Category Archives: Uncategorized

RELATED TERMS: Poeisis; Reflexivity and Reflection The term praxis is one of Aristotle’s three main categories action, alongside poiesis and theoria. Praxis is taken to mean doing or acting, rather than making (poiesis) or thinking (theoria), although ‘thinking’ here is restricted to thinking about ‘universals’. Each form of action is associated with a characteristic form of knowing: theoria with epistemeContinue reading “Praxis”

RELATED TERMS: Apparatus – Dispositif; Design Practice and Functionalism; Ontological Turn; Reflexivity and Reflection; Theoretical Practice; The ‘practice’ approach to social phenomena is very important for design, as it underlies the conceptualisation of designs as forms of spatio-temporal (social) practice. The notion of practice is a way of understanding the co-implication and entanglement of environments,Continue reading “Practice”

RELATED TERMS: Postmodernism; Semiotics; Structuralism; Theoretical practice; Method and methodology In as far as it signifies an intense engagement with language and writing and it practices a non-reductionist, relational mode of thinking, poststructuralism may be of great value in considering the language components of narrative as they are articulated in specific design practices. Metaphorically, butContinue reading “Poststructuralism”

RELATED TERMS: Critical thinking; Cultural Studies; Design Practice and Functionalism; Feminism and Materialism; Metanarrative; Methodology and Method; Modernism; Poststructuralism; Theoretical Practice; The cosmetic is the new cosmic … Koolhaas (2002: 190) One question for design practices may be to consider whether any particular design might benefit from orienting itself toward the debates generated by theContinue reading “Postmodernism”

RELATED TERMS: Posthumanism; Postanthropocentrism; Posthuman; According to Rosi Braidotti (2019), critical posthumanities is an emergent field of enquiry based on the convergence of posthumanism and postanthropocentrism. Posthumanism develops a critique of the humanist ideal of ‘Man’: Vitruvian ‘Man’ as the allegedly universal measure of all things. Postanthropocentrism criticizes species hierarchy and human exceptionalism. Post-Humanism namesContinue reading “Posthumanities”

RELATED TERMS: Actant; Anthropo-Scenes; Anthropocene – Capitalocene – Chthulucene; Plantationocene; Humanism; Object-Oriented Ontology; Postanthropocentrism; Posthuman; Realism; Speculative Realism Similarly to the term postanthropocentrism, the value of the concept of posthumanism for design practices is that it invites a reconsideration of the relationships among the narrative, the environmental and the human aspects of the overall design. That is,Continue reading “Posthumanism”

RELATED TERMS:  Anthropo-Scenes; Anthropocene – Capitalocene – Chthulucene; Plantationocene; Humanism; Object-Oriented Ontology; Postanthropocentrism; Posthumanism; Ferrando (2013) states that the term ‘posthuman’ has become a key term in contemporary academic debate. It addresses an urgent need for an integral redefinition of the notion of the human, following the onto-epistemological as well as scientific and bio-technological developments ofContinue reading “Posthuman”

RELATED TERMS: Anthropo-Scenes; Anthropocene – Capitalocene – Chthulucene; Plantationocene; Humanism; Object-Oriented Ontology; Posthuman; Posthumanism; Speculative Realism The idea of ‘postanthropocentrism’, which questions the human exceptionalism and methodological individualism of certain strands of humanist traditions, is a key focus of posthumanist thinking. It is a rethinking the human in its necessary relations to the nonhuman others, such asContinue reading “Postanthropocentrism”

RELATED TERMS: Agonistic politics – Mouffe; Dissensus – Ranciere; Distribution of the sensible; Biopolitics and Biopower; Arendt; Heidegger; Lefebvre Specific narrative environments, whether explicitly designed or not, may be said to be ‘political’ or to have political effects in some sense. In order to define more clearly what might be meant by this kind ofContinue reading “Politics and the Political”

RELATED TERMS: Philosophy; Praxis; Poiesis is a Greek term that means making, producing, creation, creative power or ability. Poiesis is contrasted with praxis, which means ‘doing’ or ‘acting’, by Plato and Aristotle. Excellent making requires techne, skill, while excellent doing requires arete, virtue. The question for design practices is whether the design process and the design outcome are modes of productionContinue reading “Poiesis”