<p> This study explores the role of metaphor in the system design process. It examines the ways in which the metaphors that designers use in design conversations become embodied in the systems that they are creating. It assumes that by making designers aware of their use of metaphor, they can better cope with the complex and dynamic nature of the challenges presented in design in a broadly ecological sense. The study focuses on inviting designers to address the question, <i>&ldquo;How do our joint improvisations with metaphors become embodied in the systems that we are creating?&rdquo;</i> </p><p> To create a frame for this collaborative exploration, literatures in system design, metaphor, metaphor in system design, and organizational improvisation are brought in. Design conversations, including reflections on those conversations, from a three-year action research project in which three system designers, including the author of this study, created a new method and a new system with awareness to the role of metaphor in the system design process, are analyzed. The findings show how persistent improvisations with several metaphors in the design process result in those metaphors becoming embodied in the system. Guided by an interpretive analysis of the data and the findings, a review of the literature in Sch&ouml;n&rsquo;s (1983) reflection-in-action, Sch&ouml;n&rsquo;s (1963/2011) displacement of concepts, Johnson&rsquo;s (2007) meaning of the body, and Turbayne&rsquo;s (1971) metaphor to myth transformation follows. Based on the insights emerging from this review, a model for reflexive reflections-in-interaction with meta-metaphors is created to support system designers in becoming more aware of their use of metaphor. </p><p> The model is tested with three episodes from the action research data. The results of that test suggest that the use of the model could have increased the awareness of the designers in this case study for metaphor as metaphor. It is assumed that this would have increased their capacity to consciously generate the system in a way better fit for its purpose. The study comes full circle by offering three ways to further develop theory, research, and practice to support system designers in consciously embodying metaphors in systems. </p>

This thesis critically analyses the implications of a now global capitalist modernity for Theodor W. Adorno's theory of art. The thesis takes as its starting point the sociological presuppositions at play in his social theory and problematises the spatial and historical dimensions in which they are embedded. The analysis of the process of homogenisation of social relations that Adorno presents as a constitutive feature of societies during monopoly capitalism brings to the fore the centrality of the state as administrator. This thesis claims that there is a spatial contradiction in Adorno's definition of society, given that the interconnectedness of capitalism as a system is negated by the restriction of that definition to industrialised societies. In other words, there is a universalisation of the particularity of industrialised societies underlying Adorno's social theory, that hides a functionalist understanding of the state and disavows its constitutive character for capitalist social relations. The introduction of an analysis of the particularity of the state in latin American societies serves as a counterpoint to the societies analysed by Adorno. latin American societies are analysed from the point of view of Dependency Theory, particularly in relation to Henrique Cardoso's and Enzo Faletto's concept of dependent development. This concept allows a further differentiation internal to latin American societies and problematises the common assumption that structural heterogeneity is a key concept for understanding these societies. Consequently, the thesis focuses its analysis on the socio-economic and political situation of the societies in the Southern Cone of South America, particularly Argentina, given their relative social homogenisation during the 1960s. The thesis claims that contrary to Adorno's assumption that capitalist social development destroys collective subjectivities while producing homogenisation, the Southern Cone societies show that development and relative social homogenisation in contexts of dependency do not necessarily produce political neutralisation but rather its opposite. The problematisation of Adorno's social theory is further complicated by the historical development of capitalism during neoliberalism. The decoupling of the spatial grounding of the relation between capital and labour constituted during monopoly capitalism is presented from the point of view of the radical transformation of Argentine society from the mid-1970s onwards. The thesis introduced the concept of the 'destruction of the social' in reference to the central role that the process of accumulation by dispossession, as theorised by David Harvey, has for the transformation of Argentina. Given this expanded global context, the thesis then discusses the effects that the transformation of the relation between capital and labour has for the conditions of production of artistic labour during neoliberalism. In particular, it claims that the 'developmentalist' dynamic that aligns technological development, industrialisation and artistic material in Adorno's concept of the new, has been problematised by the primacy of financial valorisation as a form of accumulation, and the dynamic role that accumulation by dispossession has in it. The emergence of a globally expanded labour theory of culture is analysed in relation to the contemporary art produced in Argentina between the late 1960s and the 2000s. The relation between the socially regressive tendencies developed during this period and artistic technique is analysed throguh the introduction of the notion of the 'return to craft.'

The main aim of theis thesis is to construct a critical concept of performance within a generic concept of art through a two-fold operation. Firstly, it reconstructs the development of a generic concept of performance - distinct from the performing arts - in the period of post-WWII art in North America by focusing on task-dance and the event-score as two emblematic artistic strategies of this period. Task-dance and event-score practices, it argues, had a central role in the practical transformation from a medium-specific to a generic concept of art. Secondly it examines the key philosophical concepts that are inseparable from a generic concept of art, and are necessary for the reconstruction of a generic concept of performance: 'practice', 'labour', 'autonomy', 'abstraction', 'medium', 'mediation', 'subject', 'object', 'structure' and 'abstraction'. The central argument of the thesis is that a critical reconstruction of the concept of performance within the context of post-WWII art must take into account a generic and a autonomous concept of art. The latter refers to a post-medium-specific concept of art, which is still autonomous in Theodor Adorno's understanding of the term: art as derived from, yet distinctively and formally separated from empirical reality. Embedded but formally abstracted from the social relations from which it comes, the category of 'performance', the thesis argues, is a practice of relations. It is a practice in the sensein which Karl Marx formulates practice in his early writings as social and sensuously empirical. It also refers to practice in the sense in which Marx articulates a radically new concept of the subject through this category. The thesis also aims to make a contribution to art theory through its critical methodology. It forces a reconsideration of performance within the framework of 'art in general', and more specifically, it emphasises dance's central role in this history. It employs a number of terms and categories central to task-dance and event-score practices that, it argues, are internal to the generic category performance as it operates within the context of a generic concept of art. The central problem from which this thesis sets out concerns the way in which the dominating concept of performance - derived from cultural theory - is used within art theory. Cutting across disciplines such as Cultural Studies, Performance Studies and Theatre Studies, this conception fails to distinguish between art and culture more generally, and between art and other modes of reality. In short, the thesis confronts a cultural concept of performance - and the related category of performativity - as well as its application to performance practices in art, with a critical one that is reconstructed through a different set of philosophical categories and methods. Chapter 1 argues that the development of a generic concept of art and performance is best described as a shift towards practice, primarily through Marx's account of this. Chapter 2 confronts art-theoretical conceptions of the event-score and task-dance, based in structuralism and pragmatism with Immanuel Kant, and demostrates how John Dewey;s notion of art relies on a conflated notion of Aristotle's practice/poiesis-distinction. Drawing on Husserl's 'phenomenological reduction' and Kant's 'acts of abstraction', Chapter 3 argues that they negation of a medium-specific conception of the object in event-score and task-dance practices constructed a new conception of the art object: the performative structure-object. Chapter 4 considers the role of negation in task-dance, in relation to Adorno's concept of autonomous art and Marx's notion of abstract labour. Chapter 5 demonstrates the way in which the performative-structure object is transcendental and performative, and argues that it must be understood as the practical condition for the generalisation of the category of performance within art.

Since the turn of the century art criticism in the West has repeatedly declare itself "in crisis". This crisis had several iterations: the loss of stable formal criteria by which to criticise artworks in the wake of conceptual art and a related abdication of aesthetic judgement; the increasing dominance of the art market as the arbiter of artistic value; the functional replacement of art critics by curators, and the inadequacy of extant models of criticism in the face of contemporary practices that challenge traditional critical categories, practices that despite operating in the institutional field of art seem to dissolve into non-artistic activities. This work reads most of these positions as remaining too attached to a model of criticism grounded on aesthetic judgement, even when this is described as "aesthetic experience", "aesthetic framing", "affective intensity" or others. Against such an attachment, this work argues that it is artistic autonomy as the self-reflexion and autopoiesis of the artwork - as already advanced by the early German Romantics and developed by Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno - that remains crucial: art as critique rather than a critique of art. With this in mind, rather than understanding the rise of curating as a threat to criticism, this work proposed that in the aftermath of what Thierry de Duve has called "art in general", it is within the institutional forms that have started to emerge in the wake of this new understanding of curating, that artistic autonomy can continue to be developed in the context of a globalised artworld.

No description available.

The usual method of designing a solution for a problem, which applies general principles to a specific situation, tends to overlook the unique features of each situation and so must inevitably efface the very structure of what it means to create, and so resolve diversity and plurality into blank uniformity. This is grave problem which a renewed attention to the individuality of things might help resolve. This project considers the criticism of several thinkers (including John Duns Scotus, Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, and J.C. Jones) on the schema of general and particular that undergirds the engineering design method. It then seeks to open up further the suggestions these thinkers have for a new approach to the design method not enthralled to an understanding of general categories, but grounded in a contemplation of the individual.

Private family garden + phenomenology + deconstructivism; alias landscape design cooking a la Czech is a thesis project the main purpose of which was to answer authors questions concerning the practical use of the two design approaches applied to project for a real site through a development of designs driven by the principles of the respective styles/movements. Emphasis were paid to the influence the movements have on architectural and garden design. Second aim was to investigate the appropriateness and usefulness of designing through a model creation in a miniaturised simulation of the real situation in three dimensions. Following, and the last step, was to investigate the effectiveness of the model to communicate and truthfully represent/simulate the impact of the proposed design interventions. Throughout the work on the project, stages and consecutive steps taken were recorded to document the process. Development of the project was divided into several phases. First, suitable site was chosen and data related to the property gathered. Second, phenomenology and deconstructivism had been studied - mainly through looking at precedent design work and development of visual annotated analysis. Third step, happening simultaneously with second, was creation of a model simulating the current state and conditions on the site. Fourth, preliminary design proposals were developed. As a reflection on step four, design guidelines were developed (step five) to provide more steady ground/base for development of a coherent and better focused final design, which was the product of step six. In the seventh step, a rough model of the final design was developed and had been gradually refined into a stage of a final model with minor changes to the design elements occurring throughout the process. The changes were executed as they became desirable after the three dimensional simulation of the proposed design was developed and a higher level of understanding of the spatial relations was achieved. In conclusion, a high effectiveness of the model "to tell the story" was observed and emphasized even further by digital photo-documentation targeted to "draw the viewer into the model space." Lessons about time demands for the model creation were learned and better level of understanding the way deconstructivism and phenomenology reflect in design work was achieved.

Traditional formalism of planting design within landscape architecture has two central faults; the objectification of plants and a focus on visual perception. This thesis proposes the correct appreciation of planting design is an aesthetic of engagement founded on interaction with the sublime in nature. Plants are the materiality of nature and design seeks to engender a phenomenological experience of landscape perceived through a series of events or encounters with the sublime. The aesthetic of engagement in planting design is articulated in four ways; direct engagement, indirect engagement, ethical engagement, and therapeutic engagement. Examples from contemporary projects verify an aesthetic of engagement for planting design. This thesis fills a gap in knowledge by providing a philosophical conceptualization of the aesthetics of planting design and a language through which to carry on dialogue over its presence. / The formalist tradition -- Sublime foundations of contemporary planting design -- The aesthetics of engagement -- A concluding example. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Private family garden + phenomenology + deconstructivism; alias landscape design cooking a la Czech is a thesis project the main purpose of which was to answer authors questions concerning the practical use of the two design approaches applied to project for a real site through a development of designs driven by the principles of the respective styles/movements. Emphasis were paid to the influence the movements have on architectural and garden design. Second aim was to investigate the appropriateness and usefulness of designing through a model creation in a miniaturised simulation of the real situation in three dimensions. Following, and the last step, was to investigate the effectiveness of the model to communicate and truthfully represent/simulate the impact of the proposed design interventions. Throughout the work on the project, stages and consecutive steps taken were recorded to document the process. Development of the project was divided into several phases. First, suitable site was chosen and data related to the property gathered. Second, phenomenology and deconstructivism had been studied - mainly through looking at precedent design work and development of visual annotated analysis. Third step, happening simultaneously with second, was creation of a model simulating the current state and conditions on the site. Fourth, preliminary design proposals were developed. As a reflection on step four, design guidelines were developed (step five) to provide more steady ground/base for development of a coherent and better focused final design, which was the product of step six. In the seventh step, a rough model of the final design was developed and had been gradually refined into a stage of a final model with minor changes to the design elements occurring throughout the process. The changes were executed as they became desirable after the three dimensional simulation of the proposed design was developed and a higher level of understanding of the spatial relations was achieved. In conclusion, a high effectiveness of the model "to tell the story" was observed and emphasized even further by digital photo-documentation targeted to "draw the viewer into the model space." Lessons about time demands for the model creation were learned and better level of understanding the way deconstructivism and phenomenology reflect in design work was achieved. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

This paper presents the design of a graphics subroutine library, MacPac, as a contribution to the development of a standard for future graphics packages. The need for a new graphics standard, and hence the motivation for the development of MacPac, is illustrated through a detailed discussion of existing graphics standards and systems. MacPac is based on a design philosophy developed by Mark Green for the next generation of graphics packages. It addresses the hardware and software ideas of the 80's, incorporating and building upon the valuable and tested ideas of a number of existing graphics systems. The design languages used in the development of MacPac were created by Mark Green for the design of user interfaces. This work examines the effectiveness of these languages in the design of a graphics system. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)