Note: Defining a need

May 2007.

Internal presentation to my fellow researchers at LAPS. My focus has shifted to the design process itself. How does a design come into being? What kinds of processes of (dialogue, exchange, mutation, resistance, resonance, alteration, symbiosis, sympathy, embodiment, camouflage etc) are involved in its becoming? What kind of (visual) language is generated through this continuous in & out movement (in = what the world needs the design to be; out = what the design wants to be)? What does this third space look like?

I intend to produce a documentary, a moving image about the work of

If design had the courage to go where it wanted, where would it go to?*

There is a need to reposition ourselves as designers**
There is a need to validate what we do, or don’t do
There is a need to generate personal understandings
There is a need to explore new work spheres
There is a need to move beyond design***
Into relationships and behaviours

* What would it look like? How would things work? Can design emerge there where nobody expects it, where nobody needs it to solve a problem?  How can design produce meaning beyond the ‘project’? (Ole Bouman, Volume # 1)

**  A need to explore new boundaries, to create new centres of attentions, to raise issues through design, to work in the margins, away from the mainstream, a need to be specific and personal, to dare to be an outsider, to not want to be in the centre. There is a need to take risks.

** The term auto-activism defines the explorations or actions directed beyond the production of aesthetic forms to affect modes of practice and implementation. Can design re-invent itself?