John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

used by architects (and others) as a design tool but also to make ‘fabricated
buildings’ and reflexive structures that evolve and respond intelligently to their
particular users and surroundings. As networked technologies become
embedded into objects the physical world is gaining digital qualities and the
environment is becoming able to respond directly to what ‘it’ senses. Objects
are becoming self-identifying, location-aware and self-documenting (Sterling,
2005). Art and design practitioners are beginning to create ‘4dspaces’ or
‘responsive environments’ (Bullivant, 2005 and 2006) that make use of sensors
and various other digital technologies and are designing the means by which we
interact with them.
Digital design and fabrication technologies are fundamentally interdisciplinary
and are radically changing how objects are conceived, designed and produced by
designer-makers from across art and design disciplines. Digital information can
be used for multiple purposes and this can ultimately lead to the breakdown of
boundaries between disciplines and the ability to produce objects that are
‘otherwise unobtainable’ (Harrod, 2002). This indicates an increased fluidity
between disciplines and the possibility for new models of disciplinary practice to
exist alongside traditional models. This development is significant as it suggests
expanded opportunities for practitioners and the possibility of a 3D digital
praxis which draws on the critical discourse of intersecting disciplinary
domains.
In the context of the use of computer-based design and fabrication tools the
definitions that separate artistic practice and design practice are becoming
increasingly difficult to characterise. The work being done by practitioners that
crosses these conventional disciplines might represent an expanded cultural
discourse. The reciprocal nature of this discourse between disciplines is more
important than the question of whether the activity is specifically ‘art’ or
‘design’. Coles (2005) has identified types of hybrid art and design practice.
These are ‘context-based’ where the practitioner operates either as an artist or
as a designer at any given time; ‘dialogistic’ where the practitioner works inbetween
disciplines in a highly reflexive or critical manner commenting on one
domain from another. This has led to the conception of a genuinely
simultaneous ‘hybrid’ model of practice that produced a new speculative type of
- 102 -