A first speculation on cultural experiments as design research methods

Abstract

This paper offers a reflection on design research and its forms and methods of cultural interventions, with the aim of contextualising it into the frame of complexity. The paper seeks to restate culture as a necessary element in the construction of a qualitative analytic that informs design discipline, in a contemporary moment where the strategic insights and discoveries valuable to innovation are more and more associated with artificial intelligence in its variety of forms, and cumbersome data processes. In the first part, we discuss the definitions of transculturality, context, and story, within the frame of design and complexity and, specifically, in the methods and tools we use to conduct design research, both in the way of developing the research process and conducting original design inquiries in the field. In the second part, we discuss culture practices in design research, presenting four experiments that we have been conducting in a transcultural context, and framing which use of culture is necessary to the production of research insights. The examples are discussed as ethnographic exercises in which transculturality is a process of subjective negotiation, when relative and progressive framing defines the context, and where stories include pluralism and allow diversity of interpretations. Because we aim to transform these cases of cultural exploration into structured research methods, we will discuss how ultimately they help to inform if and how the design that we do might be genuinely necessary.