by Kevin Walker
Information is now seen to underlie biology, physics and chemistry as well as computation, and as a focal point it enables a redefinition of design from the perspective of natural systems.
Taking this view, what we refer to as things (microbes, companies, galaxies) are systems and processes— poetically and temporally-bound confluences of other things. Therefore instead of referring to discrete things, it makes more sense to think about how things connect with each other, of causes and effects. As in relational design as described above, meaning is found in the connections. According to Barad, ‘Space and time are phenomenal, that is, they are intra-actively produced in the making of phenomena; neither space nor time exist as determinate givens outside of phenomena” (Barad, 2007, p. 383).
This illustrates design as a system with a subject and object, with two-way feedback mechanisms (what Maturana (1997) calls recursive interactions, or what Barad (2007) calls ‘intra-actions’) occurring between them and on a level of descriptions (language) and actions. Feedback takes place not only between designer and audience on these levels, but also between the conceptions of the designer and his or her own actions, and the audience’s conceptions and actions.
In a quantum system, the scientist as subjective observer would be placed on the left, and the object of study on the right, wherein observations are mediated by tools, which indeed are seen to influence the described outcome. An important difference between science and the arts, however, is that science observes existing phenomena in seeking objective truth, whereas art and design exists to create new things in seeking change —in an audience or in broader terms.
Artistic experimentation with tools and materials can lead in unexpected directions. Similarly, taking a systems perspective means ceding some control and agency to the system, operating at different levels, and acknowledging the designer’s subjective role within a system—not least the technological, social, political and economic systems we live in. But we feel that this is where innovation arises: in the connections and feedback between designer and audience, language and action, information and experience; and between disparate fields of study.