INTRODUCTION:

“Tough guys don’t dance.” (Norman Mailer)

Three thematic components of this design conference – disaster, discourse and disorder – indicate three interrelated but relatively autonomous fields that highlight various aspects related to contemporary issues in design.  Design discourse involves the current language of design, i.e., the terms with which we conceptualize and talk about design.  Design management, design research and current issues in design are some of the specific topics that can be addressed within this framework.  This area of the conference includes presentations that seek to go beyond the over-asked question of “what is design?” and advocate a re-appraisal of accepted design conventions.

Definitions of design include such terms as plan, purpose, intention and function, besides others such as artistry and creativity that take central importance in definitions of art.  Plan, purpose, intention and function are concepts related to predictability and hence systematic thinking.  Systematic thinking in turn is related to order.  Design brings order to the relationship between us, and the objects that we use, see, and perceive.   Order, on the other hand, suggests a straightening out so as to eliminate confusion.  The function of design then, is to eliminate disorder, i.e., confusion, chaos, unpredictability.

All of this is based on a binary thinking which privileges purpose over idleness, function over dysfunction and order over disorder.  Order is a desirable attribute the failure of which ends up in disaster.  But how are order and disorder defined at first place; by whom; on what basis; and in whose interests?  What is the price that is paid in order to establish order and who pays for it?  Is order a historical concept having acquired different meanings in different contexts?  If so, what is the order of today’s world, bodies, objects?  Is it one or many or have we lost our sense of existence based on plan, predictability and order?  What is the meaning and role of design in relationship to changing notions of order? 

Disaster is related to order as one may define disaster as the breaking down or order.  Presentations that are included in this theme will address specific contexts when notions of order, control, social hierarchy and unity are rendered irrelevant.   Like order, the identification of disaster too may be dependent on context.  What counts as disaster for a particular culture, group or society may be regarded as victory for another.  Also, disaster may be seen as a precondition for the birth of novelty, especially in the field of design.  Hence the questions range from “what counts as disaster in design?” to “what is the place of design in a world of natural disasters, war, crime, cruelty and deprivation?”

The relationship between discourse, disaster, disorder and design calls for multi-disciplinary approaches and can be addressed from a variety of diverse theoretical perspectives such as science, metaphysics, phenomenology, post-structuralism, feminist and psychoanalytical theories, anthropology, evolutionary approaches, management, etc. Papers are invited to address contemporary or historical situations from clearly stated research experiences.