Title: Seeking Common Ground for Archaeology and Design
Abstract: Lily Diaz-Kommonen. Art, Fact, and Artifact Production. Design Research and Multidisciplinary Collaboration. (Publication series of University of Art and Design Helsinki, A 37). University of Art and Design, Helsinki, 2002. 272 pp. ISBN 951-558-107-9. (http://www.mlab.uiah.fi/Mulli/e_index.html) There is an urgent need for new frameworks of knowledge that enable us, not only to investigate, but also, to create, is final sentence Lily Diaz-Kommonen's doctoral thesis Art, Fact, and Artifact Production. The work is designer-artist's exploration of traditions of her own field and those of archaeology context of Illuminating History: Through Eyes of Media. The was collaborative effort which archaeologists from University of Turku and artists and designers from Media Lab at University of Art and Design Helsinki created hypermedia archive. The raw material for archive was finds and documentation from excavations at Late Iron Age and Early Medieval (c. 980-1280 AD) settlement site of Mulli Raisio south-western Finland. The created an opportunity to investigate different modes of representation humanities through use of new media and design and to examine area between visual arts and humanities. The thesis is an analysis of meeting of two distant worlds of designers and archaeologists. Its main research question is how design knowledge can defined, articulated, and represented within space of an academic collaborative endeavour (p. 13). The point of departure and envisioned journey is intriguing, but unfortunately this potential seeps away, page after page, like water through one's fingers. Diaz-Kommonen's focus is naturally on activity of designer and on concept of design. Her challenge is to find way to integrate theory and practice, her work design and analysis of that work. The core of her thesis is study of interaction between community of archaeologists and herself, and she adopts Alain Findeli's project-driven method to do this. The method is based on idea that theoretical inquiry in design research can be realized through work carried on as part of professional project (p. 40). The gap between theory and practice is reduced their dialogue, which designer sets motion her work. The description of design research, archive project, method and its application cover first two chapters of thesis. Terminology and theoretical framework are presented third chapter followed by comparative analysis of art, design and archaeology as activities and their part making archive chapters 4-9. In tenth and final chapter Diaz-Kommonen concludes that as design is the skin of culture, it can also be skin between arts and humanities. A designer can act as uniting mediator. Already introduction she describes unfortunate circumstances of project: Efforts to realize such collaboration were to large extent handicapped by fact that only Media Lab portion of proposal received funding; decision by funding authorities had deep impact on overall structure of project, as well as feasibility of attaining proposed objectives (p. 15). The attempts to develop common language were met with a lack of motivation resulting from not having clear enough idea of potential benefits on part of archaeologists (p. 165). Although circumstances undoubtedly have affected final outcome of Diaz- Kommonen's work, main problem lies its theoretical core, which, fact, hinders creation of interdisciplinary understanding. She puts forward her theoretical standpoint third chapter titled Activity theory, which refers to cultural-historical theory of activity. The theory was first developed by group of Russian psychologists 1920s and 1930s, central figure being Lev Vygotsky. …
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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