Transdisciplinary Design

Toto, I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore

Posted on November 23, 2021

Almost exactly a year ago, I made a life-changing decision. It was completely unexpected, in that I hadn’t expected myself to actually take the leap I’d been thinking about for a while. A year ago, in the midst of the second-to-last set of final exams I would—fingers crossed—ever take, I decided to apply to my first design school. Up until that point, I had wholly planned on continuing to grad school for my undergraduate major of cognitive science. But on a wish of a whim, and with nothing resembling a proper design portfolio in the slightest, I applied. And now here I am.

The first question I asked myself upon arriving here at Parsons, though, was ‘What the hell am I doing here’? This had been my great goal, the decisive step I was taking towards making a positive impact in the world, and yet upon entering the program, I was struck by how far a leap I had actually taken. I wasn’t an artist, or a graphic designer, or product designer, or any other combination of the term. In fact, I’m not sure I would have even called myself a designer at all. I felt like it carried too much, held too many things that I couldn’t yet see myself as part of. But I was in a design school. So that meant I had to be a designer, right?

And although a few months have passed, it’s a question I still struggle with, to be honest. But I think I’ve had a breakthrough recently, if you’ll allow me the grace to brainstorm as we go. It started to sink in a little, just a smidge, when we read Forensic Architecture by Eyal Weizman. At first, this reading only highlighted the differences I felt from the essence of the program. I couldn’t help it; I think of myself as a scientist, who appreciates graphs and linear regression lines and the scientific method and good ol’ fashioned quantitative data. It was a genuine struggle for me to broaden my mind to accept the kind of work and information we were getting from our research methods and provocations. The struggle made reading about Weizman’s work, which utilized precise data collection and calculation to great effect, seem like a drink of cool, cool water in an arid desert. Here was something I could understand! Could connect to, trace from my background via through line to my present and potentially even to my future. I will admit here that a personal bias I am working to overcome is the sanctity of quantitative data, of science, as being somehow more ‘legitimate’ than other kinds of work. But this project felt like it checked all the preexisting boxes for me, and it made me so excited to learn about it. And then we had this discussion in class, about whether something like this could truly be considered big-D ‘Design’, or whether it was just creative work that happened to look a little like design from the right angle. And there was a small part of me that was chiming in, asking, Does it matter? Does it matter if we call it design, if the work is interesting and impactful and innovative? The label meant little to me; it was the work I cared about. But still, the question opened a Pandora’s box of further questions, and paradoxes, and discussions with fellow classmates, inside and outside the classroom. 

And then the next week we discussed, among other texts, Speculative Everything by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. And I had to reckon with my own dual identity as not just a self-identified scientist, but a writer as well, and of fantasy fiction to boot. Speculative design seemed like a siren-call to that part of me the same way that Weizman had appealed to my ‘rational’ side. Embracing creativity and imagination unbounded, in the hopes of trying to change minds, felt a lot like being a writer, and the authors’ statement about impactful change of reality relying on the shifting of the paradigms of our beliefs tracked with the impact I saw writing as having on authors and readers alike. But the notion also seemed to run counter with the more practicality-driven approach of Weizman that I had also so admired. And it raised questions of design’s responsibility towards actionable change, towards facing problems head on and allocating resources towards solving them directly instead of a practice that could be construed as simply ‘designing for other designers’. It felt like there were two forces at war inside me, pulling me in opposite directions. And below it all was the desire to understand what design truly was, and if I even fit the bill.

But the realization I am coming to, slowly, falteringly, erringly, with the knowledge that it is probably just a small stepping stone on the long journey I’m on, is that it doesn’t need to be a matter of one or the other. The duality I am envisioning exciting only in my own mind, my own perception of what it means to be in this field. And for that matter, I don’t even need to be a designer to ‘do design’. But I can call myself one if I want to. I had an amazing discussion with a fellow classmate about the notion of labels and design, and what I came to understand was that the label, the boundary line, is only there to help you. If it helps you to draw the line, to live within the space, then use it; if it doesn’t, cast it aside. There is so much science and structure and impact to the creativity, and likewise there is art and beauty and feeling in the science. They need not be enemies, or opposites. 

For me, to be a designer is to wear all the ‘hats’ you’ve accumulated over your life, and to let each function as an interchangeable lens suited for the current moment. I am at once a writer, and a scientist, and a woman of color, and a privileged 22-year old, and a person who just wants to help the world in what little ways she can. There is this idea I love from a book by Douglas Hofstader called I Am A Strange Loop, where he talks about the way we construct the ‘self’, and how it is a narrative we are spinning constantly to ourselves, woven into a tapestry of personhood. From this I take the idea that ‘I’ am simply the story I tell myself, and I am reminded just a smidge of Donna Haraway’s notion of the impact of a shift in paradigm. I use it here in application to my self and my own worldview: To tell the story is to weave it into my own. If I say I am a designer, then using my definition of ‘designer’ I will pursue that goal. And maybe it’s just for a moment, or for the problem at hand, or maybe even for a lifetime. It’s a heavy mantle, to be sure, and I’m still not sure if it’s the one for me, yet. But either way the hat is knit, waiting there unassumingly for me.

 

Bibliography:

-ramem101