Speculative Machines and Technical Mentalities. A philosophical approach to designing the future

‘Beyond their instrumental functions,’ writes Rivka Oxman in an article about design, creativity and innovation (2013), ‘advanced digital and computational environments are also becoming tools for thinking design’. At the leading edge of creativity and innovation design does not only speculate the plausible, possible or potential, but pragmatically inserts such futures into the present (as Whitehead says any ‘immediate existence’ (1962) must). Using concepts mainly from Deleuze, Guattari, Spinoza and Simondon, I will position such design speculation as pragmatic, divergent, complex and emergent. That is, as manifesting the technical mentalities (Simondon) that provide the milieu in which we can show what we ‘might be capable of’ (Stengers)

Networks: open, closed or complex. Connecting philosophy, design and innovation, part 3

This is the third and final paper of a series bringing a philosophical investigation to matters of design and innovation. With the others examining: first, the urges to reconsider innovation from a creative, specifically design, direction (‘Beyond Success’); and second, the type of dynamic innovation that may be thus reconsidered (‘Ecstatic Innovation’); this paper will investigate a way of constructing this type of design-driven innovation. It will begin by looking at the networks that can be created to deliver a dynamic, continually innovative innovation and will start by considering two concepts of network: the open and the closed. While there seems to be an easy distinction to be made between open and closed, and its mapping onto similarly convenient ideas of good and bad, I hope to show that this is not the case. The complexity of networked forms of organisation demand that we bring to them a complexity of thought that comes from philosophy. Nevertheless, such an account will also need to engage with discourses from other disciplinary areas: notably organisational theory, innovation management and design. The outcome is of importance to thinking the organisational structures in which innovation is managed

Design Digestion: work in progress

Enough of taste and mastication. It is time to look beyond the momentary, tasteful consumption of designed objects, in order to make account of the various meanings that are generated through their more drawn-out engagements. It seems to us that the discourses around consumption that have abounded in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in the last 40 years have simultaneously limited their focus on one aspect of our relationship with designed objects, services, images &c., and confused such a limited focus with all characteristics of this relationship: the term “consumption” seems to refer to everything from desire through acquisition to use. Under the auspices of discourses of consumption, objects, once consumed, are destined only for the rubbish tip. Is there any wonder that consumer culture is one that prioritizes taste and waste? The long, alimentary process in-between seems to be largely forgotten. We will offer a furthering of the biological metaphor beyond the mouth—the site of consumption—by stating that after the initial burst of taste that consuming designed objects gives, there is a more prolonged digestion. Digestion takes time; it breaks down the thing(s) digested and thus broken, the digested bits are used by our systems in various ways. In this paper we will focus on this process, in order to outline the beginnings of a theory of digestion; an outline that is based-upon an analysis of the rituals, practices and other experiences that people have with designed objects. It is important for us that such an account is not merely reflective and analytical of the culture in which design operates. Once we have articulated this theory of digestion, it is our intention to use it to generate real design outcomes in a commercial setting. The move from, and relationship between, the theoretical/analytical and the creative/synthetic is an important one

Styling the Future. A philosophical account of scenarios & design

Since the end of the 1980s – the Decade of Style (Mort, 1996) – the value of style in design has fallen. Recent times (Whicher et al., 2015) see a focus on style as a sign of design’s immaturity, while a more mature design should be attending to process, strategy and policy creation. Design Thinking has been enjoying its success in the same spirit, where it is championed (Brown, 2008; Martin, 2009; Neumeier, 2009) as a way of taking design away from its early stage as ‘mere’ styling, towards the more thoughtful, serious matters of business. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze is of a different mind however. ‘Style,’ he writes (1995, p.31), ‘amounts to innovation.’ For us this engages not only a rethinking of design practice in particular, but also a reconsideration of the guiding principles of scenario planning. Deleuze’s thought entails the opportunity for styling to be an act that participates in driving all creativity towards making a successful future impact (Flynn & Chatman, 2004; Cox, 2005). A philosophical disruption of current design and scenarios orthodoxies offers a way of considering that style has a key role in the production of the future. Here, then, we will investigate the creative, even innovative, opportunities that emerge from a reworking of the value of style that comes from a critique of Design Thinking, a perspective on future-thinking (especially scenario planning (e.g. Schwartz, 1991; Li, 2014; Ramírez & Selin, 2014), but also some work from organisation and management studies (e.g. Tsoukas, 2005a, 2005b)), and an encounter with philosophy (particularly the work of Deleuze & Guattari (1984, 1987, 1994). We will highlight the affective capacities of style – in design and scenarios, both as creative constructing of futures – by way of creatively accessing uncertainty, complexity and indeterminacy in the production of strategic maps for living (both individuals and organisations)

Collisions, Design & The Swerve

If only everything were formed of neat laminar flows, with easy to understand conditions, and determinable outcomes: there would be no risk to manage out, messy inconsistencies and uncertainties to disrupt well-laid out plans. Things are not so clear-cut however. Indeed, as scientists, poets and philosophers of science have pointed out it is under conditions of nondeterminism and complexity that everything comes into being. There is an issue, then, when creative disciplines in particular find such complexity problematic enough to design systems and models in which uncertainty, disruption and aleatory collisions are if not destroyed, then dampened. We wonder: what might become of a creative practice that championed its encounter with The Swerve, Lucretius's clinamen? This article examines the role, value and applicability of the concept of collision to design. It takes a philosophical approach to examining this concept and mapping the possibilities of its use in design. We will argue using concepts mainly from Lucretius and Serres – but also Deleuze and others – that collision is an important aspect of all creativity, and that there would be nothing were it not for collisions, disruptive deviation and swerves from equilibrium. The aim will be to articulate the conditions for the possibility of designing that is a 'fan of collisions'

Affect, Assemblage and Modes of Existence. Towards an Ethological Design-Driven Social Innovation

Since Viktor Papanek, at least, the ethics of designing has been organised according to moral imperatives: be authentic not phony, take notice of needs not wants . . . and so on. The social innovation that drives its creative urge from design practices appears not to have strayed far from Papanek’s path. To rid itself of such reactive ideologies, and so to create other conditions for the possibility of its creativity, design-driven social innovation might do well not merely to pitch itself as a morality articulated by, or in the thrall of, a transcendent authority, but maybe even to be occupied with different account of ethics altogether. This paper will seek to elucidate such a different ethics as an ethology along the lines Spinoza proposed and Deleuze championed. That is, it will therefore call for an affective designing that deals in the creation of modes of existence, from whose assemblages emerge other social and communal apparatuses. This paper is constructed of several sections – looking at assemblages (via Deleuze and Guattari and De Landa), affects (via Spinoza and Deleuze), modes of existence (via Souriau and Latour) – each of which is its own moment in this call with its own value and agenda, but with points of collision with the others. This paper will conclude by gesturing towards the type of social/collective that might emerge from this discussion

Nonlinearity for Design

'And ecstasy is the way out! Harmony! Perhaps, but heart-rending. The way out? It suffices that I look for it: I fall back again, inert, pitiful: the way out from project, from the will for a way out! For project is the prison from which I wish to escape (project, discursive experience): I formed the project to escape from project!' Georges Bataille (1988) Inner Experience, p. 59 The most notable feature of the last ten years of going to Milan to visit design companies, studios, manufacturers and the Salone di Mobili, has been the lack of change in outlook on the part of the Milanese Design community (not necessarily all Italians, we should remember). The focus of any discussion centred around what has made Milanese design so special and always seemed to be focussed on the past. We revisited the 1960s and 1980s mainly—the Pop and the Postmodern, the bright colours and sensual shapes attesting to the stereotype of Milanese Design as energetic and desirous. The 1990s revisiting of a Scandinavian Modernist æsthetic particularly in furniture and kitchen appliance design seemed only to reinforce such a stereotype: “we can engage with this styling,” they seemed to say, “but it will always have our signature elegance and sophistication, that demands display and passion rather than objective appreciation.” Only Studio Mendini seemed to have no truck with the vagaries of fashion. Asked in Spring 2002 whether the studio’s playful style—so reminiscient of Design’s Postmodern turn of the 1980s as well as Pop’s 1960s exuberance—was still relevant in a world experiencing suicide terrorist attacks in many of the world’s cities (this visit was the Spring following the iconic Twin Tower attacks in New York City on 11th Spetember 2001, of course), our guide told us that Signore Mendini believed that now, as much as ever, was it necessary to have some joy in people’s lives. And that is all.1 This is design as frippery, as an escape from the everyday, from the dirtiness of culture, of society and of politics. This is design which ignores the everyday experiences and concerns of people. This is design which has turned in on itself. This is not good enough