Ka mua, ka muri: Navigating the future of design education by drawing upon indigenous frameworks

We have not yet emerged into a post-COVID world. The future is fluid and unknown. As the Academy morphs under pressure, as design practitioners and educators attempt to respond to the shifting world – in the M?ori language, Te Ao Hurihuri – how might we manage such changes? There is an indigenous precedent of drawing upon the past to assist with present and future states – as the proverb ka mua ka muri indicates, ‘travelling backwards into the future,’ viewing the past spread out behind us, as we move into the unknown. Indigenous academics often draw inspiration from extant traditional viewpoints, reframing them as methodologies, and drawing on metaphor to shape solutions. Some of these frameworks, such as Te Whare Tapa Wh?, developed as a health-based model, have been adapted for educational purposes. Many examples of metaphor drawn from indigenous ways of thinking have also been adapted as design or designrelated methodologies. What is it about the power of metaphor, particularly indigenous ways of seeing, that might offer solutions for both student and teacher? One developing propositional model uses the Pacific voyager as exemplar for the student. Hohl cites Polynesian navigation an inspirational metaphor, where “navigating the vast Pacific Ocean without instruments, only using the sun, moon, stars, swells, clouds and birds as orienting cues to travel vast distances between Polynesian islands.”1 However, in these uncertain times, it becomes just as relevant for the academic staff member. As Reilly notes, using this analogy to situate two cultures working as one: “like two canoes, lashed together to achieve greater stability in the open seas … we must work together to ensure our ship keeps pointing towards calmer waters and to a future that benefits subsequent generations.”2 The goal in formulating this framework has been to extract guiding principles and construct a useful, applicable structure by drawing from research on twoexisting models based in Samoan and Hawaiian worldviews, synthesised via related M?ori concepts. Just as we expect our students to stretch their imaginations and challenge themselves, we the educators might also find courage in the face of the unknown,drawing strength from indigenous storytelling. Hohl describes the advantages of examining this approach: “People living on islands are highly aware of the limitedness of their resources, the precarious balance of their natural environment and the long wearing negative effects of unsustainable actions … from experience and observing the consequences of actions in a limited and confined environment necessarily lead to a sustainable culture in order for such a society to survive.”3 Calculated risks must be undertaken to navigate this space, as shown in this waka-navigator framework, adapted for potential use in a collaborative, studio-style classroom model. 1 Michael Hohl, “Living in Cybernetics: Polynesian Voyaging and Ecological Literacy as Models fordesign education, Kybernetes 44, 8/9 (October 2015). https://doi.org/ 10.1108/K-11-2014-0236.2 Michael P.J Reilly, “A Stranger to the Islands: Voice, Place and the Self in Indigenous Studies”(Inaugural Professorial Lecture, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2009).http://hdl.handle.net/10523/51833 Hohl, “Living in Cybernetics”.

Inquiry through practice: The brief as a pedagogical method for design research

Learning and teaching in areas that require high levels of creativity, like Design and Art, can differ from other educational domains and methodologies. It may consider the complexity involving emergent properties activated from the interaction between many variables, including the researchers’ participation in what is researched. Design-based research methodology provides navigation for teaching experiences where learning outcomes are forged using briefs as design experiments or a way to carry out formative research to test and refine educational principles derived from previous knowledge. In this study, the brief operated as a pedagogical method to combine academic conventions of design research and practice. Using a learning and teaching experience with Communication Design students in Aotearoa/New Zealand, this study presents the methods applied in a paper brief that integrated social, technical, and cognitive dimensions of knowledge construction. The brief “Auckland Plan 2050: Promoting and researching a design plan for a growing city” was delivered to level seven students over twelve weeks period and employed several studio-driven activities. As a pedagogical approach, the design studio provided a space that privileged imagination, reflection-in-action over the empirical and the rational. The studio valued the learner’s worldview: their geographic localities, culture, their communities and the impact of the design to a broader context. Understanding the dynamics given by these spaces created opportunities to consider design teaching methods that were collaborative, informal, generative, and supportive. The studio-driven classroom brought research and practice together, and offered social media and emerging technologies as a tool for iteration and communication processes. The brief shed light on Social Design and started with a hypothetical research question: How do design outcomes increase awareness of a real-world problem? Using a Council’s long-term plan for Auckland city, students investigate specific issues, and challenges communities will face and design solutions that were industry, research-driven and culturally reflecting Kaupapa M?ori values. During sessions with M?ori scholars, entrepreneurs, and the design community, the brief provided a discursive platform that converged the design industry, stakeholders, and academia. The reflection about this complex social, cultural, and ecological network considered Auckland’s inhabitants’ needs and aspirations, enlightening a social perspective to design students. As a result, students developed award-winning cohesive design artefacts and extensive exegetical contextual analysis and documentation of the process. The outcomes branched from diverse media forms, including branding, graphic design, wayfinding, UX/UI, AR, and VR technologies. The moderation process between designers, academic staff, and stakeholders during a 3-year cycle demonstrated a successful model for integrating industry expertise and academic rigour, crafted through a paradigm oriented by practice. Surveys with students indicated a positive response associated with designing under real-world settings, which increased engagement and provided strategic platforms for iteration, dialogue, collaboration, and cultural diversity.

Dream-based cartography: creative processes involving an imaginary Prague

This work aims to discuss aspects of artistic creation derived from dream speculation. Based on a dream that took place in the capital of Czechoslovakia, a region unknown to the dreamer, and which happened at the beginning of the quarantine period due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the research began on the internet using search mechanisms. In the evening event, in addition to its narrative elements, the journey through places that presented themselves vividly was of paramount importance, so the first stage arose from the researcher’s curiosity in verifying if there was any coincidence between the real Prague and the dream Prague. To her surprise, although there was no prior contact with systematized information about that location, coincidences were emerging. And these similarities allowed the initial elaboration of a data collection for the memories would not be lost and could be used in the future as tools for artistic creation. Somehow, that fact so unique and different from other experienced dream phenomena aroused a series of sensations and reflections on the possibility of incorporating the unforeseen and irrational element, which daily invades our senses when we are asleep, as a means of promoting academic inquiry and artistic research. In Antiquity, as the work of Artemidoro confirms, the dream had a cosmic dimension that was related to the mystical tradition and to the collectivity. However, the psychoanalytic conception, influential in western society since the first decades of the twentieth century, contributed to fixing the perception of the dream as a private event and that concerns only the individual dimension. At the same time, neuroscience favors a biological approach to dreaming, even though Sidarta Ribeiro is a dissonant voice in this environment and dedicates himself to research focused on the “oracle of the night”. The Brazilian neuroscientist says that, in his work, he identified a very intricate relationship between dreams and memory and a double temporal articulation: we dream as a way of remembering what we are and do, and also to prepare for the future. These reflections joined the coordinates collected by me during the aforementioned night experience. The conceptual project design that I provisionally called “Prague Dreamiary” started from a dream and proceeded, at first, with the help of Internet search engines. From there, a map was created that unites both objective information found on the networks and the translation of dreamed symbolic messages. The dream experience allowed a deviation in the search algorithms by means of private intuition, which contradicts the consensual rational tendency behind the “improvement” of the artificial intelligence of these mechanisms. In addition to the creation of “dream hyperlinks”, this process included bibliographic research and the creation of a digital banner for the online page that will contain more information about the work in process.

Game Design for Emotions: a practicebased research on the design of game emotional experience

This research focuses on the development of emotionally directed gaming experiences demonstrating how the same game, when subjected to targeted audiovisual changes that do not affect its rules, objectives, and mechanics, can provide different emotional experiences. These experiences are related to the psychological and player motivation profiles of each individual. To this end, the research was structured into four main parts. The first, theoretical-conceptual, explored game design, seeking to find structures and elements that make up a game and the experience it proposes. A bibliographic review was carried out on: the study of emotions, including different classification approaches; a study on the relationships established between player, avatar, and game environment; and the concept of emotional design, proposed by Don Norman. The second part, analytical-investigative, consisted of the case study of three games (Journey, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Thomas Was Alone) with different gaming experience proposals. They were analyzed using a methodology based on game design elements and their relationship with the levels of emotional design. In this way, it was possible to understand how the design of each game contributes to the creation/development of different emotional experiences. In the third part, a field research was carried out to collect the psychological (Big Five) and player motivation (Quantic Foundry) profiles, through the application of questionnaires. The participants were then divided into groups according to their profiles (psychological and player motivation) to participate in the second part of this stage. Based on the information gathered by the previous steps, a short game was developed. From it, changes in its design were made to generate modified versions that, maintaining the game structure and essential rules, proposed different experiences to the players. All games had a player performance information collection system developed specifically for the research. The games were then made available to participants from the previous stages, who answered a final questionnaire. The responses, as well as information about the players’ performance, were used both to assess how each game affected the perception and to verify whether the psychological and motivation profiles of the player help to understand the emotional experiences of the game. Thus, the fourth part consisted of putting the knowledge into practice and testing the hypotheses developed from the previous steps and listed below. The research showed that 1) the visual and sound aesthetic influence of a game can have a considerable impact on the experience of playing, even if it does not affect the game mechanically; 2) The Big Five psychological profile and the player motivation profile are related to the emotional gaming experiences and can be used to better understand them.

Considerations about exhibition design after the creation of an audiovisual display for the exhibition Paul Klee - Unstable Balance

In 2019, I was with the design team of the exhibition Paul Klee - Equilíbrio Instável, held in the various spaces of the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center, in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte. It was an exclusive exhibition for Brazil that brought together 120 works by the artist, from the collection of Zentrum Paul Klee from Bern, Switzerland. At that time, I made an audiovisual display on five screens, which presented to the visitors aspects of the artistic techniques developed and used by the artist in his vast work. This research is part of a broader one, on the use of audiovisual in expographic projects that is the subject of my doctoral thesis, in progress. At this moment, however, a reflection will be presented on this specific audiovisual display, held for the exhibition cited. Our goal was to look at the various tensions that apply to the process of construction of a piece of this type, from the point of view of the design project. As well as the search for the function performed by it within the exhibition project. To do this reflection we started with a contextualization of this modality of exhibition using as object of study its edition held at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center of São Paulo (CCBB-SP), looking at the spaces and their exhibition issues and its influence on the development of the project. We present, in the sequence, a description of the exhibition as a whole from the visitor point of view and from its catalog. Production files from this audiovisual display were researched, such as first drawings, scripts, concept development archives, photographic material and versions developed until its final. This material was observed from the concept of the creation networks, by Cecília Almeida Salles. We also held a dialogue with other members of the creative team, from different levels of the production process, in order to know the tensions that are applied in the production of this limited element of an expographic project like this. We saw, in this specific case of producing an audiovisual display, how each constituent element of an exhibition like this is traversed by tensions of various types, which are common within an exhibition design project, with many professionals from different areas involved. In addition to the identification of external factors that directly influence its production. We conclude then that the development of an exhibition is now inserted within what we know as a culture of design, which allows us to look at thistype of cultural manifestation as something that can no longer be limited to previous models of idealization of the exhibition space or abstain from the use of technologies and possibilities of connection with the public.

Quality of the practice-oriented education and adaptations of fashion disciplines by videoconference during the COVID-19 pandemic

The new Coronavirus pandemic has led Universidade Anhembi Morumbi undergraduate courses in Fashion Design and Fashion Business to maintain the educational activities of students, offering remote synchronous classes by video conference through the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra tool. As the educationalsystem was forced to migrate to the online environment, teachers found themselves challenged to deal with distance learning in online classrooms, aiming to reduce the distance, both physical and mental, and increase interactivity and communication with students, demonstrating pedagogical skills in their managerial role, and even providing technical support. Despite the challenges, teachers had to effectively facilitate teaching- learning through remote, synchronous video conferencing classes, while maintaining the experience of authentic, high-quality learning in which concerns student satisfaction rates. The referred article is a partial result of an ongoing research, which aims to assess the quality of practice-oriented teaching based on the case study of the Textile Technology and Surface Design courses by video conference during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the uncertainties of educational quality through this videoconferencing tool and the challenge of migrating to an online environment, new strategies have given base for preparing class material through graphic resources to ensure that the learning objectives were achieved. The theoretical-practical activities of the two courses investigated – physicalchemical analysis of textile fibers, fundamental ligaments, handloom, and stamping module – were adapted so that students could perform them without using or requesting any specific technical material. Based on a theoretical reference survey of active methodologies, with a view to the impact of the case study of the courses being analyzed and the relevance of the research focused on teaching-learning, an exploratory-descriptive survey is being carried out. Data shall be collected from students who have been organized in two groups, being 126 students from the Textile Technology course and 72 students from the Surface Design course, totaling 198 students. The frequency of students in each video conference is being monitored and the percentage of attendance must be equal to or greater than 90%, minimum. Of the 198 students, 155 students have had a presence equal to or above 90% and, of the 155 students, 128 have responded to the survey so far. Preliminary results show that 82% of the students interviewed were very satisfied with the quality of teaching-learning of the Textile Technology and Surface Design courses by video conference through the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra tool. The still ongoing research has revealed a positive result of the experience for the student: the quality of teaching-learning depends on the cognitive and social presence, not on technology. One may consider that the research has some limitations, as it comprehends a small group of students. Therefore, inferences cannot yet be made about other courses or faculty. Retention or approval rates have not yet been considered, since 98% of students have completed the subjects and been approved.

DEED – Design, Entertainment and Education Research Cluster View Activity Log

DEED is a Brazilian research cluster, a formally recognised group of researchers and practitioners whose expertise is applied to the fields of Arts and Design. DEED activities includes, but are not limited to, lectures, study groups, master and Ph.D. researches, seminars, work-in-progress meetings, workshops, networking events, and creative artefacts developments. While working in a research cluster context this can be observed as contributing to new knowledge and gain by means of practice outcomes in a wider community. DEED is an acronym for “Design, Entertainment, and Education” and also is a noun that can etymologically means “action”, “activity”, “fact”, “practice”, “deal”, “share”, “feat”, “accomplishment”, “writ”, “muniment”, “tool”, “device”, and “fact”. All of these meanings are potentially related to the scope of the research cluster’s activities, especially those interrelated to practice-based researches and deeds. In this text, we will present some initiatives and projects developed in a partnership with “Paço das Artes”, which is an art institution of the Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of São Paulo State (Brazil). During its 50 years of existence, the Paço das Artes has played a prominent role in the contemporary art and digital art scene in Brazil. Through this partnership, issues such as “digital museum”, “digital curatorship” and“digital collection” have been providing a broad discussion about the role of creative artefacts as the basis of the contribution to knowledge, and also about the role of research leading to new understandings about practice. The first initiative comes in 2016, when Paço das Artes was forced to vacate its headquarters, without having the definition of a new address. On thisoccasion, DEED organized “Games + Art”, an event with an exhibition of experimental games, lectures, and workshops. The event also debuts a work entitled “ExPaço” (a pun between the name “Paço das Artes” and something like “ex-space”). In this work, the public could “walk” through the threedimensional virtual space at the Paço das Artes headquarters, deliberately projected empty and abandoned. This work was also exhibited at the Computer Art Festival from Immersphere Fulldome Festival. In 2020, on the occasion of the launch of the new headquarters of Paço das Artes and celebration of its 50 years, DEED develops “Expaço VR”, an experience in Virtual Reality. In this work, the interactor could learn more about the history of Paço das Artes in a virtual tour through the five different headquarters occupied since its foundation. Currently, in addition to a mobile version, DEED is working on an online platform for digital artists based on the “Expaço” developing experience. Future improvements foresee the development of a (native) digital museum by 2022, the year that celebrates the centenary of the Modern Art Week - a turning point event for art in Brazil.

Ephemeral Architectures: the union of concepts in the creation of an immersive experience

This theoretical-methodological research aims a final graduation paper in the Architectures and Urbanism bachelor’s degree program, which corresponds to an activity of synthesis and integration of skills developed throughout the course. Therefore, it is proposed to create a Project of an ephemeral architecture, which explores the perception and sensitivity of visitors, through the interactive experiences given by it. The theoretical basis searches architectural practices that relate innovative Technologies, and which materialize through an immersive exhibition, which explores interactivity with the visitors, in order to stimulate human senses – such as touch, smell, taste and hearing. For this, it is taken advantage of organic shape study, relating the concepts of biomimetic design and parametric design in order to demystify complex formulas through computer generated algorithms. The evolution process of the new digital tools brings an approximation of graphical representation with the real world. The complexity of the architectural technical representation, reached a parameter that becomes impossible without the computer software. In this context, parametric architecture is a technique developed from software, which has the ability to perform complex calculations, in a clear and effective way, allowing the creation of complex shapes that allow to expand the creative process until then, limited by technical characteristics. The Project called “Feelings, an immersive experience is made up of six distinct spaces, divides by rooms for temporary exhibitions at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. The beginning of the Project route is given by the central octagon, where is thefirst installation that has a large scale, inspired by a spider web materialized through tensioned lycra fabric. The others rooms are based on the shape and characteristics of animals: 1) the Octopus tentacles, which stimulate the human touch, through holes in the Octopus suckers, that invite visitors to find out different textures; 2) butterfly cocoons shapes, containing aromas capsules, which stimulate the sense of smell; 3) silhouettes of marine jellyfish shelter the dripping system of a surprise flavor drop, which awaken the taste buds, sensory receptors of the tongue as sweet, bitter, salty, sours or umami; 4) the chameleon’s scalyskin, due to the ability to change colors, is taken to produce an interactive panel of lights that stimulates the sense of vision; 5) the structure of bird s taken to address the sense of hearing, by hiding speakers with sound effects that change according to the visitors interaction. All the structuring of these models used practices of digital architecture technologies. Finally, this research applies practical solutions based on three-dimensional graphic models for the representation of projects with complex shapes through intensive use of modeling, standing out for uniting concepts such as biomimetics and parametric in favor of the practice of innovative tools and still not so much explored in the Architecture and Urbanism course, promoting future research and expanding the repertoire within the area.

Cultural memory and its influence on jewelry design - a case study

This work intends to demonstrate the importance of cultural memory, rescuing what was left to us as a historical and cultural legacy by our ancestors. In this approach, the proposal is to build a jewel as a case study, in order to disseminate and value the influence of Japanese culture, with a millenary heritage of a people who worship their ancestors and who value craftsmanship and manual techniques. In view of this proposal, it is intended to discuss these relations between jewelry design and Japanese culture, to establish a cross between memory, history and cultural symbols, an articulation between tradition and contemporaneity. Jewelry as a vehicle for a place full of memories that connects cultures in time and space. It will be presented as references the work of jewelry designers Kazumi Nagano, known for her work in gold threads, paper and fabrics, and Kazuko Nishibayashi with structured jewelry, yet transmitting lightness and fluidity. In addition as a case study, and in dialogue with the proposed discussion, I will present the jewels that I have been developing starting from my oriental roots and my training as an architect, seeking to balance the jewels structured with the same concepts that are applied in architecture as per example form and function, textures and full and voids as well as the importance of Japanese cultural heritage, such as origami and shibori, an ancient technique of manual dyeing creating patterns in the fabric that consists of sewing, folding, tying or attaching the fabric to dip in tincture. It is understood that since the most remote times, jewelry is a form of communication, capable of expressing different cultures and the group belonging to it, jewelry has values attributed by each person and is recognized at different times and different peoples. However, the concept of jewelry in Japan differs from that of theWest, probably due to the secular conception of fashion. It was not common to use necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings in traditional clothing, being in charge of the use only by men and women of the nobility. In the rescue of Japanese cultural memory, the concept of what is or is not a jewel is manual work, the raw piece transformed into art and not its expensive raw material. Such memories of an ancient tradition make it possible to recover and rescue fragments that remain in memory that occupy a place in space. This cultural memory can be enhanced as it becomes “raw material” in jewelrydesign, rescuing ancestry keeping it in the present, an eternal return of these memories. It is the materialization of only a very tenuous part of a cultural heritage acquired from our past, manifesting itself as a trend, but in constant change. Therefore, in this theoretical-practical work, jewels reflecting ancient Japanese art will be presented as an inheritance for a contemporary world and as theoretical reflections such as Bergson, Deleuze and Nora clarify questions about memory as multiplicity, and how it articulates in the temporal planes evidencing cultural values of a place.

Tika Tonu AD2020: creating a virtual exhibition of Design artwork in response to the COVID-19

The year 2020 was marked by the economic and social challenges originating from the COVID-19 pandemic; measures were introduced to enforce social distancing in a battle against community transmission. Places like universities have been profoundly affected, forcing the adoption of new forms of delivery, where human contact was replaced with online classes on Blackboard. The industry was particularly affected, and many small offices and companies were forced to shut down, reducing the already-scarce professional work experience for students in the creative field. This industry component is part of the brief for Design students, and an essential part of the degree, offering opportunities for students to apply their learning in an authentic context. This project emerged, firstly, from a scenario without abundant opportunities for students to complete their 60 hours of professional experience, a year-3 component of the Bachelor of Communication Design. Secondly, the project functions as a contextual response to the current context of uncertainty attached to the year of 2020. In this sense, the main task for the research team was naturally decided to be the creation of a virtual exhibition, maintaining the tradition to have an annual graduation exhibition for the Communication Design cohort from AUT University. The goal of the project was to create an experience to satisfy the students’ need to exhibit their work in a world that has been transformed by restrictions due to the pandemic, added by the uncertainty produced by constant change in alert levels. The initial hypothesis is that the combination of a Human-Centred Design approach, Mixed Methods and Agile Prototyping could create the ideal environment for collaborative models that can be applied to complex problem-solving models in a rapidly changing world. The paradigm selected by the researchers determines the methodology, and this project connects to post-positivist paradigm, where the inquiry is concerned with the subjectivity of reality and moves away from the purely objective stance adopted by the logical positivists. The great challenge was to organise a collaborative model for tasks which overlap multiple roles and actors to create a technology product. This process is followed by a thorough review of the contextual knowledge, providing insights about strategies that informed the development of the virtual exhibition, including case- studies of previous examples in the field. Agile sessions were conducted to explore Mind Mapping, Canvas and Prototyping (analogue and digital) techniques. Project planning was presented and implemented while usability tests and surveys were conducted to verify if the goals were achieved. The (exhibition name – blind review) exhibition facilitated the option for users to engage in a virtual tour of the design work, which may be experienced beyond the launch date. The researches process was documented in the form of an exegesis and an oral presentation in the international conference.