Introduction - Recherche en IA spécialisée au MIT

Introduction

The idea that making can be a form of knowledge is not new. But as
other fields begin to explore making-as-research, there is renewed
interest in the idea. As the guest editors of this special issue note
in their introduction, research through design is a decades-old
pratique. And yet we still struggle with the formalities of research
through design. En particulier, we struggle with developing pro-
cesses and formats to share and sustain the knowledge that is
made through making. This may be because objects do not cir-
culate through the world in the same way that text does. Or it
may be because the knowledge that comes through making—
that is embodied in and expressed through objects—is somehow
different and we have yet to invent effective means of communicat-
ing that knowledge.

This special issue captures yet another experiment in the
ongoing efforts to develop the practices of research through design:
le 2015 Research Through Design (RtD) conference, held in Cam-
bridge, England. One notable aspect of the papers selected for this
special issue is that they reflect upon the formats and knowledge
outcomes of the conference itself. Ce faisant, they call attention to
how the documentation and dissemination of knowledge through
making is a design problem.

This design problem is not limited to design research.
Increasingly, other fields are also exploring making-as-research and,
in the process, encountering similar issues of how to share and sus-
tain that knowledge. One example is the field Science and Technol-
ogy Studies. The Society for the Social Studies of Science annual
conference now hosts a “Making and Doing” track, which features
projects that involve various kinds of material production as a com-
ponent of the scholarship. In this track one might encounter new
tools for citizen science or visualizations of scientific controversies.
Another example is the field of Digital Humanities and its ongoing
exploration of digital media as means for humanistic inquiry, rang-
ing from computational topic modeling of poetry to 3-D printing of
historical artifacts. Investigations of the processes and formats of
making-as-research become all the more important as diverse fields
take up these activities.

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One question that design research can address is what it
means to make “well.” Anyone can make something; but what does
it mean to make something well—particularly in the context of
recherche? This is not simply a matter of aesthetics, though aesthet-
ics are a component of making well. This is a matter of design judg-
ment—a matter of informed reasoning and appraisal. On one hand,
design research should be suited to this task because judgment is
fundamental to design scholarship. On the other hand, so many of
the criteria for assessment are bound to restrictive perspectives on
functionality and desirability, which are often rooted in market ori-
entations rather than the habits or principles of inquiry. The chal-
lenge is to develop an appreciative approach to making-as-research
that is generative and critical—at one and the same time.

Some examples of such approaches are appearing in hybrid
practices such as Critical Making and Design Anthropology. Others
are emerging from perspectives on practice-led research in art and
craft. No single conference or special issue, or for that matter, Non
single journal or field is going to figure out, once and for all, how to
share and sustain the knowledge that is made through making.
Design scholarship can and should contribute to the crucial ques-
tion of what it means to make well in the context of research. C'est
also a question that requires a multiplicity of perspectives to
address the idea of bringing design together with other fields so as
to collectively discover and articulate the relevant characteristics of
making as inquiry. Approaches that privilege one set of criteria over
another should be viewed with caution. What’s needed is method-
ological pluralism: diversity in systems of thought and technique
that provide the opportunity for creativity in scholarship. Within
the pages of Design Issues we strive to make space for such method-
ological pluralism and to report on the ongoing experiments of
design research. This special issue is another set of voices brought
to that conversation.

Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carl DiSalvo
Dennis Doordan
Kipum Lee
Victor Margolin
Ramia Mazé