Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Through a proposal for convening objects, I consider the role of mid-level, objects-in-the-making in the process of social membership in interdisciplinary design settings. To analyze the role of these objects, I draw on scholarship in design theory, science and technology studies, and various design practices. When interdisciplinarity involves design, I caution that design, in itself, is not a monolith; considering it as such risks erasure or subordination of material and historic ways of knowing the world. Mid-level objects in the individual sub-cultures of design practices can point us to the differences within the respective material, historic, and embodied practices, and the relations, values, action, and beliefs they index. Convening objects can, in turn, be developed through an analysis of the methods through which members make objects intelligible through their distinct interactions. They can play the role of initiating engagement and difference in convivial ways, and also scaffold interdisciplinary learning. This is done by structuring difference by familiarizing the unfamiliar and defamiliarizing the familiar amongst the various social members convened. I claim that this process of familiarization and defamiliarization of ‘members’ methods’ must not only include vocabularies, but also postures, action, and material interactions now revealed by the convening objects. In doing so, we can begin to resist the instinct to unify vocabularies, postures, and actions in interdisciplinary settings. As an iteration of a convening object, I present and analyze Material Polylogue, a project which deals with the themes of Design and Politics, within the context of a graduate seminar.