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No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’ Signed: Date: 08/05/2014 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