Events

event 16 September 2022 2022-09-16T09:30:52+02:00 'Nature converted into pattern is much more beautiful than nature as it is given'. This surprising sentence written by the Japanese intellectual Yanagi Soetsu, founder of the mingei movement, invites us to reflect on the place of pattern in Japanese aesthetic culture. This reflection will provide the opportunity to discuss a Japanese perspective of beauty in craft and design, notably by addressing the notion of emptiness, irregularity and ainsity.

Transcription of the inaugural lecture (translated from French) The moment of design Inaugural lecture of the Jean Prouvé Design Chair, May 18, 2022 Thank you Ruedi for this warm introduction. Your mentorship of the Chair can only be a good omen for what it can and will become. Dear General Administrator, dear Marc, dear Jean-Claude, dear colleagues, dear friends, dear family, dear listeners present here or somewhere online, it is a great pleasure to be able to start this inaugural lecture today at CNAM. Lucie and I decided to do our inaugural lessons together, because we think it is an opportunity to emphasize the closeness and complementarity of our subjects and ways of doing, and to celebrate what CNAM is for all of us: a place of learning and development, as well as a place of interdisciplinary and interprofessional exchange and sharing. It also requires that our lessons be about 40 minutes each, so that it remains a celebration and an enjoyable time, and does not become an ordeal for you. So let's get started. 1. Jean Prouvé // where design is part of a history of materials, of doing, of society and of attachment to everyday life It is an event for a Chair of design and an honour for its holder that the name of Jean Prouvé is associated with it. And I would particularly like to thank Mrs. Catherine Prouvé, for her presence here today and for her precious help in making this association a reality. This association is, of course, within the filiation of the Chairs at CNAM - and in particular between the Chair of Applied Arts and Crafts, which Jean Prouvé held from 1958 to 1971, and the Chair of Design Jean Prouvé, which symbolically begins today. But this association also plays the role of mediation, allowing for a moment of dialogue and advocacy on what the Chair of Design Jean Prouvé intends to be. I therefore propose in this first part to discuss this filiation, not from a historical perspective, but rather to find in it an inspiration of what a Chair of design at CNAM can be today, in today's society, with its own social, economic, technological, and of course ecological challenges. Instead of looking in the rear-view mirror for too long, we should see this filiation as a way to look ahead, and to help us reflect on what we can do here and now in view of a future that we still have to imagine and make. 1.1 A path To me, Jean Prouvé embodies an essential position in design. Jean Prouvé was an ironworker, an engineer (self-taught), a designer (self-taught), an architect (self-taught), a member of the Resistance, a player in the post-war French reconstruction program, the mayor of Nancy, and a partner of Abbé Pierre in the creation of a House of Better Days. Coming from traditional ironwork, he contributed to a modern look at materials, forms and uses. His attachment to a design for use and for all, and in particular for the most modest, makes him an important post-war actor not only for the world of architecture and design, but for society as a whole. And as such, Jean Prouvé places design where it is wanted: as a societal actor, producing ingenious proposals for material arrangements whose value emerges from their use and their potential for transformation. In other words, the value is to be found in the appropriation of the designer's proposals and their consequences for society. It is thus a question of working on what I call the "contexture" of the environments in which we evolve, i.e., on their form and their texture. I will come back later to this notion of contexture that I have developed through my research. 1.2 The doing, the reflecting, and the envisioning Moreover, the art historian, architect and sociologist Nils Peters, who wrote a biography on Jean Prouvé1, reminds us that during his classes at CNAM, “Jean Prouvé rarely said much. Instead, he made drawings and continually visualized his ideas on a chalkboard. What he illustrated here, true to his own convictions, was that the practice of theories was paramount and that any knowledge that was acquired only academically could hardly inspire creativity.” It is therefore an attitude towards the relationship between practice and theory in the field of design in the broadest sense: that of studying, understanding, involving scientific, technological, social, and ecological developments, and finding a place for them in society within the daily lives of each and every one. Design is therefore presented as a practice and as an attitude, questioning possible worlds, in order, as the political scientists Trevor Hancock and Clement Bezold2 propose, to move towards preferable futures. Design is therefore not just about creating artifacts, a commercial offer of stuff. Working on these futures through design requires that the practice be accompanied by societal, political, ethical, and ecological reflection, and that this reflection take place in action, that is, at the very heart of design practice. And therein lies the first aspect for which the Chair of design claims to be in the continuity of Jean Prouvé: an attitude at the crossroads of doing, reflecting, and envisioning. 1.3 The everyday This dedication to exploration and the powerful understanding of material, technique, and the aesthetics that can emerge from it are at the foundation of the excellence of Jean Prouvé's work, and resonate with the Nancy school that strives to revitalize art, and to have it permeate everyday life. This environment - what I will later call this tradition - probably contributed to making Jean Prouvé a craftsman, a Jean Prouvé explorer of new materials and new projects, with a strong sensitivity to the everyday and a particular attention to the societal dimension of his art. What the architect Jean Nouvel also notes when he says, speaking of Jean Prouvé, that "rarely that ethics have created such a clear beauty"1. 1.4 A societal posture Design is therefore a practice, an attitude and a societal posture: first, those to progress in uncertainty, because design is often in a risky situation where it must act with only partial or approximate information about its subject; secondly, those to constantly carry out a reflexive practice in order to continue to open up to new possibilities; and finally, those to make proposals for a society and an everyday life, with the ambition that they be benevolent for everyone. And therein lies the second aspect for which this Chair of design claims to be in the continuity of Jean Prouvé: the ambition that design and craftspersonship be at once practices, an attitude and a societal posture at the service of the transformation of everyone's everyday life. 2. Design // where design is an attitude and an activity situated and built on ambivalences We have thus established the societal posture aimed at by design, or at least aimed at by the Chair through its future activities. But the question of design remains, and even if the road is full of pitfalls, let's take it, at least a little. 2.1 What design does Indeed, the definition of design has always been a difficult issue - a long history of intense discussions and failed conclusions - and thus a hitherto unsatisfied question. A recent article by design professor Alethea Blackler and her colleagues3 reports on twenty years of global discussions about the definition of design with no real consolidated result. Through a strategy that is quite popular these days, the authors then invite us to reflect instead on "the importance of design's role in the global conversation about transdisciplinary approaches to researching and designing future scenarios and emerging pathways for humanity." In my opinion, this approach is not satisfactory, because once again it turns away from the question of design. But if we cannot determine what design is, and knowing that it is at least a practice, an attitude and a posture, then the effort of clarification should turn to what design does. 2.2 Design is situated This can be based on an essential principle of design: that of its situation. By this I mean that design is situated: it finds its relevance through what it can propose as potentially transforming arrangements. In other words, design is lost and cannot, or even does not know how to act in the abstract. It is here on the ground, where experience takes place, where design rubs up against matter, bumps up against experience, that design acts and establishes its practice. So let's keep this in mind: design is situated. 2.3 Design is coloured I also take up with interest the point made by the design philosopher Johan Redström4 that design is fundamentally and historically structured on dichotomies. We are particularly interested in the dichotomous relationships between methods and practices, between everyday life and global issues, between art and industry, to name but a few. These dichotomies are places of friction, what I call irregularities, inspired by the writings of the Japanese thinker Yanagi Soetsu5,6, and I will come back to this notion later, which invites design to constantly question its positioning and its action. The practice of design is therefore fundamentally reflexive. As a practice situated in a complex context, as we have already seen this reflection is on what it does. Yet design does not find a definitive answer here either. This answer is always changing. Therefore, design is elusive. In other words, and complementing Johan Redström's words with those I have proposed with Professors Ambra Trotto and Caroline Hummels, and our colleagues through Transformative Practices7, it is complex and colourful, that is to say, rich in its variety of practices; it is resilient and learning, engaged and transforming. 2.4 Attitude Within the practice, the designer engages knowledge, know-how, and an attitude. In this commitment, it is important to carry out quality work as an end in itself – this is what the sociologist Richard Sennett8 suggests. It is important to use and trust one's senses and imagination, one's intuition and curiosity – this is what design professor Kees Overbeeke9 reminds us. Finally, it is important to use one's skills and knowledge either to do (i.e., to work and interact with the material) or to think (i.e., to work and interact with ideas). 2.5 Sustainable instability Immersed in the practices as they are lived and as they are realized, the design is moreover interested and situated in a complex world. It makes, questions, reflects, opens towards possibilities, without never putting aside the ambiguity and the uncertain... in short, what resists, the world as it is lived. It advances, and thus progresses in a form of balance which is in fact only apparent. It is formed by a multitude of temporary imbalances. Caroline Hummels and I have called this the sustainable instability of design, which qualifies the dynamic in which design works. Instabilities are moments of potential changes in practice: reflections in and on action allow for change, necessary to maintain coherence in practice, necessary for learning and development through practice10. Therefore, it seems relevant to call on phenomenology, and more generally on the philosophies that gather around the notion of embodiment. To make a long story short, these philosophies show that we perceive the world by interacting with it. This perception, fundamentally active, requires a body and skills. We perceive the world through the potentiality of our actions (what we can do), and by interacting with it (by what we do). Hence, there is a primacy of the body over action, and a primacy of action, or at least of the potential for action, over cognition. This in no way evacuates the importance of the symbolic in human experience (at aesthetic, social and cultural levels). 2.6 Symmetrical anthropology To summarise, we have seen that design is a practice whose perspective is both individual and collective, social and political, transforming and virtuoso of complexity and norms. It questions how the material arrangements it proposes can transform practices, those of others and its own, and in a complementary movement how these practices are the moment11 of an appropriation of the proposals made by design. Design is therefore a bearer of meaning that potentially modifies the context in which people and practices evolve. It is a mediation that makes transformation possible, by giving the action and its actor the possibility of discerning and thinking about its condition and its possibles, which will then be selected and appropriated. In design, it is thus a question of what we can do with our personal, social, ecological environments... and what these environments do with us. A form of symmetrical anthropology. Therefore, we are asking ourselves the question of the aesthetics and ethics of the contexts in which we live and in which the practices perform. This is what I named in my HDR work “contexture”, the texture of the context of our practices5, which allows the transformation of these practices through the mediation of design. 3. A perspective // where tradition, irregularity and moment structure a societal design With the design landscape thus described, it now seems important to move forward in this lesson by positioning the Chair and its work within this landscape. To do this, we must take sides, that is, we must structure and formulate an approach and a perspective from which we will work. And it is primarily the perspective I propose for the Chair that I will now develop. 3.1 Craftspersonship 3.1.1 The handling To begin with, it is important to emphasize the proximity of design to the arts and crafts. Already at an institutional level – which is particularly the case here in the close relationship built between CNAM and the schools of crafts and design –, and also because they are both socially situated and committed to the proposal of a beautiful with societal value through use and usefulness. And it is indeed necessary to briefly recall that the contemplation of the works produced by the crafts is not sufficient to appreciate them. It is through their handling that their materiality is expressed and revealed. It is through their handling that their usefulness and value take on meaning. Just as for design, it is through their handling that their aesthetics are fully discovered. If the crafts have a social role as works12, it is indeed that this materialization of the beautiful through the useful and the durable has a societal and ecological relevance, which our time needs. 3.1.2 Quality Besides this, the development of industry, i.e. segmented, mechanical and informational production, which has allowed impressive development and innovations in the last centuries – and CNAM is rich of examples and of experiences, also challenges the production of applied arts and the importance of quality and workpersonship in everyday life. And make no mistake, industry is needed to serve a population that continues to grow (aren't we talking about 10 billion humans13!). And it is the role of the designer (who in the imaginary can be an engineer or a designer, and who in reality is a multidisciplinary, multicultural, multi-profession group of people who together design and produce) to project proposals to move towards a better world. And in this proposition, the quality of the proposed material arrangement cannot be absent. Let us reason by the absurd and we will quickly see the absurdity of a world that would doubt the necessity of beauty. It is therefore for the craftspeople, designers and engineers, not only to keep the gesture and the tradition which enable a creation of quality, but also to reinforce the one produced by the machine. Let the manufacturing process take advantage of the skills, the sensitivity, the attitude of the craftsperson in order to improve the machine, its use, and its deliverables! It is then for the craftsperson not to distance oneself from industrial production, but on the contrary, and I think as did Jean Prouvé, to contribute to its use in order to improve both the craft that integrates the machine in its practice and the quality of what it produces. And we will see later the example of the textile designer Minagawa Akira who illustrates this situation beautifully. In order to move forward, I will focus our attention on three aspects that are relative and common to craft and design, which I have already mentioned, and which seem fundamental to the structure and conduct of the Chair: tradition, irregularity, and moment. 3.2 The tradition It is important to realize that the crafts produce objects of very high quality because the exigence of the profession demands it and because its environment enables it. 3.2.1 The exigence The exigence of the profession demands it, because it is sensitive to the beauty of the work and its handling, and claims its importance. It recognizes the talent, of course, but does ask as well for an attitude. 3.2.2 The environment Its environment enables it, because it carries the tradition in which the craft is registered. The notion of tradition that I use here is directly inspired by the writings of the Japanese thinker Yanagi Soetsu, who describes it as an environment made up of a culture, a collective dynamic, and a vitality centered on a know-how. A tradition is in no way static. On the contrary, it is nourished by experiences and individual daily lives to continue making the community evolve. To return to the craft, even if its execution is sometimes individual and that one finds a certain freedom of action and creation in the workshop, the practice, in the broad sense, is plunged in a cultural and socio-economic environment which enables excellence. The craft profession finds its strength and excellence because it is part of a tradition. Yanagi14 teaches us that the beauty and greatness produced by the hands of the craftsperson are not simply the result of one’s own skills (individual power), but also of what the environment provides (power beyond [individual mastery]). 3.3 The irregularity Before continuing, I would like to make a small parenthesis on Japanese philosophy, which has been developed at the crossroads of Buddhist thought and phenomenology15. Having spent about 10 years in the beautiful country of Japan, including my doctoral research years, this philosophy, as well as Japanese thought in general, has influenced and inspired me a great deal and helped me to reflect on our affective relationship to the world as it is lived, and on the experience of beauty in everyday practices. The references to Japanese literature that I will cite here are therefore fundamental in the construction of my reflection on design and on the everyday. To extend this parenthesis beyond my own experience, I hope to give here a new dimension to the colouring of design. Let's remember that design is colourful, rich from a great variety of practices. It is also rich from a wide variety of cultures, which is poorly reflected in current design literature and discourse, heavily tinged with Western culture. Culturally decentring design, through its exposure to worldviews based on other thoughts and cultures, may allow for a broadening of the worldview through which design operates. This clear post-colonial positioning envisions the formation of more relevant perspectives and approaches to topics to which design can effectively contribute. Needless to say, the Chair will support this effort to culturally enrich design, beyond Japanese culture.   Let's go back to art and design, which recognize the strength and importance of the gesture in what it expresses of human, in what it expresses through its imperfection. To understand what is at stake in this notion – imperfection – let us take up the notion of perfection and what Yanagi Soetsu14 tells us about it. He describes it as a closure since there is nothing more to change. It is perfect! It is static and final, with no horizon of possible transformation. The end of history. The absence of freedom. To it is opposed imperfection, which invites to change, to a possibility of transformation, and thus to a form of freedom. But Yanagi is not satisfied with this form of freedom, which is in fact bound to imperfection, itself posed in opposition to perfection. He then invites us to go beyond this dichotomy asserting that what he calls "true beauty" (奇数の美 - kisuu-no-bi) is in a non-dualistic totality - we are evolving here in a Buddhist thought. He then suggests that this beauty emerges from what he calls irregularity (歪み - yugami), when imperfection becomes identified with perfection and that "something unexplained" (不定形 - futei-kei) remains. Yanagi puts it this way14: "The love of the irregular is a sign of a fundamental quest for freedom." 3.3.1 The gesture Such irregularity can be the expression of the gesture, that of the craftsperson for instance. But we must also think about the tool and the use, other moments of interaction and appropriation. 3.3.2 The tool Hamada Shōji, a great Japanese ceramist who became a Living National Treasure in 1955, had a kiln capable of holding about ten thousand pots. When asked about the need for such a kiln, he replied that he would be able to completely control a smaller kiln, and that he would then be the master and controller. With this large kiln, the "individual power" weakens so that he cannot control the kiln, and what had been called "power beyond" is needed to get a good piece16. Therefore, he wants to work with grace from that power beyond, not toward a perfection that his mastery would impose. This idea of power beyond and irregularity, dear to the beauty and ethics as expressed by Yanagi, is also found in the work of Minagawa Akira. Minagawa pushes industrial embroidery to the limits of its mechanical capacities, in order to produce unpredictable and a priori unexpected imperfections, that is to say a form of irregularity, source of a unique and poetic beauty. Minagawa himself says: "I want the fabric to convey the feeling I experience myself when I make sketches. The embroidered patterns I create not only use thread to sew the design, they create a three-dimensional relief by overlapping stitches on top of each other, piercing the fabric randomly while remaining true to the light and shade of my original sketch. This way of doing embroidery without a fixed rule gives the feeling of hand-drawn lines." In Minagawa’s work, as in Hamada’s one, it is the designer-tool pairing that makes this irregularity possible as a new craftsperson embedded in both a tradition (ceramics or textiles) and industrial engineering. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to explore this designer-tool relationship again during a project with one of the students, Yamada Shigeru, whom I was accompanying for his master's degree at Eindhoven University of Technology. We made Japanese tea ceremony objects in 3D printing based on parametric models. It was a question for us to work on the speed of impression of the machine so that on this one associates with a power beyond. These objects were printed at the standard speed, then 2, 3, 4, 6 times faster. The evaluation made by several Japanese tea masters allowed us to conclude that the object printed with a doubled speed of impressions made precisely an aesthetics of the irregularity appreciated by these tea masters17. 3.3.3 The use But this irregularity, if it offers freedom and the possibility of transformation, must also manifest itself in the user's experience. Without it, the everyday would be an experience without surprise, without the possibility of change and therefore without freedom. For the everyday to be worthwhile, what the philosopher Bruce Bégout calls the process of quotidianization18 must be accompanied by irregularities placed in the usual or in the expected, what George Pérec calls the endotic19. And then the everyday becomes a moment in permanent evolution, and a space of imagination, creation and freedom. Focusing on irregularity in everyday use, three concepts come to mind, which unfortunately I will not have time to develop today: in the structural and physical quality of the object, we may speak of micro-consideration, a concept proposed by the designer Fukusawa Naoto20; in the interactional qualities, we may speak of micro-friction, a concept proposed by the professor of design and human-computer interaction Anna Cox21; and in the experiential qualities, we may speak of (es)sential details22, a concept that I developed jointly with Eva Deckers and Michael Restrepo about ten years ago. 3.4 The moment of design, the moment of use There are therefore two moments in which irregularity can offer opportunities for transformation: the moment of design and the moment of appropriation. And it is on these two notions that I would like to conclude this reflection on design. 3.4.1 The moment of design These two moments, of design and of appropriation, are moments of creation. And the artefact, proposed and then appropriated, forms a link between these two moments. For design, it is therefore an essential, social and humanist role to propose the conditions for creation within use, that is to say for appropriation. The position I take in projects and in research is to defend and structure this precise idea according to which the designer must think of the human being essentially by one’s capacity of appropriation and creation of one’s environment, and by one’s capacity of reflection and responsible decision. This is not trivial and not always shared when we hear what is prescribed following "user tests" or sometimes under the unfortunate name of "good user practice". For this, two things are needed. One has already been discussed at length. It is of course the irregularity that allows reflexivity and choice. The other is what I call the artefactual emptiness, a concept also inspired by Japanese philosophy, which denotes the space of opportunities offered to the user. The artefactual emptiness corresponds to the idea that the artifact must open up possibilities of appropriation, which it will mediate through irregularity. It is in this artefactual emptiness that appropriation takes shape. Keeping in mind the history of design and crafts, the Chair will strongly assert this societal proposal of its practices and their production. This proposal is based on the primary considerations of the capacity that each person has to create, the need for a collective and an ever-evolving tradition to move forward together, and a Jonasian categorical imperative of a social, ecological and responsible life23. Conscious of producing and disseminating proposals in a complex context and through a practice that is always in a state of enduring instability, the Chair will continue to keep its production open to questioning by all, beginning with itself. 3.4.2 In practice In practice, it will first be a matter of clarifying more clearly the role and manner of design in the moment of its own practice, outside of and yet linked to that of everyday life. This effort will lead to a reflexive practice of design, and to question its anthropological, humanistic, social, ecological, political and philosophical implications. 4 Programme // where the Chair intends to become a societal actor through designing, for training, research, and social commitment Now that we have positioned ourselves on the practice of design, all that remains is to highlight the programmatic elements of the Chair. Within CNAM, the Chair puts forward training and research approaches through design, arts and crafts and culture. Its ambition is to create and to develop collaborations in training, research and projects within and outside CNAM, in France, in Europe and internationally. It therefore aims to be an actor in an ecosystem that goes beyond CNAM and beyond design, and that will take as its horizon the possibility of a societal transformation of everyday life, through that of design and arts and crafts practices. The Chair dialogues with numerous training institutions, and is part of the dynamic of the Campus des Métiers d'Arts et du Design. One of the major visions of the Chair is to confirm the possibility of a continuum throughout the initial training of the arts and design professions, from the vocational schools to the doctorate, and of lifelong learning. Particular attention to this subject, which is dear to me, is focused on the fundamental and very CNAMian idea that one must learn to learn. The Chair contributes to research in design and in the arts, culture and creation, at the intersection of epistemological, craft and industrial, societal and ecological considerations. This research is situated and engaged through practice. The Chair therefore proposes and promotes research through practice, that is, research that involves practice in the research activity itself, and not adjacent to research. It invites pragmatic approaches, based on reflective practice10. The Chair is also involved in projects with a clear societal contribution. Historically, design proposals have always contained a political dimension, and the Chair intends to place this consideration at the center of its questioning and its work. Finally, the Chair wants to be constructively provocative. While questioning and proposing possibilities of societal transformation through practices, it is committed to questioning its own questioning, its own proposals and its own practices. 5 Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven Finally, I would like to take this last moment to thank my professors and colleagues, those who have allowed me to progressively become part of a tradition that I believe has been described throughout this lecture. It is within this tradition that I have evolved and thanks to which I stand before you today. And that tradition is best expressed, I think, in a poem by William Butler Yeats24. I take it up today, because it has gradually become both the symbol and the expression of that tradition for many of us, and it is my deepest wish that I can continue to advance that tradition through the Chair of Design Jean Prouvé. Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.   Thank you.     6. References Peters, N. Prouvé. (Taschen, 2017). Hancock, T. & Bezold, C. Possible futures, preferable futures. Healthc. Forum J. 37, 23—29 (1994). Blackler, A. et al. Can We Define Design? Analyzing Twenty Years of Debate on a Large Email Discussion List. She Ji J. Des. Econ. Innov. 7, 41—70 (2021). Redström, J. Making design theory. (MIT Press, 2017). Lévy, P. Le temps de l'expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design. (Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France, 2018). Lévy, P. Designing for the everyday through thusness and irregularity. in Proceedings of the International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference 2019, IASDR19 (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2019). Trotto, A. et al. Designing for Transforming Practices: Maps and Journeys. (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2021). Sennett, R. Ce que sait la main: la culture de l'artisanat. (Albin Michel, 2010). Overbeeke, K. The aesthetics of the Impossible. Inaugural Lecture (Eindhoven University of Technology, 2007). Schön, D. A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action. (Basic Books, 1984). Dōgen. La présence au monde. (Le Promeneur, 1999). Arendt, H. Condition de l'homme moderne. (Librairie générale française, 2020). dix—milliards—humains. dix—milliards—humains. dix—milliards—humains https://dix-milliards-humains.com/fr (2021). Yanagi, S. Artisan et inconnu, perception de la beauté dans l'esthétique japonaise. (Langues Et Mondes L'asiathèque, 1992). Stevens, B. Invitation à la philosophie japonaise: autour de Nishida. (CNRS, 2005). Yanagi, S. The Responsibility Of The Craftsman: And Mystery Of Beauty. (Literary Licensing, LLC, 2013). Lévy, P. & Yamada, S. 3D-modeling and 3D-printing Explorations on Japanese Tea Ceremony Utensils. in Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction - TEI'17 283—288 (ACM Press, 2017). doi:10.1145/3024969.3024990. Bégout, B. La découverte du quotidien. (Éditions Allia, 2005). Perec, G. L'infra-ordinaire. (Seuil, 1989). Fukasawa, N. Micro consideration. MUJI無印良品: 無印良品とクリエイター (2015). Cox, A. L., Gould, S. J. J., Cecchinato, M. E., Iacovides, I. & Renfree, I. Design Frictions for Mindful Interactions: The Case for Microboundaries. in Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems 1389—1397 (ACM, 2016). doi:10.1145/2851581.2892410. Lévy, P., Deckers, E. & Restrepo, M. C. When Movement Invites to Experience: a Kansei Design Exploration on Senses' Qualities. in Proceedings of the International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research, KEER 2012 366—372 (National Cheng Kung University, 2012). Jonas, H. Le principe responsabilité  une éthique pour la civilisation technologique. (Flammarion, 1998). Yeats, W. B. La Rose et autres poèmes. (Seuil, 2008). event 18 May 2022 2022-05-18T10:30:52+02:00

Entre méthodes et pratiques en design - un moment d'apprentissage Pierre Lévy, professeur du CNAM, Chaire Design Jean Prouvé Je voudrais m'intéresser aujourd'hui à la place des méthodes et des pratiques en design, et décrire leur entre-deux comme un lieu de développement des pratiques, c'est-à-dire comme moment d'apprentissage réflexif sur la pratique. 1. Le design Le premier point d'attention porte sur la notion même de design et la façon dont il est décrit par la propre communauté de recherche en design. Un récent article (Blackler et al., 2021) propose une analyse de vingt ans de discussion sur l'une des listes de diffusion les plus actives et renommées dans le monde (PHD-DESIGN List, n.d.) et portant sur la définition du design. Sa conclusion est comme suit (traduit par l'auteur) : Malgré un discours robuste autour des perspectives pertinentes sur le design, les discussions de la liste sont et ont été répétitives, sans aucun progrès significatif vers une définition consolidée du design. […] Nous proposons qu'il n'est peut-être pas possible de définir le design de cette manière, et que le domaine devrait s'éloigner de la réitération et discuter de l'importance du rôle du design… (Blackler et al., 2021) On note déjà que la tentative de définir le design semble inaboutie, et les auteurs de l'article suggèrent que cette tentative est inévitablement vouée à ne jamais aboutir. Le design ne se laisse pas définir et il serait temps de passer à autre chose : au lieu de questionner ce qu'est le design (description de l'état), il semble plus judicieux de questionner le rôle du design (description de l'action). La résistance du design à la définition semble également être exprimée par Johan Redström (2017) lorsqu'il s'intéresse aux fondations du design (traduit par l'auteur) : Le design semble fonder son existence sur des complexités issues de dichotomies. De négocier la forme et la function. D'engager l'artisanat et ses compétences, et de travailler avec la production industrielle. De travailler avec des processus ouverts et d'être profondément engagé à la méthode. D'être centré-utilisateur et design-driven. D'être art et science. [...] Et le design peut aussi être remarquablement résilient et désireux de s'engager à tout cela, ce qui n'est ni blanc ou noir, mais complexe et coloré.[..] La raison pour laquelle on apprécie tellement les dichotomies en design est parce qu'elle permet d'adresser le conflit, la collision, et les contradictions, et d'ouvrir ainsi de nouvelles perspectives et potentiels. Ce que nous dit Redström est que l'on peut trouver la force du design (certains disent le pouvoir du design, nous dirons sa capacité d'action) au sein des dichotomies. C'est en effet dans la collision, la contradiction ou l'irrégularité (Lévy, 2018, 2019) que des opportunités nouvelles se créent et que des transformations sont possibles. Dans un entendement commun et global, c'est-à-dire sans friction, la transformation est bien moins probable. La première conclusion est donc ainsi : Le design est insaisissable, et c'est plutôt une bonne nouvelle ! La pratique réflexive ainsi que l'acceptation de plusieurs perspectives et de dichotomies semblent donc pertinentes pour le design. 2. Méthodes et activités Les méthodes en design sont essentielles pour la formalisation des processus de conception en design. Elles le sont donc dans l'enseignement puisqu'elles permettent de clarifier un cadre pour le projet et à l'apprenant d'appréhender des complexités précédemment discutées. Elles le sont dans la pratique professionnelle à la fois pour la gestion du projet et pour la communication du et autour du projet. Toutefois, les méthodes existantes, et nous prenons ici pour exemples le double diamant proposé par le Design Council (2019) et le Model MV proposé par Kees Dorst (2015), semblent s'attacher à une séquence ordonnée d'activités prédéfinies, séquence souvent contredite par la pratique. La pratique peut être plus fidèlement décrite par les actions situées qui la constituent. C'est ce que propose le Reflective Transformative Design Process (C. Hummels & Frens, 2009) qui propose une perspective effective autant pour la pratique elle-même du design que pour son enseignement. La description d'activités permet de cadrer la pratique sans pour autant imposer un ordre hors contexte. L'expérience montre en effet que le projet doit s'adapter aux ressources accessibles et aux contraintes et opportunités qui se présentent. De plus, dans une période où le design s'investit de plus en plus dans l'arène sociale et politique, nous avons développé une nouvelle approche, les pratiques transformatives (C. C. M. Hummels et al., 2019), qui justement reprend cette idée de discuter la pratique au travers d'activités tout en incluant des notions liées entre autres à la participation sociale et à la complexité. Ces approches ne prescrivent ni séquence ni réelle limite aux activités, si bien que la pratique ainsi décrite peut paraitre à la fois déstructurée et omnipotente. Mais c'est justement au travers de l'une des dichotomies proposées par Redström - travailler avec des processus ouverts et d'être profondément engagé à la méthode - qui expose la force de l'association contradictoire formée par la méthode et la pratique, celle d'une activité réflexive possible grâce au delta entre pratique et méthodes, qui invite justement à une réflexion transformative, et donc apprenante, de la pratique du design. C'est donc là la seconde conclusion de ma présentation aujourd'hui : Les méthodes et !es activités forment donc une dichotomie en design. C'est au travers de cette dichotomie que la pratique du design s'établit, au travers d'une réflexion transformative et apprenante de la pratique. Bibliographie Blackler, A., Swann, L., Chamorro-Koc, M., Mohotti, W. A., Balasubramaniam, T., & Nayak, R. (2021). Can We Define Design? Analyzing Twenty Years of Debate on a Large Email Discussion List. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 7(1), 41-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2020.11.004 Design Council. (2019). What is the framework for innovation? Design Council's evolved Double Diamond. Design Council. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/what-framework-innovation-design-councils-evolved-double-diamond Dorst, K. (2015). Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design. MIT Press. Hummels, C. C. M., Trotto, A., Peeters, J. P. A., Levy, P., Alves Lino, J., & Klooster, S. (2019). Design research and innovation framework for transformative practices. In Strategy for change (pp. 52-76). Glasgow Caledonian University. Hummels, C., & Frens, J. (2009). The reflective transformative design process. Proceedings of the 27th International Conference - Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI09, 2655-2658. https://doi.org/10.1145/1520340.1520376 Lévy, P. (2018). Le temps de l'expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design [Habilitation à diriger des recherches]. Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France. Lévy, P. (2019). Designing for the everyday through thusness and irregularity. Proceedings of the International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference 2019, IASDR19. International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference 2019, Manchester, UK. PHD-DESIGN List. (n.d.). Retrieved 4 December 2021, from https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=PHD-DESIGN Redström, J. (2017). Making design theory. MIT Press. event 18 November 2021 2021-11-18T10:30:52+02:00 Le 18 novembre ont eu lieu au CNAM une série d'interventions de professionnels de la création à destination des étudiants des trois parcours de DNMADe et des Terminales Bac STD2A du Lycée Auguste Renoir. Que signifie créer, inventer, innover aujourd'hui ? Dans un monde saturé par les nouveautés, que peut encore apporter le designer ? Quels sont les moteurs de la créativité ? Quelle place accorder aux technologies actuelles ? Les techniques traditionnelles ou ancestrales ont-elles encore un rôle à jouer ? L'innovation peut-elle se faire « à tout prix » ?… Cette journée aura été l'occasion de réfléchir au sens et aux enjeux de la création, de l'invention et de l'innovation. Elle à invité à questionner les concepts, mais aussi les démarches et mises en œuvre de pratiques innovantes dans un monde agité par des urgences écologiques et des interrogations sociales pressantes. Intervenants :9h30 : Gaëlle Periot-Bled, enseignante chercheuse, chaire d'Esthétique, Paris IV - Sorbonne10h15 : Laurent Ungerer, graphiste, agence C-Album (Paris)11h : Pierre Lévy, enseignant chercheur, chaire de design Jean Prouvé, Cnam11h45 : Marlène Huissoud, artiste, designer14h : Anne Berthinier-Poncet, enseignante chercheuse, chaire de management de l'innovation,Cnam14h45 : Matthieu Mevel, écrivain (dernière publication : Un Vagabond dans la langue, Gallimard)15h30 : Emmanuelle Leleu et Julien Hazebroucq, illustrateurs

Introduction First, I would like to thank Stephan Wensveen for the organisation and for making this day a such a special one, from start to end (although who knows how it will end…). I am very glad to be here. It is an honour to participate to this symposium, and to have the role of opening the series of presentations. It is also a challenge I must say. Kees has been enriching the life of many of us, and I believe many of us would have something valuable to tell based on sharing experiences with Kees. I am very conscious of this privilege. Times ago, discussing this symposium with Stephan, the idea was to have one eye looking back at what Kees brought to us and hoped for the design community, and to have the other eye on the future trying to tell our current students, to remind our alumni and ourselves some aspects Kees carried through his work, that we may bring further. I have the honour and the challenge to operate this eye gymnastic and to share with you today what I see. Contemplating the impossible Today, in this speech, I will try not to bore you with details of the inaugural lecture of the late Prof Kees Overbeeke, “The Aesthetics of the Impossible”, that he gave in 2007, 11 years ago in exactly a week. Today offers an occasion for me to bore you with a contemplation of some of the key ideas raised during this lecture, and to contemplate them from where and when I stand today. And much have happened in between. Today is also for me the occasion of getting bold again in the tradition of DQI. For the ones who hoped this was the past, bear with me and I’ll promise I will try to be soft. For the ones who miss it at times, hope you can enjoy. For the ones who did not meet Kees, I would like to briefly introduce him. Late professor in our department of Industrial Design, Kees had a significant impact on the design and CHI communities all over the world, especially on the topics related to embodiment in design for interaction. But that would not tell much about the guy, by far. If he is remembered and celebrated in such a way as today, is because his ideas, his generosity, his friendliness and appreciation to all, impacted many individual lives, many of us both intellectually and humanly. He is, for many, one of these very few people that significantly meant something to us. He is a moment in the development of thoughts and attitudes. His inaugural lecture was entitled “the aesthetics of the impossible”. The notion “impossible” demands here a little clarification, which is to me twofold: Aesthetics, which is the core of design for interaction is ungraspable. It is only when and where it happens, in the here and the now. And then it is gone, suddenly as it happens. It is unique and impossible to grasp. Standardisation is impossible and actually not wished, as it would lead towards an extreme level of boredom and dissatisfaction. Systematic research is difficult but should be challenged. Impossibility is also in the complexity we encounter in design: that is, in the variety of disciplines our students are facing (challenging skills, knowledge and practices), and in the inherent complexity of interaction and of experience. To address this impossibility, design approaches require a greater balance between making and thinking (supported by reflection on action, which I will address again later). Therefore today, to contemplate the impossible, I will especially focus on three aspects: believes, teaching and research, making and thinking. And I will do so by freely mixing what Kees said (at least the way I understand it) and by my reflection on it. For the flow of my discourse, I will often borrow from Kees’s inaugural lecture without systematically mention it. Contemplating believes Kees explains: Every scientist, as well as every designer, has a body of knowledge, as well as a galaxy of believes (that is my wording). Knowledge is established through research activities and transmitted through teaching. It is about how things are. Believes contribute to envisioning how things ought to be. They result from philosophy, intuition, awareness, experience, from our being-in-the-world, in a giving culture, in a giving timeframe. Believes are guides for where we go, where we look, we what we do, and what strikes us. They condition our engagements, our motives, our stance and our actions in the world. Less than a month ago, Bill Buxton, lecturing here at TU/e, was reminding us the importance, and actually the necessity of having a compass and a horizon in design practice and design research. It is essential for good design (given that this design intends to contribute to the making of a better world). In the current context where the most striking thing we know is that we do not know where the world is going, because of its complexity, because of challenges that we are aware of but do not fully comprehend, because of tensions we feel but that are not clear to our sight. This is made even more complex by our relation and use of technology: as we praise it and support its development and its use in society, yet questioning it at the same time. Knowledge and believes then are necessary in design practice, design education, and design research. A few believes that Kees mentioned during his inaugural lecture, are worth remembering: “Design is about people. It is about our life and dreams, about our loneliness and joy, our sense of beauty and justice, about the social and the good. It is about being in the world”. Meaning emerges in interaction and cannot be detached from action. This demands a primacy of embodiment and a primacy of action. Considering these two first points, a few consequences can be suggested here. The first two ones are also stated by Kees: A design theory must be a theory of action (and I would add of transformation, which I will discuss later). This theory should focus on embodiment in the first place, and on meaning in the second place. Reflection in/on and for action is a source of knowledge and a creator of new and valuable perspectives on and for design, on and for the world. Design research and practice are powerful source of knowledge. As I will discuss it later, research and education should be highly interwoven. To these two considerations, I may add the following: Design research is not solely an applicative research but contains also, and actually is for a large part, a theoretical research, with the condition that we give space to it. Design theory, constitutive of design research, is a theory of action. If design would to be a science (in the modern sense of the term, which I have throughout the years got progressively to agree with), it would be a transformative science, as any other science with transformative outcomes, such as engineering or chemistry (when it tries to create a new molecule for example). Design is not a descriptive science, such as ethnography, physics trying to describe the phenomenon of gravitation, or chemistry trying to describe a natural chemical reaction. Design (being practice, education, or research) is about transformations, and is specific as it is about action, about people, and about ethics. Therefore, I would challenge any reduction of the world or the experience of it, to data. In this crucial moment, where data related technologies become so predominant, with incredible and promising outcomes, design practitioners and design researchers should obviously embrace such technologies, as well as not forgetting that the experience of the world is embodied, is affective, and symbolic. We are beings with a history, culture, ethics, visions and dreams. Contemplating teaching and research This is especially important when considering the necessity of aligning research and teaching. Kees reminded us clearly and simply the necessity to align both activities for the academic world. He told us: “expressivity, beauty and meaning are at the core of design”. In 1999, I (being Kees while in Delft) pointed out the mismatch between teaching and research. Research was about structural aspects of perception, and teaching was about beauty of interaction. I could not change the teaching, so I changed the research. “Emotion became important, which is not obvious as a research topic in the technical background that was then in Delft and now here.” The PhD of Stephan Wensveen is one of the first and a clear example of research work on emotionally intelligent products. Already then he noticed the challenge and the necessity of interacting in a continuous and simultaneous way with products (topic that was still challenged in the PhD of Jelle Stienstra just 2 years ago). Many related topics were then developed further in various ways throughout most PhDs executed in the DQI research group. And I am no surprised that Stephan today pushes the research further and focuses on questions related to the “aesthetics of the intelligence”. Recently, our students are facing a progressive increase of topics the design community is engaging in (design based on big data, A.I. and other learning algorithms, but also service design, social design…). All these increase challenges and complexity in their education and their future work. They also face a progressive increase of technological solutions at hand to make their designs. Now that teaching is challenged by many other topics (related to technology and society), I think It is important for us, as a leading academia in design, to keep focusing where our skills are: as we interact with data through interfaces, being either sensors or actuators… “how do these become meaningful and beautiful to us?” is our core question. Mastering data management (among others) is certainly important, however, providing meaningful, rich and beautiful interactions is the heart of design. This demands to care for human and their actual experiences as beings-in-the-world, and to keep design teaching and research focusing on this. Only then, when students will embody that by being curious, sympathetic and independent, only then they will embody and act the richness design may provide. Taking again the lines from Kees: “But the only way to develop curiosity, sympathy, principle, and independence of mind is to practice being curious, sympathetic, principled and independent. For those of us who are teachers, it isn’t what we teach that instills virtue, it is how we teach. We are the books our students read most closely” “Let us practice what we preach”. Let us care, through our teaching, what our students learn and become. Contemplating making and thinking The electronic and digital interfaces are loaded with buttons that demands little of our motor-perceptive skills, and too much of our cognitive skills. This situation leads to standardized and efficient interactions, as well as to boring and poor ones if we consider the human being in its entirety. Making simple buttons by default is, to my point of view, a triple failure: First, as we already mentioned it, it fails the possibility to provide beauty in interaction, beauty and care in the experience. It fails the heart of design. Second, it is defeating the idea that design is about challenges and only addressing these challenges will help, in the long term, to find novel, effective, rich and beautiful ways of interacting. Third, the button degrades our contact with the world. When there is no experiential relation between the activity of pressing a button and the functional and experiential consequences of doing so, there is also less space for grasping the world, that is for sensemaking. Proposing poor interaction solutions (by opposition of making rich interaction solutions), makes us designer and us users less to experience our being-in-the-world, and therefore inepter (or more moronic is you prefer). The button here is obviously only the archetype of a quick and easy decision making, yet leading to boredom, poverty in life experiences, and flattening both designers’ and users’ minds. Our design skills exploring possibilities of rich interactions are therefore not only a way to make user’s experiences and life better, but also a way to advance in design research: exploring through making (using design skills well), and reflecting in and on action is what design can do best, and contribute to the most in the world of academia in the first place, and in the world in the second place. Finally, as Kees reminded us, we need to keep in mind that we are too many that know, and not enough that make. Reflection on action should be the drive to push design practice and design research further. “in our effort to understand reality, we have been too much abstracted from it”. Contemplating transformation As mentioned before, design is about transformation, transformation of practices in societies and in our everyday life. Understanding reality, which means understanding our everyday life, is to transform it: Étudier la vie quotidienne serait une entreprise parfaitement ridicule, et d’abord condamnée à ne rien saisir de son objet, si l’on ne se proposait pas explicitement d’étudier la vie quotidienne afin de la transformer. Guy Debord Studying the everyday life would be an absurd undertaking, and anyway fated to catch nothing of its object, if studying the everyday life would explicitly be with the intention to transform it. Guy Debord And I would like to conclude with this notion of everyday transformation, being actually my research topic which I believe I have built partly on the considerations I have discussed today. Although this word, “everyday” is so much used in the world of design, addressing it is not as obvious as it seems, and is often actually avoided or subverted. As things become part of our everyday, a process called quotidianisation, they escape from our attention, giving us peace of mind. They stop questioning us, and we stop questioning them. This way, they progressively disappear from our awareness. Perec even speaks about amnesia, rather than lack of attention. What can be extraordinary when new, becomes infra-ordinary through the process of quotidianisation. Questioning the everyday requires exploring the infraordinary, which demands exploring tiny and often personal details that we are obviously not aware of in the first place. Exploring the everyday to transform it demands to get aware and to understand its most tiny details, which as Coyne & Mathers explain “often appear irrational from a third-person perspective, but most often rational from a first-person perspective”. Therefore, designing for the everyday demands a continuous and structuring dialog between an exploration at the first-person perspective, to create a rational, observing and transforming ones’ own everyday life to comprehend these rationales, and a third-person perspective that enables us to design for others. I have found the sensibility, the attention to tiny details and the beauty in the everyday in the Japanese culture and philosophy, from which I have elaborated a theoretical framework for designing for the everyday. This framework relies indeed on Japanese philosophers and thinkers, such as Nishida Kitaro or Yanagi Soetsu who through their work have pointed out where beauty relies in the everyday, as well as designers, such as Naoto Fukusawa and Kenya Hara who through their work have not only designed but also reflected on their making to show the values of paying attention to the everyday towards human and social elevation, and have made it existing in our societies all over the world, through companies such as Muji. Designing for the everyday is to me a clear example of what design claims to do, yet actually (and for now!) fails to do properly. The hope of making design research education and practice an actual unique and yet not isolated contributor to a betterment of our world, goes through a repositioning on what design can do best: focusing and creating meaning in interaction for people’s experiences, using at full reflection in and on action to make sense of the world as it is lived, making sure to enrich the beauty of our everyday life. All that stands in the way of abstraction, standardization. Contemplating the impossible To finish on Kees’s considerations: “It is our role, scholars and industrialists, to define a new project for design. We have to avoid remaining in a problem-solver perspective, and to wake-up and let grow the challengers that is in each of the designers we are educating.” We must dream, to give youngsters hope. Thanks to Kees for all this teaching, that even in challenging times remain constitutive of our design compass. La reconnaissance est la mémoire du cœur. Thank you event 19 October 2018 2018-10-19T10:30:52+02:00 Times ago, discussing this symposium with Stephan, the idea was to have one eye looking back at what Kees brought to us and hoped for the design community, and to have the other eye on the future trying to tell our current students, to remind our alumni and ourselves some aspects Kees carried through his work, that we may bring further. I have the honour and the challenge to operate this eye gymnastic and to share with you today what I see.

event 10 June 2016 2016-06-10T22:02:04+02:00 Dans l’esprit de pluridisciplinarité qui a animé le worshop #illuminov – éclairage connecté lors de la semaine du 25 au 29 avril dernier, j’ai le plaisir de vous convier à la présentation de Pierre Lévy, assistant professor en design à l’Université de Technologie d'Eindhoven, qui se tiendra le vendredi 10 juin à la Pré-Fabrique de l’innovation à 14h30. Au travers de ses travaux de recherche, Pierre Lévy s’intéresse à l’implication des théories de la perception et de la phénoménologie, dans les domaines du design d’interaction (embodied interaction design) et du design Kansei (regard japonais sur la sensibilité et l’affectif) – sujet pour lequel il a été invité de nombreuses fois pour des conférences à l’internationale. Diplômé d’une thèse en science du Kansei de l’Université de Tsukuba au Japon, il est actuellement président-élu du Groupe Européen du Kansei (EKG). Lors de cette présentation, nous discuterons de l’approche en constructive design research, et la perspective qu’elle propose sur l’attention réciproque entre l’homme et l’artefact, et sur la notion d’”irrésistibilité” en design d’interaction. Cette approche ouvrira sur l’exploration menée par Pierre Lévy en “design de rituels”, qui se place à l’intersection du design kansei et et du design de systèmes. La présentation se construira autour d’exemples de projets concrets développés par l’Université de Technologie d'Eindhoven, susceptibles d’intéresser tout autant les chercheurs que les praticiens du design. L’intervention et les échanges se feront en français. Fabien Labarthe (IRAM-Télécom Saint-Etienne, Laboratoire Elico, Centre Max Weber).

event 03 December 2013 2013-12-03T21:39:49+01:00

event 19 November 2013 2013-11-19T21:29:03+01:00

Holism and kansei design – kansei beyond borders In the field of kansei research, three main disciplines contribute, in different ways, to the creation of artefacts: kansei engineering, kansei science, and kansei design. In this presentation, I will focus specifically on kansei science and kansei design, and on their differences and similarities. Finally, I will show how these two disciplines are actually complementary and that their collaboration can be relevant. First, I will briefly describe these two disciplines and their approach. More detailed work on these descriptions, together with a comprehensive historical approach on the disciplines of kansei research can be found in (Lévy, 2013). Kansei science (KS) was first proposed by Akira Harada, and was introduced at the crossing of kansei and cognitive sciences. The research initiated in the eighties by Harada aimed at describing holistically users’ cognitive processes related to preference and choice of products. KS is built upon brain science, mostly cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology, and relies on related philosophies. The mind/brain identity theory is for example used extensively in KS. Human’s thinking and resulting behaviours can be best understood by using a model involving mental representational structures and mental procedures that operates on these structures. These models and structures can be studied by psychophysiological approaches. In this academic context, KS research aims to characterize and to evaluate emotional experiences and creativity, to contribute to a better understanding of the mind based on physiological and psychological approaches. Moreover, it is important to notice that KS has very often worked with design research to develop conjointly new methods and inspiration means for design and communication. Kansei design (KD) is, on the other hand, an emergent discipline in the field of kansei research. Currently, there are two approaches in the discipline of KD, which can be differentiated by their focus. The first approach focuses on the physical materiality of artefacts (i.e., their intrinsic properties), and their evaluation or preference by the user. This approach is very close to KS in terms of domains of application, in term of tools (often based on semantics), but differs by their attitude towards ambiguity and uncertainty. While KS intends to avoid it or to “solve” it by means of logic reasoning, KD deals with it by means of design skills and experience. The second approach focuses on the interactive materiality of artefacts (i.e., the qualities of the artefact in interaction). This approach is the one adopted and explored by the author. Whereas KE and KS have found their roots in scientific establishment, KD intends to return to (Japanese) philosophical or cultural works related to kansei, and to use them as a source of knowledge and opportunities to be addressed by design. From this perspective, two major stances are taken: the primacy of action (“We see a thing by action, and the thing we see determines us as much as we determine the thing. That is action-intuition.” - Nishida) and the primacy of the body (“Just as the body of an artist is the organ of art, so is the body of a scholar the organ of scholarship; the life of an artist exists in beauty and that of a scholar in truth. Even the activity of thinking does not exist separately from our physical body.” - Nishida). Example of kansei design works can be seen in the aforementioned referenced paper. What is interesting to notice when overviewing these two disciplines together is the closeness of the focus despites the great difference in the approach. KS is obviously internalist (perception is a process taking place within the human mind), and KD externalist (perception is a process taking place within a system composed of the human and the environment). However, both disciplines focus on the immediate experience, i.e., on the here and the now of the human experience. In previous research projects, addressed from a kansei science perspective, I have explored the idea that as long as there are two persons in the same space, there is diversity. I call this interX. Most classically studied ones are the intercultural and interdisciplinary aspects. I have focused on the diversity in a broader sense and used a kansei science approach to contribute to the creation of tools that supports this diversity. The output were the Evoked Metaphor (a conceptualising tool facilitating knowledge sharing among members of an interdisciplinary design workgroup to work together upon individual and disciplinary differences) and MATiK (a computer-mediated communication system, inspired by the cocktail party effect using positive filters to provide each member the necessary information according to the consideration of individual qualities). See (Lévy & Yamanaka, 2006) for more details. Now, I would like to succinctly explore what could be the starting point from a KD perspective on the same topic. As the variety of interX types is immense and can hardly be overviewed (KD aims at considering opportunities from a holistic perspective), I propose to reverse this inquiry and to address a fundamental commonality: we are in the world, and there is a primacy of the body in interaction (as suggested by Nishidian’s action-intuition). Note that he stance is also addressed by various contemporary psychology and philosophy, notably: Gibson’s ecological psychology and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Kansei design address is how to design for direct and immediate experience. It addresses it by synthesising concepts coming from Japanese philosophy (notably the school of Kyoto) and relying on Japanese cultural values of aesthetics and craftsmanship. However, as kansei design is a very emerging discipline highly related to direct interaction design, many conceptual and methodological aspects are still borrowed to it. Consequently, kansei design aims at creating ‘irresistible’ artefacts, i.e., that resonate with the user engaged in interaction. Resonance interaction is the “perfect interplay between the product and the person which evokes strong positive emotions” [Kevin Andersen]. To conclude, based on my research experiences within the two disciplines, I strongly believe that we can go beyond the theoretical differences (not to say the contradictions) and mutually contribute to both the understanding of kansei and its application to the creation of kansei-quality artefacts. From this mutual contribution, kansei will be more widely, and therefore better understood, and kansei designs will be more irresistible. Challenges are to be faced, opportunities are to be taken! References Lévy, P. & Yamanaka T. (2006). MATiK – CMC Design by Kansei Information Approach, in Proc. KEIS’06. Lévy, P. (2013). Beyond kansei engineering: The emancipation of kansei design. International Journal of Design, 7(2). event 30 August 2013 2013-08-30T21:55:59+02:00

event 25 May 2012 2012-05-25T21:30:22+02:00 Many academic laboratories and companies in Europe have worked in kansei research. As on other continents, kansei engineering is the most important discipline, but is not the only one. The disciplines in Kansei Research in Europe are multiple, as are their origins. This multiplicity of disciplines and points-of-views creates a great opportunity for the development of the field in Europe. As an expression of the interest for kansei engineering, Europe has recently welcomed two major conferences related to Kansei Engineering: ICBAKE2009 (including KEAS2009) in Cieszyn, Poland, and KEER2010 in Paris, France. For this last edition of the KEER conference, 32% of the presentations were presented by European researchers, and 40% of the attendants were affiliated in Europe. However, there is no European community on Kansei Research, neither officially nor practically. Laboratories and companies have not found yet the way and the means to create such community, which would certainly help the promotion and the development of Kansei Research in Europe. In this presentation I would like to show an overview of the European presentations at KEER2010, as a starting point to scan the current state of Kansei Research in Europe. I hope this presentation will elicit reactions towards the construction of such European community.

event 16 March 2012 2012-03-16T21:48:30+01:00

event 31 March 2011 2011-03-31T21:21:51+02:00 Auparavant, il a été maître de conférence en “Service Product Design” a Chiba University et à la Kansei Information Design de University of Tsukuba, au Japon. Docteur en Science de cette même université, il a un master d’ingénieur mécanique de l’Université de Technologie de Compiègne. En tant que chercheur, il s’est intéressé à tous les aspects de partage (des connaissances, espace, temps, compétences, motivation …), conduisant à la socialisation et à la créativité. Il pense que la recherche kansei et le design sont deux approches d’ouverture d’esprit qui peuvent apporter des idées originales aux mondes universitaires, industriels et sociaux. Une approche phénoménologique peut aider à mieux comprendre et à améliorer leurs relations, souvent complexes, avec les différents aspects du monde en réseau.

event 08 March 2011 2011-03-08T21:11:59+01:00

event 23 October 2010 2010-10-23T21:16:30+02:00 The International Conference on Kansei Engineering and Emotion Research 2010 (KEER2010), held at the Arts et Mètiers ParisTech in Paris, has been a promising event for the future of Kansei Research in Europe. For the first time, numerous European researchers in Kansei Engineering and related topics met not only each other, but also their colleagues from all over the world. For the first time, a European community on Kansei research gathered and exchanged knowledge and views on Kansei with the Asian communities.I would like to take the chance of this presentation to frame again the current situation of the European research on Kansei, and to position it from an Eurasian perspective. To do so, I will take two steps:- A review on the history of Kansei research will show the early implications of European philosophy in the ‘academic establishment’ of the term Kansei and of the philosophy of Kansei. This aspect is crucial as it shows already existing bridges between Asian and European thoughts, and stresses points for reciprocal interests and future collaborations.- A picture of the current Kansei research in Europe will show main driving European activities on Kansei research. To do so, I will present a review of KEER2010, picturing the presence of European researchers in the field of Kansei and related topics. Although this picture, based only on the outcome of KEER2010, may not be complete, it will render the great possibilities of further Kansei research development in Europe.With this presentation, I hope to be able to clarify better the current situation of Kansei research in Europe, towards greater involvement of Europe in this field, towards better exchange between Europe and Asia for a more international Kansei research community.

event 02 October 2008 2008-10-02T21:03:50+02:00

event 09 September 2007 2007-09-09T20:52:21+02:00