Abstract
“We speak no longer of objects but of distinctions.” Niklas Luhmann (2012) This paper explores the evolution of a design framework grounded in two social constructs of time, or “chronotopes” (Gumbrecht, 2009): - historicist; and - “broad present”. Both concepts draw on Luhmann’s modern systems theory and second-order cybernetics. The historicist chronotope implies a self-reflexive interpreting subject, bodiless and detached from the object of observation. In contrast, the “broad present” focuses on immediate, sensory contact with the objects leading to the “production of presence” (a non-representational and non-meaning-related act of being “here and now”). The design framework presented here is characterized by a dynamic interplay/oscillation between these two temporalities. This approach has been applied in design for two major exhibitions displaying Polish heritage at the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow and the National Museum in Krakow. The paper gives a thorough analysis of strategies shaping the exhibitions’ concept as a case study of how the dual-temporality approach can be effectively employed. In the broader plan, the paper discusses the possibilities of operationalizing the epistemological model based on second-order cybernetics and systems theory in a design context: understanding is constructed in/for the present as a difference between the past and future; an observer encounters patterns within recurrent action and feedback processes and builds a coherent view of otherwise unreachable reality; these patterns, or “Eigenforms” (von Foerster, 2003), emerge from invariances in observation and sensing of the environment by an observer over a prolonged timespan. Design intervention articulates these distinctions.
Presenters
Piotr MichuraAssociate Professor, Chair of Visual Communication Design Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), Illinois, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Systems Theory, Second-Order Cybernetics, Eigenforms, Heritage, Visualization, Exhibition Design
