Tiphaine Kazi-Tani | ESADSE - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tiphaine Kazi-Tani

In the middle of the XXth century, ergonomics met design in the works of Ernst Neufert and Henry ... more In the middle of the XXth century, ergonomics met design in the works of Ernst Neufert and Henry Dreyfuss. Although ‘user-centered design’ is usually attributed to Donald Norman and his book User Centered System Design (1986), ‘human-centered’ design principles can be traced back at least to the beginning of the XXth century, if not to the Vitruvius anthropomorphic ideal. Various systems of measurements based on the human figure have been proposed in the past as argumentative supports or as figures of thought (Zollner, 2014). Rationalized models such as Taylor’s (Scientific Management), the Gilbreths’s (time and motion studies), Neufert’s and Dreyfuss’s (thorough rationalization of the human measures) abstill organize our spatial, motor, cognitive, interactions with artifacts and spaces. Now, we relate this modernist enterprise of human normalization and industrial standardization to what (Butler, 1990) described as essentialization or normalization, as artifacts embedding such abst...

En regard du champ du design, dont la comprehension et la definition en tant que phenomene ont ev... more En regard du champ du design, dont la comprehension et la definition en tant que phenomene ont evolue ces vingt dernieres annees, passant d’un « modalisant » esthetique a un « modelisant » conceptif, et en regard de la notion «eco» postulee par cette journee d’etude, qui appelle foncierement l’analyse d’une puissance notamment circonscrite par Giorgio Agamben, a savoir l’economie, et du concept d’ ecologie, tel que travaille par Felix Guattari, je propose de porter attention a l’idee de decence. Etymologiquement, la decence nous renvoie a la construction d’une communaute aussi bien morale (« convenable, seant, bienseant », « il convient ») qu’esthetique (« bien fait », « bien proportionne », « harmonieux » - decor partageant la meme etymologie que decence) au sein de laquelle quelque chose comme un demos (terme que je souhaite ici sommairement definir comme « un peuple qui vit quelque part et qui partage du commun ») a designe pour lui-meme des usages, des conduites et des formes.

What happens when unwanted or unexpected attitudes infiltrate design processes, artifacts and use... more What happens when unwanted or unexpected attitudes infiltrate design processes, artifacts and uses? This paper focuses on misbehaving as part of the paradigm of design research that explores new ways to think our objects, spaces and interactions. We built upon a mosaic of case-studies and conceptual inputs to identify how “misbehaving attitudes” may operate within contexts informed by habitus, norms, regulations, standards, protocols, procedures, and/or laws. The hypothesis of this in-progress research is that these attitudes should be considered as potential methodological approaches that can enrich and extend the most “classical” practices of design. To put it forthright: can “misbehaving” approaches in design enhance the practices of design? To conclude, this paper will discuss how “misbehaving” in design education could foster the “critical thinking” advocated in numerous curriculums (Combs, Cennamo & Newbill, 2009; Finn, Baum & Newbill, 2011; Ministere de l’Enseignement Superie...

The designer, no more and no less a political animal than his contemporaries, as he bounds his wo... more The designer, no more and no less a political animal than his contemporaries, as he bounds his work to a productivist and administrative Weltanschauung (capitalist or not), nurtures the aporia that our ecosystems are now facing, from our biotope to our psyche. I propose to bring out a reformulation of this concern, through a case-study of the work of french graphic designer Helene Mourrier : what if the activist makes profession of design ?

Sciences du Design, 2015

Si le design peine toujours a se faire la place, legitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquem... more Si le design peine toujours a se faire la place, legitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquement, en tant que socialisation de productions non issues de la tradition (Stiegler et Geel, 2004), qu’agent d’amelioration de l’habitabilite du monde (Findeli, 2005), de condition suivant laquelle les techniques de l’epoque seront amenees a rendre ce qu’elles peuvent de mieux (Huyghe, 2015), l’epoque quant a elle, ne cesse d’invoquer le design, d’appeler son nom. Philosophe, Pierre-Damien Huyghe s’explique avec les mots, methodiquement et rigoureusement, interroge ce qu’ils contiennent en puissance, et realisent en acte. Car en tant qu’ils administrent des regimes de verites, il est donne, sans condition, a certains mots le pouvoir d’agir dans le monde. A partir de l’evocation de ses travaux recents, et notamment son ouvrage A quoi tient le design, nous proposons d°interroger notamment la position contemporaine du design face a l’industrie, le design en tant que tension et resistance, le caractere problematique d’une injonction indiscutee a l’innovation.

Environnement Urbain, 2014

Apparaissant à la faveur de mouvements massifs d’urbanisation à grande échelle et de la multiplic... more Apparaissant à la faveur de mouvements massifs d’urbanisation à grande échelle et de la multiplication d’expériences architecturales moderniste en Californie, la pratique du skateboard authentifie les espaces dans lesquels nous évoluons, suspendant « le pouvoir implicite mais présent dans chaque bâtiment, espace, objet du mobilier urbain, [renvoyant] la ville à son essence, un jeu de matériaux mis en formes » (Zarka [2007] 2011, 43). Dans la mesure où il déconstruit et recompose sur un mode essentiellement sensible la grammaire performative de l’architecture urbaine, le skateboard est un exemple des « possibilités de vie » dans les nappes urbaines.

Si le design peine toujours à se faire la place, légitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquem... more Si le design peine toujours à se faire la place, légitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquement, en tant que socialisation de productions non issues de la tradition (Stiegler et Geel, 2004), qu’agent d’amélioration de l’habitabilité du monde (Findeli, 2005), de condition suivant laquelle les techniques de l’époque seront amenées à rendre ce qu’elles peuvent de mieux (Huyghe, 2015), l’époque quant à elle, ne cesse d’invoquer le design, d’appeler son nom. Philosophe, Pierre-Damien Huyghe s’explique avec les mots, méthodiquement et rigoureusement, interroge ce qu’ils contiennent en puissance, et réalisent en acte. Car en tant qu’ils administrent des régimes de vérités, il est donné, sans condition, à certains mots le pouvoir d’agir dans le monde. À partir de l’évocation de ses travaux récents, et notamment son ouvrage À quoi tient le design, nous proposons d°interroger notamment la position contemporaine du design face à l’industrie, le design en tant que tension et résistance, le caractère problématique d’une injonction indiscutée à l’innovation.

From the emergence of design as a mode of collectivising techniques and non-traditional objects (... more From the emergence of design as a mode of collectivising techniques and non-traditional objects (Geel & Stiegler 2004), the issue of a responsible attitude of design and designers has remained open. Design is bound to powers of production and to the technical, economical, symbolic and political administration of the contemporary world. From the early reflections of Arts & Crafts pioneers to a critical philosophy developed by the French philosophers Huyghe or Stiegler, and through the Anti-Design movement, design has constantly tried to prove its commitment to social and moral changes (Garland 1964; Papanek 1971; Mergy 2008).

Does the designer have to be an activist? Can s/he be an activist? Not only the question remains, but it is becoming increasingly urgent, as the aporias confronting our ecosystems, from our biotope to our psychic universe, reinforce.
However, I propose to consider a reformulation of this issue through a study of the work of graphic designer Hélène Mourrier conducted with OUTrans, a non-profit transgender support organisation.
What if the activist embraced design as a profession?

By engaging with and for an activist group committed to specific issues, the graphic designer demonstrates the agency of her practice, as a skill to « visually process the information, knowledge and fiction, […] graphically design their organization and hierarchy, [...] design a graphic visual syntax which guide looks and readings. » (Lantenois 2010: 11 [my translation])
Hence the designer joins a vivid and reflective dialogue within the activist community, not from a perspective of co-design but rather looking for a hybridisation of knowledge and know-how. Here, graphic design successfully shows its ability to produce a ‘knowledge in resistance’, opening up gaps in the legal and biomedical discourses of truth that set the norms of trans bodies (Lochak 2008; Macé 2011).

From the historic spot of Burnside in Portland (Oregon) to micro-developments such as the Train B... more From the historic spot of Burnside in Portland (Oregon) to micro-developments such as the Train Bank Spot in Malmö (Sweden), the past twenty-five years have seen a significant proliferation of amateur architectural interventions. Here, skateboarders turned into rogue architects implant new spaces designed for skateboarding, or work to unveil and realize the ‘skatable’ potentialities of a site.
Either we observe the development of a vast DIY skatepark or tiny ‘adjustments’ almost invisible for non-skaters), skateboarders are now running a secret architectural agenda, regardless of laws and regulations: “[fixing] spots that have been wrongly built”, as argues playfully Pontus Alv (Lallier, 2001), a pioneer of the European DIY scene. In doing so they arrogate - without permission but with authority - a practice which regulation, supervision and legitimation is normally held exclusively by the powers of governmentality and administration: building architecture within the public space.

Talks by Tiphaine Kazi-Tani

Intervention dans le cadre du séminaire de recherche Design/Expérience (#4), Strate École de Desi... more Intervention dans le cadre du séminaire de recherche Design/Expérience (#4), Strate École de Design, 9 mai 2016.

Lecture given during the Design/Experience (#4) research seminar, Strate School of Design, May 9th 2016.

Drafts by Tiphaine Kazi-Tani

This article is a shortened version of « Exploring Hability: Skateboarding as Rogue Architecture ... more This article is a shortened version of « Exploring Hability: Skateboarding as Rogue Architecture », that was originally selected to be presented in the TRADERS conference. The readers will find figures, and a modified conclusion which opens to the notion of disensus, while trying to highlight how it relates to skateboarding.

In the middle of the XXth century, ergonomics met design in the works of Ernst Neufert and Henry ... more In the middle of the XXth century, ergonomics met design in the works of Ernst Neufert and Henry Dreyfuss. Although ‘user-centered design’ is usually attributed to Donald Norman and his book User Centered System Design (1986), ‘human-centered’ design principles can be traced back at least to the beginning of the XXth century, if not to the Vitruvius anthropomorphic ideal. Various systems of measurements based on the human figure have been proposed in the past as argumentative supports or as figures of thought (Zollner, 2014). Rationalized models such as Taylor’s (Scientific Management), the Gilbreths’s (time and motion studies), Neufert’s and Dreyfuss’s (thorough rationalization of the human measures) abstill organize our spatial, motor, cognitive, interactions with artifacts and spaces. Now, we relate this modernist enterprise of human normalization and industrial standardization to what (Butler, 1990) described as essentialization or normalization, as artifacts embedding such abst...

En regard du champ du design, dont la comprehension et la definition en tant que phenomene ont ev... more En regard du champ du design, dont la comprehension et la definition en tant que phenomene ont evolue ces vingt dernieres annees, passant d’un « modalisant » esthetique a un « modelisant » conceptif, et en regard de la notion «eco» postulee par cette journee d’etude, qui appelle foncierement l’analyse d’une puissance notamment circonscrite par Giorgio Agamben, a savoir l’economie, et du concept d’ ecologie, tel que travaille par Felix Guattari, je propose de porter attention a l’idee de decence. Etymologiquement, la decence nous renvoie a la construction d’une communaute aussi bien morale (« convenable, seant, bienseant », « il convient ») qu’esthetique (« bien fait », « bien proportionne », « harmonieux » - decor partageant la meme etymologie que decence) au sein de laquelle quelque chose comme un demos (terme que je souhaite ici sommairement definir comme « un peuple qui vit quelque part et qui partage du commun ») a designe pour lui-meme des usages, des conduites et des formes.

What happens when unwanted or unexpected attitudes infiltrate design processes, artifacts and use... more What happens when unwanted or unexpected attitudes infiltrate design processes, artifacts and uses? This paper focuses on misbehaving as part of the paradigm of design research that explores new ways to think our objects, spaces and interactions. We built upon a mosaic of case-studies and conceptual inputs to identify how “misbehaving attitudes” may operate within contexts informed by habitus, norms, regulations, standards, protocols, procedures, and/or laws. The hypothesis of this in-progress research is that these attitudes should be considered as potential methodological approaches that can enrich and extend the most “classical” practices of design. To put it forthright: can “misbehaving” approaches in design enhance the practices of design? To conclude, this paper will discuss how “misbehaving” in design education could foster the “critical thinking” advocated in numerous curriculums (Combs, Cennamo & Newbill, 2009; Finn, Baum & Newbill, 2011; Ministere de l’Enseignement Superie...

The designer, no more and no less a political animal than his contemporaries, as he bounds his wo... more The designer, no more and no less a political animal than his contemporaries, as he bounds his work to a productivist and administrative Weltanschauung (capitalist or not), nurtures the aporia that our ecosystems are now facing, from our biotope to our psyche. I propose to bring out a reformulation of this concern, through a case-study of the work of french graphic designer Helene Mourrier : what if the activist makes profession of design ?

Sciences du Design, 2015

Si le design peine toujours a se faire la place, legitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquem... more Si le design peine toujours a se faire la place, legitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquement, en tant que socialisation de productions non issues de la tradition (Stiegler et Geel, 2004), qu’agent d’amelioration de l’habitabilite du monde (Findeli, 2005), de condition suivant laquelle les techniques de l’epoque seront amenees a rendre ce qu’elles peuvent de mieux (Huyghe, 2015), l’epoque quant a elle, ne cesse d’invoquer le design, d’appeler son nom. Philosophe, Pierre-Damien Huyghe s’explique avec les mots, methodiquement et rigoureusement, interroge ce qu’ils contiennent en puissance, et realisent en acte. Car en tant qu’ils administrent des regimes de verites, il est donne, sans condition, a certains mots le pouvoir d’agir dans le monde. A partir de l’evocation de ses travaux recents, et notamment son ouvrage A quoi tient le design, nous proposons d°interroger notamment la position contemporaine du design face a l’industrie, le design en tant que tension et resistance, le caractere problematique d’une injonction indiscutee a l’innovation.

Environnement Urbain, 2014

Apparaissant à la faveur de mouvements massifs d’urbanisation à grande échelle et de la multiplic... more Apparaissant à la faveur de mouvements massifs d’urbanisation à grande échelle et de la multiplication d’expériences architecturales moderniste en Californie, la pratique du skateboard authentifie les espaces dans lesquels nous évoluons, suspendant « le pouvoir implicite mais présent dans chaque bâtiment, espace, objet du mobilier urbain, [renvoyant] la ville à son essence, un jeu de matériaux mis en formes » (Zarka [2007] 2011, 43). Dans la mesure où il déconstruit et recompose sur un mode essentiellement sensible la grammaire performative de l’architecture urbaine, le skateboard est un exemple des « possibilités de vie » dans les nappes urbaines.

Si le design peine toujours à se faire la place, légitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquem... more Si le design peine toujours à se faire la place, légitime, qui est pourtant la sienne historiquement, en tant que socialisation de productions non issues de la tradition (Stiegler et Geel, 2004), qu’agent d’amélioration de l’habitabilité du monde (Findeli, 2005), de condition suivant laquelle les techniques de l’époque seront amenées à rendre ce qu’elles peuvent de mieux (Huyghe, 2015), l’époque quant à elle, ne cesse d’invoquer le design, d’appeler son nom. Philosophe, Pierre-Damien Huyghe s’explique avec les mots, méthodiquement et rigoureusement, interroge ce qu’ils contiennent en puissance, et réalisent en acte. Car en tant qu’ils administrent des régimes de vérités, il est donné, sans condition, à certains mots le pouvoir d’agir dans le monde. À partir de l’évocation de ses travaux récents, et notamment son ouvrage À quoi tient le design, nous proposons d°interroger notamment la position contemporaine du design face à l’industrie, le design en tant que tension et résistance, le caractère problématique d’une injonction indiscutée à l’innovation.

From the emergence of design as a mode of collectivising techniques and non-traditional objects (... more From the emergence of design as a mode of collectivising techniques and non-traditional objects (Geel & Stiegler 2004), the issue of a responsible attitude of design and designers has remained open. Design is bound to powers of production and to the technical, economical, symbolic and political administration of the contemporary world. From the early reflections of Arts & Crafts pioneers to a critical philosophy developed by the French philosophers Huyghe or Stiegler, and through the Anti-Design movement, design has constantly tried to prove its commitment to social and moral changes (Garland 1964; Papanek 1971; Mergy 2008).

Does the designer have to be an activist? Can s/he be an activist? Not only the question remains, but it is becoming increasingly urgent, as the aporias confronting our ecosystems, from our biotope to our psychic universe, reinforce.
However, I propose to consider a reformulation of this issue through a study of the work of graphic designer Hélène Mourrier conducted with OUTrans, a non-profit transgender support organisation.
What if the activist embraced design as a profession?

By engaging with and for an activist group committed to specific issues, the graphic designer demonstrates the agency of her practice, as a skill to « visually process the information, knowledge and fiction, […] graphically design their organization and hierarchy, [...] design a graphic visual syntax which guide looks and readings. » (Lantenois 2010: 11 [my translation])
Hence the designer joins a vivid and reflective dialogue within the activist community, not from a perspective of co-design but rather looking for a hybridisation of knowledge and know-how. Here, graphic design successfully shows its ability to produce a ‘knowledge in resistance’, opening up gaps in the legal and biomedical discourses of truth that set the norms of trans bodies (Lochak 2008; Macé 2011).

From the historic spot of Burnside in Portland (Oregon) to micro-developments such as the Train B... more From the historic spot of Burnside in Portland (Oregon) to micro-developments such as the Train Bank Spot in Malmö (Sweden), the past twenty-five years have seen a significant proliferation of amateur architectural interventions. Here, skateboarders turned into rogue architects implant new spaces designed for skateboarding, or work to unveil and realize the ‘skatable’ potentialities of a site.
Either we observe the development of a vast DIY skatepark or tiny ‘adjustments’ almost invisible for non-skaters), skateboarders are now running a secret architectural agenda, regardless of laws and regulations: “[fixing] spots that have been wrongly built”, as argues playfully Pontus Alv (Lallier, 2001), a pioneer of the European DIY scene. In doing so they arrogate - without permission but with authority - a practice which regulation, supervision and legitimation is normally held exclusively by the powers of governmentality and administration: building architecture within the public space.

Intervention dans le cadre du séminaire de recherche Design/Expérience (#4), Strate École de Desi... more Intervention dans le cadre du séminaire de recherche Design/Expérience (#4), Strate École de Design, 9 mai 2016.

Lecture given during the Design/Experience (#4) research seminar, Strate School of Design, May 9th 2016.

This article is a shortened version of « Exploring Hability: Skateboarding as Rogue Architecture ... more This article is a shortened version of « Exploring Hability: Skateboarding as Rogue Architecture », that was originally selected to be presented in the TRADERS conference. The readers will find figures, and a modified conclusion which opens to the notion of disensus, while trying to highlight how it relates to skateboarding.