a trajectory of artificiality and new - krippendorff

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    Annenberg School for Communication

    Departmental Papers (ASC)

    University of Pennsylvania Year 1997

    A Trajectory of Artificiality and New

    Principles of Design for the Information

    Age

    Klaus KrippendorffUniversity of Pennsylvania, [email protected]

    This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons.

    http://repository.upenn.edu/asc papers/95

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    ATrajectory ofArtificialit jand New Principles of Design for the Information Age

    Klaus KrippendorffThe Annenherg School for Communication

    University of Pennsylvania

    ABSTRACTFrom a likely trajectory of design problems, the paper identifies several design ptinciples that can be expected to infonndesign in the next century. Underlying them is a shift in emphasis from teclmological to human considerations or fromhardware to information. Along this trajectory design mustincreasingly afford a diversity of meanings (as opposed torealizing fixed functions), respond to many stakeholders (asopposed to cater ing to serviceable end users), addressinteractivity and virtuality (as opposed to materiality), support heterarchies, dialogues, or conversations (as opposed to

    s t n r ~ i z i n g social practices), rely on a second-order science for design (as opposed to a first-order theorizing, byengineers or ergonomists for example), generate knowledgethat opens possibilities for design (as opposed to re-searching a past for previously existing constraints), develop graduate design education programs that continually rearticulatedesign discourses (as opposed to reproducing design traditions).KeywordsArtificiality,human centeredness, design principles, infonnation, interactivity, stake holders, discourse.INTRODUCTIONNot even thirty years ago, design meant industrial design:creating functional mass-products that would contribute aesthetically to material culture. Designers of that time elaborated its prototypes: fabrics, furniture, home and industrialappliances, as well as (industrialized) architecture and (reproducible) art. Dominating that time was the 19th centurydesign principle:

    Form Follows FunctionThis concern for production and functionality still exists invarious niches but has been surpassed by very different concerns ina world that is infinitely more complex, more immaterial, and more social in focus, a world in which diverse discourses reign side by side, and a world affOrded bymediatingtechnologies ofunprecedentedcarrying capacities. This worldof computation, of infonnation, of electronic networks hasseen a tremendous intel lectual growth in which HerbertSimonplayed an important role. I will relate the following toCopyright on this material is held by the author

    changes since Simon s pioneering work on The Sciences the rtiflcial (1969). Several of his theses have not bome thefruits they deserve. Others have been overcome by unforeseen developments that now pose exciting challengesNewprinciples of design, a new science for design, and a newkind of activism seems to be emerging. I want to correlatethese with a trajectory of artificiality that design should berealizing as it moves Oll

    ATRAJECTORY OF ARTIFICIALITYForme, this trajectory begins with the design ofproducts audpasses through five major classes of design problems. Eachreart iculates the preceding, thus generat ing a history inprogress:

    DISCOURSES generativity

    rearticulabilitysolidarity

    PROJE TSsocial viabilitydirectionalitycommitment

    MULTI-USER SYSTEMSinformaticityconnectivityaccessibility

    INTEIU ACESinteractivityunderstandabilityconfigurabilityladaptability

    GOODS, SERVICES, IDENTITIESmarketabilitysymbolic qualitiesprovincial aesthetics

    PRODUCTSutilityfunctionalityuniversal aesthetics

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    Products, largely industrial, are designed inviewof their util-ity,functionality, and an aesthetics that, for reasons of applying to large markets, claims universality. In pursuit ofthese,the responsibility ofdesigners coincides with thatof industrywhich tenninates with the end-products of industrial production. Products arc conceived for an ideally rational end-userand in disrespect of cultural diversities.Goods, Services, and (brand, corporate, ...) Identities aremarket and sales driven. Utility and functionality is secondary to recognition, attraction, and consumption. Goods, services and identities are products only in a metaphorical sensefor they reside largely in the attitudes, preferences, memories, loyalties, etc. of large populations of people. In developing them, designers are additionally concernedwith mar-ketability, with symbolic qualities thatare widely sharedwithintargeted consumer groups, and their work ultimately drivesthe generalization of commercial/industrial/corporate culturewith its diverse orprovincial aesthetics.Interfaces. Computers, simulators, and control devices areproducts in the above sense (and where designers concernthemselves with their appearances, they also treat them assuch). But more important is to see these non-trivial machines as extensions of the human mind, as amplifYing human intelligence. Miniaturization, digitalization, and electronics have made the structure of these intelligentmachinesnearly incomprehensible to ordinary users and thus shifteddesigners attention from internal architecture to the interactive languages through which they could be understood andused. Human-machine interactivity, understandability (userfriendliness and self-instruction), re configurability (programmability by users), and adaptability (to users habits)becamenewcriteria fordesign. The crown of such one-userat-a-time interfaces is (the idea of) virtual reality.Multi-user systems (uets) facilitate the coordination of human practices across space and time, whether these are information systems (e.g. scientific libraries, electronic banks, airplaneticketing), communication networks (e.g. the telephone,internet, WWW, MUDs), or the archaic one-way mass media. Designers ofmulti-user systems are concerned with theirinjormaticily, connectivity, and the social/mutual accessibil-ity they can provide to users.Projects can arise around particular technologies, drive themforward, but above all are embodied in human communicativepractices. Efforts to put humans on the moon, todevelopa program of graduate education in design for the infonnation age, etc. involve the co-ordination of many people.Projects are always narrated and have a point that attractscollaborators and motivates them to move it fonvard. Projectscan never bedesigned single-mindedly. Designers may launchprojects, become concerned with their soci l viability, withtheir directionality, and how committed its contributors are inpursuit of them, but no single person can control their fate.

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    Discourses live in communities ofpeoplewho collaborate inthe production of their community and everything that matters to it. yalways already beingmembers ofcommunities,designers can not escape being discursively involved witheach other and participate in the , Towth (or demise) of theircommunities. The design of discourses focuses on theirgenerativity (their capacity to bring forth novel practices),their rearticulability (their facility to provide understanding),and on the solidarity they create within a community. Thisworkshop is a perfect example ofcreating an albeit short livedcommunity that accomplishes things discursively.DESIGN PRINCIPLESAlong this trajectory of design problems, each progressivelycreates new challenges that need tobe met by new social ortechnical inventions. Each also brings new criteria into thedesign discourse and calls for new design principles that enable designers to move on. Let me elaborate nine ofthem asguidelines for future elaborationand inunediate research funding decisions: Meaniug is the ouly reality that mattersOne of the fundamental insights of product semantics for design is that people never respond to what things are but towhatthey mean to them. This has lead to the irrefutable axiomofdesign:

    Artifacts never survive within a culturewithout being meaningful their users.

    am suggesting that no contemporary design decisions canviolate this axiom. Designers who do invariably fail - orde-sign just for themselves and only accidentally for others withcompatible understanding. I should say that Simon had noappreciation ofthe significance ofmeanings. What matteredto him was an accurately conceived ontogeny, an engineering rationality that everyone had to (or should be trained to)comprehend and enact. Nobody could anticipate the socialconsequence of computational technology and the complexity of the infonnation we are now facing. His positivism leadto what we now recognize as an authoritarian epistemologywhich is no longer suitable in information-rich environments.In fact, as soon as we move beyond the engineering offunctional products, we need to be concemed with what they canpossiblymeanto users and with the multiple rationalities thatpeople can bring to bear on them. Consequently: Form doesnotfollowfunction ut meaning and design has make senseto others.Acknowledging meanings as a primary target ofdesign considerations is saying that the diversity of individual (user)conceptions matter as much as if no t more than the(techno)logic of the designers and engineers.2. Design lUust delegate itselfWhen developing simple functional products, designers canstill be experts in speci]ying how theyhave to look arid are to

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    function, much as engineers do. This mono-logical expertiseeroded when industrial products came to be considered asmarketable goods or services whose values depend on thepreferences of potential buyers. The design of goods, services, and various kinds of identities, granted users a voice,however minimal, in what entered the market. But the marketing of combinatorial systems of products enabled users tobecome local designers their own right, at home for example. Designing reconfignrable (programmable) compnters made it even clearer: In the infonnation age, designerscan no longer claim a monopoly on design. Design must bedelegated and dispersed witb the artifacts it creates. Arranging fnmitnre, composing home pages for the WWW, and pro-gramming computers are design activities indeed. Thepointof design lies in enabling others to do it as well, albeit withinthe confines of their ownresources. Desk top publishingmadegraphic designers the first victims of this principle. This technology enabled ordinary secretaries to do what graphic artists had done before. Unlike Md. s who manage to guardtheirprofession by licensing, design can not protect itselfthatway. Design is a fundamentally human activity. Professionaldesigners can only be ahead of others along a trajectory ofartificiality they pursue. In otherwords, design is not a privilege but a gift to other fellow hnman beings. is the willing-ness to boldly w lk where others h ve not re tre d3. Artifacts are create d in) networks of stake holdersThe ideaofan end-user is a myth that originatedin our preindnstrial past. Ind.nstry appropriated it as a way oflimitingits responsibility for its products. Designers who see themselves as user-advocates oftenreactagainst the single-mindedinterests of the providers of goods, services, and identities.None of these address what happens afterproducts are broughtinto circulation. Even the most traditional artifacts not onlylive different lives - as ideas, prototypes, merchandise, tools,symbols, museum objects, recyclable matter, or public problems - they also typically become a concern of very differentkinds ofpeople - investors, engineers, owners, users, bystanders, interests groups, consumeradvocates, ecologists, etc., eachclaiming a different stake in them. Virtnally every technology attracts stake holders in its support as well asin its opposition.At least since the widespread useof computers, stake holdershave become far more aware of each other than in previousperiods. They organize themselves through various mediaand are able to coordinate their interests and resistances towhat designers propose. While the designers of interfacestherefore can not ignore the stake holders and user culturesthat emerge around any idea or tec}mology, the designers ofprojects are of necessity parts of them. is only in snchnetworks that designers ideas can come to fruition.In addit ions to the polit ics enacted in networks of stakeholders, the design of information age artifacts also tend todraw on vastly different knowledge domains, requiring a kindof interdisciplinary cooperation that was previously unheard

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    of. This suggests the need ofa large scale democratization ofdesign decisions and the distribution of responsibilities to allthose willing to contribute their conceptual or material resources to the process. In architecture the beginning of thisattitnde has led to what is called participatory design. Theemerging collaborative technologies - from conference systems to concurrent engineering to rapid and distributed modeling - now offer radically new ways of bringing differentstake holders into communication with each other, especiallyincludingusers, even interested bystanders, critical opponents,or eager beneficiaries. Add to this the vast amount of textelectronically available, the result of this networking is a totally different environment for designers to practice.4. Interactivity replaces materialityTechnology resides less in its materiality than in its socialuses, in how users make things happen, create artifacts andhandle them in the presence of each other. After all, a wordending with -logy denotes knowledge, logic. Simon shiftedour attention from the ontology of the natural to the logic ofartificial, bnt failed to see that his very project dissolvedmaterial products into our dynamic relationships with them.Meanings too are made. They are not a property of surfaces(as presumed by styling) nor inscribed in static symbolisms(as marketers and designers of goods and services like to treatthem). Nor are they derivable from ergonomics or the kindof cognitive science that goes for formal logical accounts ofoperations and stimuli. They are invented and brought tobear by people needing to cope with particular artifacts orachieve something with them.As the hardware of computers exceeds user comprehension,interfaces came to mediate between human cognition andcomputational processes. We experience the design of human interfaces as the key to the human ilse of complex artifacts and, in retrospect, this has always been true, even forsimple tools. Product semantics concerns- i tself with suchmeaningful interactions, with how users make sense of andact on what they face, using compelling metaphors as aid tounderstanding, and building user instructions into software.Beyond interfaces, the interactivity that makes projects succced is largely coordinated by compelling narratives, by involving dialogues, which carry the notion of an interface to ahigher level , a lbeit mediating among even more complexhuman collaborators. Making infonnation systems usable islike making narratives compelling, andmeans designing - notproducts - but the affordances of human interactions. Interfaces are interactive gestalts without materiality.A minor but not unimportant addition: At the dawn of theinfonnation age, the small channel capacities then availablefavored mono-modal artifacts. For example, the telephonereduced multi-channel human communication to voice. Butthe kind of channel capacities now available allows designers to go back and provide for multi-modal interactive experiences. Virtual reality is trying to recapture these lost territories, albeit clumsily, coordinating intcractivity for several

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    sensory modalities at once, thus approximating the kind ofhuman involvementheretofore known onlyby being in touchwith real phenomena.5. Technology thrives in heterarchy not hierarchySimon wrote at the beginning of the computer age. One ofthe phenomena he explored was the architecture of artificialsystems that would succeed in various design environments.To make his point, he considered two watch makers whoseassembly collapses into its parts each time they are interruptedin their effort by a telephone order for more watches. Naturally, the one who designs holistically, with all parts organically interconnected, can not compete with the one who assembles sub-assemblies, componentsof components, etc. untilthe whole is completc. The latter strategy was also used inthe design of ENlAC, the first computer, built at the University of Pennsylvania, which faced a related problem: component failure. Thus, Simon came to celebrate hierarchy andthe kind of mono-logical rationality that is typically pursuedin the design ofhighlyfunctional products. This mono/technologic creates the need for integrating diversity into commonframeworks, for imposing standards and conventions by acentral authority, a government, a leading industry, or a deSIgner.At least since interfaces became a design concern, the valueof hierarchy, of formal (mono-logical) languages and of un iversal standards has come to be questioned. Simon could notanticipate our current trajectory of artificiality. He could notexperience that hierarchical systems of some complexityhardly survive in democratic,market oriented and user-drivencultures. By their very nature, infonnation networks mustafford considerable conceptual diversity, enable groups torealize themselves in them, and allow individuals to use infonnation in their own terms. The success of the good oldtelephone network and now the internet lies precisely in thefact of no restrictions on what can be said. The success ofinfonnation nets depends on their accessibility to multitudesof users, their substantial openness to different uses, and theirlack of proprietary standards. In information rich environments, the projects designers begin to tackle - share wares,educational programs, or corporate design policies - are nolonger centrally controllable, governable by a single objective, that is, hierarchically organizable. Design needs to operate with heterarchicai conceptions, embrace a great diversity of meanings, and negotiate its possible outcomes withothers. Projects need to provide spaces for a multiplicity ofrather different if not conflicting stake holders to enter, feelcomfortable, and leave their contributions behind. Althoughtraditional designers might decry the loss of control that hierarchies provided, chaos, heterarchy, diversity, and dialoguearc the new virtues of the infonnation age. As intervention design is not informed y r e ~ s e r hDesign intervenes in the present and creates new futures.Scientific research, by contrast, favors history and thrives onconstraints: The hyphen in re-search is intended to remind

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    us of its etymology: a re-examination of records already there,an extrapolation of past constraints into a future, searchingagain and again. re-search assumes that the logic of the pastwill govern the future as well. However, alongany trajectoryof artificiality, nothing ever truly repeats itself which is onereason why scientific predictions of teclmological developments have been notoriously flawed. For designers, what ischangeable is far more important thanwhatpersists. Sciencefiction, popularmyths, and designers imaginations turn outto be far better predictors of coming technologies than historical facts. Designers would seriously sabotage their ownmission by relying too heavily on re-search as a way of justifying the paths they are proposing to take. Re-search resultscan notrecognize newness. They systematically andmethodically fossilize history. Generating knowledge that could support design decisions means reversing the familiar process ofre-search. Instead of examining the past for generalizationsand continuing trends, designers have to search the presentfor possible ways to move into desirable futures. Scouting, way-searching, trail-blazing, or less metaphorical,pro-search may be a better way of naming the kind of empirical inquiries designers need to undertake. This calls formethods of inquiry that are radically different from traditionalre-search.But design is only partly about assembling parts into newandprogressively more sophisticated artifacts, which largely iswhat Simon had in mind. t also amounts to interventionsinto networks of ongoing user practices that change the social fabric of manypeople s lives. Some technologiesmerelyreplace old practices by newones. Others expand or limit thehorizon of human experience. All affect how peoples livetogether. I am suggesting that the commitment to the re-searchof a positivist science - which generates observer- and userindependentknowledge ofpast events - prevents us from coming to grips with the consequences of infonned actions in theminds of stake holders as well as au the technological developments they help to bring about. We need a very differeutkind of paradigm of inquiry, perhaps alongthe line ofDonaldSchon s Reflexive ractitioner certainly one that acknowl-edges the dynamics any design activity sets in motion.7. A science for design must he a second order scienceDesigning artifacts with as well as for use by others impliesknowledge of these others understanding. In an infonnationage, designers must either have this understanding or systematically acquire it. However, this understanding is not thekind of understanding we need to assemble functional products, the kind of knowledge that Simon extensively elaborated, orwhat is needed to design infonnation systems, whichSimon began to make available. tis designers understanding of users understanding, an understanding of understanding, or second-order understanding for short. Second-orderunderstanding assumes that others understanding is potentially different from ones own. By contrast, first-order un

    . derstanding, the kind of understanding that engineers needand the natural sciences have provided us for thousands of

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    years, completely ignores the conceptualizations that other)humans bring to it. First-order understanding is mono-logic,second-order understanding is multi-logic dialogic or interactive). Second order understanding radically breaks witht he w id el y sha red i ll usio n t ha t sci en ti st s c ou ld t ak e a G odseye view of the world and that all humans, conveniently excluding scientist, are biased, have distorted percemions, limited capacities, and therefore can not see the true nature ofthings. Second order understanding also is dynamic in that itaccounts for the possibility that artifacts change their meanin gs i n u se , t ha t new artifacts always intervene in their usersunderstanding, and tha t we too change our understanding inthe process of designing a rt ifac ts w it h a nd for o th ers. Int erf aces c an h ar dl y be developed with first-order knowledge unless the designer can i mp os e h is o r h er c onc ep tio ns o nevery user). In human communication, messages are sent inthe anticipation of their receiver s understanding. Thus, information always bridges t wo k in ds of understanding andcreates a dynamic interweaving of these understandings.Pro je ct s c an n ot possibly grow in first-order understanding.A second-order sciencegenerates a whollynew kindofknow -e dge w hi ch is c en tr al to d es ig n in an information age. Graduatedesign education must redesign designTo see graduate education as an institutionalizedway ofpre-paring designers for bet ter paying jobs w on ld n ot be worththe effort. To offer graduates an understanding of existingtrends, for example what the information society is all about,or to familiarize them w it h t he l at est t ec hn ol og y w ou ld n otbe enongh. Walking on a trajectoryofattificialitythat is pavedb y i ts a rt ifac ts means p ur su in g a v is io n t ha t is a he ad of itstime and rearticulating at e ac h s te p w ha t d es ig n is or couldbe. I s ug ge st t ha t graduate education should create designersthat are capable of critically examining and re-designing theintellectual infrastructure of t he ir d esig n c ommu ni ty . Thi sc al ls for developing design methodologies, enhancing theconceptual tools for design p ra ct ic es, a nd c re at in g n ew o pportunities for design as a profession. Design education wouldb e a natnral p la ce for d esig ne rs w it h a Ph. D. , but f ar m or eimportant is their creative contribution to design scholarship.Although Simon never envisioned design as moving along atrajectory of artificiality t hr ou gh a nd into r at he r d if fe re ntworlds, his writing prepared designers to embrace at least theworld of computers. He c on ld b e c on si de re d a mod el of thekind of scholars a graduate program in design should haveeducated 25 years ago.9. Design takes place in languagingSimon tanght ns, correctly wonld add, that the cognition ofliving organisms actually is q ui te simpl e. W ha t mak es t he irbehaviorappear to be so complex, is the complexity they facein their e nv ir on me nt . I must n ot e t ha t s uc h a s ta te me nt o ccurs in language and i mpl ic at es us, h uman s, in w ay s Simonhardly realized. Not only have contemporary artifacts increasingly become langnage like - they are recombinable into numerous forms, change their meanings in the contexts of theiruse, can be rearticulatcd by different users, and be reproduced

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    in different environments - the very environmental complexity that Simon talked of and we face indeed is the complexir-jof o ur l an gu ag in g wh ic h is n ot merel y u si ng a v oc ab ul aryinstrumentally, but l iv in g in c ommu ni ca ti on w it h o th ers).Product semantics is one approach to design that capitalizeso n t he rec og ni ti on t ha t d isti nc ti on s w it hi n a nd a mon g a rt ifacts are drawn in language, that the qualities we attribute toartifacts start withthose available in language, and t ha t d esig ne rs c oo pe ra te w it h e ac h o th er a nd w it h c li en ts i n a l an g ua ge they c an handle. L an gu age e na ble s d es ig ne rs to receive specifications, to make presentations to clients, to argue the virtues of particular design solutions, and to empirically inquire into the social roles that artifacts acquire withina culture. 99 of a ll d esig n o cc urs in t al k a nd i t i s a ma zi ngthat we s ee m to k no w a s little of o ur l an gu ag in g a s fish a rcsaid to know ofwater. This is not to downplay the role playedby other modes of interaction. Visual perception, tactile experiences, emotions, and kinesthetic senses ofour bodily being with artifacts undoubtedly arc central to design. But evenin this workshop, 99 ofwhat happens is talking, gesturing,projecting slides, and a written version of the contributions,this paper inclnded, will be on the WorldWide Web, printedin book form, and we all a re c on vi nc ed this will set theswitches for the shape ofdesign in an information age.I am suggesting that the road toward an information societyis paved by ou r own langnaging, by our developing adeqnatediscourses by which we generate the opportunities we desireand conceptualize all the artifactswe n ee d t o rea li ze to mov eon. D es ig n d is co ur se is w ha t k ee ps the c om mu ni ty of designers together. Design discourse generates artifacts whosemea ni ng s mat te r. D esig n d isco urse p ro vi de s t he g rou nd o nwhich institutions can thrive even those we mig ht n ot w ishn ot to n ou ri sh ). D esig n d isco urse e na bl es t he e du ca ti on ofdesigners, the teaching of design principles, the fonnulationof design methods, the public celebration of exemplars, aswell as the construction of guiding futures. Designing a discourse probably is the most humaD: way ofdesigning worlds,i nc lu di ng o urse lv es, for i t e mb ra ce s all its spe ak ers i n p ro p orti on to t he ir w il li ng ne ss to c on trib ut e t o , th e p ro ce ss. Adesign discourse contains all the principles of desigRI t ak e t he se l oo se ly worded design principles not merely asresponding to the infonnation technologies we know, but asi ni ti at in g a p ro ce ss b y w hi ch we can critically examine andconceptualize design and the history of artifacts to come.

    RECOMMENDATIONSWhen funding design efforts or scholarlywork towards newinformation technologies,NSF shouldgive preference to proposals whose investigators: ... respond to the multipli ity me nings different stakeholders or nsers may bring to a technology and resist the temptation of universalizing their own techno-logic.

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    delegate to users as m ny design decisions spossibledevelop frameworks or languages that encourage unanticipated uses, and avoid designs that leave others no interpretative spaces.3 commit themselves to work as partners with stake holders who quite naturally organize themselves around any proposal or idea and/or to create multi-disciplinary teams for realizing a proposal within networks of such stake holders - asopposed to providing ideal users with designer s solutions todesigner s problems.4....focus on human interactivity the design of interfacesand on treating artifacts primarily as reproducible gestalts inongoing, multi-modal, and language-like interactivepracticesand only secondarily as industrial and marketable products.The realityofinfonn tion products resides in human interaction or communication.5 favor heterarchy over hierarchy in infonnation designs,favor open non-proprietary software architectures over thecreation of inflexible standards (in the service of a dominantstake holder), andallowartifacts to develop lives oftheir ownin contrast to attempts to prescribe or control their use.6 , engage in pro-search (the systematic creation ofpresentlypossible paths towards desirable futures) rather than traditional re-search (the systematic extrapolation of past constraints and their projection into a future).7 contribute to a second-order science ofthe artificial toan understanding ofothers (stake holders ) understandingofartifacts, to conceptions of reality that embed others realityconstructions in that of the investigators - in opposition to afirst-order science that limits itself to orthodox and monological world constructions outside the (first-order) scientistand treats infonnation as unrelated to human concerns.8 encourage educational technologies and programs thatdrive a trajectory ofartificiality into the future by makingscholarly contributions to design discourse, conducting second-order inquiries into possible design practices, developing new interdisciplinary design methods, and testing the viability of critical appraisal techniques, claims, and arguments.In an information age, the new generation of design graduates have to be capable of continuously rearticulating (redesigning) design as a visionary profession, as a knowledgebased institution, and as a generative social practice. Traditional (art)historical approaches to design research and education shed light only on a past.9 are aware of their own languaging and constructivelyintervene into the interactions between language use perception reality and the coordination of design practicesexamine how different fOnTIS oflanguaging create (or close)alternative trajectories of artificiality, and critically evaluatethe viability of alternative professional design discourses.

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