Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Birmingham City University
Towards New Research Methodologies in Design: Shifting Inquiry away from the Unequivocal towards the Ambiguous
Taking the main premise developed in Overlooking the Visual (see output 1) into a new direction this chapter, commissioned by RMIT, examines the theoretical context of practice-based research inquiry and research through design.
Much design research is still compromised by irreconcilable dichotomies presumed to exist between visual and verbal, intelligence and emotions; aesthetic universal forms set against sensory undertows, form as opposed to content as well notions of creativity and the subconscious. This paper gives a new, anti-foundational rationale to inquiry in the arts from a completely different perspective, one that is dependent on rigour, expertise and an entirely different conception of epistemology.
Uniquely, it proposes a way of researching that rejects the idea of working with the concept of universal, inviolable truth whilst also avoiding being sucked into the argument that the only alternative is to believe everything is relative and dependent on a point of view.
The distinctive conclusion is that moving any inquiry away from the unequivocal towards the ambiguous is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of this paradigm shift – which is not just another way of saying that anything goes, but rather that work must be judged against different criteria.
In addition to contributing a better understanding of the value, potential and quality of design-based research, the chapter provides the basis for significant future research opportunities within a vastly expanded field design practice.
The work led to an invitation to make the keynote address at CELA, Illinois, 2012, to a collaboration with the University of Auburn in association with the HS2 Landscape Vision project in order to develop new ways of engaging communities with the materiality of place through the Mobile Drawing Studio (funded by the Arts Council), and has been used to underpin a suite of international professional and educational documents.
