Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation industrial design and the problem of anoetic technologies Stephen James Thompson A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Trantechnology Research School of Computing, Communications & Electronics Faculty of Technology July 2008 2 Abstract Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation industrial design and the problem of anoetic technologies Stephen james Thompson This thesis concerns the intellectual heritage and autonomy of West European and American industrial design as a discourse community at a moment when biotechnological developments are challenging the certainty of what it means to be human. Proceeding from the assumption that industrial design is an autonomous intellectual engagement played out through the interpretation of technology as an artefact, the thesis identifies how this is a critical moment for industrial designers, who appear to be unable to respond to a problem of the apparent disconnection and the progressive displacement of the human in reference to technology. The thesis identifies the cause of this as the understanding of the artefact, which has conventionally been placed at the centre of its analysis. The way that this has been constructed has not only impacted on design solutions but has led to a particular understanding of technology. lt is this understanding of the artefact that has ceased to be sustainable and has precipitated the crisis. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the artefact as a mutable consequence of culture, it is possible to relieve the problem by opening up the scope for finding new methodological approaches. These can be used to develop design strategies that are sufficiently subtle and coherent in their terms to engage with the open complexity of future discussions of the distributed and enacted human. 3 List of Contents Acknowledgements Author's declaration and word count Question Preamble Introduction Chapter one Industrial design and its autonomies 1.1 An autonomous conglomeration called industrial design 1.2 Industrial design and institutional regulation 1.3 Industrial design and technology 1.4 Industrial design and its intellectual community 1.5 Industrial design and the function of fluidity Chapter two Disconnection and the progressive displacement of the human reference in technology 2.1 The epistemological displacement of the human referent 2.2 Rupture: The crisis of biotechnology as a question of history 2.3 Strategies of reconnection Chapter three Reviewing history and the 'resolved' artefact as the keystone of analysis 3.1 Artefacts and evidence in industrial design histories 3.2 The problem of disembodied resolutions of the process of humanisation 4 3.3 The strategic lacunae and impact of the technological artefact based histories on the inclusion of culture Chapter four The artefact as a mutable consequence of culture 4.1 The 'resolved' technological artefact and the role of cultural networks 4.2 Cultural networks and the deficit of reductlvist methodologies 4.3 The strategic lacunae and impact of agency complexity and autopoiesls Chapter five Reconnecting the human and the technological: a speculative historiography 5.1 Topological domains and 'Machine Age' 5.2 From landscape to ecology 5.3 From corporeality to culture Chapter six Recovery towards autonomy: steps towards a fluid conception of human-technological relationships 6.1 The opportunities that biotechnology offers to the conceptualisation of technology 6.2 The Imperative of valence: The material site of interaction 6.3 Human and the enacted moment as a hybrid condition Chapter seven Three problematic approaches to the distributed human and enaction 7.1 Alienation 7.2 Technicity 7.3 Embodied interaction Chapter eight Dissolving the problem in the recovered voice: strategies for the management of fluidity 5 8.1 Granularity: a changed view of reality and not a changed reality 8.2 Artefactualising the body 8.3 Designing with the 'Body without Organs' 8.4 Design Scenario Conclusion Appendix 1 Coda: joey the Mechanical Boy An allegory eschewing closure, showing how process of humanisation is tied to the intellectual coherence of the complexity and granular sophistication in the conceptual and technical models held of the artefact as a component of the whole human. joey Introduction to the coda Joey.l Joey the Mechanical Boy: His story Joey.2 Joey the Mechanical Boy: The orthodox analysis Joey.3 Joey the Mechanical Boy: An unorthodox analysis References 6 Acknowledgements Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub. lt is the centre hole that makes it useful. Shape the clay into a vessel. lt is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; Therefore, profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what Is not there. (Lao-Tzu) What is not here has changed me for ever. But some words must be found to find a way to reveal the network of assistance and love in which I have been fortunate to find myself over the course of the past five years or so. Sometimes the actors in this network are visible in the thesis; however, more often they have provided a subtle and invisible web of magic, which has held everything together. Some actors deserve a particular public acknowledgement here, of course, not least among these my supervisors Professor Michael Punt and Robert Pepperell, who have become my friends and who have shared their intellectual insight with such extraordinary generosity and patience. That I cannot find the appropriate words to express my gratitude adequately will hardly surprise them. lt is also important to mention Professor David Jeremiah and Professor David Smith, who provided some of the impetus and confidence required at the start of this project. Thanks are due to friends and colleagues at University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and University of Wales, Newport, including Professors Gaynor Kavanagh, Paul Seawright and Anne Carlisle, who have been both generous and gracious in making it possible for me to undertake the research while I have continued to teach in their various Faculties. Thanks, of course, to Mike Phillips and my research colleagues in Transtechnology at the University of Plymouth, whose challenge and support have been invaluable and to Dr Kieran Lyons for his companionship on this particular road trip. Thanks and love are also due to my Ma and Pa for their perpetual support and for their generous contributions to my library. But of all the actors in this brief life to whom I owe the most, it is Yvonne, whose sustaining belief and tolerance have ultimately made this whole project possible. Thanks to other actors, Alfie and Emmett, entering and exiting stage left and right at frequent intervals to offer joyous distraction. And finally to Don and his Dancing Wu Li Masters, whose light was not shining (at least on this plane) to share in the pleasure of typing this last line before I submit the thesis. Thank you 7 Author's Declaration At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award without prior agreement of the Graduate Committee. This study was financed with the assistance of the University of Wales, Newport and from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. A number of relevant seminars· and conferences were regularly attended at which work was often presented; externafinstltutions were visited for consultation purposes and several papers prepared for publication. The events and conferences at which this research has been directly shared are: • THOMPSON, S. 2007. 'Mind the Gap: Technology as soma'. Journal of Human-Cantered Systems. vol. 4, no. 21. London: Springer. • Science in the Dock - Art in the Stocks. March 2006. Public Lecture. ESRC Social Science Week. Exeter: Terracina Gallery. Research Symposium 11. February 2006. Cardiff: University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Research Symposium 11. February 2006. Cardiff: University of Wales Institute, Cardiff; School of Art and Design. • Weareb/e Futures Conference 2005. September 2005. Caerleon: University of Wales, Newport. • Theatres of Science Conference 2004. September 2004. Ponty Pridd: University of Glamorgan. 1st Jntemational Design and Engagability Conference (IDEC). July 2004. Binningham: University of Central England. DATA lntemational Research Conference 2004. July 2004. The Design and Technology Association. Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University. • New Synergias between Science, Litereture and the Arts. July 2004. Science and Literature Society. Paris: University of Paris. Spring Research Symposium. February 2004. London: University of the Arts, London. and also Transtechnology Research Seminars. 2005-2008. University of Plymouth. Word count of main body of thesis: 82,282 words Stephen Thompson J!!IY.. l.O.Q.I3 8 Question What intellectual moves are necessary for industrial designers to 'talk' about biotechnologies in terms that have some continuity with their history? 9 Preamble If we superimpose E=mc! on a new awareness of Nature, seeing it as the unbeatable model of elegant and economical design, we begin to believe that less can indeed be more, and an unconscious slippage back in the direction of mysticism gets under way. Accepting the hypothesis that the brighter we get, the more we can do with less, it presently follows that if this is a good thing, then doing much more with much less must be an even better thing. Then, if we cautiously extend the evolutionary line in the direction of infinity we come to the interesting realisation that the ultimate goal of technology has to be doing everything with nothing. This, of course, is precisely what God did, as reported in the admirable concise account in the book of Genesis. One wonders if the conjunction of mineral reserves being depleted to an eventual vanishing point, and the real goal of technology doing everything with nothing, is serendipity or something more. The more immediate problem, I suppose, is how do we determine when to start closing down the design schools? (George Nelson, 1979) The origins of this thesis An abiding interest in the way that people interact with technologies drew me into the study and practice of industrial design.