Alterplinarity – ‘Alternative Disciplinarity’ in Future Art and Design Research Pursuits

Contemporary design is typified by fluid, evolving patterns of practice that regularly traverse, transcend and transfigure historical disciplinary and conceptual boundaries. This mutability means that design research, education, and practice is constantly shifting, creating, contesting and negotiating new terrains of opportunities and re-shaping the boundaries of the discipline. This paper proposes that this is because globalisation and the proliferation of the digital has resulted in connections that are no longer “amid”, cannot be measured “across”, nor encompass a “whole” system, which has generated an “other” dimension (Bourriaud, 2009), an “alternative disciplinarity” - an “alterplinarity”. As the fragmentation of distinct disciplines has shifted creative practice from being “discipline-based” to “issue- or project-based” (Heppell, 2006), we present the argument that the researcher, who purposely blurs distinctions and has dumped methods from being “discipline-based” to “issue- or project-based”, will be best placed to make connections that generate new ways to identify “other” dimensions of design research, activity and thought that is needed for the complex, interdependent issues we now face. We present the case that reliance on the historic disciplines of design as the boundaries of our understanding has been superseded by a boundless space/time that we call “alterplinarity”. The digital has modified the models of design thought and action, and as a result research and practice should transform from a convention domesticated by the academy to a reaction to globalisation that is yet to be disciplined

Finding Common Ground: Interdisciplinary Workshops for Interaction Design Education

Interaction Design is a fast-growing and still evolving field which blurs the boundaries between creative disciplines. Practitioners employ a broad range of approaches and techniques, often working in ad hoc multidisciplinary teams for a given project. In this paper we examine some of the approaches to Interaction Design practice and education, and discuss our experience of running a series of open, interdisciplinary workshops for students and practitioners in Croatia and Slovenia

Drivers and barriers

Editoria

Reflections on a craft design protocol

For some years I have been working on a design protocol of craft, which aims to unearth the working principles of one cultural area (contemporary craft) of production for the benefit of another (interaction design). The methodology that led to its formulation comprised my research as a doctoral student in Interaction Design, and made up the bulk of my thesis [22]. The protocol has recently been more fully explored for the craft community, with each tenet explored in more depth [24]; however, several important publications and conferences in the field have emerged since its initial formulation and if it is to have any relevance, the protocol needs to be revisited in light of them. These include Sennett’s The Craftsman [36], Risatti’s Theory of Craft [34], and Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft [1]. In addition conferences such as Neocraft [3], and collections of writings such as Extra/Ordinary [5], which includes Mazanti’s SuperObjects model of craft [28], have developed the field immensely. This paper critically reflects on the protocol in this new expanded context

From trans-disciplinary to "undisciplined" design learning: educating through/to disruption

The paper is fruit of a coordinated work, however the author of paragraphs 1 and 4 is Flaviano Celaschi, the author of paragraph 2 is Elena Formia and the author of paragraphs 3 and 5 is Eleonora Lup

Digital Skills for the Creative Practitioner: Supporting Informal Learning of Technologies for Creativity

The creative industries play an important role in economic, cultural and social life, and in many creative disciplines much of the workforce is made up of individual practitioners including freelancers, sole traders and small or micro enterprises. These talented creatives often need to be responsible for their own ongoing learning within challenging and ever-evolving digital and technological domains. Whether their creative practice is primarily analogue or digital, Creativity Support Tools (CSTs) and digital platforms are being adopted for use in many phases of the creative production and dissemination process. By necessity, much of the learning that creatives undertake during the adoption of technologies is selfdirected, informal, and often involves peer-to-peer support. This is an important contextual factor that HCI research needs to address when developing tools and support systems for this user group. This one-day workshop will bring together participants from the HCI, creative and educational communities to discuss and share knowledge of technology learning and skills acquisition for working creatives. The workshop aims to examine ideas, strategies and experiences around supporting digital literacy, competency and confidence. The goal is to develop further collaborative research addressing support structures and frameworks in the area of informal learning about digital creativity tools for working practitioners

A is for Anthropocene:An A–Z of Design Ecology

This paper lists in A to Z format the changing ecology of design in the Anthropocene. From twenty-six points of view the paper contrasts design’s search for a coherent ecology – how it looks like it looks – with its search for a familiar ecology – how it is understood today. Taking each letter of the alphabet to create individual reviews of the vicissitudes of design, the paper critiques how design has historically explained to itself, and anyone who has been listening, what it has been doing, and contrasts that with what needs to be done

Why we need engineers to make art

As design practitioners researchers and educators, we constantly find ourselves shuffled between humanities and sciences. In fact, the design departments in the universities around the globe are sometimes placed under the formers, sometimes under the latters, thus becoming a meeting point for academics and professionals coming from both realms. The synergy resulting from the varieties of backgrounds and expertise creates a fertile ground for explorations on both a conceptual and a technical level. This paper reflects on the potential benefits of combining engineering and art research. The authors of this paper look at the increasingly delicate role that technicians, engineers and computer programmers play in developing technologies that impact our social, emotional and intimal lives, and advocate for art as a context and tool to help those professional developing their sensitivity and critical sense, besides their skills. In doing so, the paper makes a contribution to the STEM vs. STEAM conundrum, encouraging an education that merges arts and humanities disciplines with scientific and technical subjects

Is Service Design in Demand

This article reports on an empirical study that investigates the work experience of graduates from a service design program in a leading art and design institution. Drawing on the findings from reviewing 30 online profiles of the graduates and interviewing 12 of them, this article explores the challenges and opportunities for service design as a profession in relation to the current demand in private-, public-, and third-sector organizations. The article concludes that the scope and integrity of service design within organizations depends on the organizational contexts, for example, how service design is perceived and how open the organization is to new ways of working; therefore, it could be said that it is potentially compromised by a lack of frameworks that underpin service design practice. In many ways, service design has become a responsive reformulation of practices from different fields. Although the demand for the service design graduates from this program is high, the continuous development of service design depends on the extent of success of the experiments and implementation achieved by its early adopters