| 1. |
- Amacker, Ariana, 1980, et al.
(author)
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Arts-Based Techniques in Process Research: Learning to See the Forest for the Trees
- 2022
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In: Doing Process research in organizations: Noticing Differently. - : Oxford University PressOxford. - 9780192849632 ; , s. 39-58
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this chapter we explore how mind-body techniques derived from arts-based pedagogy can inform process research. Following William James and John Dewey, our inquiry starts from direct experience as we aspire to ‘learn to see’ the forest for the trees both literally and figuratively. We develop a set-up to help guide intention, attention and connection, and experiment with and reflect on body-mind techniques. As we respond to our sensory and imaginative encounter with a forest, we find out how our integrated awareness in the present moment helps us learn to notice differently. We enact a shift in perspective from an entative view which focuses on the trees, to a processual view which focuses on the forest as a living organism. This shift enables a different relationship to the forest, helping us notice the continuity, relationality and temporality of the forest. These insights open up new possibilities for us as processual researchers.
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| 2. |
- Amacker, Ariana, 1980
(author)
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Embodied brand meaning through design aesthetics: An Underdog Brand Story
- 2014
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In: 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference. Design Management in an Era of Disruption.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper is an experimental contribution aimed at empirically exploring design as a method of managing the materiality of brand experiences. Little attention has been given to the importance of the sensory-perceptual encounters of the material qualities of brands, that to which the embodied aesthetic knowledge of design attends. The perspective of embodied cognition and John Dewey’s notion of art as experience serve as the theoretical and methodological underpinning for a design project of developing a personal brand. I use an artistic research approach to consider how my intersubjective experience of a personal brand, through the material management of my clothing, acquires meaning through both concrete qualities and abstract concepts that operate between me and others. The purpose is offer an (en)active, embodied orientation to design management and to challenge the predominant research assumption that brands meaning can be represented through primarily symbolic relationships. “Underdog” refers to this embodied perspective of design knowledge that is not considered in brand management research but gets filtered through cognitive research frameworks for understanding the symbolic dimension of brands or managerial decision making.
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| 3. |
- Amacker, Ariana, 1980
(author)
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Embodying Openness: A Pragmatist Exploration into the Aesthetic Experience of Design Form-Giving
- 2017
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis explores the tension between a reflective view of design and design as an embodied, aesthetic experience. Most research exploring the nature of design follows a tradition of practice-based design research, which aims to empirically establish what constitutes design by studying what designers do and say. The challenge with this observational approach is that it depends on design as an object of study and can therefore only deal with its rational or cognitive dimension. The inherently aesthetic and subjective dimension of the immediate perception of designing remains largely unexplored in design research. To address this lack of research, this project builds on the Classical Pragmatist non-dualistic view of experience and knowledge. In particular, drawing on Dewey’s thesis in Art as Experience, I explore the embodied, aesthetic dimension of design through investigating in detail my experience of the activity of form-giving. This methodological perspective maintains continuity between thinking-feeling in action and in terms of subject-object relations. From this non-dualist view, I critique the specific claim made by researchers and design practitioners who advocate that designers exhibit an attitude of openness that contributes to creativity. Assuming that openness is a quality that can be felt, I ask how this quality is felt in my experience of designing, and what openness means practically with regard to direct sensory and physical engagement and what it conceptually means in the way a designer approaches the world. To explore an integrated experience of designing in the present, I follow an artistic method of movement improvisation called Butoh. Butoh provides a specific context of inquiry for exploring perceptual and physical engagement in the present through a heightened state of somatic awareness. The empirical work is comprised of four direct experiences from my Butoh training that are examined through the lens of Pragmatism and embodied cognition. Together, they show how I actually engage my ‘self’ through concrete sensory, emotional, and feelingful frames of experience of form-giving in the present. This research makes theoretical and methodological contributions through developing an embodied, aesthetic perspective of practice-based and artistic approach to design. It suggests the potential of openness-capacity as a concept for understanding and actually practicing the type of creative approach attributed to a designer’s attitude of openness. It provides a critique of rational mechanisms underlying the contexts of design inquiry, as well as having practical implications for design education and the kinds of teaching and learning that support the creative, self-directed, exploratory capacities of designers.
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| 4. |
- Amacker, Ariana, 1980
(author)
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Surrendering to The Now. Improvisation and an embodied approach to serendipity
- 2019
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In: Design Journal. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1460-6925 .- 1756-3062. ; 22, s. 1841-1851
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper I want to call attention to an embodied perspective and the ability to practice serendipity. I draw on Classical Pragmatist philosophy to offer insights for understanding serendipity in immediate experience and its significance for inquiry. In particular, John Dewey's view of aesthetic experience offers a starting point for developing an articulation of the embodied relation to inquiry from an artistic approach. Dewey proposed that being deeply engaged in inquiry requires not only acting in controlled ways upon the world but also undergoing or surrendering to experience. I use his view of surrender to characterize a receptive yet active state of awareness open to stimuli and the imaginative sensing of possibilities, new perceptions, and new meanings. To illustrate the subject, I draw on my training with movement improvisation and the approach of Surrendering to The Now.
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| 5. |
- Hansson, Helena, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Crafting Play:ces - Urban play by co-creation
- 2013
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In: EAD Conference, April 17-19th, Gothenburg. ; 2013
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This workshop departs from an idea of a hands-on, co-crafting playground that explores the intersection of crafts, play, and space in new ways. It is also an exploration of how participatory crafts might be more than just a specialized crafter’s act of making and how play might become more than just a child’s activity. The notion of “play action space” is an extension of the standard urban playground, the physical equipment and space, to a participatory social process of making and crafting a play space. In this action space, we want to inspire and engage participants, including children, in play and interaction and perhaps discovery in their urban environments. By co-crafting an urban play space with children and citizens, this project aims to speculate on whether such a DIY craft activity could become a catalyst for: 1) collaboration and knowledge-sharing between different types of citizen roles such as amateurs and professional craftsmen, children and adults, producers and users, etc., 2) activating inactive spaces or even local livelihoods, 3) opening up for possibilities in what are normally thought as predefined, functionally determined urban environments, 3) new arenas for craft production, 5) encountering the unexpected and spurring the social imagination… The research questions for this project are: how can a “crafted action play space” act as a social platform for imagination, play, and co-creation between different stakeholders of different ages in the urban environment? The workshop is to be carried out in two phases. In the first phase students and teachers prototype crafted play spaces from willow tree, etc. In the second phase students will invite the public to engage. Let´s Play!
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| 6. |
- Rylander Eklund, Anna, 1972, et al.
(author)
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Design thinking as sensemaking—Developing a pragmatist theory of practice to (re)introduce sensibility
- 2022
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In: Journal of Product Innovation Management. - : Wiley. - 0737-6782 .- 1540-5885. ; 39:1, s. 24-43
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Design thinking is based on designers’ creative ways of working and is defined as a formal method for creative problem solving aimed at fostering innovation by harnessing “the designer's sensibility and methods.” The basic premise is that design “thinking” can be extracted and separated from the situated practice of designing in the studio. This approach has given rise to a widely accepted nomenclature for describing design which has improved communication between designers and managers, leading to massive interest in adoption of design thinking in management settings. However, due to a widespread implicit cognitivism in the literature, scholars find it difficult to explain the cultural and experiential qualities of design thinking and it tends to be presented as a fundamentally cognitive, problem-solving activity. We argue that these cognitivist tendencies preclude proper attention to and theorization of designers’ creative practice. We contend that the absence of a theory of practice prevents a deeper understanding of the contribution of design thinking to innovation, loses sight of the sensibility on which it relies, and hampers realization of the promise of design thinking. We develop an alternative theoretical perspective, grounded in a pragmatist theory of practice and the studio culture from which designers’ creative practice developed. This theoretical perspective allows design thinking to be understood as sensemaking, foregrounds imagination and improvisation as its core activities, and explains how sensibility is developed and nurtured. We review the design thinking literature through this pragmatist lens and discuss the implications for theory and practice of conceptualizing design thinking as sensemaking.
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