AN UN-NATURAL WORLD: THE DESIGNER AS TOURIST - Dancing with Disorder, EAD07, Izmir, April 2007
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Abstract

This paper examines the design researcher through exploring the notion of how design research resembles tourism. The paper characterises the theoretical plane as the Un-Natural World and tells an allegory of the Tourists Journey within it. The aim of this allegory is to show the nature, role and potential of design research within discourse and for the everyday. The paper first looks at the nature of discourse as the formation of patterns, then describes the Un-Natural World, outlines the different kinds of Designer as Tourists and the wellbeing they seek. The paper looks at the Tourist Journey as the process of design research and returning home as solidifying research into the artefact. The paper concludes with a recommendation for not just an ecology of the natural or an ecology of the artificial but also the ecology of the theoretical, suggesting that the design researcher, who spend most of their time travelling through the Un-Natural World, is in a good position to be the guide; to build an outline of the ecology of the theoretical in order to unite the disciplines in a discourse aimed at preventing disaster.

Introduction:

Design research is about dancing with disorder, a formation of patterns out of a dynamic array of possibilities. As Glanville suggests in Researching Design and Designing Research, patterns are a human construction (1999:85). To construct patterns of understanding is to create an artificial order out of the natural world, transforming the world out of the natural to form an Un-Natural World. This concept of the Un-Natural World has no physicality, it is the pattern created out of the process of knowing and knowledge; Quine’s web of belief or Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic network.

This paper considers how, in this virtual landscape of the Un-Natural World, the Designer is a Tourist. We book our tickets to somewhere, guidebook in hand, adding new destinations along the way, and return with something; souvenirs, tales, increased understanding of the diversity of our world, and an ability to reassess the scaffolding of our own constructed world. This allegory explores the Designer as Tourist, a Tourist aided by poly-lingual abilities and a constructivist world view that can enable an ease of travel through many different nations and cultures. The Designer as Tourist, travelling and exploring abroad, can integrate ideas from a vast variety of sources to form an interconnected understanding. This integrative approach has the potential to more effectively deal with the complex issues we face and aid in designing a more sustainable future.

Not all Designers have enough time as Tourists to travel widely or explore fully in order to gain an enriched interconnected understanding. Some are only able to get away for a short time, reliant on their guide and guide book for a swift and enriching trip. When the Designer as Tourist travels to another context, sometimes we seek solace in the similarities until we become adventurous enough to immerse ourselves in the differences. Those that are dependent on their guide book or tourist guide do not see past what is interpreted for them and miss those enriching experiences to be found off the tourist trails. Others are able to take the time to explore and discover their own routes for a unique perspective on the Un-Natural World. The Designer as Tourist who is able to immerse themselves in ‘The Journey’ is in a good position to re-write the guide book, enabling others an insight into unique perspectives of the Un-Natural World. The design researcher is the fulltime Designer as Tourist. The researcher travels, explores, notices, converses, assimilates, discerns and on returning home recounts their travel stories for the design world. It is the design researcher that has the time to find new routes through the Un-Natural World and is in a good position to take on the role of tourist guide.

Being a Tourist is about getting away, exploring the new, different and universal, in search of wellbeing. The Designer as Tourist is also motivated by wellbeing, a wellbeing that can be translated into designs for a habitable world. In the contemporary world the notions of wellbeing and sustaining habitability are of critical importance with the potential of looming disasters from climate change and social crises becoming ever more present. This drives the need for the Designer to travel widely through the Un-Natural World in order to find new ways of designing to avert possible disasters.

This paper will examine how design research resembles Tourism and explores its potential to fulfil the needs of the contemporary world.

For more information contact Viveka email: viveka.hocking@anu.edu.au

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