(Re)Searching the Digital Bauhaus / Edition 1

by Thomas Binder, Jonas Löwgren, Lone Malmborg

Overview

The intent of this chapter is to outline a distinctive way of thinking about issues of technology and society that has characterized many Nordic approaches to the topic. One of the characteristics of this approach has been the recognition of the worth of human labour. Technology is not seen as an alien force, but something which is itself a product of human labour, and it can be designed and utilized in ways which augment human skills and expertise, rather than degrading them. What is particularly striking, at least to this author, in this approach is that we are presented not simply with a vision of how things could be better in our society, but with concrete exemplars of how we can build such a better world. It is in recognition of this fact that I have chosen the title of this chapter, as it emphasizes that, while the tradition of Utopian literature is the - lineation of a supposedly idea world which exists no-place (u-topos, in Greek), these visions can be an inspiration for quite practical activities on the ground, as steps towards their realization. As Wilde notes (in the quote above) this is a never-ending quest, as with each achievement, we recognize that there are further bridges to cross and places to be visited.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848003491
Publisher:	Springer London
Publication date:	11/13/2008
Series:	Human-Computer Interaction Series
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	371
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Thomas Binder is a design researcher and educator working with design students and industry to develop novel approaches to collaborative design and participatory methods to the study of the changing everyday of potential users.

Jonas Lowgren is an interaction designer with twenty years of experience from academia and industry. His research at Malmo University is focused on cross-media products, interactive visualizations and the design theory of digital materials.

Lone Malmborg is currently an Associate Professor of interaction design at IT University of Copenhagen. She is a member of the Innovative Communication Group. She has been developing and heading an education program in interaction design at Malmo University, Arts and Communication, and has been establishing and heading the research group Creative Environment.

Table of Contents

Introduction: (Re-)Programming Interaction Design.- From Utopia 1981 to Utopia 2008.- HCI and Design: Uncomfortable Bedfellows?.- Constructing Utopia(s) in Situ: Daring to be Different.- Tradition and Transcendence.- Designing From Somewhere: A Located, Relational and Transformational View of Design.- On Participation and Service Innovation.- The Phenomenological Stance of the Designer.- Designing for Homo Ludens, Still.- Gaming Literacy: Game Design as a Model for Literacy in the 21st Century.- Distruptions.- On a Scale Between Art and Design : On the Aesthetics of Function From the Bauhaus Until Today.- Appropriating Digital Environments - (re-)Constructing the Physical Through the Digital.- Designed Animism.- In Search of a Critical Stance.- A Science of the Possible: A New Practice in the Spirit of Bauhaus.- Work, Design, Computers, Artifacts.- The Everyday Poetics of a Digital Bauhaus.