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- Avila, Martin, 1972
(författare)
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Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies and speculates upon the interrelations of artefacts with human and nonhuman agents. These interrelations form assemblages, some of which have emergent properties, becoming manifestations of processes that we cannot fully control or understand. The work started by exploring the theme of hospitality and hostility with the ambition to better understand the ecological complexity of the design process and its results. As an assemblage, this work combines different literary, philosophical and theoretical discourses and traditions with experimental design in order to develop and articulate the concept of device. A device organizes, arranges, frames our environment and thereby defines and limits possibilities of relation. Since relations can only be thought through a so-called natural language such as English, they must be taken into consideration through the process of languaging, understood by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela as communication about communication”, and as the most characteristic feature of the human species. My focusing on linguistic and biological phenomena is a response to this concern, in an attempt to understand how this process influences our perception of the world. Through a series of design projects, the thesis examines the potential range of an artefact’s relations. It does so by exploring grammatical associations that affect design onceptualizations, creating tools (prepositiontools) as well as studying and articulating forms of symbiosis that an artefact might develop in and with its environment (¡Pestes!).
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| 2. |
- Göransson, Michelle, 1976-
(författare)
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Materlialiserade sexualiteter : om hur normer framträder, förhandlas och ges hållbarhet
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this dissertation is to analyse how conceptions of sexuality are interlinked with and formed through connections with different types of matter, and also to study what significance matter (that is, bodies, space and things) has in shaping and actuating norms, particularly heteronorms.The study is based on transcribed semi-structured interviews and go-along interviews with persons who deviate from the societal norm of man and the societal norm heterosexual. In addition, the material consists of signposts, spaces, architecture, legal documents and texts found on websites.The dissertation is mainly dedicated to the study of processes wherein bodies, things and space are linked together or separated. Bodies materialise as non-heterosexual (or heterosexual) in processes that entangle movements, spaces, things and language. Apart from analysing bodies as morphous, I also emphasise that the boundaries between bodies and things must be understood as transient. Things can integrate into bodies and limbs can turn into things. I also cast light on the fact that heteronorms are imprinted into matter such as the built environment. Boundaries are materialised, but LGBTQ- defined safe spaces are concurrently being formed. Such spaces tend to be transient in character. This stands in contrast to such things that tie into societal norms, which tend to survive the passing of time whether they be buildings, monuments or urban planning. Thus, norms are both created by and imprinted into matter. The memories, experiences and assumed needs of certain bodies and their ways of living together are given solidity. Spatially organised differences are, on the other hand, primarily accepted when packaged into events, temporary and clearly marked, which inadvertently highlight Sweden’s (imaginary) openness and diversity.
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| 3. |
- Willén, Maja, 1983-
(författare)
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Berättelser om den öppna planlösningens arkitektur : En studie av bostäder, boende och livsstil i det tidiga 2000-talets Sverige
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the beginning of the 21st century the open plan dwelling, i.e. open connections between reception areas and kitchen, has become an increasingly popular form of housing in Sweden. The aim of this thesis is to investigate narratives describing the life in open plan apartments, discussing (1) what they contain, (2) how they are constructed and distributed and (3) what social consequences they entail. These three questions have an immediate connection to the three levels of the critical discourse analysis formulated by Norman Fairclough where he analyses every instance of a discourse as simultaneously being text, discursive practice and social practice. The study has been accomplished in the newly built area Hammarby sjöstad in Stockholm through interviews with builders, architects and people living in open plan apartments. Articles in interior magazines describing an open plan lifestyle has also been taken into consideration. Three themes is being discussed, the first describing the social qualities imagined to be naturally embedded in the open plan architecture. The second highlights the idea of cooking as both a way of living and as a factor contributing to the popularity of the open housing design, and the last focuses on the open plan home as a place for self performance. At the text-level the material describes the impact of the open plan dwelling as a result of new interests, as dependent on new social habits and as a desire to put the home and the ongoing life on display. The ideas of what an open plan architecture actually can accomplish may, at a discoursive practice level, be given explanations from three main orders of discourse: the architectural, the market, and the good life order of discourse. The social practice level makes it obvious that the ideals concerning housing and lifestyle simultaneously reproduce old and create new social practices, taking into account cultural notions of gender relations, family life, social habits and questions of class.
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