Schalk van Staden. Cosmosising Design Education
Channel: The New Art School
Date: 2020-11-06

Cosmosising Design Education aims to unpack notions of tacit knowledge, epistemologies of design, and the social to relook the processes of design education positively impacting on design educators and students. Cosmosisation in this case should be understood as seeing the individual as an observer and interpreter of the cosmos, the concept as a structure in which society is the matrix within which social sciences, politics, the individual and technology co-exist in a network. Insight into the relationships between the elements within this matrix (a kind of gathering point) is crucial. One then thinks of society, therefore, being constituted through/of this dynamic of relationships, and the concept is not limited to refer to a mere numerical collection of people but rather understanding what it is to be human, which is to understand the social/society, where the cosmos includes diverse elements relating to humans, but also the relationships they have with their life-world. So looking at the social paradigm as a network(ing) of relationships, the term ‘cosmos’, in turn, is used here to refer to the ‘common world’, meaning our everyday life, an interplay between human and non-human actors. Situated alongside theories of cosmopolitanism and branching theories of cosmopolitics, it is not beyond politics but that which allows questioning the common world by addressing aspects that relate and co-exist. It is a lens to look at reality from a holistic, relational perspective, and enables a “process of creating reality, cosmosising reality in order to create an environment filled with meaning”. In terms of design, it is important that the field of the philosophy of design unpacks ‘its’ epistemologies to establish the usefulness of the design practice and for each designer. Designers design for people and not things, the emphasis on the individual in design highlights the notion of experientiality. This experientiality signifies the meeting places formed by the relationships between the individual, the social, the cultural, deep social structures, and space. From an experiential design point of view, the epistemology of design currently resides within a predominantly modernist paradigm. This (still) current modernist classification in design practice is more linked to the object than the individual, or to the socio-spatial matrix within which the individual is co-immersed. One cannot rely on technology to educate designers about design by means of developing technical skills, soft skills, and theory that all have to interlink with one another in a practical forum. It is at this stage where one is to realise how we will continue the dialogue of a cosmosised design education between the individual, the social, and the design practice to further develop not only the dialogue of design within the design discipline but what the dialogue holds about the social, politics and the space they are in, and with design being political its politics need to be expressed but the foundation has to be set. Wanting to develop sensitised citizen designers, as educators, we will have to sensitise them about a deeper understanding of social issues, human behaviour and new ethical challenges they need to respond to in a global society. We have to make sure that design education allows for an experiential relation towards worldly issues, relooking the context of blended learning to allow the physical doing, the actual practice of design, dialogues being introduced and shaped, experiences expressed and investigated, all within a studio environment amongst other students and designers. The experientiality of design needs to come across in design education by cosmosising it. The design curriculum must move away from how pretty it looks on paper and focus on really establishing strong foundations of, core design skills and knowledge that include traditional drawing and illustration practices, dialogues, critical thinking, human-centredness, cosmologically reformulated epistemologies of design, integration of social and political ties - working processes and networking, practice research, and not be fooled by the showmanship of technology and being online.


LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/schalk-van-staden

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0SF3obovubKgRI7JjXBB8g/featured

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Please watch: "Design Education Talks Ep. 80 - Tony Pritchard" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1xo5ew0yg
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