3983 research outputs found
Sort by
Illustration, narrative and the suffragette: An illustrative enquiry
No full textThrough an investigation of the Holloway prison writings of the suffragette Katie Gliddon, Mireille Fauchon explores illustration as a social research tool and creates within this book a model of practice-based enquiry. Illustrative methods and expressive literary forms - collage, mixed media, print and ficto-critical writing are used to illuminate the characteristics of the subject matter. Drawing on archival study, anecdotal experience, practical research methods and narrative enquiry, this book brings together themes of feminism, materiality and social history. Ideal for those studying illustration and qualitative research methods, Fauchon explores Gliddon's life writing not only as a case study of an individual woman's desires and aspiration for societal reform, she also creates a unique tool exemplifying how social research can become a work of narrative illustration in itself
Design strategies to alleviate motion sickness in rear seat passengers - a test track study
Get PDFIn-vehicle activities such as reading, writing or watching videos rapidly lead to signs and symptoms of motion sickness and is of particular concern in rear-seat passengers and future shared and / or automated vehicles. In this test track study, we evaluated several design strategies to alleviate motion discomfort in rear seat passengers who were exposed to a longitudinal motion profile of repeated vehicle accelerations and decelerations whilst using an e-reader. Results showed that the manipulations affecting vehicle accelerations and pitch angles failed to reduce motion sickness. Providing passengers with lateral optic flow indicating instantaneous actual vehicle speed and predictive motion cues using a visual ambient display reduced motion sickness consistency, albeit statistically non- significant. Yet, with all the above strategies combined in the wellness pack condition, a statistically significant and large (28%) reduction in carsickness was observed. Future research will benefit from exploring these possible interactions and suggest that effective motion sickness management may require a multipronged approach
Whether we design: A weather report
Get PDFThe following report summarises a conversation between staff and students about the weather and design at a School of Design PhD seminar at the Royal College of Art on 16th February and 9th March 2023. A Strange Weather, A Strange Word. Very often, the words climate and weather are used interchangeably. It would seem that both terms stem from the same root, but this is not the case. Climate comes from the late Latin clima and the Greek klima, meaning ‘slope’ or ‘lean’. Wither, or weather, instead, comes from the Germanic root linked to ‘wind’ (Cresswell, 2021). Regardless of their roots, the interdependence between climate and weather might be why the meaning of climate has significantly changed over the years. At first, climate meant a “zone of the earth between two lines of latitude”. Later, it was referred to as earth’s “atmospheric conditions” (ibid.). Today, the climate is conceptualised as “an integrated biogeophysical system highly vulnerable to human interference” (Dryzek, 2022). Strangely, as we begin to perceive weather as both vulnerable and extreme, weather and climate will likely mean something entirely different for future generations
Economies of entrepreneurialism and political agency: Urban informality as a design paradigm for resilient future cities
Get PDFToday, the world faces a multitude of complex societal issues, that need urgent attention for enhanced quality of life and resilient futures. With the help of a study on the daily mobilities of urban marginalised women (UMW) supported by state-of-the-art literature, this paper presents insights into the aspects of urban informality that can inform the design and planning of future cities capable of surviving the situations of crises. By adopting a combination of new technologies along with mobile methods and ethnography, this research centres around the everyday travel experiences of the urban marginalized women from the peri-urban areas of New Delhi who contest their right to access stationery and mobile public spaces. Following the elements of qualitative research, this study examines the socio-spatial environment comprising the daily mobilities of UMW to reveal certain conditions of informality that enable their access and participation in socio-economic activities. In doing so, the paper highlights the significance of various infrastructures emerging from the social conditions of doing things together (social interdependence), belonging to a community and the aspects of self-organisation that are crucial for the sustained functioning of cities. Moreover, it presents a perspective for designers to identify and embrace temporary ways of existing and operating towards resilient cities of the future. With the help of the findings from this study, this paper presents urban informality as a design paradigm for various systems and services of future resilient cities that are more equitable and inclusive, and at the same time adapt to the dynamic uncertain situations of crises by being flexible, adaptable and leaving spaces for the emergence of bottom-up citizen-led initiatives
My bodily remains: Megaron The Athens Concert Hall: In 'An Ear of Arms (around us)'
No full textThis year, the annexM of Megaron-The Athens Concert Hall hosts, as resident, the artist and musician Athanasios Argianas, who curates a screening of short films and video works from the late 1970s up to this day. Titled An Ear of Arms (around us) the screening celebrates an eclectic range of crossover works, films which are collaborations with musicians and composers, and which carry music or sound in the very core of their language. Some of these films are shown for the first time in Greece, and two have been especially edited for this screening. From Annea Lockwood s evocative audio compositions fusing field recordings of tiger purrs and electronics, to Aura Satz’s film about the British pioneer composer Daphne Oram, from the historical Speak by John Latham to the currently relevant The Love Life of the Octopus by Jean Painlevé with commissioned music by Pierre Henry for modular synthesizers, Chris Marker’s poetic haiku An Owl Is an Owl Is an Owl and the emotive Cat Listening to Music, the evening will pan a wide range of dynamics through the affective use of music always operating in the very core of the films themselves. An excerpt of two chapters from Tai Shani & Maxwell Sterling’s My Bodily Remains, a special edition with the soundtrack from a recent live performance with a Gamelan Orchestra for London’s Southbank, operates as an epic coda an epilogue grounding us back to a human universe, after a detour in a world of animals and utopian machines. Athanasios Argianas’ own Music Sideways, a vocal canon filmed through a kind of prismatic mirror, a prop echoing the structure of the music, and Hollowed Water (A Gesture 24 Times) complete the evening. In the artist’s own words The sequence is an eclectic journey from the early cinema of Jean Painlevé and his collaboration with composers, the poetic suite Bestiary of Chris Marker, himself a composer of his own soundtracks, and John Latham’s Speak to contemporary artists like Aura Satz, Tai Shani and sound artist Annea Lockwood. Concentrating on a historically diverse range of film and video work for which a sense of musicality is not only key but woven into the core of the works, touching on ideas of score, translation and the effect of music, as its title An Ear of Arms (around us) suggests, implying an affective and compassionate ear, as well as a communal sensibility, a kind of listening hug. The subjects of non-human perception (through Chris Marker’s Cat listening to music, Painlevé’s Octopus), a spectrum of sensibilities beyond discursive knowledge, emotion and affect as elements of an open matrix through which to experience non-hierarchical ideas of this world
Not going it alone: A conversation
Get PDFIn recent years, collective approaches to curatorial practice have become prominent, and not for the first time. While the myth of the stand-alone curator has been largely dismantled in favor of recognizing the myriad other actors and agencies—from artists to installers, from gallery attendants to directors, and others—who make their work possible, contemporary curatorial practices encompass far more than bringing simply more collaborators together. Through a collection of essays and experimental texts, Not Going It Alone: Collective Curatorial Curating offers readers a layered and contextual understanding of this phenomenon, its debates, and possibilities across a range of temporalities, positions, and geographical perspectives. With contributions by: María Berríos / Pip Day / Sofia Olascoaga, Nikolett Eröss / Eszter Lázár, Index and Praksis Teen Advisory Boards, Elizabeth Larison, Nina Möntmann, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Gerrie van Noord, Paul O'Neill, Agnieszka Pindera, Serubiri Moses and Gregory Sholette
Landscape, war trauma, explosion: re-membering the moment before
Get PDFThis practice-led PhD focuses on the role of the trauma of war. It argues that trauma circulates, takes shapes and forms, manifesting itself as a landscape which is both dynamic and emergent. War trauma can be seen, felt and expressed as a particular set of scars shaped by memory, fear, identity and politics. A re-positioning and materialising of these scars through a practice of corresponding moving image not only reveals how their intensity operates in discourse but also sheds light on the mechanisms of power that help shape knowledge, identity and meaning. The practice is composed of three ‘moving-image-correspondences’, each with its own protagonist: the cactus (sabra), the human, and the tank; all of these are haunted by explosion in some way or another. The research shows how the effect of trauma requires a different approach to linear time: of moving through different times, territories, and traumas that materialise in the moment of correspondence, whereby the past is projected into the future and comes back to create the present. This temporal redistribution establishes the role of correspondence as linkage, a feedback loop which perpetuates the feeling of fear of the moment before (the explosion). This moment before is understood as a collective trauma, responsible for the interwoven socio-political structures that allow for different shapes of trauma to emerge and circulate. Thus, the creation of repetition and patterning forms the ways in which a site/reality is both established and conceived. The notion of correspondence is developed both as material method and theory in its broader sense: not only in words, but as video collages. These collages embody the collective materialisation of seemingly disparate elements, through a process of rubbing matter, images, rhythm, colours, sounds and theory against each other, trying to understand their ability to create emergence, to re-member, re-materialise, re-reproduce and circulate. This research therefore allows for a plurality of narratives to exist at any given moment – an affectual zone where memory, silence and trauma are embodied, preserved and circulated as landscape. The battle is always over the narrative that constantly reshapes the landscape and its history. The sabra (cactus), used to demarcate the borders of Palestinian villages, is transformed into a living testament of lives lived there before 1948. The war of 1948 and its aftermath marked a dramatic change in the social and cultural role of the cactus, appropriated by Israel as a symbol of its people and ultimately leading to the popularisation of the term ‘Tzabar’ (sabra) to refer to an Israeli-born Jew. In 2005, the term morphed once again, and also began to refer to a tank, continuing its transformation from a border marker/symbol of defence to an attacker and occupier. This thesis therefore thinks of the sabra/tzabar as an event that unfolds in multiple directions, taking on different shapes, narratives, histories and time periods. Importantly, the circulation that emerges as landscape (the landscape's ability to shape-shift) also allows for undecidability as a crucial part of the equation of the moment before, through which curiosity, hope and change can also emerge
Entanglements of place: Exploring the Dutchness of contemporary typography in the Netherlands through a practical approach to discourse
Get PDFVisual language plays a significant role in how one perceives the world. In the Netherlands, typography in print-based materials reflects the environment in which it was created. Specifically, typography in the printed book echoes different [Dutch] experiences of designers. The historical and contemporary context of typography in the Netherlands helps to shape what has become recognised as a distinct design culture; from type design to applied typography both digitally and in print-based materials. This practice-led PhD research is situated in the field of visual communication and draws on literature from cultural geography. My research asks how a geographical location can impact contemporary typography and its use in print-based work. It ultimately suggests an ‘ecology of semantics’, to understand the relationships – entanglements – between Dutch contemporary typographic production, discourse and place. Entanglements as non-linear connections between people, objects, subjects and their environment. Building upon cultural geographer Doreen Massey’s philosophical and theoretical notions of ‘place as process’ – the [social] interactions within and beyond place – expose an understanding of the movement of typographic discourse and typography within the Netherlands and the printed page. Additionally, the research draws from theorists Tim Cresswell, Tim Ingold, Ewan Lentjes and Henk Hoeks. Looking specifically at the form of the book as print-based material, the social and cultural structures provide new perspectives to inform and understand entanglements between Dutch typography and place. This research takes into consideration a geographic location, the locale and a sense of place to connect discursive means of Dutch contemporary typography and meaning through print. The concept of place is used both conceptually through a graphic design practice and as place-based conversations with participants. This practice-led research uses a multi-method approach through dialogical modes, a dialogical methodology, to reveal the relationships between typography and place. The research brings together qualitative methods through a design-led conversation prompt for five semi-structured interviews with six participants. My experience in graphic design practice supports a dialogic process in print and in the visualisation and analysis of the research. The resulting conversations provide a rich resource for thematic analysis, criticality and tangible reflection on the printed page of a book. As a designer, I bring to this practice-led research, an understanding of the vocabulary of book design, and curiosity-driven experimental practice to make invisible ideas visible and tangible through structure, materiality, text, typography and the printed page. Book design processes allow me to think through the research relational, spatial and ecological. I approach place and the book as part of the spatial realm. The book as the object, process, instrument and outcome of the research. Materiality and [inter]textuality are phenomena of the methods that enable one to focus on how meanings of place are conveyed through typographic discourse. Seven themes emerged through the research practice: time, borders, landscape, spatiality, locality, technology and education. The research outputs and outcomes consist of a thesis and concertina books. This research makes an original contribution to the field of visual communication by expanding understanding of Dutch typographic discourse and how this is informed by experience of place. The research makes the entanglements of place visible, through a design practice, to provide an understanding of how a Dutch typographic discourse expresses cultural aspects on the printed page. The findings are an understanding of internationalisation through education and the impact of language as cultural identity. The research plays a vital role for design practitioners, theorists, and researchers for critical debate about the understanding of a sense of place
Queer futures: Correlations between queer identity and imagination literacy
Get PDFFutures thinking, and doing, has been the domain of the privileged majority for centuries. The very idea of ‘the future’ (singular) was fundamental to the crea-tion and maintenance of imperial domination and technological modernity. To this day, mainstream media readily emits the narrow and repetitive science fic-tion tropes void of (realistic, fair) representation of a wider inclusive society, specifically absent of queerness. This paper builds on the work of Alexis Lothian’s ‘Old Futures: speculative fiction and queer possibility’ in which she explores the forces queer people (and other marginalised communities) invoke when they dream up alternative futures as a way of transforming the present. To do so, the author presents findings from an anonymized global study of the correlations be-tween queer identity and imagination literacy. Addressing the questions - how does identity inform our ability to imagine the future and the content of those imagined futures
Cultivating a regenerative imagination at art and design universities
Get PDFThis short paper explores how art and design universities seek to cultivate a regenerative imagination as a fundamental basis for developing personal work, transdisciplinary projects and enterprises. It aims to unfold key processes and characteristics to start addressing the question of what is (or may be) distinctive about the approach and ethos that art and design schools bring to regenerative design and innovation compared to other HEIs. We argue that one way to position their potentially unique approach is through paying attention to the (relative) absence of conceptual and practical obstacles and inhibitors. Pivotally, art and design school members are not told that humans and the environment are fundamentally separate, or that the latter amount to ‘natural resources’ to be exploited by humans. Instead, they are encouraged to engage directly and experimentally with other beings and to apply their imaginations to perceiving relational patterns and possibilities that might or might not currently exist or be directly observable. When moving from the ‘ecological’ to the ‘regenerative’ imagination, we find that a primary difference is that the regeneratively oriented creator or group will be ultimately searching for (and elaborating, valid- ating) certain ‘regenerative potentials’. In short, these amount to opportunities to fruitfully and relationally participate in naturally-occurring (but increasingly disrupted and diminished) biological and ecological processes with the purpose of enhancing their ability to regenerate while speaking to human needs. This paper reflects on an emergent modality of regenerative imagining, designing and innovating that contrasts with science and engineering-driven approaches in several important aspects, rooted as it is in a more-than-human ethos that stresses the ontological equivalence of all forms of life