Author Archives: aparsons474

Speculative Realism

RELATED TERMS: New Materialism; Object-Oriented Ontology; Postanthropocentrism; Posthumanism; Poststructuralism The term speculative realism was coined by Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier and Iain Hamilton Grant as a title for a conference held at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2007. According to Avanessian and Malik (2016) speculative realists positioned themselves in distinction to both poststructuralismContinue reading “Speculative Realism”

Spectacle – Society of the Spectacle

RELATED TERMS: Everyday; Alienation; Situationist International; Historical materialism – Marxism; Critical Theory; Avant-Garde Movements; Alienation effect – Verfremdungseffekt A critical, creative and reflexive design practice could benefit from an understanding of the issues raised by Guy Debord in his book, Society of the Spectacle, published in 1967. It is a manifesto of 221 theses on capitalistContinue reading “Spectacle – Society of the Spectacle”

Sociology

RELATED TERMS: Actor-Network Theory; Anthropology; Ethnography; Ethnomethodology; Design practices would do well to be sociologically informed, particularly in relation to micro-sociological studies. The decades from the 1960s to the 1980s saw an increase in micro-social studies and methodology. The 1980s saw an attempt to bridge the gap between the more recent micro- studies and theContinue reading “Sociology”

Socially Engaged Art

RELATED TERMS: Modernism and avant-garde art practice Vid Simoniti points out that the work of politically committed artists has radically shifted since the mid-1990s. A new generation of artists has sought not just to represent social reality, but to change it, by blending art with activism, through social regeneration projects, and even by oursuing violentContinue reading “Socially Engaged Art”

Sloterdijk

RELATED TERMS: Heidegger “Humanity becomes a political concept. Its members are no longer travellers on the ship of fools that is abstracted universalism, but workers on the consistently concrete and discrete project of a global immune design.” (Couture, 2016: 73) The work of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (1947-) has direct relevance for design practices. AsContinue reading “Sloterdijk”

Situationist International

RELATED TERMS: Dérive; Détournement; Spectacle – Society of the Spectacle; Walking; Of particular interest to design practices, in the context of the relations among art practices, aesthetic practices and everyday action, is the Situationist International and its forerunner, the Lettriste International. Bonnet (1992: 76) considers that the most determined challenge to the categories of artContinue reading “Situationist International”

Semiotics

RELATED TERMS: Structuralism; Poststructuralism Semiotics can be of great value in design practices, especially in the ways in which material semiosis can be understood to be an active constituent of the networks of social practice. Umberto Eco (1979: 7) has an interesting approach to defining what a comprehensive programme for a general semiotics would be.Continue reading “Semiotics”

Sculpture

RELATED TERMS: Landscape Design; Structuralism; Theoretical practice; Narrative environment design; Architecture Designed artefacts, while being environmental and situational, are not, in any simple or straightforward sense, architecture nor landscape. Nor, furthermore, are they sculpture. Yet they bear some relation to all of these forms of spatial practice: architectural design, landscape design and sculpture. Such fieldsContinue reading “Sculpture”

Science

RELATED TERMS: Paradigm; Method and Methodology; Research Methodologies The term science has come to refer to a set of practices whereby knowledge is obtained through observation and experiment, critically tested and brought under general principles. Scientific method in the natural or physical sciences is a three-step process: careful observation of some aspect of nature; speculationContinue reading “Science”