Theme session on Embodied Making and Learning at DRS-Conference, Brighton, 2016

Emal will arrange a themesession at the Design Research Society Conference in 2016 in Brighton, UK.

This is done together with the researchconsortium initiated at the  symposia LearnXDesign2015 in june 2015 in Chicago.

Additional theme 4. Embodied making and learning

SUB-CHAIR

Marte Sørebø Gulliksen, Telemark University College, Norway

CO-CONVENERS

Pirita Seitamaa Hakkarainen, Helsinki University, Finland
Maarit Mäkelä, Aalto University, Finland
Kirstine Riis, Telemark University College, Norway
Camilla Groth, Helsinki University, Finland

Being
immersed in a design process is an embodied process of making. In this
proposed thematic session we will call for papers that 1) explore the
phenomenon embodied making and the conditions for it within the wide
spectrum of design processes, and 2) how embodied making contribute to
learning during the design process. The term ‘design processes’ is used
in a broad sense: the focus is on the act of making, and the maker could
thus be everyone engaged in creative processes making objects in a
material (ranging from children’s whittling to the professional
carpenter, from the amateur knitter to the professional ceramist).

Papers
presented in this thematic session will explore the basic conditions
and consequences of being a body in the world, experiencing and learning
through working in materials. Possible topics could be related to e.g.
following keywords: making, creativity, and role of the body in design
practice. We encourage papers on interdisciplinary approaches and within
a variety of methods.

The context of the thematic session is the
collective endeavors of a research consortium formally established at
the LearnXDesign2015-conference in Chicago, June 2015 by researchers
from three research groups in Norway, Finland and Canada. At that
conference, the consortium held a full-day open symposium. Papers from that symposium will be published prior to the DRS-conference as a special issue of FORMakademisk.

The
aim of the thematic session is twofold. First, it will be a meeting
point of researchers from a variety of backgrounds to jointly share and
discuss their insights and ideas on the theme within the Design Research
Society, and secondly it will be a forum for the research consortium to
present their research to the larger DRS-community.

INDICATIVE REFERENCES

Gulliksen, M. S. (2015). Creative Cognition and Embodied Making. Paper presentation at LearnXDesign2015
Niedderer,
K. (2013). “Explorative Materiality and Knowledge. The Role of Creative
Exploration and Artefacts in Design Research.” FORMakademisk 6(2):
1-20.
Lopata, J. A. (2014). Creativity as a mental state: An EEG
study of musical improvisation. The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral
Studies. London, Ontario, Canada, University of Western Ontario. PhD:
161.
Mäkelä, Maarit (2007). Knowing through making: The role of
the artefact in practice-led research. Knowledge, Technology &
Policy, 20(3), 157-163.
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., et al. (2014). The promise of cognitive neuroscience in design studies. DRS2014. Umeå, Sweden.