How are designers able to surprise themselves in their design processes? And what role does design technology, such as InDesign, play in this?
As part of the practice-based Ph.D. project „My leib is my lab,“ several series of abstract graphic images were created, and serve as object of study as well as research method. The project investigates the open-ended creation and exploration of images, meaning, when a designer tries to intentionally destabilizie her own visual imagination and seeks to affectively and perceptually surprise herself. It is less important whether the designer factually surprises herself, but rather how she uses InDesign to explore and pursue unknown images. In particular, this practice-based design research aims to investigate how InDesign constitutes aesthetic decisions and shapes the process of image exploration. This question encompasses both the design and shaping of images with InDesign and the process of being shaped by InDesign.
For this research a total of 29 image series were created in indd/pdf format, each consiting of 1–54 design iterations. Based on these images, further visual compositions were created. The resulting images are design drafts with preliminary status, and are not implemented into analogue (e.g. print) media. This research project describes the creative body (“leib”) as an intimate space and “artistic laboratory” in which humans and technology co-create, where self-intervention and artistic process knowledge emerge, are technologically mediated, and become creatively productive. This practice-based design research operates at the intersection of communication design and art practice, as well as design theory and philosophy of technology, and is done in collaboration with the Institute for Digital Communication Environments at the Basel School of Art and Design (FHNW).
Mentors:
• Prof. Dr. Jan Willmann (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
• Prof. Michael Renner (Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel, FHNW)
• Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Michael Lüthy (Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart)
Further information:
https://www.nataschatuempel.de
https://www.transcript-open.de/author_id/0000036311