Toward A Constraint-Oriented Pragmatist Understanding Of Design Creativity
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Transcript of Toward A Constraint-Oriented Pragmatist Understanding Of Design Creativity
TOWARD A CONSTRAINT-ORIENTED PRAGMATIST UNDERSTANDING OF DESIGN CREATIVITY
MICHAEL MOSE BISKJAER & PETER DALSGAARD CENTRE FOR ADVANCED VISUALISATION AND INTERACTION (CAVI)
PARTICIPATORY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CENTRE (PIT)
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
DENMARK
Philosophy
DESIGN CREATIVITY
PRAGMATISM CONSTRAINTS
Creativity���
Aesthetics
Interaction design
CASES
AARHUS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARTS PARTICIPATORY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
CENTRE FOR ADVANCED VISUALIZATION AND
INTERACTION(CAVI)
(PIT)
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN RESEARCH
PARTICIPATORY METHODS���
THE EMERGENCE AND TRANSFORMATION OF DESIGN CONCEPTS
MAPPING AND ANALYSING WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DESIGN PROCESS...
(Dalsgaard, Halskov & Nielsen 2008)
... AS WELL AS WHAT HAPPENS IN USE SITUATIONS
PRAGMATISM AND DESIGN CREATIVITY
Situation���������
Inquiry ���
Transformation���������
Technology
A situated and emergent process,������which is explorative and characterised by reciprocal interplay between the designer and the environment ...
���... with the aim of transforming the situation through new insights and/or interventions������... and in which the designer employs a range of tools and techniques; these resources are often an essential part of the process.
Philosophy
DESIGN CREATIVITY
PRAGMATISM CONSTRAINTS
Creativity���
Aesthetics
Interaction design
CASES
AT A GLANCE
CONSTRAINTS
featured in all creativity-related domains and disciplines -
from philosophy, art, management, political and social
sciences to psychology, sports, medicine, and engineering
design. Thus, no transparent cross-disciplinary terminology.
Latin: ‘constringere‘ meaning ‘to restrain, compress, bind or
press together’ (the freedictionary.com/constrain)
‘Constraints are limitations on action. They set boundaries on
solutions’ (Vandenbosch & Gallagher 2004: 198)���
‘Constraints on thinking do not merely constrain, but also
make certain thoughts - certain mental structures - possible’ (Boden 2004: 46; Onarheim & Wiltschnig 2010)
ETYMOLOGY
BASIC DEFINITION
DUAL NATURE: RESTRAINING AND
ENABLING…
RESEARCH IN GENERAL LACK OF COMMON TERMINOLOGY
‘Constraints’ encompass creative choices, preferences,
obstructions, hindrances, requirements, demands, desires,,
conventions, expectations, limitations, rules, inabilities, etc.
CONSTRAINTS AS INTEGRAL TO DESIGN
A growing interest in constraints, from engineering design to
more art-oriented practices: ‘Formally, all design can be
thought of as constraint satisfaction, and one might be
tempted to propose global constraint satisfaction as a
universal solution for design.’ (Chandrasekaran 1990: 65).
CONSTRAINTS IN CREATIVITY RESEARCH
Necessary that coming creativity research looks much closer
toward the entwinement of constraints and creative agency –
and from several angles (Kaufman and Sternberg 2010)
DESIGN RESEARCH
CREATIVITY RESEARCH
MAIN CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS ���TO CONSTRAINT TYPOLOGIES
Bryan Lawson: How Designers Think (2006) DESIGN and ARCHITECTURE
Patricia D. Stokes: Creativity from Constraints (2006) PSYCHOLOGY and ART
Jon Elster: Ulysses Unbound (2000) PHILOPSOPHY and ‘AESTHETICS’
‘CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS’ Our proposal for an arts and humanities-based, domain-general unifying descriptor to address how constraints are inherent in and both restrain and enable creative processes.
Beneficial constraints
Incidental
Intrinsic Hard ↔ soft
Imposed
Essential Self-imposed
Hard ↔ soft
Hard ↔ Soft
Adapted from Elster 2000.
A BASIC FORMALIZED CONSTRAINT TYPOLOGY FOR ANALYZING CREATIVE PROCESSES
AESTHETIC STRATEGIES OF ENABLING CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS������CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS ���IN AVANT-GARDE ART ������
UNDER-CONSTRAINED PROBLEMS
OVER-CONSTRAINED PROBLEMS
Poetry Engineering Filmmaking
Adapted from Stacey & Eckert 2000.
LEVERAGE THE POTENTIAL FOR
CREATIVITY
A CROSS-DOMAIN CONTINUUM OF CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS
SELF-IMPOSED CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS
POPULAR LITERATURE ������
ALLEGED METHODS FOR FOSTERING CREATIVITY
������BALANCING ���CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS ‘THE SWEET SPOT’ OF CREATIVITY
Onarheim & Biskjaer (in press).
������BALANCING ���CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS ‘THE SWEET SPOT’ OF CREATIVITY
Onarheim & Biskjaer (in press).
CREATIVITY IN DESIGN ������
OR������
DESIGN CREATIVITY?
CREATIVITY IN DESIGN?
A topic understood in very diverse ways by several individual
conceptualizations. Addressed analytically and descriptively. (Askland, Ostwald & Williams 2010)
or
DESIGN CREATIVITY?
We understand ‘design’ as pertaining to a unique human
faculty for promoting intentional change and innovation
through exploration and reflection (Löwgren and Stolterman 2004).
Design is always culturally embedded. Thus, we argue that it is
profitably to inform design research proper by looking toward
the arts and humanities – both back and forward…
Philosophy
DESIGN CREATIVITY
PRAGMATISM CONSTRAINTS
Creativity���
Aesthetics
Interaction design
CASES
CONCLUSIONS
PRAGMATISM AND DESIGN CREATIVITY - A well-established school of thought that has already inspired and informed studies of
the design process and design thinking
- A nuanced and consistent conceptual framework that posits design creativity as an emergent, distributed, and technological phenomenon
CREATIVITY CONSTRAINTS AND DESIGN CREATIVITY - A pragmatist framework for cross-disciplinary analyses of design processes,
emphasizing the potential of proficient and innovative constraint management
- Analytical insights into ways to scaffold concrete case-tested methods for optimization of design processes based on enabling self-imposed creativity constraints
- A conceptual bridge for informing design studies with key cross-disciplinary findings
from the arts and humanities; findings based on pragmatist, exploratory case studies.
CONTACT
THANK YOU
Michael Mose Biskjaer
Peter Dalsgaard
Aarhus University, Denmark
Centre for Participatory IT (PIT)
www.cavi.dk
Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI)
www.pit.au.dk
For references, please see proceedings
REFERENCES REFERENCES:
Askland, H.H., Ostwald, M., Williams, A. 2010. Changing
Conceptualisations of Creativity in Design, in Desire '10: Proceedings
of the first conference on Creativity and Innovation in Design, Aarhus,
Denmark, 4-11
Löwgren, J., Stolterman, E. 2004. Thoughtful Interaction Design: A
Design Perspective on Information Technology. The MIT Press,
Massachusetts, USA
Boden, M.A. 2004. The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. 2
Routledge, London; New York
Onarheim, B., Wiltschnig, S. 2010. Opening and Constraining:
Constraints and Their Role in Creative Processes, in Desire '10:
Proceedings of the first conference on Creativity and Innovation in
Design, Aarhus, Denmark, 83-89