Søren Rosen Senbak
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Søren Rosensenbak The Science of Imagining Solutions @ The Science of Imagining Solutions Design Becoming Conscious of Itself Through Design Søren Rosenbak The Science of Imagining Solutions Design Becoming Conscious of Itself Through Design Søren Rosenbak Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial Design Umeå Institute of Design Faculty of Science and Technology Umeå University, Sweden SE-90187 Main Supervisor: Johan Redström Assistant Supervisor: Carl DiSalvo Umeå Institute of Design Research Publications, No. 007 Electronic version available at http://umu.diva-portal.org This PhD was made possible with the funding from Umeå Institute of Design and the Prototyping Practices Research Programme, financed by Baltic Grup- pen AB, along with the support of, either financially and/or otherwise, the Design Research Society, The Kempe Foundations, PhD by Design, Designfakul- teten, SVID, JVEA, Rupert, TRADERS (FP7 EU project), Urban IxD (FP7 EU project), Studio Urbane Landschaften & Volkswagen Foundation, The Ventrilo- quist Summerschool (Grafill Stortstipend 2016), The School Hasselt. Layout and cover design by Søren Rosenbak. All graphics and images by Søren Rosenbak, unless otherwise noted. Collective proofreading by Aditya Pawar, Maja Frögård, Maria Göransdotter, Monica Lindh-Karlsson, and Nicholas Torretta. Printed by Pantheon, http://www.pantheondrukkers.nl/ © Søren Rosenbak Dec 2018 ISBN: 978-91-7855-008-1 The Science of Imagining Solutions Design Becoming Conscious of Itself Through Design index Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 8 Ch1 Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Pataphysics? 10 1.1 What is Pataphysics? 12 1.2 An Incomplete Lexicon of Pataphysical Concepts 16 Ch2 Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Pataphysics and Design? 20 2.1 Finding Ground: Tracing the Topography 22 2.2 Design and Artifice: Grasping the Possible 34 2.3 The Ultimate Particular & The Exception 40 2.4 The Eclipse of Metaphysics 52 2.5 Bureaucratic Reality 62 2.6 Towards A Reconception of Critical Design Practice 71 2.7 A Non-History of the Pataphysical Impulse in Design 76 Ch3 Research Structure 84 3.1 Constructive Design Research & Research Through Design 86 3.2 From Science to Imagination 87 3.3 The Programmatic 89 3.4 An Infusion of pataphysics 93 3.5 Programmatic Swerve 99 Ch4 Workcentre 7120 108 4.1 Experiment 1: Workcentre 7120 Job Report 110 4.2 Discussion 110 Ch5 Meta(data)morphosis 116 5.1 Unpacking the Qualities of Metadata 118 5.2 The Not So Trivial Question of What A Digital Shadow Is 121 5.3 Experimental Format 126 5.4 Experiment1: Co-Speculation Script Template Prototype 128 5.5 Experiment 2: Workshop 1.0, Umeå Institute of Design 135 5.6 Experiment 3: Metadata Extraction Prototypes 138 5.7 Experiment 4: Workshop 2.0, JVEA Berlin 139 5.8 Experiment 5: Curation of JVEA Exhibition 147 2 5.9 Experiment 6: Inside/Outside: (Design As Dialectics) 149 5.10 Discussion 152 Ch6 Designing for a City of Lies 166 6.1 “Smart Cities” 168 6.2 The Imaginary City 169 6.3 To Know X = To Know (Everything-X) 170 6.4 Experiment 1: Hannover, Lets Walk Urban Landscapes 173 6.5 Experiment 2: Oslo, Ventriloquist School 180 6.6 Hasselt: The Smartest City in Belgium 183 6.7 Experiment 3: Workshop 1: Collecting Lies (TRADERS) 187 6.8 Experiment 4: Designing the Lies Data Kit 191 6.9 Experiment 5: Workshop 2: Designing Interventions (The School) 195 6.10 Experiment 6: Situated Action (PDC2018) & Exhibition (z33) 202 6.11 Discussion 216 Ch7 Future Domestic Landscape 226 7.1 Design Fictions as Exceptional Futures 228 7.2 Design Fictions as Exceptions to the Future 233 7.3 Experiment 1+2+3: A Future Domestic Landscape 237 7.4 Discussion 243 Ch8 Design Research Failures 250 8.1 Janus-Faced Design 252 8.2 The Lack of Articulating Failure in Design Research 254 8.3 Experiment 1: DRS2016 Launch 259 8.4 Experiment 2: http://designresearchfailures.com 264 8.5 Experiment 3: RTD2017 Parasitic Presence 266 8.6 Experiment 4: PhD by Design 2017 Catharsis Workshop 272 8.7 Experiment 5: Histories of Design Research Failures, DHS2017 278 8.8 Experiment 6: La Semaine de l’Innovation Publique, Nantes 283 8.9 Discussion 285 Ch9 Contributions 302 9.1 The Science of Imagining Solutions 304 9.2 Concluding Remarks 316 References 318 3 abstract This dissertation addresses a paradox in design: we currently live in a day and age that is fundamentally conditioned by artifice on all scales, and principled by a deep sense of contingency and possibility. In this world, any thing could always be something else. Design is a discipline uniquely capable of configuring artifice, instantiating it into a stream of different design artefacts that we are able to interact with. Beyond the comfort, joy and meaning these artefacts might bring to our lives, design in this way uniquely captures and shows forth possibility, not only on the scale of individual products, services etc., but also on the level of the artificial, in other words speaking directly to our contemporary human existence, to the sense of possibility as such. We can say that—distinct from other disciplines—design contributes knowledge through this very practice of possibilizing. Strangely, design displays a curious lack of consciousness of itself with respect to this unique capability, preferring to instead put its growing array of design methods and design thinking tool kits to use in the latest problem areas, thereby implicitly affirming the lack of any distinct knowledge contribution at its core. With a commitment to reverse this dynamic by exploring this very capability, this dissertation concerns the prototyping of a pataphysically infused design practice, as a way of making design more conscious of itself. Pataphysics, articulated by the poet Alfred Jarry at the turn of the 20th century Paris, and popularly referred to as ‘the science of imaginary solutions’, is a no- toriously slippery substance, successfully eluding academic autopsy, let alone categorisation or definition. While critical design practice has extensively adopted methods and tactics from the avant-garde movements following and drawing on pataphysics—such as dadaism, surrealism and situationism—this dissertation seeks to rectify this incomplete lineage, by bringing out the timeless pataphysical impulse in design. This process of bringing out the pataphysical impulse, is what I discuss as an ‘infusion’ of pataphysics into my research practice. The research practice consists of a series of five different projects, carried out in the methodological tradition of research through design, where I explore pata- physics as a possible conceptual foundation for design. In each of the projects, design’s capability to possibilize, is brought out just beyond the edge of design’s disciplinary domain, making a self-conscious foray into contemporary problem areas: printmaking (Workcentre 7120), global mass surveillance (Meta(data) morphosis), smart cities (Designing for a City of Lies), future making (Future 4 Domestic Landscape), and design discourse building (Design Research Failures). By playing out across the material and immaterial, fluidly and consciously trans- gressing the actual and the imaginary in this range of different contexts, the dis- sertation shows what a pataphysically infused design practice is: a design that not only views its artefacts, experiments, and projects, but also itself, along with the world in which it operates, as imaginary solutions. In addition to the practice itself, one of the imaginary solutions produced through the research practice is the science of imagining solutions. This is a theory describ- ing the way in which a design conscious of itself is uniquely able to show forth possibility to the world and to knowledge as large. It discusses the study of this capability as an ‘epiphenomenology of design’, and offers ‘quantum poetics’ as a nascent vocabulary for describing the aesthetics of this capability. Further, it offers a reconception of criticality in design away from a historical perspective, arguing that a design consciously engaging with the edge of its own domain, understood as the space where it can comfortably possibilize, is a critical design practice. Finally, this dissertation does not only concern design itself as a discipline, but with its focus on design’s unique capability to show forth possibility as such, more broadly speaks to a world that currently sees the sense of possibility being curtailed in numerous ways. 5 acknowledgments The work of piecing together five years of experiments and reflections into this dissertation, has been a way to recount exactly how many wonderful people who have had a profound stake in this journey, with their love, generosity, laughter, intellect, skills, ideas, time, and patience. Here, I want to acknowledge all of them, and highlight a few. I want to thank Johan, my main supervisor, for always providing a firm ground to stand on, in order to point towards the vastness and perplexity of this space we inhabit. Similarly, I want to thank Carl, my assistant supervisor, for showing me how to move forward in a solid pace, and yet never loose sight of the things that matter (like culinary metaphors). Jamer, my shadow assistant supervisor, deserves my outmost thanks as well, for his tireless, and always sharp engagement with my work. I am grateful for everything you all have taught me, and greatly appreciate the encouragement and freedom you have provided on this journey. Aditya, we have a lot of different passions in design research, and yet the syncronicity, constant sparring, and more than that, the friendship that has developed throughout these years, has been invaluable. To my fellow friends and researchers past and present at UID, I want to say a big thanks for all the great conversations we have had over the years: Maja, Titti, Xaviera, Nicholas, Morteza, Marije, Marie Louise, Åsa, Kristina, Maria, Monica, Stoffel, Tara, Lorenzo, Guido, Daniela, Camille, Brendon, Heather, Elisa, and Aina.