CN16 - The Ascendency of Process over Outcome: considering the challenges of how to present the object of research through design

Conveners: Ian Lambert, Peter Buwert, Ann Light, & Danielle Wilde

Research through Design is a process that has been absorbed into the mainstream but without consideration of what it fully entails. In this Conversation, we go back to the original sense of the term and look at how each of us might interpret and apply it in our work so that the notion of process is foregrounded. For some, this means taking the learning from processes that have not developed as expected. For others, it is about how societal or personal process itself may be designed. How can process itself be captured and presented? How can research whose primary material is inherently immaterial be adequately presented? The challenge is to find ways of presenting a dynamic narrative of research process, which remains accessible after the fact. The snap-shots and freeze-frames of still/video photography and artefacts produced and recorded during the research process are a trail of evidence left behind after the crime. How do we catch the research redhanded? In what ways can the dynamic immaterial research narrative be presented as its own ‘artefact’ rather than having to rely on second-hand documentation?

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