RELATED TERMS: Enlightenment; Posthumanism; Posthuman; Postanthropocentrism; Realism; Modernity Michel Foucault argues that the term humanism should not be confused with that of Enlightenment. The importance of grasping the notions of humanism and Enlightenment for design practices is that it bears directly upon how the domain of humanity and the human is understood in the designContinue reading “Humanism”
Author Archives: aparsons474
Human Ecosystem
RELATED TERMS: Anthropocene – Capitalocene – Chthulucene; Plantationocene; Ecology and Economy Systems as small as a household or as large as a nation state may be discussed as a human ecosystem. Human ecosystems interact in a complex web of human and ecological relationships, connecting human ecosystems to the biosphere. Human ecosystems have so thoroughly pervadedContinue reading “Human Ecosystem”
Human Actantiality
RELATED TERMS: Actant; Actantial Model – Greimas; Actantiality; Agency; Agon; Audience; Design of Narrative Environments; (The) Heroic; Philosophy; People are not exterior, whether anterior or posterior, to the design process nor the designed outcome. An important question, then, in designing such environments, is how this human dimension is to be theorised and practised. Are the peopleContinue reading “Human Actantiality”
History
RELATED TERMS: Historicism; Historical materialism – Marxism; For Georg Lukacs (c.1971, 1923), in History and Class Consciousness, often said to be the inaugural text of Western Marxism, “history lies precisely in the changes undergone by those structural forms which are the focal points of man’s [sic] interaction with environment at any given moment and which determine theContinue reading “History”
Historicism
RELATED TERMS: History; Design of Narrative Environments; Metalepsis; Genealogy – Nietzsche; Aleatory Historicism, Hal Foster (1996: 10) notes, can be negatively defined in the most simple terms as the conflation of before and after with cause and effect, by making the presumption that the prior event produces the later one. Foster also notes that historicism in this sense pervades art history and modernistContinue reading “Historicism”
Historical Materialism – Marxism
RELATED TERMS: History; Critical Thinking; Cultural Studies; Design of Narrative Environments; Epic theatre – Brecht; Feminism and Materialism; Lefebvre; Methodology and Method; Even though the crude teleological determinism, historicism and reductive economism of official communist ideology, or orthodox Marxism-Leninism, came to occupy the space of Marxist thinking, design practices may yet still benefit from considering aContinue reading “Historical Materialism – Marxism”
(The) Heroic
RELATED TERMS: Narratology; Protagonist; Human Actantiality In The Hero with a thousand faces, Joseph Campbell examines many of the world’s heroic myths and stories. He ties the processes of transformation in those stories of the heroic journey to the quest to know the truest self, a task which, he avers, takes much time. Campbell shows how,Continue reading “(The) Heroic”
Happenings
RELATED TERMS: Avant-garde movements; Environments – Art; Installation Art; Performance and Performativity Happenings, the forerunners of performance art, emerged from the theatrical elements of dada and surrealism. American artist Allan Kaprow first used the term in his 1959 work ‘18 Happenings in 6 Parts’ which took place over six days from 4–10 October 1959 atContinue reading “Happenings”
Habitus
RELATED TERMS: Habitat The Greek term hexis was translated into the Latin word habitus. Hexis, habitus or disposition is a general term for a person’s readiness to act in a certain way. It finds expression in acts of particular virtues or vices like honesty, generosity, cheerfulness, jealousy or cruelty. The concept of habitus was introduced into anthropology by MarcelContinue reading “Habitus”
Habitat
RELATED TERMS: Architecture; Ecology; Habitus; Niche; Environment According to Prabakaran Mahdu (2013), “Habitat is not plain place of habitation. It is a field of negotiations. Habitats transform. The network of relationships, changes in membership patterns, transitions in the power and influence of constituents and the micro- politics of negotiations transform habitats. Transformed habitats gravitate the internal sinews andContinue reading “Habitat”
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