Theoretical Considerations
Portraying People, Going Beyond Appearances: The Exhibit Design as a Matter of Narrative
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marco Borsotti
The contemporary exhibit design is an innovative discipline, which adopts multiple modes of culture expression in order to "display knowledge". This proposal investigates the “narrative” nature of the exhibit design, focusing on the theme of the diffusion of historical, social and artistic memory of iconic human figures. Which are the monographic exhibitions that have been able to investigate their personalities, as well as their everyday life, not only by ordering documents and objects, but above all by investigating that there is “beyond” appearances? By analyzing some international exemplary case studies, the research intends to identify which are the conceptual behaviors, the methodologies and the devices most often used in reason to define the “basic grammar” of the portraying people, going beyond appearances. Some of the case studies will be: "Bachhaus" and "Lotte Reiniger" by Atelier Brückner (Germany); "Steve Jobs. Il visionario" by Migliore+Servetto (Italy); "Casanova Museum & Experience" by Massimiliano Zane and ETT Solutions (Italy); "Benjamin Franklin Museum" and "Churchill War Rooms" by Casson Mann (United Kingdom); "Pink Floyd. Their Mortal Remains" by Real Studios, Hipgnosis and Stufish and others.
Semiotics + Context: Theoretical Implications for Design Practice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Juan Carlos Mendoza Collazos
In this paper, the author calls for a new approach to semiotics of design in order to overcome the limitations of trans-linguistic explanations in the current design semiotics. Agentive semiotics (Niño 2015) was presented with the potential to account for design semiotics. The benefits of the new approach are mainly oriented to take into account the agent (user) with greater emphasis in the semiotic analysis of the context. The agentive turn in design semiotics opens the gates to an enhanced knowledge about the user’s process of signification and offers in-depth explanations and extended theoretical evidence to clarify the notion of "context". The semiotic analysis of the context is useful in analysing the circumstances in which agents will use artifacts, whether it is an established context or a new context proposed by the designer. For example, the context of calls radically changes with the introduction of cell phones. The methodology is a theoretical approach. The method is mainly a conceptual analysis in that it pretends delineate a preliminary theory. It’s a descriptive approach about relationship between users, artifacts, and context. The results are obtained from a theoretical framework and from a conceptual analysis of the structure of the contexts, mainly based on Niño, 2015. Examples of applications will be given without empirical validation but instead rigorous descriptive review from students’ exercises of MA in Design at Universidad Nacional.
Design Principles and Practices in Contemporary Social and Political Theory: A Rawlsian Illustration
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gerardo M. Acay
The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the word design as a plan or scheme conceived in the mind: a project. An idea as executed, the combination of elements in the finished work. The aim of this paper is to examine the core concepts of design and practice in contemporary social and political theory. The conjunction with the word practice as noted in this conference is important but not necessary. In this discussion, then, I shall single out one of the most well known and monumental work in recent attempts to generate theories of distribution justice-John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, (TJ: 1971/1999). Thus his theory of justice is an attempt to generate a design for a well ordered society (TJ: Sec. 69:397/405). Moreover, a theory so conceived presupposes a search for fundamental principles with which to anchor a theory of justice. This may not be a sufficient requirement in theory construction as conceived in social and political science as well as the humanistic disciplines (say, moral and/or ethical theory), but it is a necessary requirement. Consequently these principles are, in fact, best exemplified in Rawls's now famous two principles of justice.
The Waltz of the Multi, Inter, Trans, and Meta Prefixes and the Reorganization of Knowledge: Metadesign Driving the Design Process on New Project Realities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Claudia Facca, Ana mae Barbosa
In order to understand the present world, overcoming the boundaries between knowledge and seeking new paths to achieve innovative solutions in a dynamic and increasingly complex scenario, this paper discusses the issues related to the disciplines and forms of knowledge organization based on integration of "multi," "inter," "trans," and "meta" prefixes in the composition of disciplinarity concepts and their meanings. The metadesign, as the "project of project" or "design of design" will be approached as a proposal of transdisciplinary knowledge platform in the conduction of the design process in practice of new project realities. To achieve this objective, a bibliographic survey was carried out comparing several definitions for each approach, from various authors such as Edgard Morin, Jean Piaget, Basarab Nicolescu, Erich Jantsch, and Hilton Japiassu, among others. Based on the need for a knowledge platform that supports and guides the design activity in a fluid, dynamic, and constantly changing environment, the metadesign emerges as a model that considers all possible hypotheses within the design potentiality, but which doesn’t limit itself as a single design model composed of pre-established technical solutions.
