Developing a design approach, exploring resistance and ambiguity (original) (raw)

Abstract

"Designers face the world’s complexity at an experiential level. We consider Making (synthesising and concretising) an essential activity of designers, prior to Thinking (analysing and abstracting), because only through experience – a result of acting in the world – we achieve meaning, funnelling human intentionality. Making enables designers to explore the unknown by trusting their senses and their kansei, exploring resistance and ambiguity and by tapping into their intuition (Sennett, 2008). Because “intuition begins with the sense that what is not yet could be” (Sennett, 2008, p. 201), it involves skills, as skills are our way to make sense of the world, transform it and to cater for ethics. In this paper we describe a one-day workshop that has been held during the CHItaly conference 2011 in Alghero, Italy. During that day, we explored how the integration of points of view, using intuition through skills can communicate and create a richer meaning. The assignment was to design an empowering/enabling tool that allows a person to begin to experience another person’s skill. To be able to design such a tool, designers had to go through several steps of documenting and reflecting upon their own and each other's skills. We reflect on the experience and explain how this approach can support the integration of points of view, which is considered to be formed by personal experience, by skills, and by kansei."

Figures (3)

Figure 1 - A screenshot of Ambra Trotto's Video documenting her own skill ZAHUVId LLOLLO CHOSe LUO shit OL PladYiis Ue Plano. OU stalled tO play when she was a child, around 7 years old. She studied classical piano until her teenage, when she dropped her commitment. After that, playing the piano has remained a pleasurable hobby, which she practices once in a while. As she started documenting her skill, she had not clear in mind what aspect of playing the piano she would focus on. A big impairment that she had during the workshop was that there was no piano available. How to make somebody else experience the application of one’s skills, without having the tool to perform the skill? This dilemma steered Ambra towards focusing on aspects that could be bodily experienced, and therefore understood, without the instrument. In her first video, she tried to convey the feeling of embodiment of a piece of music, while learning to play it. There are four scenes in the video: the first is a shot of one finger playing a digital sort of xylophone on an iPad; the second is a shot of a shadow of a person walking sideways in a very staccato and careful way; the third is a shot of a person walking up and down stairs, who visibly becomes more and more fluid in doing so. A smooth execution of Granados’ Andaluza by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli accompanies this scene. The last scene is the same shot of the second scene. In this case though, the shadow flows, in a smooth walk. The main message is that, when one learns to play a piece, one’s body learns to move, without thinking. When one can stop thinking, it means that the piece has been learned. It is a process that goes from mental to expressive, from discrete and reasoned to fluid and passionate. The body becomes part of the instrument, and it is played by emotions.

Figure 1 - A screenshot of Ambra Trotto's Video documenting her own skill ZAHUVId LLOLLO CHOSe LUO shit OL PladYiis Ue Plano. OU stalled tO play when she was a child, around 7 years old. She studied classical piano until her teenage, when she dropped her commitment. After that, playing the piano has remained a pleasurable hobby, which she practices once in a while. As she started documenting her skill, she had not clear in mind what aspect of playing the piano she would focus on. A big impairment that she had during the workshop was that there was no piano available. How to make somebody else experience the application of one’s skills, without having the tool to perform the skill? This dilemma steered Ambra towards focusing on aspects that could be bodily experienced, and therefore understood, without the instrument. In her first video, she tried to convey the feeling of embodiment of a piece of music, while learning to play it. There are four scenes in the video: the first is a shot of one finger playing a digital sort of xylophone on an iPad; the second is a shot of a shadow of a person walking sideways in a very staccato and careful way; the third is a shot of a person walking up and down stairs, who visibly becomes more and more fluid in doing so. A smooth execution of Granados’ Andaluza by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli accompanies this scene. The last scene is the same shot of the second scene. In this case though, the shadow flows, in a smooth walk. The main message is that, when one learns to play a piece, one’s body learns to move, without thinking. When one can stop thinking, it means that the piece has been learned. It is a process that goes from mental to expressive, from discrete and reasoned to fluid and passionate. The body becomes part of the instrument, and it is played by emotions.

The second step of the workshop was the documentation of somebody’s skill by someone else. In the case we are here illustrating, Philip Mendels documented Ambra Trotto’s skill with a video. The video was made as an elaboration of an interview by Philip to Ambra. What Philip used in his video are especially the gestures that Ambra used to express her feeling of playing the piano. By showing these gestures in slow-motion and repeatedly, Philip highlights the involvement of the whole body in playing, as if it was passed through by a wave. In the shot of Ambra’s hands playing an imaginary keyboard, her hands look more like insects — pale pink arachnids — moving back and forth in an entrancing dance. The aim of this shot was to stress this idea of a body that is transformed from a functional being to an expressive tool, whose horizons of meaning are completely different from the ones required in “normal life”. Figure 2 - A screenshot of Philip Mendels movie, where he shows Ambra's hands as insects dancing on the table

The second step of the workshop was the documentation of somebody’s skill by someone else. In the case we are here illustrating, Philip Mendels documented Ambra Trotto’s skill with a video. The video was made as an elaboration of an interview by Philip to Ambra. What Philip used in his video are especially the gestures that Ambra used to express her feeling of playing the piano. By showing these gestures in slow-motion and repeatedly, Philip highlights the involvement of the whole body in playing, as if it was passed through by a wave. In the shot of Ambra’s hands playing an imaginary keyboard, her hands look more like insects — pale pink arachnids — moving back and forth in an entrancing dance. The aim of this shot was to stress this idea of a body that is transformed from a functional being to an expressive tool, whose horizons of meaning are completely different from the ones required in “normal life”. Figure 2 - A screenshot of Philip Mendels movie, where he shows Ambra's hands as insects dancing on the table

Figure 3 - A screenshot of Miguel Bruns' movie on Ambra Trotto's skill, showing the exploration of the enabling tool.

Figure 3 - A screenshot of Miguel Bruns' movie on Ambra Trotto's skill, showing the exploration of the enabling tool.

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