speak the same language, you get almost more miscommunications in your own language. And I always think you can express yourself a lot with movement and emotions – we use actually way too many words – if you go back to the beginning when we started it was just ooh and aahh…you don’t need so many words…and because there is so much space in the way you communicate here you can only smile at the end and you become really happy – because its actually really funny and there is no judgment or expectation…”

Despite these protestations from participants that language was not a factor in e-SCAPE Studio’s intensive process, this is something that cannot easily be dismissed. As noted in the previous field study a Shanghai based academic had observed (personal communication May 27, 2008) that the real language challenge in C8 was not to the students, but to their teachers, who found the level of English difficult. Within teacher-centred CHC contexts this limits student involvement, openness and trust. Australian students and faculty also generally needed translation assistance to communicate in Chinese due to even lower levels of language ability. To some this can prove an overwhelming constraint.

COFA Student:“…I was extremely frustrated and then I had a little moment when I was by myself the night after and I really have no right to be angry about that because they’re the ones that know English...or whatever how much English they know...and I don’t know a lick of Chinese...”

It is useful to note that this respondent ultimately participated in a small group with only DHU students finding alternate ways to communicate and negotiate a highly collaborative design process. Notwithstanding this instance, the role of the translator is both crucial and contentious. Locating translators versed in the language used within creative disciplines is difficult. Field Study 1 demonstrated that the integration of bilingual content is important even where students are bilingual as the specific meanings of words (especially terminology and conceptual language) may be unclear (Cassell & Tversky, 2005). Cognitive structures are impacted by cultural cues in addition to language and this influences even bilingual students’ ability to collaborate. However, in C8 projects the students from Chinese universities have consistently been the most bilingual participants and consequently some see less need for them.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 275 DHU Student: “Translators are not necessary – we are all students studying design and art and we can understand each other well…sometimes translators cannot understand the meaning or the logic of art and design.”

COFA Student: “A lot of the burden of communicating the ideas lies very strongly on one half of our relationships…we have to work so hard to communicate and things come from that…” Image: Petcha Kutcha presentation by DHU student, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) DHU Student: “Translators are not necessary – we are all students studying design and art and we can understand each other well…sometimes translators cannot understand the meaning or the logic of art and design.”

COFA Student: “A lot of the burden of communicating the ideas lies very strongly on one half of our relationships…we have to work so hard to communicate and things come from that…”

In Field Study 1, I discussed extensively how language and diverse expectations of learning environments and processes have manifested within C8 Research as ‘multiple realities’ experienced by participants within the projects. Patterns of learning influenced by culture do translate from the real into the digital, and how students engage with lectures, discussions and briefs is shaped accordingly. In the proximal encounter of the intensive collaborative studio environment responses from participants suggested that e-SCAPE Studio transformed many students’ expectations of learning, and in the case of western participants, of China itself.

COFA Student: “…I was really apprehensive - actually growing up and getting my education in the states they kinda have a fear of China as its kind of a growing giant and their main competition and you always hear the things about human rights and communism so I really didn’t know what to think and moving to Australia about three and half years ago was a total different impression its way more connected with China down in Australia. So I was just very curious...so I came...I was kind of feeling both sides of that upbringing and I have to say I’m just really impressed...”

DHU Student: “…a lot of Chinese students usually follow their teacher’s thinking… the teachers said what they must do…(the western professors) they don’t tell me what I must do but …they let me think about my project…I think it is the most important thing I learnt.”

In these responses we see two constraints on transcultural collaboration at work. Both responses allude to a transformation in thinking occurring. The first respondent reveals his reticence about coming to China due to the information he has received about China throughout his life in the west. Second, the tendency for knowledge production of a didactic nature to dominate the teacher student interaction in the Chinese studio is evident

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 278 in a comment such as the one from a Donghua student above. Like most Chinese students (Yunzhong, 1996), the Shanghai students’ experience of teacher-led lecture as a dominant mode of education tends to see them participating actively in a relatively passive silence compared to their Australian peers. Sydney-based students used the online space for conversation, posting and discussion of research and responding to questions posted by lecturers. In a significant contrast to this, students and lecturers in Shanghai referred to the website as, “the resources”, and used it primarily as a text to study. Their discourse was limited compared to the COFA students, but their activity in terms of being present was consistent. This silent scholarly approach to the online environment (McArthur, 2009) corresponded with the evidence of resistance to dialogue on the part of Chinese students seen in the literature and in previous C8 projects such as Field Study 1.

The tendency for these distinctly different behaviours around the online platform on the part of both Chinese and Australian participants to reoccur in successive iterations of C8 Research challenges assumptions that students in Shanghai and Sydney will interpret and use online and blended studio environments in the same way. However, it does reveal a meaningful correspondence with an expanded interpretation of the ‘boundary object’ (Star & Greisemer, 1989). Boundary objects were described in Star & Greisemer’s model as representing,

“… objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual-site use. They may be abstract or concrete. They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is key in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting social worlds.

(Star & Greisemer, 1989, p.393)

This concept was originally introduced in relationship to processes leading to a standardisation of methods during the development of the Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. The researchers identified a range of artefacts that include “specimens, field notes, and maps of particular territories” (ibid p.408) that were utilised by the different groups of stakeholders

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 279 DHU Student: “…a lot of Chinese students usually follow their teacher’s thinking…the teachers said what they must do…(the western professors) they don’t tell me what I must do but …they let me think about my project…I think it is the most important thing I learnt.” Image: COFA tutor working with DHU students e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) or communities of interest (CoI) engaged in the process. These social groupings consisted of museum professionals and amateur collectors who typically interacted with the artefacts concerned, in quite different ways and for different purposes.

As often seems to be the case when theoretical ideas are appropriated, the sociologic concept of boundary objects has triggered a lot of subsequent re- interpretation and recontextualisation. We now see boundary objects associated with the computer sciences and in particular with collaborative computer engineering. Boundary objects are evident, “…particularly within computer- supported cooperative work (CSCW) research” (Paterson, 2009). This is because of its’ facility for “interpretive flexibility” (ibid 2009). In this technological context, Paterson argues that the boundary object has become, “…a mediation in coordination processes…building bridges between different types of knowledge and fields” (ibid 2009). More germane still to the design education context of C8 Research, Diaz, Reunanen & Salmi (2009) hold the view that in the context of engineering design,

“…Boundary objects are a class of artifacts that have been theorized to facilitate communications among diverse communities and promote the externalization of tacit and experiential knowledge.

(Diaz, L., Reunanen, M., & Salmi, A., 2009, p.2)

Diaz et al. (2009) also observe that within complex interdisciplinary processes (they cite filmmaking in particular) boundary objects take the form of sketches and storyboards as devices, “…used as tools of communication to coordinate the workflow [and] promote a common understanding, or shared context” (ibid p.2). Moreover, they attribute an important role to visual artefacts asserting that,

“…Boundary objects seem to provide an interface that affords the emergence of common understanding. They seem to facilitate collaborative processes whereby individuals both avow and learn about their differences whilst focusing their knowledge into the objective of the activity or task at hand.”

(ibid p.2)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 282 Images: Boundary Objects: Using sketches and conceptual models to communicate ideas e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Images: DHU 2009) Although no explicit reference to cultural background is made in their interpretation of how boundary objects function, the use of props in their research is of particular relevance to C8. In an interdisciplinary workshop where participants developed design scenarios by, “… performing the hypothetical use of a 3D system” (ibid pp.3-4), props became artifacts in the collaborative environment helping bridge diverse understandings and form a shared basis for a shared understanding.

Examining the nature of social creativity from a Metadesign perspective, Fischer (2004) similarly makes no explicit reference to culture but does discuss the apparent limitations of the ‘un-aided’ human mind. Citing Gardner (1993) and Sternberg (1998) Fischer (2004) asserts that,

“…Although creative individuals are often thought, of as working in isolation, much of our intelligence and creativity results from interaction and collaboration with other individuals [Csikszentmihalyi, 1996] exploiting barriers caused by distances as sources of new and innovative ideas.”

(Fischer, 2004, p.152)

Fischer is observing that creativity happens in the real world and not simply in people’s heads. Creative thinking is the result of interactions with others - and more precisely interaction with the thoughts and actions of others within a socio-cultural context (ibid.). In the essay “Revisiting the Notion of the Boundary Object”, Trompette & Vinck (2009) observe that,

“…Star was particularly interested in the construction of hybrid arrangements in the life sciences field where study objects are moving and constantly renegotiated between social worlds.”

(Trompette, P., & Vinck, D., 2009, p.4)

The social negotiation of meaning implied by Trompette & Vinck (2009) is also reflected in Singh’s ethnographic and participatory research. Singh (2011) examines visual artefacts as boundary objects in research conducted in ethnographic research conducted in an Indian cultural context (2011, pp.35-50). Singh explicitly refers to and defines visual artefacts as human-made visual representations and objects, for example, “…paintings, sketches, maps,

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 284 Image: Boundary Objects: Using sketches and conceptual models to communicate ideas e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) doodles, photographs, video and film are visual artefacts” (ibid p.47). Singh further argues that in the ethnographic, action research context such artefacts functioning as boundary objects have been ‘plastic enough’ to adapt to the local context as representational of pertinent aspects of life but at the same time, “… robust and heterogeneous enough to afford a common identity and structure across different social worlds” (ibid p.48).

The emergence of boundary objects in the e-SCAPE Studio took forms closely corresponding to those described by Singh. This can be inferred from the patterns of design thinking and behaviour observed amongst the participants in the e-SCAPE studio. Throughout the intensive two-week face-to-face studio, shared images, sketches, video, places, stories and ideas were used to mediate communication between participants. Boundary objects in the form of these visual artefacts augmented the communication processes somewhat ameliorating the challenges presented by language and culture. The Petcha Kutcha presentations, initial group work, collaborative design processes, field work and the scheduled social activities all provided opportunities for the studio participants to use visual artefacts to develop a shared understanding around the matters at hand in their interactions and their collaborative creative processes. The diverse forms of visual artefacts developed, presented and used by the participants in the studio environment exhibited the plasticity afforded by the model put forth by Star & Greismer and subsequent interpretations described by Fischer and Diaz et al.. Similarly, we saw an emergent form of this dynamic in Field Study 1 in the early stages of the online design process where students were sharing images about their lives, cultures and interests.

The sketch, thumbnail drawing, photograph, and the acts of image making, doodling and notation are core to the skillset and thinking process of designers from all disciplines. Designers use images as externalisations to communicate their ideas to each other, to clients, and to the wider world. What is less obvious or perhaps simply less considered in many instances is the way this communication process works in different contexts and how it might be used more consciously to facilitate and effect shared meaning. In the context of ethnographic and action research

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 286 Pink (2006) makes further references to how images (and in particular photographs), “…can become reference points through which informants and ethnographers represent aspects of their realities to each other” (Pink, 2006, p.84).

It is important to note that communication in the e-SCAPE Studio was subject to numerous breakdowns. This is a not completely undesirable phenomenon. Many design projects fail despite the use of sophisticated visual tools for understanding and communication. In design education this potential for breakdowns in communication is often itself useful as a meaningful learning experience. Fischer (2004) highlights the potential usefulness of the communication breakdown in social and collaborative creativity,

“…Situations that support social creativity need to be sufficiently open-ended and complex that users will encounter breakdowns [Schön, 1983]. As any professional designer knows, breakdowns—although at times costly and painful—offer unique opportunities for reflection and learning.”

(Fischer, 2004, p.152)

The reference to Schön (1983) here by Fischer (2004) is highly pertinent at this point because of the allusion to reflection in learning. This is further emphasised due to the collaborative nature of the learning process in C8. Schön (1983) posited that if we are to create the conditions for shared understanding to emerge, “…a culture in which stakeholders see themselves as reflective practitioners rather than all-knowing experts…” (Schön, 1983 inArias & Fischer, 2000, p.5) is required.

It might be argued that the make up of the e-SCAPE Studio community reflects the increasingly diverse nature of design communities across our interconnected world. In addition to the challenges of language and the contradictions inherent in their cultural backgrounds, like all communities of practice (CoP), the e-SCAPE participants possessed diverse experience, understandings, skills, interests, passions and perspectives on the nature of design, complex design problems and what to do about them.

COFA Student: “After the presentation of our initial ideas I had this impression that the overall projects coming from Donghua students were interested in improving

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 287 the city while the COFA students projects’ were coming from all different angles and they were a mix of thoughts on the city. Perhaps this happened because they were insiders and looked at it in a certain way while we were outsiders that looked at it with hardly any in depth knowledge about it. I think this made the mixing up and concoction of projects evolve into better ones, definitely the projects were enriched because of the collaboration.”

They also through their own histories and the histories of the respective educational, disciplinary and cultural contexts they have been trained within, have different understandings of the design problem, what it means and what it is for. In the case of DHU and COFA, in line with the educational trajectories of each institution and culture, there is an observable emphasis on technical skills and local knowledge in DHU students and a conceptual and experimental focus on the part of COFA participants. In discussing a range of barriers (temporal, distance, technological) to collaborative design Fischer (2004) confirms that,

“…Design communities are increasingly characterized by a division of labor, comprising individuals who have unique experiences, varying interests, and different perspectives about problems, and who use different knowledge systems in their work. Shared understanding [Resnick et al., 1991] that supports collaborative learning and working requires the active construction of a knowledge system in which the meanings of concepts and objects can be debated and resolved. In heterogeneous design communities, such as those that form around large and complex design problems, the construction of shared understanding requires an interaction and synthesis of several separate knowledge systems.”

(Fischer, G., 2004, p.156)

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of this thesis have developed an argument that demonstrates the contradictions and challenges of the at times very divergent

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 288 knowledge systems of China and the west. Against this broader socio-technical context our personal and professional backgrounds and the CoP we inhabit as designers, shape our perceptions and understandings of design problems and the problem space. Fischer (2004) and Wenger (1998) point out that homogeneous groups working collaboratively within a CoP from a single disciplinary base will develop shared patterns of working and understanding that ultimately may become boundaries for agents outside the community or new participants in the group. Such design communities need to be open to new ideas and, “…must be allowed and must desire some latitude to shake themselves free of established wisdom” (Fischer, 2004, p.156). In contrast the e-SCAPE Studio brought together a heterogeneous Community of Interest (CoI) comprised of design students, faculties and industry representatives from diverse and contradictory cultural backgrounds. As one Chinese participant reflected,

DHU Student: “…I have been strongly impressed by which our designs are trying to express our certain feelings or certain mood during the procedure of communication and cooperation. I imagine that it is different for different colored eyes to see the same phenomenon. And it is significantly related to our cultural backgrounds. I think it maybe have some connections with that we feel strange to something unknown and the standard that we judge something is not alike.”

Whereas the CoP through it’s single “colored eyes” (sic), “…assumes a single knowledge system,” (Fischer, 2004, p.156), a CoI is a significantly more complex learning context where diverse interest groups interact with intersecting yet diverse approaches, understandings, orientations and agendas. Lave & Wenger (1991) are cited by Fischer (ibid p.156) to argue that the CoI must simultaneously maintain a sense of identity for each participating CoP while maintaining, “...possibilities to build on interconnectedness and a shared understanding” (ibid p.156). C8 Research argues that the diverse cultural and disciplinary groupings making up the CoI participating in e-SCAPE Studio and other C8 field studies, through their shared interest in a transcultural interdisciplinary collaborative process have the potential to foster a synergy- of-synergies through the designerly juxtaposition of their diverse knowledges and cultural understandings of design and the problem space presented them in the studio. This perspective accords with Fischer’s (2004) assertion that,

“…CoIs are “defined” by their shared interest in the framing and resolution of a design problem. A bias of CoIs is their potential for creativity because different

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 289 backgrounds and different perspectives can lead to new insights [Bennis & Biederman, 1997].”

(ibid p.157)

The capacities of boundary objects in assisting collaborative understanding around the design brief used to provoke a response to the city is apparent in the exploratory design interventions that emerged in the e-SCAPE Studio environment. Yet the use of boundary objects was not consciously planned or designed-in, in a specific way, but rather left as an open-ended opportunity. Open-ended processes are desirable because ‘use’ can rarely be predicted (Christiansen, 2005 p.3), so it is difficult to ‘design’ boundary objects. However, within each of the C8 field studies examined in this thesis, the co-creation and subsequent sharing of images has consistently proved to be a successful and immersive communication strategy in seeding and promoting trust and collaboration. Despite the literature on boundary objects using the term ‘culture’ in contexts other than the transnational, the data gathered and the observations made in the C8 Research field studies suggest that cultures in relation to this particular theory, might be reinterpreted to encompass a more explicit transcultural understanding that functions in addition to the disciplinary approach that has been discussed in the literature to date.

Responses to the e-SCAPE Studio Brief

The design projects discussed in this section have been selected not because they are instances where participants from Australia and China solved a complex design problem, but because in each project process and outcome we see evidence of deeply immersive learning involving a personal transformation for those involved. Each project is a unique and experimental configuration of transcultural and interdisciplinary design collaboration. In each instance we see evidence of a co-languaging process (see Field Study 3) mediated by the technologies, tools, artefacts created, and/or deployed. These mediations have created meaning that translated into a capacity for the participants to share understanding about the studio’s provocation to engage with and intervene in the city, testing new combinations of ideas and practices from diverse cultural contexts at a scale of their choosing. These interventions powerfully illustrate the immersive and situated nature of the learning experience and demonstrate how even the materials used to produce a designed solution might reveal

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 290 a potential to operate as boundary tools. In each response to the brief presented here, the creative development pathways are outlined and supported by extracts from student interviews, evaluative and reflective observations and artist statements.

The Red Bucket In an online post a Sydney-based participant identified herself as being born in Beijing but raised in Australia from the age of seven years old. She shared the information that:

COFA Student: “If you were to ask me what I was, I without hesitation would say that I am a true blue “Aussie”. (You would agree if you heard my accent :P) In a way I feel like a traitor. I have the face of a Chinese, can speak the language, yet I know nothing about my heritage. I think I am possibly ashamed of my Chinese heritage... learning English, being teased in primary school for being a ching chong chang slanty eyed asian and trying so hard to be “Australian” has forced me to push my culture away and have nothing to do with it. Sometimes to belong, you force yourself to deny what you really are/were/am to ‘fit’ in…”

Through the course of the e-SCAPE studio process, what originally began as an investigation of ‘face’ 面子 (mianzi) evolved into a journey of self-discovery. In order to embrace her Chinese cultural origins, the participant proposed to bathe in mud symbolising a return to the earth of China. The notion of the red bucket emerged after reflecting on the common sight of individuals bathing in the street in buckets in some local Shanghai communities in the downtown areas of the city. Site selection was crucial to a successful outcome and searching for an appropriate space to carry out the performance took almost a week before the top of a building near the university was decided upon.

“The bath is symbolic of a cleansing and rejuvenation of my Chinese heritage and my desire to physically associate with my mother country. It takes place in the privacy of the public rooftop, with the backdrop of the new China.” (Artist’s Statement)

COFA Student: “...I found a photo of me upon my return to Sydney… being bathed by my Grandma and Aunt. I nearly cried, when I saw that I had been bathed in a red bucket. I guess it was always meant to be.”

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 291 Image: The Red Bucket, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) Images: The Red Bucket, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 Image: The Red Bucket, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 Although, or perhaps because, they were somewhat shocked that a student could attempt such a project this work attracted considerable attention amongst all the participants. A group of DHU students gathered around the project as a production team, procuring materials, establishing and securing the site, managing the staging and producing the documentation of the performance with video and photography. They also went to considerable effort to protect the participant as the performance unfolded.

COFA Student: “...I don’t even know how to say it in words ...but just being able to connect back with my Chinese culture and just my language is really nice...”

Urban Cell The spaces directly underneath Shanghai’s elevated roads and sprawling concrete bridges are vacant, vast, local, and accessible. In responding to the large numbers of people in Shanghai that are apparently displaced this collaboration acknowledged that temporary housing solutions often under the freeways and bridges are commonplace. The project proposed to install small clusters of futuristic, modular dwelling pods suspended under the elevated freeways.

Urban Cell was forged in an intensely collaborative design process between two Shanghai environments students and an American born expatriate with significant experience of different cultures studying cross-disciplinary design at COFA. The project exposed the students involved to the divergences in how they approached the process of design and in particular the differences in their approach to materials. The experience proved to be a process that challenged the group members respective preconceptions of design processes by revealing unfamiliar ways of working and different values and priorities. The local knowledge on the part of the DHU participants about what was available in terms of materials and resources in the communities around the studio site created what proved to be a transformational opportunity for the COFA participant. Reflecting on the experience the student subsequently questioned his ways of working in relation to material waste. The respondent’s observations reveal that,

COFA Student: “…when it came time to physically build our scale model from scratch we hit some differences. I am in the school of thought and habit of buying many materials to make something. So I can experiment and make mistakes, good or bad, change idea, evolve plans if needed, keep a forward motion. Not really realizing

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 295 Image: Urban Cell, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 Image: Urban Cell, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 it but that school of thought is a liberty I have due to excessive spending, wasting, a sort of hogging of materials…With our bare minimum of materials purchased we also managed to get some needed (materials) which we mostly found in construction heaps piled on sidewalks. When we needed tools we walked around till we found someone using said tool and managed to borrow, sometimes right out of a persons hands while in use, and sometimes for several days.”

However this was not a one-sided set of realisations. The response below from another of the collaborators working on the Urban Cell project alludes to a shift in perception about the transformative ‘lived’ potential of design to improve life at a level other than the logic of the product - for both the designer and their audiences.

DHU Student: “During these days in the workroom, I have some new thoughts about design. I feel design helps people re-find happiness which maybe ignored in their lives. In some cases, it is just a kind of feeling or mood. Every time we show it to people with new methods, this kind of happiness has been promoted. I imagine this maybe the value of design.”

DHU Student: “...we just choose different point to start our design, but we are reaching the same target unconsciously. And during these days together, we know and understand more about the way of each other.”

Signifying learning experiences at a higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956), this response indicates that the participant is engaging in adapting their existing concepts of design. This involved the participants in synthesising new understandings, imaginings and inferences about the purpose of design and the role culture might play in how the design process unfolds and what the outcomes might be.

Cartographic Counterpoint This collaboration examines the individual’s dialogue with the city. When confronted with new cultural and urban contexts one’s first impressions are often simplistic. The urban organism is too large and complex to process and sensory overload is the response.

“As a relationship develops with the city, patterns emerge and certain features become distinguishable from within the mass. A dialogue is opened up between

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 298 Image: Cartographic Conterpoint, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 f!

•

Image: Cartographic Conterpoint, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 Image: Cartographic Conterpoint, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 the visitor and the space as rhythms and repetitions become apparent…” (Artists’ Statement)

Slowly similarities and differences to other environments, other experiences, emotions and memories become apparent. Balance returns as the visitor begins to understand the complexity and intricacies, however it is often experienced as contradictions of simultaneous renewal, destruction and construction.

The two collaborators brought knowledge, skills and ideas that complemented each other developing shared understandings through an immersive process of exploring the city together and creating visual responses in the form of models and images. In this project the knowledge is of Shanghai - each student understanding the city in different ways. These understandings were presented as those of a stranger to the city and one of its inhabitants, documenting their observations together as an exploration, dialogue and summary of experience, examining the city and the processes in which one finds their place. This mapping process,

“… became far more personal, and from two very different experiences of the city, one idea emerged - about the poetry of contradictions. Using photography, illustration and small-scale models, we created a response at the scale of the cross-cultural object to resolve our perceptions at the scale of the city.” (Artists’ Statement)

Kuai Zi An architecture student and a design student collaborated in an exploration of Shanghai influenced by the rhythmic chaos of the city, patterns of traffic, and the urban forest of junctions and freeways. Kuai Zi 筷子 (Chopsticks) is generated from a mapping process located within the Puxi area of Shanghai, through a series of wanderings. The itinerary was improvised by throwing chopsticks to the ground and following their directions, often leading to unexpected locations.

“The aim of the mapping process was to understand the environment that will host our physical structure. Street speed and subjective time feeling have been studied in order to locate those fragments of the urban

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 302 fabric where we were more likely to keep the attention of the passer-by.” (Artists’ Statement)

Chopsticks are one of the most common throwaway items in Asia. The decision was taken to recycle them both conceptually and as a material for construction. A structure grew built from hundreds of chopsticks collected from the DHU canteen and restaurants around Puxi. When placed in different sites the structure inserted a random component in the urban fabric of Shanghai. Kuai Zi might be summarised as the sum of its elements:

“…embracing a new culture and experimenting with a self transformation process; recycling expendable objects and the symphony of chopstick waving during dinners in Shanghai; subjective feeling of time and speed while exploring Shanghai; the sculptural forest of highways all around the city; flow and speed crystallized in a gesture; chance and chaos as a way of interacting with cities and urban agglomerations nowadays; and improvised uses for random ephemeral structures.” (Artists’ Statement)

the role of trusT

When we compare the levels of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration evident in the above urban interventions, and the overall quality of the design outputs realised in the e-SCAPE Studio with what was achieved in C8 2008 it is apparent that an immersive blended model encourages a more transformative experience for participants. The process provided profound learning experiences that in the words of one Chinese participant, created “fire”.The immersive situated educational experience releases dynamic synergies otherwise unavailable. Additionally, when founded on relationships based in the shared reality of the immersive studio experience, the subsequent online interaction between participants in the e-SCAPE Studio was demonstrated to be deeper, more reflective, and indicative of a level of trust not evidenced in C8 2008. This approach also reflects the processes of industry where remote CoP meet at various points during a collaborative project in order to develop rapport, trust and collegiality.

Online environments tend to diminish communication cues such as the paralanguage of body language, facial expression and tone of voice. When working with CHC online, interactions are also impacted by the cultural dynamics of trust (Watson, McIntyre, McArthur, 2009).

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 303 Image: Kuai Zi, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 Image: Kuai Zi, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 As we have seen trust is vital to collaboration but is approached and framed differently in different cultural contexts. We rarely collaborate successfully with those we do not trust. By manifesting Borges’ declaration (1984) that, “… the Other often turns out to be no other than the Self…” (1984, p.12), we begin to transcend some of the constraints of language and culture mobilising social learning processes that challenge limiting perceptions of cultural otherness and prejudice. The intensive face-to-face studio experience challenges the notion of cultural otherness by confronting students with the realities of one’s essential humanness. It is a moment when in the words of Zhang Longxi (1988) the self and the other meet and join together, a moment,

“… in which both are changed and enriched in what Gadamer calls “the fusion of horizons” …That moment of fusion would eliminate the isolated horizon of either the Self or the Other, the East or the West, and bring their positive dynamic relationship into prominence. For in the fusion of horizons we are able to transcend the boundaries of language and culture so that there is no longer the isolation of East or West, no longer the exotic, mystifying, inexplicable Other, but something to be learned and assimilated until it becomes part of our knowledge and experience of the world…”

Zhang Longxi, (1988, p.131)

e-SCAPE Studio collaborations were also considerably strengthened and accelerated during an IDEO led workshop where the challenges of transcultural interaction were brainstormed in intensive small groups where participants could work through the issues that concerned them face-to-face. This opportunity for a facilitated exchange of ideas in small groups created a forum where student concerns, questions, experiences, expectations, divergent, and common perspectives on the learning process were aired and discussed. For some participants this was a moment in the studio process where many of their preconceptions were challenged and clarified.

COFA Student: “...I have never felt so vulnerable in my design process before working so close with so many wonderful people was something I have never experienced. All my ideas and mistakes were bared free…”

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 306 C8 Research argues that the transnational communication challenges inherent to fully online collaborative environments are diminished when blended studio processes are deployed in concert with cooperation software. In e-SCAPE Studio the intensive face-to-face interaction around the provocation of the brief engendered significantly higher levels of mutual trust between the participants and this subsequently translated into higher levels of meaningful online activity. For design educators seeking to seed the potential for synergies-of-synergy to emerge from transcultural and interdisciplinary design collaboration, the challenge of actually getting students to meet face-to-face is significant. However, the outcomes observed in the e-SCAPE Studio process, substantiated by the qualitative data gathered, demonstrate that by combining physical and digital environments educators can use the strengths of each to augment the weaknesses of the other (Arias et al., 1997).

Intensive Blended Collaboration - Reflections and conclusions

Creative ‘whole world’ approaches to thinking about how we might address complex problems are more likely to emerge via methodologies that create coherent structures yet stimulate a flow of ideas by provoking a transcultural sharing of experience, knowledge, and perspectives. This can be achieved through iterative collaborative discussion around visual artefacts that promote shared understanding. e-SCAPE Studio illustrated how culturally adaptive Metadesign as a basis for a blended pedagogy might be deployed to create collaborative online platforms and real spaces where students, educators and institutions can begin to envision how designers in diverse cultural contexts might begin to co-create.

Although more collaborative research is required of faculties and institutions in the non- western and western worlds, a small change is evident in the dynamic blended pedagogy of e-SCAPE Studio. The widespread embrace of digital networks provides a viable site for transcultural collaboration to occur in design education. However, as the e-SCAPE Studio confirms, intensive blended methodologies (including the face-to-face encounter) offer powerful augmentations to online communities. This is because they create opportunities for drawing on the diverse understandings and experiences of participants to stimulate new shared knowledge in transformational immersive deep learning. As one DHU academic observed,

DHU Lecturer: “It’s a big challenge but it’s also interesting...they need to use the different languages and build tools and build bridges and combine them together...

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Image: IDEO Workshop - rapid prototyping ideas about developing cultural understandings, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: DHU 2009) sometimes the students misunderstand each other but at the end maybe they find a new direction...a more interesting, more intuitive way to communicate…”

By showing students themselves in otherness they not only begin to share their own realities, they also experience fundamental commonalities all humans share. This process transforms perceptions of cultural difference into cultural literacy preparing graduates to make constructive interventions as creative practitioners in an interconnected world. As Borges argued,

“If humanity is to be saved, we must focus on our affinities, the points of contact with all other human beings; by all means we must avoid accentuating our differences.” (Borges, 1984)

As design educators, by fostering transcultural collaboration we too begin to deconstruct long-held misperceptions that hold humans apart, thereby creating impetus for new desires that will emerge to sustain new visions of the world.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 309 Image: Video sketch (Still), e-SCAPE Studio 2009 (Image: COFA 2009) Image: Student work, e-SCAPE Studio 2009 6.3 The RARE EARTH project was conceived as an intensive collaborative design studioLAB where sixty participants from DHU and COFA would develop dynamic media rich content together using a live database. The disciplinary fields represented in RARE EARTH included design, environments, visual art, sculpture, and art theory thereby establishing a highly interdisciplinary studio environment. field study 3 6.3 CASE STUDY 3 – Augmented Collaboration

Background

‘RARE EARTH: Hacking the City’ was staged over a period of two weeks during September 2011. The project was based in the creative precinct Bridge 8 located in the heart of downtown Shanghai. RARE EARTH created a unique opportunity to iteratively respond to the range of design, cultural and communication issues that had been encountered during the preceding C8 Research field studies. The RARE EARTH project was conceived as an intensive collaborative design studioLAB where sixty participants from DHU and COFA would develop dynamic media rich content together using a live database. Faculty working on the project included two environmental design lecturers from DHU and three design lecturers from COFA. The disciplinary fields represented in RARE EARTH included design, environments, visual art, sculpture, and art theory thereby establishing a highly interdisciplinary studio environment. The project was supported by a similar Omnium interface to that used in Field Study 1 and 2. RARE EARTH received funding from a UNSW Faculty Research Grant, and the Australian students travelling were additionally subsidised by Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) Mobility Funding made available to foster opportunities for higher education students to have study experiences internationally.

RARE EARTH followed the precedent set by the e-SCAPE Studio in 2009 as a second collaboration between C8 and Richard Goodwin’s Porosity Studio, and DHU. In a strategic response to the findings of the earlier field studies RARE EARTH also introduced a new

collaborative partner – artist and design academic Brad Miller8. Miller brought a more immersive technological approach to creating a collaborative space through his research into distributed visualisation and tracking systems. MIller’s contribution to the studioLAB took the

form of an Interactive Media Platform (IMP)9 integrated as a means to document, facilitate and exhibit the design research process and the outcomes produced by participants in the project.

8 Brad Miller is a design academic at The College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Refer to: http://sites. cofa.unsw.edu.au/~z9270907/index.html 9 The IMP is an integrated distributed visualiser and tracking system developed by artist and COFA academic Brad Miller. http://sites.cofa.unsw.edu.au/~z9270907/index.html

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 313 The deployment of Miller’s IMP in RARE EARTH represented a prototype for new interactive, “…tools, parameters and operating conditions” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.343) where the, “design of a design process” (Giaccardi, 2005, p.344) might occur leading to new transcultural synergies. As a complex assemblage of Metadesign thinking and networked technologies, the IMP allowed C8 to test a range of innovation strategies for strengthening the basis for ongoing design-led collaboration between Australian and China-based participants and stakeholders (students, researchers, designers and academics).

Conceptually, the RARE EARTH studioLAB emphasised experimental improvisation (the hack) and the use of interactive media as tools to facilitate transcultural co-design processes. The ethos of RARE EARTH is encapsulated in the statement,

“The city is a sandpit of possibility to your hacking ability. Shanghai is the laboratory.”

(Goodwin, R., 2011, RARE EARTH studioLAB Brief)

The project sought to establish an opportunity for participants to explore their ideas for the future of cities, immersive interactive environments, and transcultural collaboration. As I established in Chapter 1 of this thesis, cities are crucial sites for research concerned with the transformation of design practice, design education and a re-visioning of what a sustainable urban-centric future means. The RARE EARTH brief framed urban Shanghai as “the laboratory of the future”.

“If the experiment of 20 million people in Shanghai, all wanting Audis, all wanting parks to fall in love in, all wanting dumplings doesn’t work, then the world is truly doomed. It is at critical mass. You can’t solve this but you can get involved.”

(Goodwin, R., 2011, RARE EARTH studioLAB Brief)

The city, and how we experience the city, has been a concern of C8 projects since 2003, however, the influence of Porosity Studio has sharpened and radicalised the concerns of the studio around the notion of urban interventions and tactical urbanism. This influence is reflected in the Metadesign processes utilised in RARE EARTH and the earlier e-SCAPE

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 314 Porosity Studio Undergraduate Code SOES4754 Postgraduate Code SDES9754 https:/ /rareearth.wikispaces.com /

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Image: Promotional material RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Design: Ian McArthur) RARE EARTH aimed to create an open participatory space where students could use Shanghai as a laboratory for investigating, sharing, and collaboratively amplifying ideas for the future of cities. Image: COFA and DHU students meet at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 Images: Top: COFA and DHU students meet | Below: The site - Bridge 8, Shanghai, 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Image: RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 Studio. The approach has explicitly challenged students to intervene in the urban environment by encouraging them, “…to test their practice at the scale of the mega-city…” (Goodwin, 2009). Shanghai, has therefore become a critical focus within the successive C8 Research projects as a site for prototyping models of transcultural interdisciplinary design education that may be globally applicable.

During the RARE EARTH studioLAB empirical and qualitative data was collected and triangulated through observation of behavioural indicators (quality of engagement, participation, use of digital media to respond to the brief, and demonstrated levels of collaborative interaction), the online support platform, the studio image database, and semi structured video and audio interviews. An additional survey gathered qualitative and quantitative responses to questions on aspects of cultural background, transcultural practice and design education; levels of trust and participation; accessibility; the integration of the IMP in the studio; aspects of collaboration in RARE EARTH; and general feedback (see Appendix 1C, 1D). Evaluation responses from DHU participants were constrained due to circumstances that are discussed in detail. All COFA participants provided comprehensive responses.

Aims, Structure And Process

RARE EARTH aimed to create an open participatory space where students could use Shanghai as a laboratory for investigating, sharing, and collaboratively amplifying ideas for the future of cities. The works that emerged were digital, filmic, sculptural, architectural, or performative in nature, with some including graphic and audio elements. In a number of instances the works directly engaged with the city and its inhabitants involving them as participants and co-creators. The opening of the studio environment to engage directly with the city seeks to build a Metadesign approach that seeds synergistic models for collaborative and participatory modes of design and design education. By introducing the direct participation of industry and public, new synergies can be mobilised nurturing the potential for a diversity of responses around the thematics of the studioLAB.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 320 Information about the studioLAB was circulated throughout Shanghai’s creative communities via social media, a public lecture, and by making direct approaches inviting designers, artists and the public to become involved in responding to the studio brief. The studioLAB did attract considerable interest from the local design industry acting as a kind of drop-in zone where interested agents observed, contributed insights and presented their own projects and practice. The project brief itself encouraged all participants to think ‘beyond possibilities’ (Wood, 2012, McArthur, Miller, Murphie, 2013). It asked for contributions that emphasised consideration of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration amid the emergence of complex network technologies, “Asia’s rapid urbanisation, and this century’s reconfigured geopolitical relationships” (McArthur, Miller, Murphy, 2013, p. 380).

The more formal intent of C8 Research in the context of RARE EARTH was to iteratively extend, refine and activate the adaptive pedagogic model for transcultural interdisciplinary design collaboration established in the earlier C8 projects. The studio processes of online and blended collaboration I have discussed in Field Study 1 and 2 were augmented by the database driven IMP with the intention of recreating the studio space as a responsive, interactive and self-generating machine for collaboration and participatory design. By rethinking the role of technical platforms in the context of collaboration and design (McArthur, Miller, Murphie, 2013, p.382) we could test the IMP as an immersive, situated, reflexive process tool for seeding dynamic transcultural and interdisciplinary synergies.

Specific aims for the studioLAB included:

• meshing the thinking of artists, designers and other disciplines in contemporary problems associated with cities;

• stimulation of strategies promoting collaborative practice and cultural literacy in real and digital spaces;

• mitigation as far as possible of issues related to language, culture, assumption, and prejudice in order to co-language collaborative practices between actants from diverse cultural backgrounds;

• integration of online and social technologies as armatures for conceptualisation,

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 321 communication, collaborative interaction, documentation of ideation, design propositions and processes, and display and archiving of deliverables;

• using the IMP to create and exhibit a collective data visualisation of the studioLAB process at the conclusion of the program;

• deployment of objects, the body, community, digital networks, public space and architecture as sites for transformations taking into account issues of social construction, politics and sustainability.

As was the case in e-SCAPE Studio (Field Study 2) collaboration was not compulsory in the studioLAB, but it was encouraged through an initiation or seeding phase designed to allow the agents involved to become comfortable with each other through the sharing of experience, culture, interests and their practice in two preliminary presentations.

Drawing on the Field Study 2 process, the first presentation participants were requested to prepare was a Petcha Kutcha-style self-introduction. This enabled the sharing of cultural background, areas of interest in relation to design, and a level of disclosure about who they were as individuals. The second presentation outlined their individual thinking in response to the studioLAB brief. As the introduction to the RARE EARTH studioLAB this initiation phase, conducted over a whole day, reiterated the success achieved in e-SCAPE Studio in establishing a climate that stimulated a mutual curiosity and enthusiasm between the participants. This sharing approach establishes a learning environment where collaboration emerges spontaneously in ways that align with the disciplinary interests and the concepts participants had developed. This has proved more successful than placing students in teams and compelling them to work together. Responses from participants suggest that although the strategy is not a universal panacea for creating collaboration, its contribution establishes a ‘safe zone’ where participants are more likely to actively contribute.

RARE EARTH participant: “…It is very important to set up a comfortable environment where everyone feels that their ideas are valid…”

The first week of RARE EARTH involved a diverse range of lectures, site visits, workshops and presentations with representatives of Shanghai’s creative industries. The breadth of

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 322 practices involved in these encounters included: urban farming (Good to China10), maker-

culture (Xinchejian, Shanghai’s Hackerspace11), design thinking and innovation (IDEO

Shanghai12), collaboration and co-working (Xindanwei13), interactive digital art (aaajiao14), and a diversity of other local design practices were showcased during an evening of mini-

presentations (Bee or Wasp15). This provided a rich palette of inputs informing the studio and many responses from participants indicated that this aspect of the studioLAB was one of the most enriching in terms of their learning.

RARE EARTH participant: “…the opportunities that we’ve been given to meet people from studios, people from art practice, design practice, who are working in their field and are just willing to share, willing to open up their own practices and give you the knowledge that they have, passing it on - especially to a young artist or a young designer, it’s been amazing just having those opportunities to meet those people - not only listen to them, but to actually meet them and have a conversation with them and let them know what you’re about as well, just this constant sharing, this constant community...”

The studioLAB process focused on conceptual development through individual and small group work with tutors, mentors and the visitors to the studio space. The focus of the second week was on realising the collaborative and individual projects that had been proposed and the staging of a public exhibition of the works produced.

In it’s elicitation of urban interventions the brief directs participants to: (1) find collaborators; (2) explore Shanghai to find a situation, social context, site and scale to work at; and (3) identify a problem or process with which to interact, respond to, or address. The brief challenges participants to journey into the city to enact the interventions they have conceived and to document this. Returning to the studio with detritus from the urban environment, equipment, experiences and encounters, and raw digital data in the form of photographs,

10 http://goodtochina.com/ 11 http://xinchejian.com/ 12 http://www.ideo.com/locations/shanghai 13 http://xindanwei.com/ 14 http://www.eventstructure.com/ 15 http://www.beeorwasp.com/

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 323 Image: Petcha Kucha, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Image: RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Images: Field trip to an urban farm in downtown area of Shanghai with Good to China, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Image: Field trip to an urban farm in downtown area of Shanghai, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Image: Presentation on co-working by Xindanwei, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur 2011) Images: Field trip to Shanghai hackerspace Xinchejian, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) video footage and sound files, the agents begin to edit, refine, discuss, gue,ar and clarify their responses to the city. This is in many instances a confronting process of discovery – of both otherness and of self, of new techniques and unfamiliar ways of framing their idea and their place in the urban environment. For COFA students in particular this experience was very challenging as many of the survey responses indicate.

(RARE EARTH participant) “Rare Earth took many people out of their comfort zone but allowed us to pick up new skills and in the end become comfortable with working with new medias and platforms.”

(RARE EARTH participant) “…the best features for me were being able to learn about myself in challenging situations, while still being in a group where I can l grow from others…”

(RARE EARTH participant) “I learnt a lot about my own character and how I dealt with pressure when challenged and was able to embrace what I set out to do initially (try something new)…this was definitely the aspect of Rare Earth that influenced me. The ability to learn to take risks was almost painful to me - I confronted aspects of myself I had no previous insight into.”

Studio as a networked machine

In documenting their creative process participants were asked to create, tag and upload their content to a Flickr database. These data ‘moments’ could then be subsequently curated, animated by custom software and a live video camera feed, and then sequentially embedded into strips of images presented as a dynamic horizontal flow. The platform employs synchronised projections in a large-scale installation format supported by multi-channel sound that responds to a machine- vision tracking system. In the studio space the interactivity of the system enables users to control the display of individual visual elements of content by slowing and enlarging an image or video in response to their movement and position in the studio space. As configured in the context of RARE EARTH the system could be described as an immersive, interactive digital pin-up wall.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 330 As participants tagged their digital material they simultaneously formed a collective and searchable database of the unfolding studio process. Although encouraged to engage with the parallel process of live coding and production underway as the system was built by a programmer and small production team, the participants invariably focused on development of their particular responses to the city while grappling with what it means to produce a creative work that exists as part of a larger unfolding collaborative work.

The ‘act’ of creativity or design in this context included: capture of initial site references, locations, situations and circumstances as digital images, static and moving, including sound, along with written notes and observations, and audio narratives. After initial post-excursion discussions, a tagging schema was developed by the participants and posted to all. The naming protocol developed was simple and easy to implement, based around ‘whom’ and ‘where’, followed by descriptions of colours, objects, situations. The limitation that became apparent was that tagging should also include reference to the urban problem being considered and other environmental conditions (light, atmospheric pollution, etc.). The following section is a more specifically detailed description of the IMP system.

The IMP consists of a suite of software and hardware. The software includes a number of components: (1) preparation and editing of pre-exhibition content is conducted using a custom designed online interface we have called FlickrTool®. Using a web browser FlickrTool facilitates search and retrieval from the Flickr account using tags that the Flickr interfaces supports. This helps the editing and sorting process before committing the search calls to the main visualisation system. Flickr supports a standard set of search expressions, for example, ALL and ANY. FlickrTool® also renders a preview of a search. This single sequence of images we call a TileStream. (2) Tracking software (a) RAREEARTH used 3 near infrared video cameras and a number of IR illuminators, each attached to a mini computer via Firewire and a custom built application VideoTracker® developed using Processing and OpenCV library. These cameras are positioned overhead and placed equidistance along the length of the projection and approximately 5 metres from the surface. The software discriminates changes in the video cameras field of view (blobs) and passes those differences as a set of co-ordinates used to create a centroid (an ellipse

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 331 ...a complex assemblage of Metadesign thinking and networked technologies, the IMP allowed C8 to test a range of innovation strategies for strengthening the basis for ongoing design-led collaboration between Australia and China based participants and stakeholders (students, researchers, designers and academics). centred around the co-ordinates) to a network socket (b) How it interfaces with the display: As actants walk into the range of the overhead cameras, centroid data is passed into the visualisation software. (3) Display software (a) How content is displayed and rendered and how the feedback is made visible: The tracking data is represented as a ‘magnifying lens’ displacement map distorting the images when positioned over the TileStreams acting as a feedback. (b) Individual TileStreams move horizontally in response to the location of the ‘magnifying lens’ feedback and hence the real location of the change in the field of vision, typically a person. This movement follows a simple mapping. If you move the left from the centre-line the TileStreams over which the magnifying lens feedback move to the left, and similarly the opposite is true. (4) Audio software utilising granular and generative synthesis, mobile recording technologies, open source platforms and protocols including PureData (PD) and OpenSoundControl (OSC) are used to create experimental, documentary and expressive sonifications that are responsive to audience position and movement within the space. The audio consisted of a four-channel system located at each corner of the room and supported spatialisation of sound influenced by participant’s location within observable camera range. The RARE EARTH hardware and exhibition configuration was a 20-metre continuous projection screen, consisting of 4 x 5 metre side by side projections.

In reviewing an earlier iteration of the IMP system exhibited at Artspace in Sydney, Muller (2009) observed of the IMP that,

“…The audience is implicated in Millerʼs work, reconfiguring the relationship between artist, audience and artwork, creating complex systems of data flow in which the audience’s actions have a shaping effect… the participant becomes inescapably implicated in the complex dynamics of cause and effect constructed by each work, one source among many in an open system of flowing data…”.

(Muller, L., 2009, Data Flow, Review of augment_me by Brad Miller, Artspace Sydney, November 19th-Dec 19th 2009)

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Image: Interactive Media Platform, Brad Miller, as configured for RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Brad Miller 2011) The platform inevitably merges digital architecture with traditional architecture creating an electronic space preserving the affordances one normally attributes to physical media. This augmentation with digital media increases the flexibility and adaptivity of the studio space. Pang (2011) suggests that immersive digital spaces, “…are physically engaging, support rich social interactions and tacit knowledge, and can handle a truly three-dimensional vision of collaboration” (2011, p.1). This provokes and stimulates new models of interaction and design studio methods that deploy machine vision as a scaffold for collaborative deliberation with dynamic screens encouraging ongoing transformation, play, reflection and engagement.

Images and sharing as co-languaging tools

As described, RARE EARTH encouraged sharing of experience and concepts through Petcha Kutcha presentations, photographs, video sketching, and digital database and cooperation tools including Flickr and Omnium. This diversity of inputs was designed to provide multiple opportunities for the emergence of boundary objects that the different cultural groups in the project might use to communicate in ways that reflected their multiple realities (McArthur, 2009). In RARE EARTH, the sharing of media allowed the actors to interactively curate the disclosure of aspects of their cultural background, life experience, interests in design, their engagement with Shanghai as locals and visitors, and their encounter with the other culture. This was successful to the extent that during the two week studioLAB over 1400 images, video clips and audio files were selected, edited, tagged and uploaded to the project Flickr

account16, culminating in an exhibition featuring additional printed images and publications, websites, videos, sculptures and installations. An additional 576 images and videos exist on

Miller’s Flickr account17. The diversity of content is striking including images describing urban circumstances ranging from the confrontational to the banal, the social to the archival, and from the street to the private space.

In particular the socialising role of the image, or photograph, as a boundary tool is evident. Eppler (2007) confirms the, “…crucial and multiple roles of images for collaboration, whether they are conceived as visual boundary objects, conscription devices, visual non-human agents, trading zones, epistemic objects, or simply collaborative graphics.” The power of the image includes a diverse and persuasive facility to focus the attention of a group, identify conflict or congruence, reveal implied knowledge and past experiences, highlight new or unfamiliar ways of seeing and being in the world, and to document.

16 Refer to: Project Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rareearthstudiolab/page13/ 17 Refer to Miller’s Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/augment_me/page70/

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 335 In Field Study 2, I referred to Ellen Christiansen’s assertion (2005) that boundary objects cannot be designed and that, “You can never predict use, hence designed structures must have an open end” (2005, p.3). This constraint is also reflected in Eppler (2007) who describes our still rudimentary understandings of how images might facilitate shared understandings or form the basis for decision-making amongst different sociocultural groups. Even when framed as boundary objects we are, “…are still far from rigorous advice on how to make sound use of images as knowledge-intensive communication catalysts” (2007, p.585). RARE EARTH’s experimentation with image sharing via networked interactive technologies as a potential collaborative tool confirms this challenge. We usually consume images alongside text. The image itself is rarely the whole story. However, sharing images online introduces tags as units of language articulating or establishing association to concepts attached to an image, potentially signifying intended meanings that can be interpreted and discussed by the participants involved. As I have argued, sharing also introduces and amplifies disclosure within the studio interaction. The act of disclosure is critically significant because as articulated in Interpersonal Communication Theory, disclosure establishes a basis for interaction and trust. Guo-Ming Chen (1989) acknowledges that between people from different cultures the act of disclosure carries a dual significance.

“…Self-disclosure is the individual’s willingness to be open or to appropriately tell their counterparts things about themselves. It is one of the most important elements for the development of an interpersonal relationship. In addition, according to Bochner and Kelly (1974) and Parks (1976), self-disclosure is not only the way to reach communication competence, but also the way to achieve communication goals…”

(Guo Ming Chen, 1989, pp.119-120)

In CHC interpersonal norms emphasise that trust holds a significant status as a foundation on which relationships are built (Kwang-Kuo Huang, 1987). In the transcultural context of RARE EARTH, the visual and technological elements of the teaching methods deployed combine as a prototype for intensive ‘co-languaging’ providing novel ways to reach shared understandings, map responses to a brief, and (importantly) highlight each other’s similarities, differences, concerns and fascinations. Some participants did respond to survey questions relating studio

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 336 process to trust in ways that align with notions of the image and the sharing process as boundary tools, referring to their acquisition of new knowledge through non-language based communications. Others were more explicitly able to link the studio activities to the building of trust.

RARE EARTH participant: “…I think the Petcha Kutcha tall was good in establishing trust quickly…it broke down the nervous walls quickly and helped you put faces to names as you quickly figured out who everyone was, where they came from, and how no one is intimidating.”

The links between intensive sharing and recombination of images, video, tags and sound are seen in this action research context as an accelerator of modes of communication and interpersonal engagement that can act as foundations for collaboration. However, as the sequence of field studies presented in this thesis demonstrates, it must also be acknowledged the process is unpredictable and often ambiguous due to unforseen events, cultural dissonance, and misunderstandings. Synergy is therefore a somewhat capricious unity. Wood (2011) suggests that,

“…Like the process of ‘symbiosis’, the presence of synergy often depends on factors that cannot easily be classified into ‘nouns’ or ‘verbs’, but might better be represented by ‘participles’, including the term ‘languaging’ itself. In our metadesign approach, these factors emerge, and are sustained, as collective capabilities and memories within non-hierarchical teams. Unless there is synergy within the team it is difficult to find synergies outside it. Synergies may be subtle, fugitive and unnamed, hence the importance of ‘languaging’. This is why it may be necessary to use shared team-thinking as a primary catalyst for paradigmatic change.

(Wood, J., 2011, p. 6)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 337 Wood’s observations here are made in the context of a team-based approach that C8 Research has seen as a potential constraint in transcultural design education (see Field Study 1). But it Wood’s emphasis on ‘languaging’ that has proved to be consonant with the iterative research trajectory outlined in this chapter.

Integrating the IMP as an image-sharing machine in the RARE EARTH studioLAB iteratively leverages the empirical data from the previous field studies.The research data suggests there is a causal relationship between (1) the sharing of cultural knowledge, life experiences, information and images, and the essence of oneself via media and (2) subsequent levels of trust between participants. Regardless of cultural background participants have demonstrated an innate capacity to engage with the act of sharing which fosters mutual understanding and curiosity about each other and each other’s lives, interests and practices. That this tendency has been observed throughout each C8 field study implies that this ‘module’ of Metadesign strategy is a potent instrument for seeding transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration. However, the role of relational mobility (Schug, Yuki & Maddox, 2010) as a moderating factor whereby westerners tend to be more open to disclosure of information about themselves, than Asians should also be acknowledged.

Although boundary objects were not made explicit as a discursive theme within the studioLAB context, the sense that there are other communication tools available when language is less useful was present in the survey responses of a number of participants. One respondent made the pertinent observation that,

RARE EARTH participant: “Although language overall was limiting to a degree, I do not feel it limited my own understandings in Rare Earth. I have an especially strong appreciation for visual aids after experiencing this studio as it stood in place of words on many occasions.

Discussing the syntax of images, Lester (2006) and Raczkowski, (2001) all cite the photographic historian Helmut Gernsheim who argued that, “Photography is the only ‘language’ understood in all parts of the world, and bridging all nations and cultures.”

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 338 (Lester, 2006)18 Linguists resisting the notion of image as language generally do so on the basis that images do not contain common components that are similar to the written language’s alphabet and the lack of a recognisable syntax. However, considered as a collection of signs, images possess qualities that are assembled by the viewer to create meaning within a particular context. Within the syntactical theory of visual communication we find that when words are combined with images powerful associations are formed, explaining, shaping, and stimulating the imagination. Lester (2006) remarks that, “…Despite occasional problems in discerning the meaning from pictures and words … the combination of the two symbolic systems is one of the most powerful communicative strategies known” (ibid). Observing that pictures emerge from the history of words as the oldest form of communication, Lester (ibid 2006) argues that most experts agree that because they are collections of signs, images become a language when ‘read’ in the mind. He suggests that if humans can attain an understanding where,

“…words and images have equal status within all media of communication, the cultural cues that define a society will not only be more efficiently passed from one generation to the next, but within this generation, here and now, diverse cultures will be able to understand each other a little better.”

(Lester, P., 2006, http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html)

In the action research context of RARE EARTH words can take the form of tags functioning as units of language articulating concepts pointing to an image signifying intended meanings that can be interpreted, compared and discussed. For participants, exposure to these modes of communication and experience promotes the generation of critical threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2003; Cousin, 2006, 2010) that transform their understandings and interactions with others they encounter in the studioLAB environment.

Cultural politics - critical relations

During the search for a space in Shanghai the COFA research team found the managers of local creative clusters interested in our proposal and willing to assist us if possible. The IMP introduced specific space requirements most particularly in relation to the ceiling height required of a space, network access, and a large enough area to project a 20 metre wide image

18 Refer to: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 339 with room for workshops and lectures. After looking at a range of sites in creative industry clusters across the downtown area of Shanghai, a viable location was identified at Bridge 8 (Phase 2). This was rented for a nominal fee for two weeks. A carpenter from a local art gallery was employed to construct a wide temporary screen in the space for the purposes of large-scale projections. However, despite these promising initial conditions there were significant communication challenges between the project stakeholders in the ensuing project phases.

Transcultural collaborations between individuals or small groups can be challenging. At the level of the institution and governance it is even more complex to synchronise inputs and resources and to communicate effectively in a manner that is sensitive to the social, cultural and political context of all stakeholders. The transcultural communication process is, as noted in the earlier field studies and previous chapters, fraught with each culture’s mutual capacity for mistaken assumptions and misunderstandings. RARE EARTH faced these usual and expected challenges, but also encountered other significant structural and institutional constraints and contingencies.

Despite high levels of positive feedback from participants in the project, of the three field studies RARE EARTH proved to be in many respects the most challenging in terms of communication at the level of the institutions and stakeholders involved. This serves to further highlight the wicked complexity of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration. The contradictory communication styles, patterns and socio-cultural imperatives innate to both China (dao) and the west (logos) can be mapped to observable, empirical and experiential data that emerged from the RARE EARTH study. Moreover, there are additional empirical indicators that suggest problematic issues pertaining to political sensitivities, and the priorities and imperatives specific to both the Chinese and Australian academic contexts all play into the outcomes and complex contingencies that manifested in the project. This acted to further highlight the very real challenges that keep humans apart and not talking to each other.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 340 The project was intended to strengthen existing long-standing links between COFA and DHU and promote a sustainable COFA presence within China. This meta-level relational dimension of RARE EARTH calls attention to the essential importance of a deep understanding of interpersonal communication mores in the Chinese socio-cultural context. It acts to foreground the need for effective and careful co-alignment of agendas, mutual insight into the organisational and research cultures of stakeholder organisations, and the critical and nuanced role of relationships and the political landscape in the given cultural context.

The first indication of problems appeared in the days prior to the studioLAB commencing. The problems I will discuss include (1) the site of the studioLAB; (2) communication issues around a dissimilarity between the agendas and understandings of COFA and DHU faculties in regards the studioLAB; and (3) the confiscation of studio equipment by the Chinese authorities. These factors did in no way stop RARE EARTH from completing its mission. However they introduced an unanticipated level of contingency and complexity to the studioLAB process and outcomes.

Reflecting the hierarchical character of Chinese society and its institutions it is typical that high-level officials would extend a welcome at the commencement of a joint-project.Whereas the e-SCAPE Studio (conducted on the DHU campus) was formally introduced by the Dean and faculty officials this did not happen at the launch of the RARE EARTH studioLAB despite the presence of a number of DHU faculty. Of itself this may have been a matter of timing and conflicting commitments but it is unusual and worthy of note. It would emerge later in the studio process that the site itself was a point of tension and concern for DHU. Informal feedback received from DHU faculty in conversation towards the end of the two-week studioLAB revealed that the low-key engagement from the university organisation itself was in part related to the site selected for the studioLAB. Bridge 8 was seen as remote from the campus and problematic, notwithstanding it being a government sanctioned creative industry cluster. The Bridge 8 site is approximately 8.5 kilometres from the DHU campus with close public transport connections. But with many DHU students residing on campus the DHU faculty alluded that it was problematic for students to move between site and campus.

The Bridge 8 site had been selected by COFA faculty for its suitability in relation to the IMP, its cost viability, and its close proximity to the downtown area of the city. The studio

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 341 Image: Preparing the final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Image: COFA student work at the final exhibtion RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Ian McArthur) •

Image: DHU student works exhibited at final exhibition, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: DHU 2009) ...... ,...... ,, ... ~--'··· ,,- ..- ..,,,.GI,.._ ··-

Image: COFA student work RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) Image: COFA student works (process documentation), RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Image: DHU students work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: DHU 2011) Image: COFA student work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Image: COFA student work exhibited at final exhibition RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: COFA 2011) Image: RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Images: Ian McArthur 2011) Image: Data visualisation of student process and works RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: Brad Miller, 2011) Image: Print based solution to contingencies encountered at RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011, Image: COFA 2011) site used in the e-SCAPE Studio would not easily accommodate the IMP. Despite a formal introduction of the studioLAB concept in April 2011 that was received very enthusiastically, DHU faculty had not become closely involved in selecting a site for the studio. They did not raise objections when advised of the location of the studioLAB. This apparent reticence to become actively involved in this early and crucial planning stage of the project accentuates important considerations for transcultural communications and collaboration.

Within the framework of considerations impacting on the three field studies, a pattern of interaction that is reflective of broader socio-cultural communication mores is evident. The particular challenges faced by the RARE EARTH project provide the most effective context to highlight the complex subtlety of the relational dimension of the research at both institutional level and at the people-to-people level of interpersonal communication. This theme within the framework of this thesis is perhaps the most sensitive and contentious. It is inevitably presented as a professional reflection on the transactions between the C8 Research team who are highly experienced in the Chinese context (albeit as westerners) and the DHU academics involved in the field studies all with significant experience and contact with westerners. My reflexivity at this point in this narrative is substantiated by material drawn from Asian scholars, and my own experiential understanding of Chinese interpersonal communication (based on over a decade of focussed practice).

Within Asian societies strategy, relationship, face, context, flow, and an awareness of universal connectedness tend to be emphasised. In Chapter 2, I referred to Liu Shuxan (1998, p.59) who suggested that Asian societies are apt to advocate a strong sense of social responsibility. As such there is less contrast between the individual and the social context than we might find in western social contexts. This overtly contextual relationship to the world imbues social interaction throughout the CHC society. Although these perceived cultural characteristics are apparently well subscribed to and understood in international business and governance circles, they are not necessarily widely acknowledged or referred to outside of a elite globally

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 353 mobile milieu familiar with the landscape of Chinese society. There is still relatively little known about how these cultural dynamics function in transcultural collaborations related to co-creation and design education.

Kwang-Kuo Hwang, (1987) provides insights that can be used to understand and interpret the cultural dynamics at work in the RARE EARTH field study. This is especially useful in the absence of responses from DHU faculty whose reticence to participate in a structured feedback process is emblematic of what is (through the lens of western logos) the fluid, gnomic mode of Chinese communication. Like people in all societies, “Chinese use different rules of social exchange to deal with people of different relationships” (Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, p.962). One of the most important contradictions between the modes of western communication and those exhibited in CHC is that of mianzi or ‘face’ (面子). Kwang-Kuo Hwang (1987) cites a number of scholarly studies in maintaining that face or ‘face work’,

“… actually means projection of self-image and impression management. The goal is to shape and instill in the minds of others a particular favorable image (Schlenker 1980; Schneider 1969, 1981; Tedeschi and Riess 1981).”

(Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, p.960)

Not only are individuals highly motivated to protect their own self-image, they are also socially obliged to protect the self-image of others. This is often referred to as ‘giving face’.

“…Some common strategies of saving face for another include: avoiding criticizing anyone, especially superiors, in public; using circumlocution and equivocation in any criticism of another’s performance; according greater social rewards to those skilled at preserving face for others. All these are frequently used by Chinese in managing a modern social organization…”

(Silin, 1976, cited in Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, p.962)

Face saving behaviour occurs in older generations of Chinese but has also been proved to manifest in Chinese college environments amongst young students (Bond & Lee, 1978). Considered in the context of this cultural lens, it seems unsurprising that DHU faculty did not raise clear objections to the site location of RARE EARTH earlier.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 354 Image: The site at Bridge 8, Shanghai, RARE EARTH StudioLAB 2011 (Image: COFA 2011) When the so-called direct and questioning logic of western communication styles meets the highly contextual and hierarchical relational flow of social obligation in Chinese society, the potential for misunderstandings runs high. Generally, to the western mind when there is no explicit denial or ‘no’ response to a given proposition, the assumption is typically that the proposition is acceptable. Mianzi itself is also further complicated by its interrelationship with guanxi (关系) or relationship. Guanxi is a complex and subtle system of social ties that profoundly shapes relational transactions within Chinese society. If a social tie is not strong as is the case between academics from different countries who do not interact on a regular basis a Chinese actant,

“…may adopt the strategy of deferment, giving no definite answer … Sometimes the strategy of deferment may cause more serious problems, but in other cases it may be viewed as a good way to reject the demand under the guise of not hurting (the others) mianzi by outright refusal.”

(Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, p.962)

The social dynamics of mianzi and guanxi warrant the serious consideration of design educators wishing to engage with their Chinese peers. As alluded to previously, a significant investment of time is essential but in itself will not guarantee successful collaborations. Chinese academics like all Chinese citizens exist within complex social networks where the quality and reach of one’s guanxi is paramount and having, “…mianzi enhances not only relative position but also many kinds of privileges that further improve the quality of life.” (ibid, p.961) Within this fluid assemblage of social relations, saving mianzi for oneself and for others becomes an important matter for individuals in their everyday life in the community, but even more crucially in professional contexts.

It is equally important to consider that the Chinese academic systems, structures, and professional incentives are quite different – even contradictory to those of western academia. The motivating factors that shape research agendas, research quality and the orientation to collaborating with foreign academics are themselves embedded with the same social context shaped by mianzi and guanxi. This fundamentally influences the potential for strong collaborative outcomes and highlights the sensitive reciprocities that need to be cultivated for successful transcultural collaborations to occur.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 356 Commercial imperatives are far more commonly at work in relation to Chinese academic research. Where face or good guanxi are perceived to align well with the interests of academics, the likelihood of smoother relations are higher. Where this may not be the case then communications can become characterised by ambiguity that is compounded over time. Both western and non-western perceptions of this complex system of social relations are in part defined by the colonialist histories discussed in Chapter 2 of this thesis.Without understanding the underlying social dynamics at work the danger is that misunderstanding emerges and damages the potential for synergies to form in positive ways. This further compounds unhelpful cultural stereotypes on the part of both westerners and non-westerners.

Curator and researcher Binghui Huangfu (Sept 23, 2011) observes that it is important not to be disappointed by situations that emerge in the dialogue with institutions in China. In some cases academics do not teach and see their teaching activities as a sideline to business activities. Because academics are not paid very well many use their role as teachers as a way to attract business opportunities that allow them to make more significant amounts of money. Conversations with DHU students revealed that their teachers do tend to prioritise projects that attract financial reward and prestige. Should a project not offer these motivations they may not prioritise it over those that do. A strong motivation to pursue innovative ideas, social change or impact may not exist in some faculties for these reasons. This goes some way to explain the fluctuations in the dialogue between COFA and DHU. Binghui Huangfu (ibid) asserts however that it is important not to be disappointed or discouraged by these circumstances but to continue to engage.

The issue of cultural stereotyping I have pointed to in earlier chapters as contentious and arguably dangerous territory. This is something researchers, design educators and designers must be highly sensitive to. Yeung & Kashima (2012) conducted a study whose initial findings offer a pertinent counterpoint demonstrating that people from different cultural backgrounds do adopt communication styles, behaviours and strategies that are, “…regarded as socially wise in their own culture” (2012, p.459). The findings of the study suggest that in Asian cultural contexts where there is an emphasis on maintaining harmonious social relations with others it would be more socially wise to strategically communicate more mutually shared information

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 357 while avoiding the communication of ‘unshared’ information that might be likely to cause embarrassment or conflict. In western social contexts where it is typically expected one will accurately express oneself openly, the wisest communication strategy is to provide clear and accurate information thereby delineating oneself at a more individuating level. Yeung & Kashima (2012) further clarify by stating that,

As long as maintaining good relationships with others is consensually perceived to be essential among people living in an Eastern (sic) culture, it becomes a culturally shared goal among Easterners (sic). A strategy that persistently and repeatedly helps Easterners (sic) to attain this culturally shared goal is said to be ecologically fit in its culture and thus would be frequently used as a default strategy by the individuals living in this culture until they learn that the default strategy is no longer appropriate (see Yamagishi, 2010).

(Yeung, V., & Kashima, Y., 2012, p.448)

Yeung and Kashima (2012) also cite Kim (2006) whose research concluded that, “…Easterners and Westerners have different perceived importance of communication behavior…” (ibid. p.448) The variance is typified by westerners attaching more importance on clarity, while more collectivist cultures minimise impositions at least in terms of verbalising them so as not to hurt the hearer’s feelings. They assert,

“…This suggests that during communication, people from individualistic cultures (e.g., Westerners) may prefer accuracy, while people from collectivistic cultures (e.g., Easterners) may prefer maintaining good relationships.”

(ibid p.448)

While this may in fact be a strategy that works for individuals negotiating within their own cultural context, in transcultural communications the

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 358 relative clarity or amelioration of tensions intended by the communicators may in fact have the opposite effect exacerbating ambiguity and dissonance and ultimately diminishing the potential of collaborative synergy to occur. In RARE EARTH a number of respondents noted that their interactions with DHU students indicated that they had not been clearly briefed on what the project was about or what was expected of them.

RARE EARTH participant: “I think some of the Chinese students weren’t told as much what was going on/what was expected of them so they did most of their work out of the studio…”

RARE EARTH participant: “The Chinese students didn’t understand so well what they were mean to do/what was expected of them…one of them (DHU Students) told me their teacher hadn’t told them very much…”

Such observations are not necessarily supported by the fact that DHU students towards the end of the studioLAB presented significant collaborative outcomes in print formats that aligned with the brief that had of course been provided in Chinese. This also suggested that although there was a reserve about working within the studio they had collaboratively engaged with the city in ways that implied they had a strong understanding of the studioLAB and its goals.

Students in both cultural contexts faced an inevitable ambiguity in regard the collaborative nature of the work being conducted. This was to a significant extent due to the IMP and its capacity to display content developed by the participants in small groups, individually as a collective whole. This, it might be interpreted that the capacities of the machine to present individual projects a entities within a larger collaborative whole influences perceptions about what collaboration meant in RARE EARTH. As one respondent commented,

RARE EARTH participant: “…I collaborated to some extent with a couple of my peers, not so much in making work together but just helping each other out, conceptually and practicially…”

This suggests that the notion of collaboration in RARE EARTH had shifted from being situated in small creative groups, to represent a process where all activity was seen as feeding into the larger work that represented the collaboration. This relates to other challenges that were encountered in

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 359 the dilemma of some of the COFA students in evaluating and negotiating the relationships between their own practice and the studio apparatus that was presenting a bigger picture representing the collective outputs of the studioLAB.

RARE EARTH participant: “…I found the process of continually uploading onto Flickr to be a bit disruptive of my flow of doing things…”

The highly individualistic Australian participants indicated experiencing some issues around the role and meaning of their own work in a larger whole. Individuals that experienced this tension were more likely to be those from the disciplines of visual art. This troublesome factor too however provided opportunities for a transformation at the value level. Visual arts students are typically educated to develop their own practice and collaboration is less emphasised. One COFA students responded that she,

RARE EARTH participant: “…had never really collaborated on projects before. Will be much more open to collaborating in the future and trusting others when working on projects.”

Another participant spoke of tension caused by,

RARE EARTH participant: “…not knowing what the final result was supposed to be…”

A significant number of the COFA participants raised the issue of time as a constraint on their capacity to engage collaboratively with DHU participants in such a concentrated and highly intensive process. This aligns with the links between investing time and the development of trust (Kwang-Kuo Hwang, 1987, p.944) in CHC contexts as a basis for collaboration. It is less clear how this constraint could be eased other than through the use of online collaborative strategies conducted over longer periods of time.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 360 This all reveals that although the IMP represents an exciting opportunity for creating digital collaborative spaces, further consideration must be given to how immersive technologies might enable richer studio learning especially in transcultural and interdisciplinary modes of design education.

The complexity in regard to the IMP was however not limited to its location or how it was perceived as a collaborative system in the studio process. Intractable logistic constraints also hampered its implementation and this forced a dramatic rethink and rescaling of its role and profile in the final exhibition component of RARE EARTH. Despite the use of the courier services routinely contracted by UNSW, and on-the-ground support from import professionals adept in dealing with China’s opaque customs procedures, the projection equipment shipped to Shanghai for the purposes of the project was quarantined at Pudong International Airport for the duration of the studioLAB. No concrete reasons for this from the relevant authorities were provided. Through an exhaustive process of negotiation with a range of local parties, we were advised that this was a common occurrence and that aside from the possibility of offering a ‘payment’ for release of the equipment to officials we were unlikely be successful in accessing our equipment. Despite leveraging quanxi that extended to high-level insiders to the customs business this proved to be the case. No official support in relation to the situation could be provided by DHU and the costs of hiring similar equipment locally was prohibitive.

This was an intractable issue ending in a stalemate between the researchers, DHU, agents contracted to negotiate the release of the equipment, and the customs officials at Pudong Airport. Equally however, such challenges provide opportunities to reflexively and innovatively respond to contingent factors introducing unforseen opportunities, situated learning, and transformative but troublesome knowledge (Meyer & Land, 2003). After leveraging contacts in the customs industry via a third party post-studio, the equipment was shipped to Australia 159 days after leaving Sydney for Shanghai.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 361 Although no official reasons were provided for this unanticipated complexity, a speculative response suggests that projection equipment was seen as problematic due to an intervention in New York City by the Cuban artist Geandy Pavon (May 2011) who used projectors to display

a huge image of the Chinese artist Ai WeiWei on Chinese Consulate buildings19. Ai WeiWei was at the time being detained by the Chinese authorities. Earlier in April of the same year supporters of Ai WeiWei also projected the message, “Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei” on the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army in Hong Kong. Additionally it was observed that the title of the studio was a contentious choice that would draw attention of authorities given the controversial nature of rare earth minerals in China.

Responding to these unforseen constraints with regard to the implementation of the IMP, the thematic of ‘contingency’ that had been introduced to the studioLAB by Professor Goodwin as a provocation, and the notion of ‘the hack’ played far more complex roles than anyone involved had imagined. While negotiations with the customs department at Pudong Airport proceeded in parallel with the studio, participants continued to respond to the brief unabated. In the final phase a new exhibition design that reflected the IMP’s TileStream was conceived. This design would wrap the entire studio space in a huge print based ‘TileStream’ documenting each project.

Augmented collaboration - Reflections and conclusions

Although marked by contingent factors, it remains clear that the cultural immersion enabled by situated experiential studio learning creates unique circumstances where students and faculty

inevitably confront troublesome knowledge and difficult threshold concepts20, together and individually, in what becomes symbiotic, liminal transformation space (Cousin, 2006; Meyer & Land, 2006). RARE EARTH demonstrates that despite our best efforts to communicate clearly, collaboration between people from different cultures is inevitably subject to communication breakdowns because our realities are very much comprised of differing norms, symbols, and representations reinforced through education and the social contexts we inhabit.

19 Refer to: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/05/24/ai-weiweis-face-blasted-onto- chinese-consulate/ 20 A threshold concept is integrative in that it exposes the hidden interrelatedness of phenomenon. Mastery of a threshold concept often allows the learner to make connections that were hitherto hidden from view. Threshold concepts are often irreversible and the student is unlikely to forget it once learned (Cousin, 2006)

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 362 The RARE EARTH studioLAB experience reinforces how cognitive structures are affected by cultural cues as well as language, and the extent to which this has significant impacts on the potential for complexification of designed solutions and design collaboration. Yet we have tools that we can choose to deploy if design educators desire to work in collaborative ways. The facility of the networked image to act as a system of signs permits a highly visual approach to developing shared understandings about creative responses to cities and other complex design problems – such as how to engage in the act of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration. The strength of the immersive studioLAB format is the opportunity it provides for evaluating previously untested collaborative tools, methodologies and relationships by combining the communication and data visualisation capabilities of computer systems with the creativity and high-level cognitive capabilities of people (Bernstein, Klein, Malone, 2011).

However, the inherent complexity of RARE EARTH presented problematic situations in terms of attracting institutional support, collaboration between stakeholders and negotiating bureaucracy across tightly controlled international borders. This serves to foreground the quotidian challenges that keep humans apart. Such limitations can equally be seen as opportunities. We encountered unforeseen complexities, vagaries and the opaque undocumented processes of Chinese customs officials that meant that the complete installation could not be exhibited. This irrevocably altered the direction, flavour and nature of the studioLAB, and required an unforeseen hack as a contingent response. Taking the term hack to imply an improvisation or a response ‘on the fly’, the producers responded in ways that allowed the process to unfold as intended but in a more disjointed format and at a smaller scale than envisaged using multiple screens. It is crucially important to recognise this impasse as emblematic of the problem of transcultural communication itself.

Participants perceived the outcomes of RARE EARTH as very successful despite the work being unable to be realised at the anticipated scale during the exhibition phase. The process and subsequent public iterations of the IMP did suggest that its deployment as an interactive projection in the studio could function as an

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 363 The specificity of the Chinese and Australian cultures in these field studies provide cogent examples of the kinds of considerations required of design educators thinking at the level of Metadesign and desiring of a more joined-up synergistic approach to address complex global problems. immersive digital pinboard. This metaphor is redolent of collaborative design processes as traditionally understood, but in a format that is augmented by the ability to search, compare, interact, juxtapose in ways that expand the potential of traditional pinboards or ‘paper spaces’ (Pang, 2011) and the traditional media typically used in concert with these collaborative tools.

In the StudioLAB some Australian students faced tensions negotiating the relationship between their own practice and the IMP that was geared to present a larger more social image representing the collective work created. This reveals that further consideration must be given to how immersive technologies might enable richer studio learning serving all creative disciplines and cultural orientations such as individualism or collectivism. The empirical evidence observed in the outcomes of the studioLAB suggests the IMP creates a capacity:

• for sharing information in ways that correspond to the socially mediated life of the city

• promoting mediated transcultural and interdisciplinary design learning

• to observe each individual/component project in progress in ways that allows for juxtaposition and comparison with the iterative development of the work, and against other works underway in the studio

• to develop a searchable database of research materials (images, audio, video) accessible to all agents in the process

• for facilitated discourse and shared understanding around ideas, concepts, responses, and interactions

• for elevated intensity of communal and intercultural involvement in the project/process

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 365 • to engage in a co-languaging of the design process through sharing of data, imagery, experience and culture via a socially mediated process of interacting in the studioLAB and online

• for mapping a matrix of sites and points of engagement with the city and it’s communities

• for generating an engagement with troublesome knowledge in a situated transcultural design context

Much remains to be investigated but it is crucial that design educators within creative disciplines collaboratively evolve and explore new pliant methodologies advocating sensitivity to divergent institutional and stakeholder expectations and needs. We urgently require effective ways to expedite communication despite language difference and culturally based assumptions about design, learning and research. Exploring further the potential of IMP as open transcultural communication and collaboration tools by integrating them into design education, will refine new methods that enable dynamic mediation and documentation of collective design processes. Extrapolating this trajectory, we might see in the future large-scale, networked, immersive screens used to facilitate collaborative sharing, speculative and participatory expressions of ideas, place and identity, mapping and storytelling, and the facilitation of solutions to complex problems. Further research in transcultural design education in this mode will also enable us to conceive new understanding of what screens are for, and what they can do.

This chapter has concentrated on providing an extensive narrative analysis of three individual iterative field studies conducted between 2008 and 2011. Each study deployed an action research based methodology to produce iterative designed responses to the problem of how to develop a framework that can provide a viable model for transcultural interdisciplinary design education that might be adapted for application across all cultural contexts. The specificity of the Chinese and Australian cultures in these field studies provides cogent examples of the kinds of considerations required of design educators desiring of a more joined-up approach to addressing complex upstream global problems. Through the design-led analysis of online, blended and augmented approaches to transcultural interdisciplinary design education, a set of vital considerations can be established that encompasses the following components (See Figure

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 366 18).

Field Study Crucial considerations for collaborative transcultural interdisciplinary design education

Field Study 1 (C8 2008) • Language difference - strategies and scaffolds • Culture and expectations of learning environments - adaptive approaches • Multiple realities - acknowledgement and harmonisation

Field Study 2 (e-SCAPE Studio) • Boundary objects - understanding the role and potential - open ended approach • Trust - investment of time, learning and teaching strategies that accelerate this

Field Study 3 (RARE EARTH) • co-languaging through images - emphasise the use of images as communication tools • Culturally embedded communication processes and systems - sensitivity to, strategies

Other themes • Consideration of media and technologies (online, blended, social media, databases, responsive spaces • The importance of sharing

Figure 20: Table of vital considerations for collaborative transcultural interdisciplinary design education

The concluding chapter will draw out these essential themes (see Figure 20) to define a framework of strategic Metadesign tools intended to be adapted, and applied by design educators globally when they desire to intervene in the status quo and create transformational spaces where the world can be reimagined through the juxtaposition of cultural knowledge that can contribute to the co-design of our collective futures.

Chapter 6 - Field Studies 367 7.0 In answering the research questions my findings evidence that within collaborations between western and non- western participants language, cultural background, colonial histories, and our multiple ways of understanding and designing the world, shape cognition, behaviour, expectations of educational environments and communication styles in ways that are often at variance. Under these conditions, collaboration is itself a wicked problem.

conclusions 7.0 Conclusions

In a perfect world this thesis wouldn’t be written. In that world, people regardless of culture, understand each other’s differences and similarities on a fundamentally human level. In that world we would have been educated so we were equipped to hear each other, trust each other, and co-create together. Designers would routinely collaborate with each other and others across disciplines and between cultural contexts to find joined-up solutions to the overwhelming wicked problems we face. In that utopian world hitherto impossible synergies would not lie untapped because of a lack of openness, false assumptions and distrust. They might instead be leveraged to create as yet unimagined transformations of what we currently understand design and its role in society to be. Then again, in that utopia, under those conditions we would likely not face the catastrophic complexity and crisis that we do face in this world. Culture shouldn’t matter but clearly it does.

The previous chapter examined the process and reported findings of three field studies that model adaptive mediated strategies for collaborative transcultural interdisciplinary design education. This concluding chapter distills the design insights that emerged in the field studies as a framework of crucial considerations and tools. The C8 field studies maintain a Sino Australian focus, however the framework can be tested, adapted and applied by educators to activate situated design collaboration between participants living in other human cultures. The core concepts function as seeds – strategies, techniques and tools for approaching transcultural complexity in design education.

Frameworks are defined, described and theorised in diverse ways across most the fields of human endeavour. Like the terms ‘culture’ or ‘design’, the terminology ‘framework’ is very dependent on the context of its usage. The Oxford Dictionary defines a framework as a “A basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text.” Metadesign is itself described by Fischer and Giaccardi as a framework. In this context they define Metadesign as “an emerging conceptual framework aimed at defining and creating social and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place” (2004, p. 1).

The meaning of a framework as an outcome of this thesis can be understood by simultaneously

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 369 holding these two ideas in mind – (1) that a framework is a system, underlying structure or template applicable in a design process. In this case the design process operates and is applied within the context of design education that is both transcultural and interdisciplinary. (2) The design process is itself (as described in 1.) is informed, shaped, articulated through the conceptual framework of Metadesign. This symbiotic relationship can be seen in this thesis to define a philosophic architecture and a set of considerations that can be seen as a framework or set of lenses through which to seek out, plan, activate and realise design education processes that are inherently collaborative and relevant to thinking about, fostering and ultimately engaging with and becoming involved with complex (wicked) problems in a transcultural and interdisciplinary mode and context. The eight strategic tools or insights can be apprehended, understood and comprehended by all the stakeholders at all stages of the co-design process. The relationship between the eight tools is one of inherent interdependence.

THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The thesis poses two questions:

1. How can design educators create spaces where transcultural interdisciplinary collaboration can occur in ways that promote shared vision around the wicked problems humans face?

2. Can culturally adaptive interdisciplinary design education solve some of the complex challenges of cultural literacy, trust and transcultural communication?

These research questions acknowledge that our design and education systems are embedded within neoliberal, market led agendas and don’t operate in ways that equip us to collaboratively solve the wicked global problems that humans face. My research makes explicit a mode of design education that frames methods for activating latent synergies between participants from diverse human cultures that are currently constrained by conflict, assumption and mistrust in relation to each other.

The Sino Australian focus of the thesis operates as an exemplar of cultural difference. The cultural modalities and histories in play reveal vivid contradictions in the ways both

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 370 cultures operate. As much as we might theorise or wish otherwise, such contradictions, generate troublesome constellations of behaviour, thinking and communication that impede transcultural, interdisciplinary collaboration between our education systems and between people. The answers to the research questions are not clear-cut. There are no formulas, step- by-step guides, or quantitative blueprints for successful collaboration. The projects described in this thesis demonstrate that, should we desire it, design educators can activate collaborative people-to-people relationships. However, as the field studies also evidence, this occurs in ways that may be unpredictable, elusive, ambiguous, political, challenging, complex and incomplete. Yet to those who participate in the immersive encounter as observed in Field Studies 2 and 3, the experience is likely to be simultaneously instructional, critical, creative, explosive, emotional and ultimately transformative.

FRAMING THE CONVERGENCE OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

It is important to create a bridge or a means to more clearly understand the relationship between Metadesign as it has been framed theoretically in this thesis and its more palpable and real world application as exhibited and discussed in relation to the three C8 Field Studies. Fischer and Giaccardi (2004, pp.12-17) produced highly relevant observations regarding the application of approaches to the theoretical and conceptual framework of Metadesign. They explore these ideas in relation to (1) Interactive Art, (2) Social Creativity, (3) Learning Communities, and (4) Open Source. Of these they observe that,

“Different domains express a meta-design approach, applying related concepts and methodologies. Some of these applications, when conceptualized as meta-design, suggest new insights (e.g., interactive art), others rather represent a concrete assessment of our conceptual framework (e.g., learning communities). We illustrate here how the application of meta-design approaches have transformed existing design approaches in different domains, including interactive art, information repositories, design environments, and classrooms as design studios.”

(Fischer & Giaccardi, 2004, p.12)

The relevance of these domains to C8 Research and its deployment of Metadesign as a means to develop the framework can be observed in each of the field studies.Each functioned as a platform for using online environments, interactive media and open source technologies as creative tools that helped to scaffold the intensely transformational learning and social

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 371 communities that emerged.

Interactivity cast as Metadesign engenders a focus on collaboration and co-creation seeding, “…a context in which users can create and manipulate at the level of code, behaviour, and/ or content, and perform meaningful activities” (ibid. p.12). Each of the field studies can be interpreted as evidencing this in the co-designed outcomes generated. The immersive experiential dimension inherent to each C8 Field study as ‘experienced’ by all the participants and stakeholders is also irrefutably present. This is pertinent to the interdisciplinary nature of the field studies and critical to understanding the potential of the proposed framework and how it might be applied.

“Interactive artworks have an “experiential” or aesthetic dimension that justifies their status as art, rather than as information design. According to Manovich [Manovich, 2001], these dimensions include a particular configuration of space, time, and surface articulated in the work; a particular sequence of user’s activities over time to interact with the work; and a particular formal, material, and phenomenological user experience. But most of all, when conceptualized as meta- design, they include the indeterminacy of the event of creation [Giaccardi, 2001a], given by the empowerment of users’ creative capabilities in an open and collaborative environment.”

(ibid. p.12)

So too the social aspects of the design and artistic creativity that emerged in the field studies exemplifies the aforementioned convergence of diverse perspectives and experience of the world to help, “…create a shared understanding among all users [which] can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts” (ibid.p.15). As an open ‘socio-technical’ system within design education the framework C8 Research proposes leverages and supports collaboration. As such it seeks to address the limits individual designers and single discipline teams of designers inevitably bring to complex problems. The closed systems silo-based configurations of design practice and education foster are, “…inadequate for coping with dynamic problem contexts” (ibid. p.15). As we have now seen, complex or wicked problems,

“…require more knowledge than any single person can possess, and the knowledge

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 372 The findings form a set of open-ended, overlapping, pliant methods and apprehensions delimiting an experientially focussed architecture for designing and activating culturally adaptive systems, procedures and environments to seed collaborative transcultural and interdisciplinary relationships. relevant to a problem is often distributed among all users, each of whom has a different perspective and background knowledge, thus providing the foundation for social creativity [Arias et al., 2000]. Bringing together different points of view and trying to create a shared understanding among all users can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts.”

(ibid. p.15)

The social, open source and interdisciplinary hybrid ‘culture’ that C8 Research propagates is intrinsic to applying its challenge to the status quo of design practice as alluded to in previous chapters. It’s an approach that aligns with Metadesign as framed theoretically by Fischer & Giaccardi. Thus demonstrates, explores and,

“…creates the enabling conditions “to engage the talent pool of the whole world” [Raymond & Young, 2001]. Design engagement, from participation in planning to participation in continuous change (from do-it-yourself to adaptable environments), gives all the people access to the tools, resources, and power that have been jealously guarded prerogatives of the professional.”

(ibid. p.18)

Educational applications of synergistic open approaches to design, and what designers are and do, may be perceived (as is often the case with open source practices) as, “…a challenge to their design expertise” (ibid. p.18). However as Manzini notes (2007), “We must learn to see designers as social actors in a society in which, as contemporary sociology points out, “everybody designs”…” (Manzini, 2007). In essence the nexus between Metadesign as a theoretical construct and its application in design education and specifically within C8 Research lies in its deep correlation with collaboration. It is a high level operating system for thinking about design and design education in a complex culturally diverse world overwhelmed by complexity. Conversely it offers a range of identifiable strategies and approaches to creating open-ended discourse, practical action and application to these concerns via design, education and co-creation between the liminal spaces of cultural and interdisciplinary ‘elsewheres’. It’s appropriateness as the basis of the framework proposed in

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 374 this research is captured most eloquently by Fischer and Giaccardi who claim that,

“In a world that is not predictable, and where solutions are neither given nor confined in one single mind, meta-design allows exploration of the collaborative dimension of human creativity. This produces a novel approach in the design of both interactive systems and their sociotechnical environment that aims to include the emergent as an opportunity for evolution and innovation. Meta-design deals with co-creation [Giaccardi, 2003]. It enables and activates collaborative processes that allow the emergence of creative activities in open and evolvable environments.”

(Fischer & Giaccardi, 2004, p.18)

In answering the research questions my findings evidence that within collaborations between western and non-western participants language, cultural background, colonial histories, and our multiple ways of understanding and designing the world, shape cognition, behaviour, expectations of educational environments and communication styles in ways that are often at variance. Under these conditions, collaboration is itself a wicked problem. These factors operate at the level of people-to-people relationships and are mirrored in social, institutional and political contexts. They complicate the development of creative synergies that could facilitate shared understanding and therefore the potential for collaboration. Without the symbiotic conditions for developing shared understanding about each other and a given design problem, the crucial collaborative ‘shared vision’ required to face wicked global problems is not an option.

My hybrid research methodology, situated at the nexus of action research and iterative, reflexive design thinking, has been shaped by a strong identification with the collaborative and synergistic ‘seeding’ ethos of Metadesign theorised by Wood, Fuller, Giaccardi, Fischer, et al.. and described in Chapter 1 of the thesis. Networked mediation of collaborative transcultural processes is also framed as a core thematic thread throughout the research. The online, blended and augmented approaches deployed in the three field studies to scaffold collaborations between the participants and stakeholders each impacted in different ways.

Field Study 1 demonstrates unforeseen, external factors can adversely influence collaboration, even when processes have been meticulously planned. It also showed that online platforms deployed within tightly structured programs can facilitate the sharing of ideas but remote

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 375 collaboration between cultural groups is dependent on catering to the specific cultural needs and ‘multiple realities’ of participants. As an educational strategy, the blended encounter seen in Field Study 2 proved more effective in creating the conditions for transcultural collaboration to occur. It further highlighted how the conscious act of sharing culture, experience and ideas through structured deployment of strategies such as Petcha Kutcha presentations, face-to-face interactions, and workshopping of cultural issues, creates circumstances where boundary objects emerge to assist in facilitating collaborative design processes. The expanded augmented studio deployed in Field Study 3 challenged our assumptions about the nature of collaboration and how humans might interact with each other and with machines for creating content to build shared understanding. It’s complex mechanisms and requirements however, highlighted divergent embedded modalities of communication that design educators must be both cognisant of, and sensitive enough to respond to.

Commonalities emerging from the spectrum of interpretations of what Metadesign represents can also be observed in this research as explicitly applicable to the development of collaborative platforms. These factors, as they are applicable to educators ‘desiring’ to create spaces for transcultural and interdisciplinary design collaboration, include the following. 1. There is an emphasis on designing general structures and processes rather than objects or content; 2. Methods deployed are fluid and adaptive rather than strict and prescriptive; 3.The environments produced are themselves adaptive and can evolve to respond to conditions and events; 4. The essential nature of the relationships involved are such that the systems in place are based on a, “…mutual and open process of affecting and being affected” (Giaccardi 2005, p.346). These conditions reflect the inherent and ambiguous complexities of, “…anticipation, participation and emergence” (2005, p.346). The relevance of these assertions can be observed throughout the sequence of field studies.

As has been observed, the needs and behaviour of participants in a fluid situated context cannot be predicted accurately during the design stage because they are inherently undefined and will naturally change and respond to conditions over time. This level of wickedness calls for participants to be involved in the problem framing and for the design of the system to allow for and include open-endedness as a core designed-in component. Field Studies 2 and 3 demonstrate how creating systems where participants frame their own response to a live brief gives causality to less predictable but more synergistic cooperative dynamics possessing

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 376 greater potential for innovation. This degree of engagement also functions to promote a deeper reflexivity in the participant’s considered responses to the systems and spaces created. Thus the learning is itself deeper and more transformative, introducing thresholds of experience that once crossed cannot be unlearned.

Given the institutional structures that design educators operate within, it must be acknowledged that planning and coordination of collaborative platforms and systems across geo-political regions and time zones presents considerable logistic challenges. Rather than being realised as a response to top-down planning, C8 Research emerged from a bottom-up process created by a small network of academic stakeholders. This is likely to be the case for most design educators who initiate such projects. The status of the design school as the, “…laboratory for the future,” (Manzini, 2010) permits design educators license to mount challenges to design’s status quo. It is not surprising that these ‘disruptions’ are most likely to be instigated at the grass roots level.

Cultural and communication issues were observed throughout the phases of planning, design and implementation of each field study. Design educators will need, as Giaccardi points out (2005), to be comfortable with keeping the design process open to change, evolution and reflexivity at all stages. This includes during what Giaccardi refers to as “use time” (2005, p.347). In each field study the social and technical systems put in place become more efficient and optimised over time, but they do so with the capacity to, “…let new conditions, interactions and relationships emerge.” (ibid p.347). The field studies corroborate Giaccardi’s argument that openness to ongoing emergence creates the conditions where, “…new forms of sociability and creativity can develop and innovation can be fostered” (ibid p.347). From this integration of methods and modalities, the field studies produced a series of circumstances that, “…translates into the identification of a multidimensional design space” (ibid p.347).This open-ended process is causal to the emergence of an adaptive space where traditional design education transforms some of its inherent limitations. As the field studies evidence, through these means, transcultural interdisciplinary design collaboration transforms from impossibility towards being a realisable ‘possible’.

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 377 A FRAMEWORK FOR TRANSCULTURAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN EDUCATION

The findings of this research are delineated as a framework consisting of eight strategic tools or insights (Figure 21). They provide a critical lens for approaching the instigation, planning, deployment and evaluation of transcultural and interdisciplinary collaborative spaces. They are not presented as definitive rules and steps for successful collaborations. Inevitably, each culture, each institution, each faculty, and each combination of personalities, skills, agendas, interests, histories and orientations will create unique constellations of stakeholder and participant inputs and produce unique outcomes.

The findings form a set of open-ended, overlapping, pliant methods and apprehensions delimiting an experientially focussed architecture for designing and activating culturally adaptive systems, procedures and environments to seed collaborative transcultural and interdisciplinary relationships. The key components of the framework emerging from the research are set out below as strategic statements followed by a brief summary of implications and recommendations.

1. Scaffold for language difference and cognition Problems encountered because of language difference were significant in all field studies most particularly for academics from both Australia and China, and the Australian student participants. However the challenge of language was not sufficiently disruptive to stop collaboration from occurring. Language plays an enormous role in shaping culture and how we see the world. This is reflected in the multiple realities of participants that manifested in each field study. Cognitive structures are affected by cultural cues as well as language, and have significant impacts on the potential for complexification of design ideas, solutions and collaboration. Bilingual participants still face communication issues because terms and concepts expressed through language may not necessarily correspond to their understandings. It is critical to establish enough resources to allow for appropriate scaffolds to be put in place to support participants. These scaffolds would typically take the form of bilingual content and translators conversant with the disciplinary languages of design.

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 378 2. Design adaptive systems to accommodate diverse culturally based expectations of learning environments and processes Culture shapes the way we construct knowledge and our learning and teaching styles. In each field study Chinese and Australian participants exhibited divergent expectations of education environments. This impacted on how they interacted with the brief, the learning resources, how they used media, and their attitudes toward it. A multi-modal strategy that caters to a diversity of learning styles, modes of knowledge construction and the educational cultures of participants is a commonly used educational tenet in holistic approaches to learning and teaching. Within this framework design educators must develop a deep understanding of the range of needs participants will bring to the studio and design in adaptive systems that accommodate them. In each of the field studies this entailed integrating didactic resources for participants expecting teacher-centred modes of delivery alongside open discussion spaces that activated more dialogic student-centred engagement. The Metadesign challenge here is formulating strategies that will promote synergy between the antithetical modalities and tendencies inherent to the cultural backgrounds of participants. The silent activity of Chinese participants during Field Study 1 when compared to the discussion-based process of their Australian peers exemplifies the kinds of constraints on collaborative responses that emerge particularly in online environments.

3. Acknowledge and harmonise multiple realities There are multiple realities playing out in these situations and spaces. In the field studies they are defined by culturally specific expectations of education and learning environments, modes of teaching and learning, our roles and perceptions about our roles, and the relative status and expectations of ‘teachers’, ‘students’, ‘designers’, and ‘mentors’. Culturally based understandings of collective projects, ownership of ideas, and what collaboration means also proved to be important considerations impacting on the experiential reality of participants. As previously alluded to language is a crucial component in shaping the diverse realities omnipresent in the transcultural and interdisciplinary context. Bringing these multiplicities into balance is an ambiguous but important function of managing transcultural collaboration.

4. Build in open-ended processes, systems and platforms to promote the emergence of boundary objects Transcultural and interdisciplinary communication challenges are somewhat ameliorated by the emergence of boundary objects that participants use to negotiate their ideas, understandings and design propositions when facing language and cultural differences. As discussed in the context of Field Studies 2 and 3, effective boundary objects cannot be ‘designed’. Rather, the design educator must bring about the circumstances

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 379 where they are likely to emerge. Open-ended processes where participants engage in acts of disclosure and sharing ideas and experience through images (sketching, photography, video) proved conducive to the emergence of boundary objects in the second and third field studies. Project instigators must seek out strategies that create the conditions for relational transactions to occur through these essential modes of design communication.

5. Invest time in building authentic trust between stakeholders while developing strategies and practices designed to accelerate this between participants As previously stated nobody collaborates successfully with those we do not trust. The role of disclosure about self, culture and ideas through sharing was observed in each field study to build higher levels of trust. Understandings about time and trust development vary in different cultural contexts. In CHC an investment of time not familiar to western participants is required and design educators must be willing to engage over the long term to build trust. This should be maintained as an ongoing process. Devoting time to building authentic and non-hierarchical relationships with all collaborators builds trust and diminishes the potential for communication breakdowns.

The field studies suggest there is a correlation between the degree of hierarchy evident in a transcultural relationship and the depth of miscommunication and assumption that emerge to constrain effective collaboration. Here I am arguing that the degree to which the collaboration is hierarchical is mirrored in the level of disjuncture that occurs. We can see this in Field Study 3 in particular where disjuncture emerged in concert with DHU having lower levels of engagement in regards the selection of the project site. There is a significant potential for patterns deriving from culturally specific tendencies, processes and perceptions of status or hierarchy can impact communication in ways that derail collaboration. Collaborators must be vigilant and work to understand and equitably maintain the quality of relational inputs between all stakeholder and participants.

6. Activate the use of images, artefacts and visual media within intensive sharing processes as co-languaging tools The importance of sharing experience, culture, knowledge, interests, skills and ideas to coalesce the relational and communication basis for collaboration cannot be overstated. The capacity of images and visual forms of media to support more deeper transcultural engagement

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 380 has been observed in each field study. The combinatory effect of strategically introducing studio processes that privilege sharing via Petcha Kutcha, sketching, photography, video, digital databases/social media and immersive, networked spaces accelerates the emergence of specific forms of co-languaging for design thinking. The narrative capacity of images and media appears to transcend culture providing a means to access ‘otherness’ in ways that our respective languages used alone cannot. Each field study iteratively placed more emphasis on the shared image. In each study this was observed to generate higher levels of shared understanding between the participants that resulted in or triggered transcultural interaction and collaborative engagement. This correlates closely to Eppler’s assertions (2007, p.584) regarding the role of images within collaborative environments.

Participants reported that they experienced new insights about themselves as much as about their peers. In some instances their realisations challenged long held ideas of self. How open- minded they were for example. These responses accord too with Eppler in suggesting that images hold a transformative potential to reveal new understandings about others, ourselves or about how we operate in the world as practitioners and as humans. In Field Study 3 the combinations of image and text elements as tags extended this process into the researching and documenting phases of the project creating the possibility of micro-narratives relating to place, process and concept. This prefaced both digital and real design outcomes. Here sharing, the boundary object and co-languaging overlap or combine as a powerful strategic tool for generating engagment, disclosure and the building of trust as a basis for shared understanding. Once this is provoked, the conditions for collaboration gain focus and a basis for proceeding co-operatively comes into play.

7. Research, understand and act in concert with culturally embedded communica- tion processes, relational factors and social networks The challenges of transcultural misunderstandings occurring at the level of individuals, institutions, and within the broader social and political landscape demonstrate the vital role culturally embedded systems and styles of communication play. Relationships - human bonds between people are of utmost importance in the Asian context of C8 Research and are valued highly in a far more culturally significant manner than within the world of contracts, liabilities, policies and the bureaucratic particularities relied upon, enforced and expected by westerners. These contradictory cultural tendencies impact significantly on the relational dimension of collaboration, further highlighting the crucial role of trust in forming viable collaborative

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 381 foster understand

literacy

co-languaging invest time build trust

Figure 21: The relationship between metadesign as characterised in C8 Research and the framework for transcultural and interdisciplinary collaboration in design education interactions. Given the overriding relational dimension manifested in cultural processes such as ‘guanxi’ and ‘mianzi’ prevalent in Chinese culture, without strong authentic relationships at people-to-people level, it is unlikely that attempts to foster collaborative transcultural design education will meet with high levels of synergy.

In all the field studies but perhaps most apparently in Field Study 3 disconnects emerged in the collaboration highlighting the critical necessity to understand and align with the predominant modes of communication and social relations germane to the cultural context. This can be very difficult even when stakeholders have significant experience and understanding of the cultural processes concerned, and therefore design educators need to have a detailed working understanding of the cultural and social specificities around the social, professional, and communication processes stakeholders exist within. For western educators a more sensitive approach to communication than might be typical is essential in getting a transcultural collaborative project underway and for generating viable levels of participation.

Assumptions that academic agendas are the same across cultures are naïve. The priorities and cultures of design education systems are not necessarily complimentary or aligned, and may have competing or discordant agendas. Each education system operates within a policy framework driven by political and economic flows that shape academic and research cultures. The benefits of transcultural projects that demand high levels of support, time and resources may not be equally recognised or perceived to be relevant at all in some cultural and political contexts. Such projects can be perceived as beyond the possible or not desireable within the context of routines, political and institutional priorities, and patterns of practice that may not yet acknowledge the global crisis, or the need for transcultural collaboration in the same way. As in all collaboration identifying the most complimentary stakeholders is conducive to more synergistic outcomes.

8. Evaluate the appropriateness of media and technologies to support collaboration The field studies provide focused accounts of how networks and media were iteratively applied throughout the research. Online media, blended approaches to studio, leveraging of social media, visual databases and networked responsive technologies were iteratively tested by participants and stakeholders to organise, share, propose, document, discuss, interact, and study.

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 383 Although the Internet encourages us to inhabit digital space together, there remain complex challenges to effective communication that can limit understanding. Online environments enable communication and interaction at a theoretical level. Although during the period of the study, rapid advancements have been made, it remains that the online world largely diminishes a range of communication cues such as body language, facial expression and tone of voice that contribute to mutual understanding and the development of trust. This constraint is clearly receding with advances in faster bandwidth, mobile technologies and communication tools such as Skype. However, blended approaches to collaborative learning in C8 highlighted the effectiveness of combining online tools and immersive face-to-face studio interaction. The potential of responsive environments and social media as intensive studio mechanisms for transcultural collaboration proved somewhat controversial in the context of Field Study 3 demonstrating that this more radical approach requires further research and experimentation.

Issues of accessibility, equity, and preferences for particular forms of media on the part of cultural groups are other important considerations. There is a trade off between the use of simple technologies that offer less in terms of their capacity to support collaboration, and more complex responsive technologies. Although such platforms are becoming increasingly viable they may be more problematic logistically, and contentious culturally and politically. In the field studies using online technologies in concert with the immersive face-to-face encounter was observed to create an expanded collaborative space through its facility to enhance the immersive experience of the studio encounter for participants.

The augmented model proposed in Field Study 3 demonstrated it’s potential and a significant capacity to privilege images and media in collaborative processes. The platform creates a situated context and climate for images, video and audio to function as tools to spore as boundary objects with the capacity to amplify the interactions between participants. Those designing transcultural collaboration platforms and spaces will find that the decisions they make in regards to technologies have significant impacts on the types of collaborations possible and the depth of complexity in terms of designed solutions and ideas that emerge as outcomes.

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 384 The framework should be applied as scaffolding for design education processes that are open ended and flexible enough to be adapted to a diversity of cultural contexts and combinations thereof. It may empower design educators and other stakeholders to anticipate contingent constraints so they can respond in ways that build trust as a basis for collaboration rather than conflict and crisis. LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH

The following is a discussion of pragmatically important factors that represent a range of limitations that need to be delineated for the reader.

1. Language The limited capacity of most western participants to speak the Chinese language is of primary importance as a constraint on the research process as much as on collaboration itself. This is also a challenge for the Chinese academics involved but less so for their students who are more generally bilingual. This is a constraint that many western design educators, stakeholders and participants will face in a collaborative engagement with Chinese peers. I argue that in many transcultural contexts globally this will also be the case. This limitation introduces challenges that force us to find different ways to communicate that are potentially more time consuming. This is not necessarily a negative in the transcultural collaborative process as it forces a more reflective approach to the communication.

2. Timeframe of the study The specific timeframe pertaining to the field studies in this thesis is 2008 – 2011. This is of importance because the social, cultural and geopolitical contexts and concerns of both China and Australia are fluid and evolving. In the case of China, as has been discussed at length in earlier chapters, the rate of social, economic and cultural change is exceedingly rapid. The relationship between the two cultures is as a result transformed by a plethora of ephemeral circumstances, shifts in government policies and priorities, and variations in trade and investment conditions, in addition to the increasing movement of people and the level of telecommunications traffic between China and Australia.

During the timeframe the political landscape has changed in both Australia and China. Most notable has been an increased realisation in Australia of its place in relation to the Asia region. Although the dynasty of government leaders of China’s CCP have also changed within this timeframe, overt political change has arguably been more visible in Australia. More recently, the “Australia in the Asian Century” White Paper introduced by the previous Labor government in 2013 will not be implemented as policy by the Liberal government that replaced it. It should be noted however that the white paper did successfully impact the perceptions of many educators in Australia in regard to the vital importance of creating “Asia ready” graduates.

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 386 Technological change has also accelerated rapidly since 2008 and this study highlights the extent of developments in the range of platforms available, levels of connectivity, and access to broadband. In 2008 participants in C8 reported far more challenges in terms of Internet speeds and access than during RARE EARTH in 2011. The earlier study was more impacted by slow Internet speeds that limited the kinds of media that were viable to share online. Although the issue of slow Internet connections was mentioned by a small number of respondents in RARE EARTH, most participants who wished to, were able to share video files without much difficulty.

3. Variations in the data During my initial discussion of research methods I was concerned to establish for the reader an understanding of the iterative design led action research approach I had taken. This was vital because the design thinking mode of exploring the research questions doesn’t significantly utilise a quantitative approach to gathering data. Some quantitative data was gathered in Field Study 1 and 2 regarding the numbers of participants online, numbers of page visits, and durations of time spent on each page. That data was analysed to evidence how the online platform was utilised by the different groups in Field Study 1.

As I discussed in Field Study 3 the off campus location of the studioLAB delimited the kinds of intensive collaboration that were observed in Field Study 2. This similarly impacted the opportunity to survey and interview participants in RARE EARTH from DHU and this is linked to the communication issues explored in the discussion of Field Study 3. Whereas in Field Study 2 participants were more accessible, in Field Study 3 less data was gathered from DHU participants.

4. Design Histories The research does not seek to provide a detailed history of design education in either the West or in China. It is beyond the scope of the research to delve into the vast history of creative practices in China throughout its myriad dynasties and 5000-year history. Chapter 3 touches on pertinent recent history of modern Chinese design. A detailed analysis of western design history is beyond the scope of the thesis, and many well documented and widely accepted accounts of design in the west already

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 387 Images: mediated_moments, plasma_flow, Miller, McArthur, Hinshaw, Adams, 2012, Smart City GeoCity International Information Design Exhibition, China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Art, Beijing Design Week (Images: CMoDA 2012) exist (Forty & Cameron, 1995; Walker, 1989; Dilnot, 1984; Meggs & Purvis, 2011; Raisman, 2003, Margolin, 1998). Throughout the thesis this limitation is ameliorated by references to literatures that draw from western design theory and practice.

5. The maths of synergy As the literature around the work of Wood, Fuller and others on Metadesign, synergy and collaboration attest, the mathematics of synergy is a thematic worthy of doctoral study itself. Although it is beneficial to understanding the ‘science’ behind the potential of collaborative configurations, I have elected to omit this from the scope of my research.The field studies and the literatures that have informed the developmental trajectory of the research have not focussed on specific references to, or engagement with the mathematical theories pertinent to

to sympoiesis and collaboration in teamwork 1.

Finally, I acknowledge the limitations of my own capacities as an active agent in the research. My ongoing engagement with China has been integral to the process and the outcomes discussed. I am aware of my own biases and passions and remain conscious of what might be described as ‘blindness’ to some aspects of the research and I have reflected extensively on how these factors may have influenced the outcomes. My network of professional and personal contacts and relationships in many respects made the research possible. It is inevitable that these circumstances shaped the research in subtle ways. Given that I am a western foreigner, it is difficult to quantify the degree of orientalism present in the study despite my best intentions. It is perhaps not for me to have the last word on this.

RELATIONSHIP TO THE LITERATURE

My work contributes an explicitly transcultural focus to the literatures of design education, collaboration and Metadesign. Interdisciplinary collaboration is an important theme present in the discourse of these fields but research on transcultural design collaboration has been less apparent. The research also responds in an experimental yet pragmatic manner to Manzini’s call for a global project to foster shared vision about how to address the global crisis (2010). Firstly, my thesis posits that fostering joined-up thinking about our collective futures is critically dependent on intercultural understanding and a transcultural mode of collaboration. I argue that design education is a viable platform for rapidly formulating responses to this

1 A useful discussion on this topic can be found in Wood, J., 2008, Co-Designing within Metadesign; Synergies of collaboration that inform responsible practice, International Journal of CoDesign in Design and the Arts, Taylor and Francis

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 389 urgency. Secondly, the research leverages Metadesign’s potential for generating synergy-of-synergies (Fuller, 1975; Wood, 1997) by putting forward an adaptive framework for instigating transcultural, interdisciplinary co-design initiatives.

The thesis privileges a perspective that has not been directly or explicitly addressed but is pertinent to the work of theorists including Maturana, Manzini, Wood, Giaccardi and Fischer. My work is informed by aspects of these important bodies of work that respectively discuss, desire, responsibility and emotioning, shared vision for sustainable futures, sympoiesis and joined-up ways of design collaboration through Metadesign, and the emergence of boundary objects in co-creation. Although C8 Research reveals much in the way of troublesome knowledge, the research contributions on these field studies that have been published to date have been well received in the context of international peer- reviewed design and design education conferences in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Europe, South America and Australia. This demonstrates a global interest in the themes I discuss, and an acceptance amongst my peers in education and industry that the issues the research explores have significance.

HOW CAN C8 RESEARCH BE APPLIED?

The research has led to findings that provide practical tools specifically intended for design educators desiring to activate spaces where participants from diverse cultural backgrounds are empowered to explore meaningful ways designers might work together on envisaging as yet unimagined futures. The findings will be of interest to designers, design theorists and researchers, urbanists, artists, platform developers, policy makers, funding bodies, political leaders, international organisations and industry stakeholders interested in new forms of social innovation and tactical ways we might begin to address complex problems.

Because so few design educators have focussed on the potential of bringing together participants from diverse cultures in collaborative design processes, we do not have many coherent ideas about how new synergies might emerge from transcultural collaborative creativity in design schools. The findings do not provide easy answers and are not a toolbox of sure-fire strategies for transcultural co-

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 390 creation. They form a framework of strategic considerations acknowledging diverse cultural trajectories and ways of understanding the world. The framework should be applied as scaffolding for design education processes that are open ended and flexible enough to be adapted to a diversity of cultural contexts and combinations thereof. It may empower design educators and other stakeholders to anticipate contingent constraints so they can respond in ways that build trust as a basis for collaboration rather than conflict and crisis.

The research is also a call to action extended to design educators urging their acknowledgment of the urgency of promoting holistic idea ecologies from the rich potential of all cultural knowledge the global brain possesses. It points to a designerly engagement in optimistic, participatory, experimental, and joined up modes of education that have transformative impacts. This potential is substantiated in a range of subsequent actions and paths participants in this research have taken by engaging further in their own transcultural journeys and collaborations.

FURTHER RESEARCH AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MY OWN PRACTICE

Building on this study, more research is required in order to strengthen the framework though further adaptations. My work has examined the wickedness of the transcultural collaboration problem through a Sino Australian lens based on Metadesign thinking. But this thesis does not ‘solve’ the problem of transcultural interdisciplinary design collaboration in education. There remains ambiguity, tension and gaps in what we know. More work is required to identify how the model can be extended, nuanced and refined for different cultural contexts.

The implications for my own research trajectory and hybrid practice have already proved significant. Subsequent to Field Study 3 I have focussed on investing time in developing stronger relationships within education and cultural institutions in China. This has been achieved through proposing, and being invited to participate in, collaborative projects that explore the potential for expanding co-creation processes into participatory design using dynamic screens to facilitate people-to-people

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 391 interactions through large format data visualisations. Building on the responsive systems used in the Field Study 3, these forays have resulted in the collaborative design and exhibition of two interactive works presented at The China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Art during Beijing Design Week in 2012. The installations mediated_moments and plasm_flow (Miller, McArthur, Hindsaw, Adams, 2012) model,

“…the scalable potential of urban media to weave itself into the city’s social fabric, mapping and visualising individuals’ thinking/intelligence onto a mixed-reality urban canvas. mediated_moments presents crowd generated content as a new genre of expanded media that facilitates city storytelling by the city dwellers themselves. The mobility of the city triggers both content and playback in a “live or living” filmic process. plasma_flow is a magic mirror augmenting both physical mobility (locative audience movement) and online social media traffic (Weibo).”

(Yang, L., McArthur, I.,, Miller, B., 2013)

This work has been accompanied by ongoing engagement in the writing of collaborative research papers and the development of funding applications for large-scale collaborative

projects with Chinese academics and stakeholders 2. I have engaged in further collaboration with COFA colleague Brad Miller to develop a research platform entitled augmented_studio that explores the deployment of responsive data visualisation,

“…to create an urban media ‘engine’ for researching and fast prototyping ideas, accelerating communication pathways, and mapping urban complexity based on computational vision, invisible interface (tracking), and the sharing of images, video, and sound…”

(Yang, L., McArthur, I.,, Miller, B., 2013)

2 Refer to these papers at: https://www.academia.edu/4035680/Expanded_Urban_Media_From_Discretized_Social_Collages_to_ Corrugated_Social_Brain https://www.academia.edu/4035655/Shaping_Cultural_and_Creative_Space_Beijing_as_a_Case_Study

Chapter 7 - Conclusions 392 These new collaborative relationships and projects have had positive implications for my own practice in forging a process of self-transformation - my own threshold experiences where I continue to learn about research and research cultures, challenged by feedback from peers in Australia and China.

In Chapter 5 the observation was made that in critical terms C8 Research possesses what might be perceived as a utopian idealism. If we are to go beyond the accepted boundaries of what is currently acknowledged as ‘possible’ – we need as Fuller (1975) argued, to “Dare to be Naïve”. In being unafraid to be naïve, and reflexively iterate at the Meta level we have seen when we act in ways that privilege the status quo of design and design education we perpetuate models of practice that belong to outmoded ever more unviable colonialist paradigms of domination and deception. We have seen when participants act in ways that proactively break down calcified assumptions, fear, biases, misunderstandings and distrust we create small changes (Hamdi, 2004, cited in von Busch, 2008, p.198) that show how we might approach complex problems through design education that does generate new synergies.

Whether struggling to negotiate and work collaboratively online with peers located in different cities, or responding to a brief alongside students where language difference is a primary concern, learners in these field studies have been challenged in critical holistic lived experiences. Through such experiences, C8 Research suggests design students are far more likely to emerge with increased levels of cultural literacy and be better equipped to contribute in a consciously joined-up way to the global project of positive social, urban and ecological transformation. Essentially this transformation must begin at the level of the participant in situated immersive encounters that challenge our assumptions, prejudices and self-image pushing us through thresholds to experience irreversible realisations and new ways of understanding and creating the world. The lived experience of ‘becoming’ transcultural is crucial to the designers of our collective futures. Such deep learning must provide a transmutable means to discover and access other realities through experimentation beyond the hermetically sealed abstraction of the studio.

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References 405 Appendix 1: Surveys and Interview Questions

APPENDIX 1A: C8 2008 PARTICIPANT SURVEY (Online) Online Survey used to gather participant responses after the C8 2008 online studio. Responses were gathered from 24 participants. (9 China based, 15 Australia based)

ASPECTS OF CROSS-CULTURAL DESIGN IN C8 2008 Q1. What is your cultural background? [drop down menu – Chinese, Australian, Other] Please specify [text field]

Q2. I was comfortable working online with people from another culture in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q3. I became more aware of cultural differences by participating in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q4. C8 was useful to me in learning about cross-cultural design practices. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why? [text field]

Q5. As a design student learning about online cross-cultural design processes is relevant in the 21C? [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why? [text field]

Q6. I think cross-cultural design skills are important to me as a design professional in the future. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why? [text field]

ASPECTS OF UNDERSTANDING C8 Q7. Overall, I understood the lectures, briefs and discussions in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q8. Language limited my level of understanding in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q9. Other factors affected my level of understanding in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

ASPECTS OF PARTICIPATION IN C8 Q10. Rate your level of participation in in C8. [drop down menu – Excellent/, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment [text field]

Q11. During the project I visited the C8 website on average per week: [drop down menu – 0-5 times, 5- 10 times, 10 -15 times, 15+ times]

Appendix 406 Q12. My level of English influenced how much I participated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q13. Cultural difference influenced how much I participated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q14. Media used in C8 influenced how much I participated. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q15. Other factors influenced how much I participated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q16. What is the average number of hours per week you spent online, specifically for C8? [drop down menu – 0-2, 2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-10]

Q17. What time of day do you prefer to study online? [drop down menu – 12am – 6am, 6am – 12pm, 12pm – 6pm, 6pm – 12am]

ASPECTS OF ACCESSIBILITY IN C8 Q18. I was able to access the material presented in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q19. Did you experience any of the following problems accessing content in C8? [drop down menu – Software problems, Download speed, Interface problems, language problems] Other [text field]

Q20. Rate the level of accessibility in C8. [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Poor, Very poor] Please comment [text field]

ASPECTS OF MEDIA USED IN C8 Q21. The media used in the C8 Project were effective for learning. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q22. Rate your preference for the different media types used in C8 lectures. Video [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Powerpoint [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Audio Podcast [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Text [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Image [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] PDF [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Web/interactive media [drop down menu – Excellent/, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment [text field]

Appendix 407 Q23. Rate your preference for using different media types to present your own work in C8. Video [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Powerpoint [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Audio Podcast [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Text [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Image [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] PDF [drop down menu – Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Web/interactive media [drop down menu – Excellent/, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment [text field]

ASPECTS OF COLLABORATION IN C8 Q24. C8 showed me that cross-cultural online collaboration in design is possible. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q25. I was able to collaborate with my peers in C8? [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q26. I was able to contribute my own ideas during C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q27. Rate the level of collaboration you experienced in C8. [drop down menu – Excellent/, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment [text field]

Q28. Language affected how much I collaborated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q29. Culture affected how much I collaborated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q30. Media used in C8 affected how much I collaborated in the project. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q31. Other factors affected how much I collaborated in C8. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q32. Online collaboration will be important to me as a design professional in the future. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why? [text field]

GENERAL INFORMATION Q33. C8 was challenging, interesting and relevant to my studies. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Appendix 408 Q34. What were the best features of C8 for you? [text field]

Q35. C8 briefs and projects and what was expected of me were clearly explained. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q36. I found the activities and projects challenging. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q37. C8 encouraged cooperative learning, and for students to work together. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q38. What is the average number of hours per week you spent online, specifically for C8? [drop down menu – 0-2, 2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-10] Q30. What time of day do you prefer to study online? [drop down menu – 12am – 6am, 6am – 12pm, 12pm – 6pm, 6pm – 12am]

Q39. The online platform used to facilitate C8 represented an effective tool for online learning. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment [text field]

Q40. Please feel free to make any other relevant comments on your C8 experience. We are particularly interested in:

1. your use of and preferences for different media used in C8. 2. particular events in C8 that influenced you. 3. your perceptions about the best and worse features of the project. 4. problems you may have faced, how you solved them.

Please comment: [text field]

Appendix 409 APPENDIX 1B: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ESCAPE STUDIO 2009 (VIDEO and Audio) Questions used in semi-structured video interviews with both Donghua and COFA participants in eSCAPE studio. (28 COFA respondents, 29 DHU respondents)

Q1. What are your impressions of China? (COFA only question)

Q2. How has it been working with the students from Donghua / COFA? What have been the best and most difficult aspects of working together?

Q3. Do you think cross-cultural skills are important to you as a creative professional in the 21C?

Q4. How did language affect your understanding of the lectures?

Q5. How did language affect your collaboration or impact on your creative process?

Q6. How did cultural differences affect your collaboration?

Q7. How do you feel about the online component of the project?

Q8. How have you used the Collabor8 website as a learning tool so far? How do you think you will use it after the studio?

Q9. Any suggestions for how this type of experience might be improved?

Q10. What have you learnt through this experience?

Appendix 410 APPENDIX 1C: RARE EARTH PARTICIPANT SURVEY (PAPER)

This paper-based survey was disseminated to gather participant responses after the RARE EARTH StudioLAB. Responses were gathered from 21 COFA students.

ASPECTS OF TRANSCULTURAL PRACTICE IN RARE EARTH Q1. What is your cultural background? [Chinese, Australian, Other] Please specify

Q2. I was comfortable working within another culture in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment?

Q3. I became more aware of cultural differences by participating in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q4. RARE EARTH was useful to me in learning about cross-cultural design practices. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why?

Q5. As a design student is learning about cross-cultural design processes is relevant in the 21C? [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why?

Q6. I think cross-cultural design skills are important to me as a design professional in the future. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why?

ASPECTS OF UNDERSTANDING IN RARE EARTH Q7. Overall, I understood the project, lectures, brief and discussions in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q8. Language limited my level of understanding in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q9. Other factors affected/contributed to my level of understanding in the RARE EARTH project. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

ASPECTS OF PARTICIPATION IN RARE EARTH Q10. Rate your level of participation in the RARE EARTH project. [Excellent/, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment

Q11. During the project I visited the RARE EARTH website (FLICKR) on average per week: [0-5 times, 5- 10 times, 10 -15 times, 15+ times]

Q12. My level of English/Chinese influenced how much I participated in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q13. Cultural difference influenced how much I participated in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q14. Teaching methods used in RARE EARTH influenced how much I participated. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q15. Other factors influenced how much I participated in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Appendix 411 Q16. Were there aspects of RARE EARTH that caused you tension or were otherwise confronting or troublesome? Please comment

Q17. What new knowledge do you feel you have acquired in the RARE EARTH experience? Please comment

Q18. I was able to engage in RARE EARTH in a way that is meaningful for my learning and development as a creative practitioner. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q19. Did you experience any of the problems participating in RARE EARTH? Please comment

Q20. Rate the level of support from tutors in RARE EARTH. [Excellent, High, Average, Poor, Very poor] Please comment

ASPECTS OF COLLABORATION IN RARE EARTH Q24. RARE EARTH showed me that cross-cultural online/studio collaboration in design is possible. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q25. I was able to collaborate with my peers in RARE EARTH? [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q26. I felt confident enough to contribute my own ideas during RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q27. Rate the level of trust between participants in RARE EARTH. [Excellent, High, Average, Low, Very low] Please comment

Q28. Language affected the level of trust exhibited by participants in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q29. Culture affected the level of trust exhibited by participants in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q30. Teaching methods used in RARE EARTH affected the level of trust exhibited by participants. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q31. The level of trust exhibited by participants affected how much I collaborated in RARE EARTH. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q32. How important was the level of trust between participants in RARE EARTH to collaboration. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Why?

GENERAL INFORMATION Q33. RARE EARTH was challenging, interesting and relevant to my studies. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q34. What were the best features of RARE EARTH for you? Please comment

Q35. RARE EARTH briefs and projects and what was expected of me were clearly explained. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Appendix 412 Q36. I found the activities and projects challenging. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q37. RARE EARTH encouraged cooperative learning, and for students to work together. [drop down menu – Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q38. What new concepts and knowledges did you encounter in RARE EARTH? Please comment

Q39. The web-based and other digital technologies used to facilitate RARE EARTH represented an effective tool for learning. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q40. Please feel free to make any other relevant comments on your RARE EARTH experience. We are particularly interested in: 1. your observations about the role of trust in studio collaborations and the kinds of new knowledge and experiences you had in RARE EARTH. 2. particular events in RARE EARTH that influenced you. 3. your perceptions about the best and worse features of the project. 4. problems you may have faced, how you solved them. 5. The level and success of interaction you saw between faculty from COFA and DHU.

Please comment:

SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF EXHIBITION DESIGN & PRODUCTION FOR RARE EARTH Q41 I found the exhibition component useful or important to the studios outcomes. [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q42 Was technology an important feature to your interpretation of the RARE EARTH brief? [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree]

Q43 Do you think the interactive interface was a successful mechanism for explore content? [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree]

Q44 Was the process of the populating the exhibition was useful? In what regard? [Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree] Please comment

Q45 I the process of building the exhibition give you insight into interactive exhibition design? How? Please comment

Q46 What areas of the exhibition could be improved? Please comment

Q47 How would you characterise your technical knowledge before doing the RARE EARTH STUDIO? [None, Some, Reasonable, Strong] Please comment.

Appendix 413 APPENDIX 1D: SEMI-STRUCTURED Interview Questions - Rare Earth: Hacking the City 2011 (VIDEO/AUDIO)

This set of questions were used in unstructured video and audio interviews with COFA participants in RARE EARTH. Responses were gathered from 21 COFA students.

Q1. What is your cultural background?

Q2. I was comfortable working within another culture in Rare Earth. (Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree)

Q3. What knowledge do you feel you have acquired in the Rare Earth experience?

Q4. Were there aspects of Rare Earth that caused you tension or were otherwise confronting or troublesome?

Q5. Did you experience any problems participating in Rare Earth?

Q6. Was technology/media an important feature to your interpretation of the Rare Earth brief? (Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree)

Q7. Did the process of building the exhibition give you insight into interactive exhibition design? How?

Q8. Were there particular events in Rare Earth that influenced you?

Q9. What are your perceptions about the best and worst features of the project?

Q10. Describe the problems you may have faced and how you solved them.

Appendix 414 Appendix 2: Procedures ® on i COFA LNSW 2ooa (OCC) HOJfCU. d n e a ementat valuation l DU.C.t" E Imp !illf.:.£1•1 waves ON!;t;! ve prr·otnt i CREATIVITY ~s g n o1UNAI10HAL. SIAGE creat OMNIUM ~ Resolvi II icograda ~ - ~ lling Uft't«< ti and COLLABORATIVE ttle Dis ~ 8 Absl1acting T~~ort!OfOI ~ _,_ .i:,Jl,Oifprcli»M rn. :l l '9''""""' WEEK ONLINE ,,,,.,~·t IS~ - .-1 1 ~11'QI'ft ! FOR -- ..,. I STAGE3 -· dentifying I llltO 1\~'W""lMlMQ ~*'J..diV.,._V'.:"''II'Gdoo -- WEEK by ,_ IKUH tl!t.i'kfi•1t~lt. w ft,$'9".U.AitJII.t,7Hlft1t -- .,. er"•~t 2 PROCESS ...... 1o~~ · -~dprQQ.Ill"q-~hr¢~ Of0. STAGE .... t»iitti'W"dCI_....~~~..c»'t$~ ;IIOjiiC! , TIMELINE Gathering A.;i..fii.I.IO'I'Siil~ ,., lo~ ~*""~~~.....,. • H'F'V.DffJ. .orot -- (CB) AIOII11l1 FIVE-STAGE ,.,oppcll'100q'IOU'JIMMIIWit _,by -- n ll....,t-f....C0....,1111QI!lot • I w io t sa i l a and i STAGE Access pl....-c>f'of Soc .ufJOI8o'ltll••• fer '"9C8-""o81W - i9:itP~ COLLABORB OMNIUM COLLABORB ~ INOI !),;

Appendix 2A - Field Study 1 Procedure (C8 2008): The C8 2008 program leverages the Omnium five- stage process for Online Collaborative Creativity (OCC), Bennett (2007). (Design: Ian McArthur 2008)

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Appendix 2B - Field Study 2 Procedure (eSCAPE Studio): Developed in collaboration with Professor Richard Goodwin’s Porosity Studio the model uses a blended strategy fatruing an intensive two week studio in China at Donghua University in Weeks 8 and 9 of the program. (Design: Ian McArthur 2009)

Appendix 416 u, '.4 .... . 13 40 2&4 ··- P...Udp.alton) Ongoing) .. ( ( ,...~ _ , tO'It ~ 20'/t '20-.w. - - -· .... 1 4 2 -- "' UI'Mnt t ...... 11 AU AJHSJMtnt AIMflmtf'IC, AsHIImtnt) tliWMOII " '' MIA on i ..,...... !Jto.~ .... "',., .... Mlt'rnatiONII FINAL studiOit.AB Semester ~~13 UI;A.:Vv SndQe Sep ~-- ,.....,..,.nea.~ Asseumtnt3 AJI RARE DUE ...... P'rog'elm LIVE _(if 1 IU:Nfd~ft pr~ ·~~.-.d~"''l ~~-·oM~···~·"" \115it$. ttvougtoJt The at " ..,. 10ea- ...... open, ., % ­ 1 10 .,.. ol .-6: ... utdlo\1 I 3 7 -. u """"'" Plan l< ...... 't' ...... cu A ...... OAY ~t F£EDIIA<>< ...... h«Re1o;- O -- -· _ - -· tcdl• , no. I _ ~ P Msessment OIA: OIAO ,....,.. ,...._ ,.,.,_ ..,_, ...... , ..... ------, _ lil _ liil <-."""-10 ...... A-tlltlh!IMI . .. -~ ...... - 5 6 ~ ...... - n _ __ o.w ,.,.. -- -- Assessment eoat c-.. ~tor,,...... ,.,_. ... LAB ~ I ll~flf'fi0\'11'1~01 """''* OU((Nf/1~· ~----~Nol-fll..-..&lf't'fll ,...... ,..,_.."""'"""*•l:wll.,....llll'f~M~on._. h~ RtMitdl ,_.. _...,.. Studio c..t. ~...... ,.. Earth I ,., - 1 -- T-­ ..... - - ...... __,.,... Rare B r j A ~ ll J : 1 Appendix 2C - Field Study 3 Procedure (RARE EARTH studioLAB): Developed in collaboration with COFA academic Brad Miller and Professor Richard Goodwin’s Porosity Studio the model uses a blended strategy fatruing an intensive two week studio in China at Bridge 8, Shanghai during COFA’s Study Week and Week 8 of the program. (Design: Ian McArthur 2011)

Appendix 417