Design Thinking

It seems to me that great creative works tend to be made by entities whose impulses are united by a single goal or sensibility. Whether that entity is a painter, a composer, or an entire medieval village building a gothic cathedral, the goal produces the work. With that in mind, ideas of ?audience involvement? become very iffy. I think that in a scenario needing a solution to a problem, audience (read:client) involvement can be extremely valuable. It can indicate what problems there are to be solved, after all. It can help articulate the project?s goals, always a good and necessary thing, and drawing and writing and anything else employed in this service is a good idea. However, in order for such involvement to be useful, it needs to come right at the beginning, and the goals it defines need to become the central ideas of the project. This seems to be exactly what didn?t happen in the ?cultural probes? project. Bill Gaver?s essay concerned itself primarily with the design of the ?probes? themselves, oblique questionnaires dripping with whimsy, with questions as relevant as ?If this place were New York, where would the Statue of Liberty go?? The project seemed calculated to make the design approach look wholistic, an attempt to ?apply conceptual art?, and give a veneer of progressiveness. The input of the clients and consumers of the work, those European senior citizens to be pitied, had no bearing on the project?s results that can be found in this essay. In fact, the supplementary footnote on Situationism is much longer than the section that addresses the probes? application. Under the heading ?Inspiration, not information?, it is explained the data gathered from the probes is to have an influence that is non-objective, which I read as notional, or interchangeably, negligible. However, as we read at the essays beginning, handing out those packets really livened up the designers? presentation, so I suppose we?ve learned that even useless audience involvement is not without use.

It is useful as gimmickry. As you might have guessed, when I see audience involvement, more often than not, I see gimmickry. Often it seems the creator has said ?Well, my own ideas don?t seem to be strong enough, let?s implicate someone else into this thing?spread the responsibility around.? Here is link to an artist who recreates childrens? drawings photographically, creating works that look awkward on purpose to imitate original works that can?t help but look so. If you don?t like it, you must not like kids.

http://www.yeondoojung.com/artworks_view_wonderland.php?no=88

Posted by Anna Gatlin on March 22, 2008 at 12:15 PM EDT #