Thinking geo/graphically: The interdisciplinary space between graphic design and cultural geography

In relation to the understanding and representation of everyday life and place, it is clear that many cultural geographers are beginning to explore what one might call “creative” qualitative research methods, the majority of which draw on the discipline of fine art. In particular, the use of film and sound within research is increasing, as are calls for conference submissions and journal articles relating to such work. Such developments within cultural geography mirror those across qualitative research within the broader social science arena, and for geographers the use of this type of media is perhaps a way to contend with the ongoing, relational nature of place and the representational challenge that brings. In contrast, the perception of the traditional medium of print seems to be that it is lacking the fluid nature of film or sound, only capable of generating representations of place that are too “static” or “fixed.” However, this paper proposes that interdisciplinary collaboration between cultural geography and graphic design offers much with regard to the development of print-based creative methods for understanding and representing everyday life and place. It suggests that the form of the book offers an opportunity to develop geo/graphic work that engages both form and content in a holistic way, enabling the production of a space of interpretation and multi-sensory exploration for the reader. Such work engages with contemporary debates around representation, and positions the reader’s interaction with the book as both cognitively and performatively embodied. For the researcher, the geo/graphic design process also functions as an analytical tool, one that, through the development of the material form of the work, re-situates them in place and enables further reflection and understanding

Mind-Body-Technology: ‘Nosce te Ipsum’ and a theory of prosthetic ‘trialism’

This chapter will discuss a profound and fundamental interrelationship between mind, body and technology in terms of what it means to be ‘human’, or, what ‘being’ human might mean. One historical, yet enduring, theory of the human subject is René Descartes’s philosophy of the mind distinct from the body – this is termed ‘Cartesian dualism’. Whilst this is a classical, if outmoded, model of conceiving of a philosophy of the subject, it also provides a useful conceptual framework through which to critique, and arrive at, a different concept of how the terms ‘mind’ and ‘body’ might operate. For example, the mind/body binary distinction can be interrogated and deconstructed to accommodate the role of technology as having an ontologically embedded position within the very definition of ‘humanity’. Indeed, ‘anthropogenesis’ – the very becoming of humanity – might instead incorporate the role of technological prosthesis to any mind/body dualism in defining the ‘human subject’. We will propose that this ‘dualism’ should be reconsidered for a fundamentally entangled mind-body-technology ‘trialism’ in the emergence of a distinct human being. However, at the same time, this interconnected relationship is also the object of power and control

Haptic Hybrid Prototyping (HHP): An AR Application for Texture Evaluation with Semantic Content in Product Design

The manufacture of prototypes is costly in economic and temporal terms and in order to carry this out it is necessary to accept certain deviations with respect to the final finishes. This article proposes haptic hybrid prototyping, a haptic-visual product prototyping method created to help product design teams evaluate and select semantic information conveyed between product and user through texturing and ribs of a product in early stages of conceptualization. For the evaluation of this tool, an experiment was realized in which the haptic experience was compared during the interaction with final products and through the HHP. As a result, it was observed that the answers of the interviewees coincided in both situations in 81% of the cases. It was concluded that the HHP enables us to know the semantic information transmitted through haptic-visual means between product and user as well as being able to quantify the clarity with which this information is transmitted. Therefore, this new tool makes it possible to reduce the manufacturing lead time of prototypes as well as the conceptualization phase of the product, providing information on the future success of the product in the market and its economic return

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities