DDR4 20th March 2004: QUESTION 3

AR (Panel Chair)
Next Question. This is from Rosan Chow of the University Arts Brunswick, Germany, who is not here but submitted it by email as could be done. I will read her Viewpoint first and then Question.

Rosan Chow. (Audience Questioner 3)

VIEWPOINT (READ by AR, Panel Chair)

Design and research and rice and potatoes and butter and jam and men and women and pots and pans and sun and rains and straights and gays and trains and planes and coffee and tea and knives and forks and tables and chairs and fire and water and cats and dogs and sea and land and yin and yang and nights and days and paper and pencils and beauty and beast and songs and dances and hammers and nails and black and white and you and me and fathers and sons and flowers and leaves and oranges and apples and eggs and sperms and east and west and north and south and husbands and wives and tears and laughter or whatever you have in your mind.

Design and research, they are different and yet the same but made for different ends.

Between design and research, if there is any problem, it is social, not ‘actual’.

QUESTION 3:
What do you think?

AR (Panel Chair)
What can you say on this Hilary?

HF
I would like to pick up on what Steve (Hoffman) just said about distinguishing design and research. Certainly speaking as an academic, we have had to differentiate our activity not as to practice but in relation to academic disciplines. It is not that we want to make the definitions in our discipline, or in the broad area of art and design.

I think there is a difference between design and research. I am not sure it is only in the 'Aim' of the project. I think it does have to do with new knowledge and to methods of enquiry. Having said that, we are in negotiation with such bodies as the AHRB, or the new funding Council, to put our discipline in line with all those other disciplines, whether it is medicine, or science, or geography in the Humanities. And in order to do that we do have conform and use their vocabulary, if you like, and use their vocabulary and language to define what we do.

DD
A little story. One of my colleagues is a ceramic artist of some repute, and prize winner, and I was talking to him about the nature of his practice - he produces some quite large scale pieces, and I know he has done a huge amount of work in the background in methods of supporting these as they are fired, and particular techniques to paint the glazes on. And I said to him ‘You do all of this work in the background yet you only ever expose this work to your very small number of students. Why do you not publish this? Why do you not go to conferences?” And he said. “Oh No. I’m not telling anyone else about this“. And that is the difference about somebody who is practicing in that sense, and someone who has the intention of researching and communicating that particular knowledge. So I can agree with what Rosan says here in some ways. This is a complex picture, and I kind of agree with what she said here, most of; but for those who are engaged with - certainly PhD candidates, one has to articulate these things and teese them out.

jcj
This was such a beautiful poem. And it can only be described as that I think, and it was a pleasure to listen to it. She has made an attempt to unite what is dividing the discussion so far, and has achieved a kind of unity by mentioning a lot of practical things, and the sound of them being spoken raises them to the level of being poetry.

I did notice a slight quibble here – there were many pairs of things - opposites, cats and dogs, sea and land, yin and yang, nights and days, and so on. So that there was a dualism that was built into it, which, personally, I would have preferred she had overcome that too.

I was thinking that when poetry came in here, or Art, that we have not discussed design in relation art, as well a design in relation to knowledge - two pure things for their own sake. Art for its own sake and knowledge for its on sake; both of which I like very much. And I am a very scholarly person I would say by now, and also a bit poetic, or crazy!

Nevertheless when you are doing design research I would not say 'they are for different ends', as Rosa Chow said here – ‘made the same but made for different ends’, she says. I would say, 'they are made for the same ends'. And that's what the joining of research to practice means –‘designing for people’ as Henry Dreyfus said in his very early and very inspiring book – or it was for me anyway, called that.

Research needs to be narrowed so that it is useful to people, and practice needs to be widened to that the design process is wide enough to encompass what people need. I would say that is the connection - the logic is of bringing them together.

FP
To overcome the dualism, maybe ‘on and on’ could be added to the list! I am just thinking that these things are the same, and maybe what the difference is here is that we are not actually exploring that fact that designers are aware that they are researching when they are practicing. And I think the difference is that, of how one looks at research, and how one looks at the research that designers are carrying out in the design process. As much as a lot of people, who are actually designing, maybe not realise they are designing, when they are arranging, when they are detailing, when they are analysing their solutions to day to day life. It is all part of the design process. It is the degree we look at research and the different reasons for research that you can make the difference - the process is quite similar.

MP
Like others, I think this is a very well expressed and poetic view.

I think life is too short, to yet again.. sit in this very room, and many other rooms, for 15 years... with ‘what is design research?’. We came here in 1992, and I remember Rachael Cooper, sitting up at the back, and there was Chris Frayling acting out his Moses thing; telling us what design research is, in Tablets of Stone. 1992! Come down to Kensington Gore and we will tell you what design research is. He didn’t, and we fundamentally disagreed with some of the things he said.

What is it about the design research community that reminds me of the (UK) Labour Party in the 1980’s delving into its navel, and getting nowhere. I am not interested in this question, and I have not been since the early 90’s. I would like us to move on. Thank you.

Audience Applause.

Professor Rachel Cooper, Salford University, England (audience)
I would like to confirm what Mike has said. What worries me is that we do spend time doing this, and at the moment there are many opportunities for funding to do research. And what worries me is that people not in the design community are getting the money for the research that we should be doing. And we should not think so much about how we do it, or where we do it.

Rivka Oxman. Technion - Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel (audience)
I think that the practitioner is an individual and their experience is specific; specific to clients; specific The task of the researcher is to generalise about it; to formulate about it; it is to theorise about it; and make it accessible to all of us, not just for the individual. So research and practice have very intimate relations in understanding first, in the of way of doing, but then generalising and theorising about it.

Professor Richard Buchanan (Host)
I want to build on something Mike said, and Rachael as well. I have listened to this debate and discussion for and against for a long, long time and I am getting tired of it as well. And I am going to come in on why it is occurring, and how we might get out of it.

The first point is I think the design community is ….. (This will anger probably a lot of people.) It is very smug. I think we are self-contented, and feel very visionary.

But in fact I think we are a fairly parochial community, who do not outreach to the experiences that will make our design work more effective. And an example of this that makes it clear for me is how little we seem to know about development of research in other fields of practice.

Management organisation behaviour, a good eighty years of research have built upon a rather larger understanding of practice. Medicine has already been cited, with a longer tradition. So I think it is important that we begin to shake off that slumbering notion that we are special people. We are not. We have special gifts but we need the broadening of the understanding and confrontation with those other matters, and that will make a difference.

And, I will tell you now I think there is a narrow window for design. And we sit comfortably talking about the future of design, but I think the window is rather small for the influence we can have in the century. And we have an opportunity, and we are being listened to, and we are being looked at very critically by colleagues in quite a number of other fields. And we need to start looking at the responsibility we have to build our arguments; different as they may be, but build our standing, and move ahead.

Participant at the Back. (audience)
I am an artist, and we have a duty, as artists, to a lot of the things you are asking us to try and do. We have a duty to work for society. But deep down, I am basically an anarchist, and want to do things for myself. And I try and make things work within my own way of doing things, and I bend the rules. So I do research basically to make things work, but at the time I am really making them work for myself.

And I am quite corrosive and quite subversive about this, and try and do things for my own ego. Do you put that into the equation? I bet you never even thought of that. We are all egotists, we artists, at the end of the day. And here you are going on about these semantics and things, and I don’t give a toss quite honestly.

John Knight User-Lab UCE Birmingham, England. (audience)
As well as looking at other disciplines and the kinds of lessons they have got for the other disciplines and the kind of lessons they’ve got, there is also need to look at issues of practice and research outside of this community – to industry, and how people outside this community - how they are dealing with these issues. As I think there is a danger of understanding these terms in a very internalised way, and without having a connection with what going on in manufacturing and industry, it becomes very narrow and unrelated to kind of making an impact outside of this room.

AR (Panel Chair).
I have added Rosan's comment below submitted in response to these proceedings. As a formally selected Questioner she would have been asked for a final comment had she been present.

Rosan Chow
I was absent at DDR4 but submitted a Viewpoint. After reading the lovely proceedings, I would like to add a concluding point here as I didn’t have a chance to do so then.

RICE AND POTATO: THEIR RELATION AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR DESIGN RESEARCH
What is the difference between rice and potato? Rice is white and potato is yellow. No, this is not the point both are food. Wait a minute, they are different kinds of food. But both have lots of starch. I think potato has much more starch. Well, it depends on which type of potato. This discussion is going nowhere, the real difference is that rice is the staple of the Chinese, and potato the Germans. This is absurd …

We can go on and on about the differences and similarities because it is we who decide. For those who like to focus on differences, they will see the differences and the same is true with those who prefer to focus on similarities.

The problem of rice and potato is not intellectual (per se) but social. We are part of the problem. And I believe it is through recognizing this, we can release ourselves and move on. Like others I want the subject on design research to move on. However, I am unconvinced by Dick’s suggestion. The problem can not resolved by admitting that we are ‘smug’ and look for models established in other fields. This suggestion won’t work because the solution to the problem doesn’t lie somewhere else but within us.

If we want to move on, we must first admit that people are different and they will, within their power, do what they believe. So, let them do what they believe and wait and see for the results. This way, we don’t judge their beliefs but the results of their work, and this I think is a more tolerant, democratic, and fair way to deal with people’s differences and to resolve conflict of interests with a community.

AR (Panel Chair).
Next Question is from Dr Nuella Rooney of the University of Ulster, N Ireland.

Back to PART 1