Enchanting the everyday
Studying the everyday life would be an absurd undertaking,and anyway fated to catch nothing of its object, if studying the everyday life would explicitlybe with the intention to transform it.
- Guy Debord (1961)
La question du quotidien est remarquable le sujet du quotidien n’étant que très peu, et souvent assez mal traité en design. Le terme quotidien est beaucoup utilisé dans la littérature en design (e.g., (Hallnäs & Redström, 2002; Norman, 2013; Saito, 2007; Wakkary & Maestri, 2007)), mais la notion elle-même est très peu traitée. Pour illustrer cela, on pointera par exemple la simple omission de la description de cette notion dans l’ouvrage classique du Design de tous les jours de Don Norman (2013) ou encore dans celui sur l’Esthétique de tous les jours de Yuriko Saito (2007). Utilisant ces exemples, j’ai initié une discussion sur la liste de diffusion PhD-Design mailing list (P. Levy, personal communication, April 4, 2017) faisant appel à la communauté de la recherche en design pour déterminer les directions possibles en vue de clarifier le concept de quotidien. Cette discussion a permis à la fois de confirmer le flou entourant la notion du quotidien en design, et de désigner des directions pour une telle clarification, et nous en emprunterons certaines par la suite. Mais au-delà de ces deux points, elle a également contenu une remarque qui a retenu mon attention. Un chercheur émérite a indiqué que tout en ayant cherché à comprendre la façon dont le design interroge le quotidien, il a en même temps renoncé à essayer de le définir. Pour lui, ce terme fait partie d’un ensemble de termes tellement constitutifs du design qu’il varie avec la perspective prise sur le design. Définir le quotidien nécessiterait de définir le design.
Je suis en désaccord avec cela. Certes, tenter de définir le design est un travail qui s’est toujours révélé insatisfaisant, et est a priori problématique. Mais ces tentatives sont aussi en soi une force pour la discipline car la pluralité des perspectives s’est avérée être utile pour une remise en question continue de la discipline, de son évolution, et surtout de la considération de sa propre complexité. Elle a également contribué à porter un échange sérieux et constructif avec les disciplines connexes. Redström (2017) suggère même que « la présence de différentes définitions est instrumentale puisque nous essayons de comprendre et d’articuler ce que sont les choses telles que design et designer ; l’absence de cette définition unifiée n’est pas un vide conceptuel de notre pensée mais en fait une stratégie effective pour surmonter certains types de complexité ». A l’instar du design, étudier le quotidien et tenter d’en formuler une description n’a pas pour but de figer la notion par une formulation que l’on aimerait salvatrice. Bien au contraire, elle a pour ambition première une exploration, c’est-à-dire un voyage dont la destination est inconnue et en fait secondaire. Explorer le quotidien au travers du design, c’est avant tout tenter de créer une perspective sur nos vies et nos expériences, sur le banal, et sur le design. Elle invite à développer une approche par laquelle le design pourra transformer le quotidien, ressaisissant sa beauté profonde sans le dénaturer. Étudier la vie quotidienne afin de la transformer, afin de l’enchanter.
Cet axe de recherche tente donc d’ouvrir le territoire du quotidien et de ses valeurs, le territoire de nos vies dans ce qu’elles ont de plus réel, éloignées de ces expériences que l’on nous dit être extraordinaires parce qu’en fait inatteignables, et que l’on ne peut donc qu’en rêver. Ma proposition est de se pencher sur ce qui est là, tous les jours, et bien souvent oublié ou ignoré dans nos vies et dans le design (Pérec parle d’anesthésie). S’intéresser au design pour le quotidien, c’est chercher dans le banal, dans le commun, dans l’endotique ce qui est beau ou ce qui peut le devenir.
Le temps de l'expérience, enchanter le quotidien par le design
The Habiliation (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) "endorses the recognition of the candidate's high scientific level, the originality of his approach in a field of science, his ability to master a research strategy in a sufficiently broad scientific or technological field and his ability to supervise young researchers". (Arrêté du 23/11/1988)
The Japanese tea ceremony is a moment of aesthetic and ethical experience of everyday life, a harmony between objects, beings, places and practices. It reminds us that everyday objects, the very heart of our material culture, are of profound beauty and bear an admirable ethic, yet most often go unnoticed. At the crossroads of a reflection on a “Japanese” approach in design through the study of kansei, and a reflection on design in HCI driven by embodiment theories, this research first questions the Western cultural hegemony on design in HCI, and then establishes a cultural decentration in the discipline by taking Japanese philosophy and culture as framing theory. The result is a new perspective on design, both in reception and production, driven by an ethics of relationship, an experience of thusness, and an aesthetic of irregularity. This perspective invites design to enchant everyday life, offering it to consider the details of reality as it is experienced, and to create unexpected moments, sources of astonishment and of new possibilities. Inviting a cultural decentration of design, this research proposes an original approach for everyday design, and contributes to seeing it as a major aesthetic and ethical source, for the development of the being, of its sensitivity and its values.
IxD&A #30, Special issue: On Making
Marti, P., Frens, J., Hengeveld, B., & Lévy P. (Eds). 2016. Interaction Design and Architecture(s), special issue: On Making. ISSN: 1826-9745.
Table of content
Patrizia Marti, Joep Frens, Bart Hengeveld, Pierre Levy. Preface, pp. 3-14.
Raúl Tabarés-Gutiérrez. Approaching maker’s phenomenon, pp. 19-29.
Julian Stubbe. Material Practice as a Form of Critique, pp. 30-46.
Katrien Dreessen, Selina Schepers, Danny Leen. From Hacking Things to Making Things. Rethinking making by supporting non-expert users in a FabLab, pp. 47-64.
Yana Boeva and Ellen Foster. Making: On Being and Becoming Expert, pp. 65-74.
Patricia Wolf, Peter Troxler. Community-based business models: Insights from an emerging maker economy, pp. 75-94.
Antonio Rizzo, Giovanni Burresi, Francesco Montefoschi, Maurizio Caporali, Roberto Giorgi. Making IoT with UDOO, pp. 95-112.
publications 22 March 2016 2016-03-22T23:38:46+01:00 Ask people about the great breakthroughs in human life and you will hear answers such as “when man made fire” or “the invention of the wheel” or “electricity”. All moments where humankind gained more control over their world through something “man-made”. Man is a maker. But even though the act of making in itself seems to be a stable, integral part of our being, how we make is far from stable. Moreover, with every new innovation new forms of making have opened up. We base this on the notion that ‘making’ and ‘thinking’ are thoroughly intertwined: our tools for making also shape our thoughts about making; we think through our tools and material.Passage
Passage is a kansei design project on the in-between space carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
(Excerpt from my Habilitation)
Passage is a project carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Passage focuses on the place of transition between two physical spaces, i.e. their inter-space. The project statement invites students to create a design for the inter-space without influencing the experience of either space. This statement seems a priori phenomenologically incoherent, since the experience of something external to oneself necessarily takes place in a space and requires that the user’s attention be directed at least partially towards this thing. Yet, not only does the inter-space not seem to be a space (but rather a surface), and the attention of a person passing through a door is most often directed towards the space in which they intend to travel.
After multiple iterations including prototype production, situation tests, reflections based on the Kansei context, etc., a remarkable design has gradually taken shape. Passage is an installation mounted on the frame of a door. This installation consists of a line of light-emitting diodes (RGB LEDs) projected on a thin aluminium foil that reflects light back towards the door once it is ajar. The diodes very slowly change the emitted color. The aluminium foil undulates depending on how the door is opened: a quick opening will create much more turbulence than a slow opening. The light impression projected on the door is therefore unique with each opening and closing.
What is remarkable about this design is that the light projection is not visible to the passer-by when the door is fully closed or open, so that interaction only takes place in the action of the door opening. The experience begins as soon as you start opening the door and ends before you finish opening it. Not only is the installation (almost) located in this inter-space, but the experience is also located in this inter-space: it almost does not interfere with the passer-by’s intentionality to pass into the next space. The design objective is thus achieved.
In addition to certain “classical” kansei descriptors, such as the grain, the light-shade interaction or the feeling of an invitation to appreciate this inter-space, kansei descriptors specific to this project have been established: instantaneity and the elusive, and even more so their couple. What is remarkable is that this experience is engaging from the point of view of its expression, engaging by the gesture, and that its intensity comes from the fact that it is very short, unavoidable, and elusive: in an instant it engages us then liberates us, without us being able to really escape it, or do anything about it. That is the beauty of this design.
projects 03 September 2012 2012-09-03T16:27:15+02:00 Passage is a kansei design project on the in-between space carried out in 2012 by Gracia Goh, Chiyong Lim, and Kate Vermeyen at the Eindhoven University of Technology.