theory practice, art design technology
TRANSCRIPT
Theory
Practice
Art, Design & Technology
Understand how ideas are articulated and expressed materially — so that we know where and how to evolve ideas into material and how to understand material as the embodiment of will and desire of human agents. We do this to articulate and learn from past mistakes, codify problems through theoretical frameworks, analyze existing practices and specify future practices to address the challenges and problems the world faces today.
Theory
Practice
Explication of “Practice”
Processes By Which Made Things Come To Be
Principles That Guide “Practice”
The Creation and Circulation of Culture
Ideas
Materialization
EngineeringArtDesign
Simply and less rigorously, theory are ideas, practice is a materialization in form, understandable as an “idea made real”. Let’s focus on Design, Art and Engineering
Ideas
Materialization
Mathematics That Support The Materialization of Ideas
Airplanes, Software and Faster USB Dongles
Optimization and Efficiency
Engineering
Very important because mathematics is a useful descriptive language that makes for efficient and durable materializations
Principles and Philosophies based on Aesthetics
Art
Dreams
Ideas
Materialization
Art dreams, and dreams are of great practical importance, as well as ways to imagine new possible worlds and transcend existing boundaries
People Principles — Needs, Abilities, Social Practices
Design
Good Chairs and Lamps
Ideas
Materialization
Design is the one practice that has a large and descriptive language through which people and their practices can be expressed and then materialized through a wide range of
DesignTechnology
ArtShould There Be An Inter-Discipline?
Can We Forge Together Design, Technology And Art Through Some Kind of Scholarly
Alchemy?Can We Harness The Power Of Each Separate
Discipline Into Something New?
Why Would We Do This?
1. Create New Hybrid Disciplines Formed From The Leakiness of
Knowledge Networks
New “disciplines” form around hybrid knowledge making communities. As knowledge circulates, ideas and practices and approaches to knowledge making flow across disciplinary boundaries. Sometimes this causes problems, sometimes it leads to new unexpected things.
Multiple Perspectives And Points-of-View Lend “Fresh Eyes” On Intractable Challenges And
Problems
Why?
New “disciplines” form around hybrid knowledge making communities
2. “Old” Privileged Knowledge Loses Economic and Political Potentials As It Commodifies
Another reason why we would do this — what was once privileged knowledge inevitably spreads through access, through knowledge being passed along across time/generations, through economic growth in previously undeveloped geographies. Engineering, art, design knowledge, theory and materializations commodify and are no longer privileged to specific geo-political and economic regions
Engineering, Art, Design Knowledge/Theory/
Materializations Commodify, Weakening Geo-Political and
Economic Power
Why?
So, this is another reason to create new hybrid disciplines. To leverage the possibility of new economic forms, new markets-of-opportunity for things unknown.
3. Response To Increasing Autodidactic Sensibilities Of “Digital
Kids” In The Networked Age
How to teach kids who already know how to learn?
Educational Institutions and Traditional Bricks-and-Mortar
Scholarship Loses Relevance — It’s Expensive Job Training At Worst
Why?
Need to devise new ways of learning, new knowledge and practice domains — disciplinary scholarship is dying if it isn’t already dead. What you need to know in many cases has nothing to do with what you learn, and what you learn you can learn independent of often expensive institutions.
1. Knowledge Leaks Through Expeditious (Digital) Networks
In other words..thanks to the digital networked age
2. Access To Knowledge Is No Longer A Geographic, Economic or
Demographic Privileged*
* Plenty of exceptions; experience and insight suggest that this is the general trend.
3. Knowledge “Toolkits” (aka Online Communities) Are
Everywhere, Wikipedia Is Cliff’s Notes For Digital Kids
How one obtains knowledge is beyond the bricks-and-mortar institutions
Good Cocktail Party Chat..But
“Disciplines” Are Long Dead As Relevant Creators/Circulators of
Knowledge
What Are The Implications?
What Lies Beyond Disciplinary Scholarship?
“Undisciplinarity”
Avoid Reified Knowledge
Undisciplined (But Polite) Trouble Makers
Iconoclasts and Outsiders
Emphasize Multiple Distinct Practice Communities — Design, Art, Engineering,
Anthropology
They Learn How To Shuttle Excess Knowledge Amongst Institutions, Across Old Disciplinary Boundaries To Create
New Cultural Material
“Undisciplinarity”