When air informs and transforms the material, it enters into a reversible process, because while on the one side, inflating, allows for the visualisation of the projected form, on the other side its absence, deflation, returns it to its original state.

The role that air has played in history and design culture is primarily social and political, oriented towards a democratisation of design that has focused on environmental, social and economic sustainability at different factors of scale.

In fact, air can be an activator in processes of redefining spaces and products on different scales: from wearable products for the protection of workers at heights to seating, or upholstered furniture, or even the definition of pavilions for events and exhibitions. From experiments in visualising air to iridescent installations that change their shape as the weather changes.

The narration and clustering of the case studies brings out, with opportunities and potentialities given by the utilisation of the air material properties, also possible criticalities.

Through the use of contemporary tools and knowledge, one of the limits identified could be the consolidated air/plastic coupling, also considering the fact that plastic, in order to have the degree of elasticity and the mechanical performance found, must be virgin and not second-generation or recycled material.

It is therefore possible to argue that current materials research could identify in some bioplastics new horizons of meaning and project, as well as the prerequisite for a process of transformation of values, objectives and tools, being the promoter of innovation "through the introduction of elements endowed with ontological and not chronological novelty, new elements, therefore, or novel connections between existing elements" [27].

Air is therefore one of the centres on which design culture has gravitated and still gravitates, as are the sensorial perceptions that are amplified through it.

Always at the centre of many spectacularisation phenomena such as the "Museum of Dreamers" or the more recent "Baloon Museum" in Milan [28], air is as much the subject of works imagined to service the contemporary industry as of installations resulting from specific research.

Air is sometimes interpreted as a constructive and tangible element –such as a sculpture with an unexpected and monumental form– or as a metaphysical and suspended atmosphere.

Despite the uncritical spectacularisation of certain concepts, it is nevertheless well known how art can also be an anticipator of projectual directions. In Pelagius Palagi's work [29] of 1827, Isaac Newton is depicted intuiting the phenomenon of light refraction through the observation of a child playing with soap bubbles. In this way an artistic expression –a poetic work showing a playful action– becomes a revelation of a revolutionary scientific discovery that opens up new design possibilities.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **Evasion Design for the Novacene Era Design and Production of Cultural Imaginaries**

Mario Ciaramitaro and Pietro Costa(B)

Università Iuav di Venezia, Venice, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract.** In this paper we discuss the use of evasion design, an overlooked expression from Superstudio, as a tool for shaping the future and understanding the Novacene Era. We propose evasion design as a tool to orient RTD (Research Through Design) activities for future exploration in educational and business environments, where a team not only needs to understand what a future scenario might be, but also needs to create a public discussion around its inherent values. Evasion design is here presented and explained in its differences from speculative design, but also in its sharing qualities and purposes in expanding the design practice. The result is a framework that combines both the potential of an alternative visualbased imagery and a guiding conceptual approach in rethinking the narrative of the future. By hybridizing codified methodologies of speculative design and the approach of evasion design, the paper shows the results of several workshops, conducted at institutions and universities, where the hybrid process is implemented through a specific methodology.

**Keywords:** Design theory · Speculative design · Evasion design · Imaginary production · Scenarios

#### **1 Introduction**

This study is supported by the ESF research grant of the Veneto region entitled 'Scenari per progettare il futuro' ('Scenarios for designing the future'), which involved three universities - IUAV University of Venice, Ca' Foscari University of Venice and University of Padua - between 2020 and 2021. The research grant was aimed at investigating the crossroads between business scenarios and design scenarios in different sectors over a ten-year perspective, through market analysis and collaborations with companies by developing artefacts and prototypes.

Alongside this research project we chose to develop a parallel study about the possibility of translating speculative design methods to generate relevant questions within the field of investigation.

Since the 1990s, in the field of Management Science [1] a culture and literature has developed on how to explore new business possibilities through processes that transform what is identified as tacit knowledge of the present into useful knowledge that becomes meaningful. Using this approach, we worked on how to develop cultural imaginaries, selecting James Lovelock [2], Patrice Flichy [3] and Luciano Floridi [4] as reference authors.

Lovelock, after his research on the Gaia theory in the 1970s, once again introduced a new paradigm for rethinking our society. With the term 'Novacene', he identifies a new era in which humans will not be able to understand the future and only autonomous agents will be able to design society: "What is revolutionary about this moment is that the understanders of the future will not be humans but what I choose to call 'cyborgs' that will have designed and built themselves from the artificial intelligence systems we have already constructed" [2].

The quickest way to respond to this provocation might be to address the explicit agents of change such as AI, neural technologies, biohacks and their implications. But there might be an opportunity to predict possible research values and keywords before entering the Novacene Era completely. The objective of our research is therefore the exploration of these potential values.

This outlook is also supported by the approach suggested in 'The Internet Imaginaire' by Patrice Flichy, that says that the glue holding together the technical objects and the processes of collective construction of their social meaning would be the creation of a common purpose, a shared vision, or rather an imaginary: "What we witness is a collective vision or imaginaire. This vision is common to an entire profession or sector, rather than to a team or work collective. It concerns not only designers but also users, which is one of the strong points linking these two types of actors of technical activity" [3].

The collective vision steers biases towards certain forms rather than others and guides the processes of attribution of meaning and recognition.  Instead, the world is becoming an infosphere increasingly well adapted to ICTs' limited capacities. […] In a comparable way, we are adapting the environment to our smart technologies to make sure the latter can interact with it successfully" [4].

Lastly, we can add that this happens as an adaptive process where design, technology ideologies and imaginaries are interwoven in a specific context that carries its own set of values.

#### **2 Speculative Design Vs Evasion Design**

Given that machines can design future scenarios based on our current social constructions, how can we identify the Novacene's determining values?

To navigate such a complex scenario in search of its values, we used the tools of speculative design and combined them with "design d'evasione" ("evasive design") as defined by Superstudio [5].

The boundaries of speculative design are often difficult to define because they include both tools and conceptual approaches also shared with critical design, future studies, science fiction and many other perspectives: "The complexity that accompanies a critical examination of values coupled with the will to impact the world is a problem that needs to be carefully negotiated by both practitioners and audiences. The line that separates the actual and the possible is a thin one, and speculative designs thrive in the ambiguous, the artificial, the contradictory and the disputed" [6]. Speculative design offers a toolset for inquiry, which in addition acts as a mirror reflecting the role that a specific technology plays in our lives, stimulating thinking and discussion [7].

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby's famous A/B manifesto [8], summarises the critical and oppositional approach to design, which in short consists of design artefacts that show us the implications of the decisions we can still make towards a preferable future. In defining speculative design, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby stated that they looked to the radical architecture and design movements of the 1960s for their imaginative capacity, but they also contextualised them in the political fervour that fuelled those years. They also distanced themselves from an excessively utopian vision by opting for a more practical and codified approach: "Design became fully integrated into the neoliberal model of capitalism that emerged during the 1980s, and all other possibilities for design were soon viewed as economically unviable and therefore irrelevant" [8]. The two authors also argue that in capitalist society, there is no room for a shared social imagination, and that individualism has atomised the collective dream of progress, leaving only personal utopias. Finally, they rejected the thinking of the radical avant-gardes by emphasising once again the current context where resources appear fragile and limited and hopes replace dreams in the younger generations.

Dunne and Raby's criticism of a radical utopian approach is oriented towards the impossibility of using this perspective in the world of capital.

However, it can be observed that this radical utopian approach did not foresee any functionality within the society that generated it in the 1960s, and that the critical and antagonistic impulse was recognised as its main component, more by its being historicised than by its actual purpose, which proposed instead to expand the project dimension [9].

Furthermore, it can be argued that perhaps it was Dunne & Raby's choice not to cultivate a radical approach that led speculative design to become a tool for future scenarios in the service of societal development and management. Indeed, two decades after the introduction of the seminal work of Dunne & Raby Design Noir [10], speculative practices aren't focused on the same exploration of the limits of the discipline: "Speculative Design in 2020 is almost exclusively dystopian or openly market-oriented, and fails to rigorously and radically champion alternative futures outside closed circles, predictably begging to be accepted by a canon popularised at the Royal College of Art 15 years ago" [11].

At the same time, more general criticism is made of the innovative role of design itself [12], which struggles to create a space for collective discussion but instead fuels the unsustainable growth of society: "Then there has been the arrival of a whole host of what gets variously presented as quasi-progressive, innovatory, vangardist or radical 'advanced' modes of design theory and practice (sustainable design, speculative design, plus emotional design, experience design and so on). But in the end, they all fold back into extending the scope and services of a design industry predicated upon supporting the continual extension and regeneration of the structurally multidimensional unsustainable status quo" [13].

Further developing this point, we suggest adopting Superstudio's perspective of evasion design. Superstudio's work was characterized by a strong critical stance [14] towards the modernist tradition in architecture, attempting to challenge the functionalist and rationalist approach to design that had dominated the field in the post-war period. Its members believed that architecture had become too focused on the needs of the individual and the functional requirements of the building, while losing sight of the larger social and cultural contexts in which it was embedded. To challenge these dominant paradigms, Superstudio developed several provocative and experimental projects that explored alternative visions for the built environment [15]. Even though Superstudio's practice was devoted to architecture, it developed such a broad perspective that it has repeatedly allowed design practices to regenerate themselves through their antagonistic perspective.

In this regard, as we have already mentioned, the expression that could guide reasoning on the Novacene project is evasion design. First, it should be made clear that evasion design is more than a method, it is an approach. Described in Domus issue 475 in 1969, a charge of antagonism to society and dominant narratives of technological innovation can still be found in Superstudio's words. The first characteristic is that each artefact has not just a practical function but a contemplative function: "Every object has a practical function and a contemplative one: and it is the latter that design d'evasione seeks to potentiate. Thus, there is an end to the nineteenth-century myths of reason as the explanation of everything, the thousand variations on the theme of the four-legged chair, aerodynamic shapes and the sterilisation of dreams" [5].

This contemplative characteristic, which is surely also easily traceable within speculative design, is the source of Superstudio's reasoning: design is not just a set of rules to produce objects, but also the ignition of an alternative imaginary, which not only addresses the present, but also how to imagine the future. Evasion design aims to work on introducing foreign bodies into the system: objects laden with symbolism and images with the purpose of attracting attention, or arousing interest, to inspire further actions and behaviour. This conveys the idea that reality is nothing more than an object to be continually modelled and designed beyond current technical possibilities: "If on the contrary we face the problem of making our reckonings with reality at every moment, if we face the problem of living creatively, living truly that is, regular breathing is no longer enough and we must invent on each occasion the utensils for «doing things» and find the answer imposed by the big monopolies of truth" [5].

On the basis of these characteristics, we hypothesised that the introduction of a methodology for a contemplative gaze and a defuturing perspective may be relevant for the production of cultural imagery: "Every evasion of what-is is therefore also an evasion of what-could-be" [13] thus providing access to a suspended dimension of design, charged with antagonism but not necessarily future-oriented.

Of course, talking about evasion design today could imply many directions of research: one strand of research could be the idealisation of radical design as a fundamental movement and yearning for a return of the same energies of rupture in line with the aesthetics that accompanied them; at the same time, a more conceptual and theoretical perspective can avoid emulation by using these energies to ask how to act in design without becoming entangled in dominant methodologies and narratives, using the doubts about the shape of the future as a compass. The latter perspective is the one we find most effective in moving towards the Novacene.

#### **3 A Compass for the Novacene Era**

To develop cultural imaginaries for the Novacene, we combined the two perspectives of speculative and evasive design. We added the speculative design value of having a formalised critical design approach to the original design tension of evasion design, where the specific quality of the imagery becomes the key to reprogram discourse about the future. Speculative design is a codified process often based on narrative evocation as a function of a preferable future; evasive design is an invitation to an imaginative process. It does not address a specific preferable future but produces a divergent vision.

To test this approach combining speculative design and evasive design, we asked ourselves how a methodological design scheme such as the Double Diamond design process model [16] would transform.

In fact, if the design process was synthesised with a Double Diamond consisting of moments of divergence and convergence, the process of producing imagery generates a methodological change.

In the methodological diagram of Fig. 1, the process of divergence and convergence is interrupted by moments of deepening and development as a function reaching a final divergent moment that does not provide answers but leads to a discussion and definition of questions. Two phases are solely devoted to the exploration of visual language and its development, to preserve a charge of evasive imagination. The inherent quality of the images and concepts produced is what fuels the divergence from the contemporary narrative of what the future will be.

**Fig. 1.** Methodological framework designed to guide an evasive approach.

We tried to test this methodological pattern with different categories of people who question the future in different ways.

Designers are quite familiar with this type of methodology, as it is slightly different from a double diamond process. Instead, it was rather challenging to imagine business managers and brand ambassadors understand the approach of an evasive future. The latent question was how to translate such an image-oriented process to people who have a relationship with innovation through other, non-visual channels.

Figure 2 shows the results of the application of this methodology, which enhances the imagination before the design solution, within two workshops offered to design students at the Iuav University of Venice and dedicated to the design of future domestic spaces. In this case, both groups sought to problematise the same theme of how we will experience our digital memories within the home.

**Fig. 2.** Two different designs for a device managing digital memories. Università Iuav di Venezia, design workshops 2020-2021.

The image on the left shows a device that attempts to technologically create a possible engagement with our personal digital memories and allows them to be explored through a graphical interface.

On the other hand, the image is not immediately interpretable, as the emphasis is not on functionality or a preferable future but on a possible complex relationship or sensation with memories through digital media. The project thus becomes vaporous, atomised, not reflected in the presence or form of an object. At the same time, it is not a matter of activating a particularly complex narrative, as in the case of speculative scenarios that imagine a complex world, but only the basic elements that activate an imaginative process: it is not necessary to reach complexity to communicate the challenge identified by the project, nor is there any need to activate solution-oriented or object-oriented thinking.

#### **4 Acting on the Shared Imaginary**

The hypothesised methodological diagram acted as a guide to highlight the working phases of designers confronted with the problem of constructing cultural imagery. However, the diagram also offers the possibility of being adapted to situations where qualitative analysis is not immediately translated into a series of images, but instead into activities such as project brief creation and graphical facilitation [17]. In this sense, the imaginative quality found in the evasive approach is translated to existing formats in management and marketing practice.

The result tends to be close to the same reconfiguration of the innovation narrative, obviously adapted to the context of a more applied research, based on the company's values, and introducing a more evocative and, once again, contemplative narrative of the future.

The most effective method we have achieved, in our various attempts to translate the evasive approach to corporate managers and marketing agents has been the Future Pavilion format. Starting once again from a pre-existing cultural phenomenon such as the World Fairs, which also marked the imaginative roots of speculative design [18], we understood its value as a complex cultural device: an expo pavilion is a repository of the future, a promise, a compensation for current times, it helps us understand what we today define as the unknown. In this way, exhibitions provide the latent dimension of the future and determine "both patterns yet to be realised and comprehended (by future generations) and near futures that, as will be shown, become prescient simply by the fact of their being staged" [19].

The Future Pavillion is an exercise that guides one to imagine the values that a brand or company wants to uphold for the future of society, imagining that it does not present a product but a general idea of the future, choosing which aspects of today's society it wants to evolve and allowing it to emphasise the values that define the brand. The questions guiding this exercise can be summarised as: What values and visions of the future does the brand want to propose? What ideologies of the present is it based on?; What sensations should the pavilion convey?; Which objects that are not products of the brand could amplify this narrative of the future?

The result is a highly evocative project brief, which becomes a potential document to commission an experiential pavilion for a design studio. By drawing the managers' attention to the values and the possible scope for intervention that a brand might have in defining the technological future, a space of evasion from the brand's own product narrative is nurtured by constructing, albeit marketing-oriented, a public space for discussion. Once again, the idea is conveyed that reality is nothing more than an object to be continuously modelled and designed beyond the technical possibilities of today.

#### **5 Conclusion**

Tackling Dunne & Raby's opposition to radical design, we decided to create a thinking environment on top of Superstudio's evasive design. Evasive design and speculative design share many qualities and intentions: today speculative design is a codified process that has a clear position and role in the design world, looking for ways to achieve a preferable future; evasion design is an invitation for an imaginative process that looks outside the already established variations.

It doesn't address a preferable future, nor does it employ a linear evolution of time. It acts in the present moment, addressing design as capable of both changing our imagination of the future and our relationship with it.

A great challenge is certainly to bring these creative processes, which are very comprehensible within the design world, outside the design community. Opening to processes that are not solution- or product-oriented requires a dialogical situation and a space for confrontation. This assumption is what can unhinge the narrative of the present, qualitatively transforming the relationship with the imaginary.

When in 2019 Lovelock envisioned a society strongly focused on Artificial Intelligence and its impact over culture, the extraordinary effects of the democratisation of artificial intelligences in the production of images were not yet visible. Instead, today, in 2022, we are on the threshold of an epochal change: images of objects, products, and environments are easily synthesised through tools such as Dall-E and Midjourney, that can convert texts and keywords into images that mirror the databases they have been trained with. These powerful tools will undoubtedly enter into the design and production of cultural imagery by posing questions not only about the aesthetics of the future, but also about the possibility of divergence from its dominant narratives.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **The Physical Model as an Evolution of the Design Process: From the "Capostipite" to the Finished Product**

Alessandro Di Stefano(B) and Davide Paciotti

University of Camerino, School of Architecture and Design, Ascoli Piceno, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract.** The physical contact with the material, the giving of form while simultaneously verifying material consistency, curvature, and three-dimensionality, is an indispensable component of the designer's personal process in shaping the object to be produced. The physical model is the tool that has enabled designers to develop and validate their projects for successful industrial production. The paper explores the role of the physical model as a design tool and its contemporary evolution. It has, through the influence of increasingly advanced digital tools, acquired various functionalities, radically transforming the prototyping process. The model has increasingly become virtual from physical by means of more computational parametric and generative modelling software. With the evolution of rapid prototyping technologies into rapid additive manufacturing technologies, there is a shift from verification model to finished product, with performance characteristics comparable to an industrially manufactured object. This investigation made it possible to explain the main stages of change in the prototyping process in three graphics, where the constant shift from physical to digital can be seen. From a time-consuming process caused by making physical models mainly by manual work, to a short and digital process, making the main verification steps virtual.

**Keywords:** physical model · prototype · rapid production · additive processes · capostipite

#### **1 Introduction**

The industrial design project must be able to be told in a universal language, also beyond the defined systems of representation, such as technical drawing and representation, that would normally be used by the different players involved. For this reason, from the earliest evolutionary phases of the design process and throughout its realisation, the need arises to have a tangible, manipulable verification tool capable of similarly synthesising as broad a set of variables [1].

This tool is the physical model, diversified in relation to the design verifications made and to be made to the design project, which first consists of a series of formal and volumetric maquettes and then moves on to functional analysis models up to a final product prototype. Investigating the contemporary, compared to increasingly widespread digital implementation, it is interesting to discuss how the physical model has evolved, from its use to its meaning, within a process of innovation to support design by the designer. In the past, the design was mainly defined by the optimisation of geometries derived from manual work on the physical model, starting from an initial draft and arriving at its final form.

Today, the use of the physical model for design, realised through rapid additive manufacturing techniques, acquires a different value than in the past. It implements it function in support of the project from the aspect of optimising production within the design development process, decreasing verification phases and reducing production costs. In addition, the constant and rapid evolution of digital technologies is facilitating in industrial design, and in the role that the designer plays today, the transition from prototyping to rapid production in which the analysis prototype takes on a finished product configuration, thanks to more efficient rapid additive manufacturing technology and the development of increasingly high-performance materials.

Supporting this digital evolution, which is enabling a new way of producing objects, is the increasing computational efficiency of parametric and generative modelling software, through which the virtual model is defined with an increasing amount of data managed by the designer, transforming the model from physical to virtual and the "capostipite" from type model to finished product.

To better understand the role and evolution of the physical model in the design development phases, one must isolate the model. An iterative process that alternates between production and analytical phases until the final prototype is achieved, with optimal characteristics depending on the materials and production technologies assumed during design development. The phases were defined through a time chart, diversified by order of succession and execution time. Developing a single cycle in a linear fashion, the process starts with the choice of the type of material and the most suitable technique or technology, then moves on to the phase of realising the model, testing and refining, and finally to the phase of evaluating and analysing the characteristics. The graph serves as an element of investigation to understand how the process of making physical models has transformed and evolved through the influence of digital technologies.

First, the research investigated what role the physical model played in the product design process. From a tangible, manipulatable and updateable verification tool, capable of synthesising an ever-increasing set of variables and characterised by its own evolutionary timeline comprising a series of different types of models such as formal and volumetric maquettes, to a typology of functional analysis models useful for creating the prototype/model type defined by Dorfles as the "capostipite" for industrial production purposes. From Piero Polato's 1991 interview with Achille Castiglioni, it is possible to understand how the physical model played a fundamental role for the designer and how it contributed to the creation of the greatest products of design. In fact, when asked about the importance of the process of making physical models Achille Castiglioni replies: «I have always considered modelling as a fundamental moment in the process of an object project. Drawings, even the most sophisticated, are not enough: the creation of the model, often of several models, is an indispensable moment of verification of the first design hypothesis, it is the moment that allows you to establish a material, physical relationship with the object, continually intervening to correct details on a living reality that is tangibly modified. […] is also the moment in which the hypotheses for the use of materials find their match or highlight processing difficulties, possible inconsistencies in the designed solutions». The same thought emerges in Giovanni Sacchi, an undisputed master among model makers, who created models of objects that made Italian design history. When asked by Polato what kind of designer he liked to work with, Sacchi replied: «I prefer those who work manually, on the model, on the reality of the object. If one imposes the model based on the design, I find that wrong. [..] The model has a sensitivity, you can see it. Almost everyone now works on the model, and less on the design: the drawing is a sketch of the idea […] With the model you have the reality of the project.» [2]. The prototype can be defined as an artefact that approximates a characteristic (or several characteristics) of a product, service or system [3], or more specifically as a first specimen, an original model of a series of successive realisations built, mostly by hand, in its normal dimensions and susceptible to testing and refinement, on which series construction is then based. There are general trends in the way prototyping is approached. Some are driven by achieving specifications, while others focus on prototyping to explore and develop a new concept [4]. Every prototype requires a strategy to solve a problem. This strategy influences the nature of the information that can be explored and learned from the prototype [5]. Therefore, the prototyping strategy must be carefully planned [6]. Designers can explicitly consider the type of tests to be performed with the prototype [3]. A first typical taxonomic division is that between prototypes concerning form and those concerning function [3, 7, 8]. Another common distinction is the variable level of fidelity of a prototype to the final model [9,10]. A distinction is also made between virtual models (simulations, visualisations or computational approximations of behaviour) and physical models [10]. Thus, in the design development of an industrial product, prototypes and models can be grouped within a generalised prototyping process into five common categories: test prototype; form study prototype; user experience prototype; visual prototype; functional prototype.

In a first phase, the designer would make a "test prototype" to render the volume of the design and understand its actual three-dimensionality. In a second phase, a "form study prototype" was made to explore the dimensions and appearance of the product without simulating the actual function, implementing key details such as parts and components.

Its main purpose was to analytically validate its ergonomics and return the visual and formal aspects of the product. Another typology useful to designers was the "user experience prototype", where its function was to investigate the relationship between the product and the user. While intentionally not addressing possible aesthetic treatments, this type of model more accurately represents the overall dimensions, proportions, interfaces and conceptual articulation of the product.

Next, a "visual prototype" was made, intended as a means of verifying all those characteristics that we now call "soft qualities": simulating surface finishes; colours; textures and materials that characterise the product. It is a sample or model of a product built to test a concept or process or to serve as a visual aid to be replicated, improved and learnt from. The "visual prototyping" serves to provide an aesthetic vision of the product. The prototyping process ended with the realisation of the functional prototype in which all the features necessary to validate the design before it could be put into production were incorporated. The prototype conveys to a greater extent the practical attempt to simulate the final design, aesthetics, materials and functionality of the project. The construction of a fully functional full-scale prototype is the final test of the conceptual phase and is usually the final check for any design flaws. Analysis of the functional prototype allows improvements to be made before production. This prototype is referred to by Dorfles as the "capostipite" or "type model" because its role was to verify and compare against the products to be made, which had to be faithfully repeated. From the descriptions of these categories, a prototype can be defined as a verification product created for demonstration purposes and to test products before they are put into production. In fact, many of the advantages of prototyping relate to product refinement. Prototyping is used to validate requirements, reveal critical design issues [11], reduce errors [12], identify design changes that improve performance [13], optimise design features through sequential testing [14], design refinement through simulated use through individual or multiple tests [3] and at the same time as a time to establish a material/physical relationship with the object. The work on the physical model gave the opportunity to correct details or any inconsistencies in the solutions drawn on a living reality that was tangibly changing. To support this inherent analysis of the role the physical model played within the design process, an iterative time chart (Fig. 1a) was created that shows how the design phases varied in order of time and development. The development of physical models and prototypes took up a large part of the time allocated to product development, as once the first prototypes had been developed, they moved on to an analytical and testing phase to fine-tune their design and selection, which could either go back for a further design and prototyping cycle or move on to a production phase for the model type destined for series production.

#### **2 The Physical Model and the Relationship with Designers**

The evolution of manufacturing processes, with a focus on rapid prototyping processes, lead to substantial changes in form and result in important functional transformations and formal variations of the industrial product. The innovation process, driven by technological implementation and the evolution of prototyping processes, has been linked to incremental improvements in process and product quality achieved through an intuitive [15], very often unplanned and mostly practical path through the development of a series of physical study models. With the introduction of digital design tools, the classification of previously expressed types of prototypes and models undergoes a transformation. The "trial prototype" and "study of form", which until then were physical models made by manual or human-assisted machining techniques, become virtual prototypes using three-dimensional modelling software. 3D modelling is a process that defines any three-dimensional shape in a virtual space generated on a computer; these objects, called 3D models, are created using special software programmes, called 3D modellers. In computer graphics, three-dimensional modelling is the process of developing a coordinate-based mathematical representation of any surface of an object in three dimensions using specialised software by manipulating edges, vertices and polygons in a simulated 3D space. Three-dimensional models represent a physical body using a set of points in 3D space, connected by various geometric entities such as triangles, lines and curved surfaces. The opportunity to create three-dimensional models in virtual

#### 338 A. Di Stefano and D. Paciotti

**Fig. 1.** Graphical elaboration of the evolution of the prototyping to production process

environments brings the digital modeller an advantage: that of being able to implement, analyse and refine all design features by formulating a series of design variations. In addition, digital tools offer the possibility to go into the details of the project, evaluating surface finishes, fillets and chamfers, before producing the physical model through rapid prototyping.

With the development and introduction of rapid prototyping technologies, both the "user experience prototype", the "visual prototype" and the "functional prototype" achieve greater detail in their parts and greater surface definition, significantly reducing lead times. Rapid prototyping is a set of technologies used to rapidly produce a physical model of a product in its parts and components using three-dimensional CAD (Computer Aided Design) data. The production of a part or assembly of product parts is usually performed using 3D printing technology or "additive layer production". Through the rapid prototyping technologies of additive printing in all its technological and material variants (powder sintering printing, photopolymerization of liquid resins, etc.), the prototype acquires greater definition of details such as joints, movement of components, joints and hollow parts. In addition to significantly speeding up the prototyping process, the possibility of working in a virtual environment and the use of 3D printing as a manufacturing process leads to complex three-dimensional geometries. Furthermore, the materials that are used in rapid prototyping technologies take on a fundamental importance, namely that of prefiguring the performance characteristics of the materials chosen for industrial production. Resuming the time chart of the prototype development process, with the implementation of three-dimensional modelling and rapid prototyping utilising the layer-by-layer construction potential of additive printing technologies there is a shift in the phase of analysis and selection of virtual models (Fig. 1b) and a consequent reduction in the time required to produce the physical prototype. Although new technologies and prototyping techniques have made it possible to change the development processes of a prototype into the realisation of a physical, tangible model, it still plays a fundamental role as a tool for analysis and comparison, on which the designer can assess which modifications can be implemented to continue in the subsequent design phases.

#### **3 From Prototype to Product**

The evolution of digital prototyping and production technologies has changed the concept of the physical model. It went from "study model and functional analysis", useful in the design phase, to "functional prototype" to finished product.

What changes in the contemporary world compared to the past? Today, the designer has new tools and software for generating virtual models, which, through the implementation of tools and algorithms in information management, make modelling parametric and generative. Parametric modelling is a type of three-dimensional modelling that is based on relating components and parts of the model to each other through numerical values and construction constraints that are referred to as parameters. The parametric approach to modelling constitutes an innovation in the realisation and setting up of virtual 3D models, as it allows a series of modifications to be concatenated and modelling processes to be automated by acting on a given parameter to make a change. Generative modelling is an iterative design analysis process using a series of computational calculations that, using algorithms, generates a range of design solutions that satisfy a set of constraints and parameters.

At the same time, rapid prototyping technologies are evolving into "rapid manufacturing" technologies. Also known as "direct manufacturing", "direct fabrication", "digital manufacturing", it is defined as: "the use of an additive manufacturing process to build parts that are used directly as finished products or components". Rapid manufacturing can also be expressed as a branch of "additive manufacturing", which refers to technologies used to create physical models, prototypes, tools or finished parts. All those phases and types of prototyping are totally managed in a virtual environment and the phase of making physical models is transformed into a rapid production process that returns the finished product. The use of parametric and generative modelling makes it possible to simultaneously study a series of possibilities or formal alternatives through algorithms and numerical data, replacing the analytical and modification phase that used to be carried out on different types of physical models. This, due to the possibility of writing the parametric definition (i.e., the 'rules' guiding its formal genesis) which, after specifying a series of dimensional, quantitative and topological optimisation parameters, will generate a virtually infinite number of design solutions.

The designer can then assess which design solutions returned by the generative software will be useful for the development of the project. The shift from rapid prototyping towards rapid additive manufacturing, an increase in the performance of the materials used, the continuous evolution of digital technologies and a relative reduction in time, has made it possible to increase the performance level of models, as expressed in Polato's interview with Ettore Sottsass "[…] drawing cannot give an exact idea: we need models that are as perfect as possible, as close as possible to the object, to its tactile, sensorial qualities." [2]. Advanced tools (rapid production and advanced modelling) can cancel out those differences that previously characterised the quality and technical/physical performance of prototypes compared to products. Thus, the model made by additive manufacturing has, potentially, the same performance characteristics as a product made by an established productive technique (injection moulding, rotational moulding, etc.).

Within a few years, the technological development mentioned above allowed designers, through early experimentation, to understand the potential of rapid production tools and generative parametric modelling by producing the first experimental products (Fig. 2).

Early research into the study of form, where the prototype begins to take on the value of the finished product, can be found in Nendo's Diamond Chair for the 2008 Milan Design Week exhibition. Product made in rapid prototyping to highlight the positive aspects of the prototyping process. A few years earlier, the Finnish designer Janne Kyttänen, with his company 'Freedom of Creation', developed 'manifesto products' of a possible and desirable future, where objects would be manufactured through rapid prototyping processes. Ammar Eloueini's CoReFab product collection also epitomises the power of technological innovation in the field of rapid prototyping. The next step was, for the designer, to design using rapid production processes. The progressive advancement of technology has led to more affordable additive manufacturing processes, an increase in

**Fig. 2.** Example of a timeline synthesizing the evolution from prototype to product

buildable volume in a single process and increasingly high-performance printable materials. Joris Laarmann's design methodology and products produced in rapid production in recent years are an example of this. A design development that utilises the potential of generative modelling, as for example in the 'Aluminium Gradient Chair', where the designer experiments with the use of a gradient map arranged over the entire structure of the seat to distribute, according to the areas that undergo different intensities of stress, a greater or lesser density of material from a solid starting volume. Features that limit the production of the product to rapid production technologies only. Similar principles can be found when analysing the production of theMhox research group, where through projects and research they explore new production processes and technologies for design, with a focus on generative design and 3D printing for the innovation of wearable products. Manufacturers of additive manufacturing technologies, motivated by designers through early experimentation and the subsequent consolidation of rapid prototyping processes, have in recent years developed new types of materials for 3D printing. Performance materials that can withstand end-use applications, with performance comparable to the usual materials used in industrial production. The most significant example is the recent production of the companies Adidas and New Balance with their footwear collection. Soles or parts thereof are designed with complex, elastic and resilient lattice structures with energy return to increase walking comfort. Performance characteristics predicted and verified within the design process using digital generative modelling tools.

#### **4 Conclusions**

In the time chart of Fig. 1c, which defines the product development process through the implementation of generative parametric modelling and rapid production, there is an overlapping and merging of the phase of analysis and model selection with project progress, which are exclusively managed in the virtual environment. In addition, there is a possible shift from prototyping to rapid production, which will significantly shorten product development times. After analysing the role that the physical model has played in the past, as a tool to support the designer in the design process, and how today, thanks to new technologies, it has evolved, it is essential to highlight the transition that has taken the model or prototype from physical to virtual through a digitised prototyping process and simultaneously, through more efficient rapid additive manufacturing technology and the development of increasingly high-performance materials, to a transition of the 'master model' from model type to finished product. Furthermore, the "computational designer", understood as the designer who governs the new digital technologies, will still need to be able to use the evolved physical model as a tool for tangible comparison and verification.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **The Felicitating Factor. Cinzia Ruggeri's Clothing Project**

Elena Fava(B)

Università Iuav di Venezia, Venice, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract.** This paper sets out to shed light on the process that guided Cinzia Ruggeri in the elaboration of a unique clothing project that was eccentric to the 1980s Italian and international fashion scene, a process that allowed this *stilista* to activate collaborations with exponents of the world of art, design, literature, and music without disavowing the specificities of the fashion design practice. Cinzia Ruggeri was an atypical player inside the fashion system, presenting her creations at the Milanese prêt-à-porter fashion shows of the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, stating her autonomy from seasonal trends and her sincere interest for change. Far from considering fashion a reflection of social and cultural changes, Ruggeri understood the power of fashion in affecting and bringing about these changes. Fashion, so inextricably linked to the desire for novelty, and clothing design so intimately connected to the body, allowed her to address the gestures, behaviours and therefore the experience of reality in transformation. Over the years she experimented with shapes and materials, creating objects that could be intellectually and physically enjoyed, pervaded by a signature trait – the "felicitating factor" – stemming from her direct and shared experience in creating her fashion project.

**Keywords:** Fashion design · Cinzia Ruggeri · 1980s · performativity · felicitating factor

#### **1 Introduction**

The work of Cinzia Ruggeri (Milan, 1942–2019), although well-known among scholars, has enjoyed little critical acclaim. This artist-*stilista*-designer, often mentioned in literature dedicated to Italian fashion and design, as well as several of her works displayed in international exhibitions, have only recently enjoyed a new wave of attention coming especially from art critics, an attention matching the interpretation endorsed by those galleries with which Ruggeri began collaborating regularly in the 1990s.

A confirmation of this is the recent touring exhibition *Cinzia Ruggeri. Cinzia Says…* Curated by Luca Lo Pinto, artistic director of MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (MACRO, 14 April – 28 August 2022; Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London, 5 November 2022 – 12 February 2023). The exhibition and the monograph accompanying it [1] – the first dedicated to Cinzia Ruggeri – provides an overview of the multifaceted production and collaborations that Ruggeri, from the 1970s until her death in 2019, established with some of the most significant Italian and international design, art, literature, and music experiences and personalities.

Art, fashion and design were the fields Cinzia Ruggeri uninterruptedly explored in her research. She made her debut at only eighteen with a solo painting exhibition at the Prisma Gallery in Milan (16–31 December 1960); the exhibition was reviewed by the author Dino Buzzati with a fable-presentation with somewhat of a surreal note since it anticipates the fashion design career the young artist would later undertake with an internship at the Carven atelier in Paris and then in her father Guido Ruggeri's dressmaking business. Ruggeri made a name for herself as a *stilista*, designing the Bloom and Cinzia Ruggeri lines in the late 1970s and throughout the following decade, the 1980s, when Made in Italy production reached the peak of the its international success. At the very beginning of the 1990s, she abandoned the fashion system and transferred the experimental practice she had been carrying out on clothing to stronger collaboration with forniture and interior design companies on a broader environtamental scale, while increasing her exhibition activity interacting with art galleries, including Bianca Pilat (Milan), Luisa delle Piane (Milan), Federico Vavassori (Milan), Campoli Presti (Paris) and Francesca Pia (Zurich) [2].

It was in the 1980s, when her work as a *stilista* had reached its highest level of visibility, that a first critical review of Ruggeri's projects was produced. This was the decade of the epiphany of the Italian fashion system in the world, of the triumph of the *stilisti*, the years when talking about fashion became fashionable. The analysis of this phenomenon came from different academic and non-academic ambits, stemming from the need to attribute a respectability to fashion by tracing its interactions with architecture, art, and industrial design. An approach that according to Giannino Malossi perpetuated that "modern annoyance for fashion" [3] which paid the price of its "ornamental crime," its offence to the principles of parsimony and function, an approach grafting onto cultural aspects preventing a true understanding of fashion's unique nature, its close bond with the body, erotic drive, fantasies, and – as art historian Richard Martin underlined in 1996 when curator of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [4] – its manifest commercial component.

With her work Cinzia Ruggeri fuelled this debate. The critical literature dedicated to her fashion project has highlighted the significant interconnections between the frayed asymmetrical clothes of her Bloom line and the post-modern architecture by Venturi, Hollein, Wewerka and SITE, [5] and the reactivation of the experiences developed by the early-twentieth-century avant-gardes through her experimental take on textile design [6] and the communication potential of the objects of Cinzia Ruggeri's brand. [7] Critical studies have also underlined the peculiarity of Ruggeri's research that never refrained from crossing disciplinary boundaries, detecting an affinity with the radical experiences of Archizoom, Nanni Strada's projects [8] and the activity of Alchimia. [9] [10] Critical literature about Ruggeri has also covered her graphic production as an expression of specific cultural models, those of 1920s- and 1930s-Austrian and French culture, [11] according to a line of interpretation of fashion drawings started in the 1980s by Gloria Bianchino in the framework of the research conducted by CSAC – Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione of the University of Parma. Lastly, key factors in understanding the peculiarity of Ruggeri's production via the comparison with the composite mosaic of Italian and international fashion, have been the exhibition *Excess. Fashion and underground in the 80s* (Florence, Stazione Leopolda, 8 January – 8 February 2004) and its catalogue, both curated by Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi [12].

Although considering the above-mentioned critical interpretations, this paper sets out to analyse the process that guided Cinzia Ruggeri in the development of a precise and peculiar fashion project against the backdrop of the 1980s. Ruggeri's was a project permeated by a concept she herself called the "fattore felicitante" (felicitating factor), that component of pleasure originating from the desire to experiment with shapes and materials through the designing of clothes; a factor necessarily requiring the performative action of wearing clothes in order to enjoy the beauty contained in these felicitating objects.

The consultation and analysis of the objects and of the documentation preserved in the Cinzia Ruggeri archive in Milan carried out by the author on the occasion of the exhibition held at MACRO last spring, were decisive in undertaking this study, which is a continuation and extension of an ongoing path of research [13].

#### **2 The Felicitating Factor**

#### **2.1 For an Organic Way of Dressing**

*Per un vestire organico* (For an organic way of dressing) is the title of a video conceptualised by Cinzia Ruggeri and directed by Metamorphosi, that was at the photographic workshop entitled *Nuove tendenze italiane nella creazione di immagini. Arte percezione, realtà, visione* (Venice, Centro di documentazione Palazzo Fortuny, 12–17 December 1983). [14].

Although this video was intended for a photographic workshop, it is useful to understand the design attitude that over the 1980s guided the designer in her definition of the concept of fashion, confirming her inclination to work using different languages, and the importance that her activity as a *stilista* has had in the definition of post-modern aesthetics, as Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt have clarified in the exhibition *Postmodernism. Style and Subversion, 1970–1990* at the Victoria and Albert Museum (24 September 2011 –15 January 2012) [15].

The protagonist of the video is the dancer Valeria Magli, who provides the voice and the body of this "*poesia ballerina*" (dancing poem).[16] The space in which the video is set is the workshop-showroom in Via Crocefisso in Milan, made aethereal by the pink walls and by the presence of an angel that looks like the one standing next to the Virgin Mary in Piero della Francesca's Brera Altarpiece, and that in the video we see looking down from a mock pulpit, a copy of the balcony of Palazzo Farnese in Rome. The costume worn by the protagonist is a light-blue skin-tight bodysuit with strings and suckers, which turns the dancer into a sea creature – an octopus – that crawls, clings to and remains stuck to the objects it discovers around her.

Clothes, which in this case is a stage costume, activate a connection with the environment and show a breathing, vibrating, wanting body. A body that amplifies its communicational capacities thanks to a second skin that makes it "wired".

The meaning of the video is clarified in the words with which Ruggeri accompanies this project, words that sound like a declaration of intent: "Getting dressed is the first thing we do every morning: shabby, polished, 'normal.' Whether we want it or not, clothes are an (always intentional) display of ourselves." [17].

A fashion project therefore becomes a tool to explore the everyday gesture of getting dressed and implies an act of self-staging, and a relationship with space and time.

In an interview at the presentation of the works developed during the photographic workshop, the fashion designer defined the "felicitating factor" as the coefficient of pleasure that guides us in doing what we really believe in: if this is the attitude pervading the creative process, then the result is a product that contains "beauty" and thus makes its user happy too. [18].

A systematic analysis of the documentation preserved in the Cinzia Ruggeri Archive allowed us to ascertain how this expression was intentionally used to indicate the outcome of a design process stemming from her fashion project. The designer was already using it in 1978 when describing to the international press the debut of the first complete collection distributed with the Bloom label and sold in the Cynthia Ruggeri boutique that had been opened in Washington at the Watergate Hotel the previous year. [19] The "felicitating factor" also appears in the handwritten notes that accompanied the drawings of her clothes and objects she made after her participation in the Venetian event such as the *Fontana dell'amore* project designed for the Municipality of Lamezia Terme in 2001 (ACR).

#### **2.2 Shirts as a Manifesto**

Shirts were the original core of Bloom, the womenswear company established in 1972 of which Cinzia Ruggeri was sole director. Shirts were the item that accompanied Ruggeri's research until the 1980s when she decided to retire from the Milanese prêt-à-porter fashion shows. Shirts were a manifesto representative of a fashion object requiring the constant complicity of its user, of the mind and the body of the wearer.

From the outset she endowed this item of clothing, generally used to complement an outfit, with character, transforming it into an autonomous object with a strong narrative energy.

She worked on its lines, alternating and overlapping sinuous profiles and sharp edges. She played with the sartorial conventions of menswear, shifting the dickey or rotating the collar and the bowtie to the shoulder. She worked with materials, with a predilection for linen and silk, painting them or fraying them as if they were canvases.

Ruggeri's clothing project contemplated the extraordinary in the ordinary and this can be inferred by observing her drawings and even more when touching her clothes. At times she insisted on a flow, on an embroidery turning into a sophisticated erosion, or on compulsions, like that of women always playing with their necklaces. Emblematic in this respect is the series of shirts with mobile elements, designed to give meaning to a meaningless gesture. Instead of jewels she sewed on those elements offering a pretext to tell short personal stories: a chicken's egg rolling along a line becoming, as indicated on the label, a "Chereghin," a fried egg that in Lombardy is traditionally cooked in butter, a Scottish Terrier (Ruggeri's pet dog called Scherzi) coming out of his basket to pee, or an embroidered heart at the throat in a model called "Magone," an Italian expression for "a lump in your throat" (F/W 1981–82, ACR).

Sewn inside all her clothes are hidden labels with handwritten messages containing the name of the item and of the fabrics, which were especially made for every collection, and sometimes even quotes from a book, as in the small *Giorni felici* collection (S/S 1986, ACR), named after Samuel Beckett's play *Happy Days*. In the press release of the collection accompanying the presentation to buyers and journalists, the presented models are described as follows: "Sentimental clothing. Clothing for people who like this project. Its motivation does not lie in its practical efficiency, its 'beauty' consists in the love and magic with which it is presented, in the soul it contains." [20] These words are a reworking of an excerpt from the *Manifesto di Alchimia*, which sounds like a tribute to the research conducted in particular by Alessandro Guerriero and Alessandro Mendini, also testified by the collaboration that resulted in the design of six covers for the monthly magazine *Domus* in 1982, but in this case applied to fashion design. In fact, this is the field in which Ruggeri, the *stilista*-entrepreneur, publicly declared her fashion shows operated, safeguarding her design autonomy.

#### **2.3 The Daily Ritual of Getting Dressed**

The figurative potential that Cinzia Ruggeri recognized in clothes, and that she integrated in her sartorial production, translated into her way of showing and presenting her fashion proposals, in other words her communication style. The advertising campaigns and the collateral initiatives that accompanied the presentation of her clothing and accessory collections orchestrated by Ruggeri herself in the role of art director confirm this aspect.

An emblematic Bloom advertising campaign was the one created for the S/S 1978 collection, shot by Guido Cegani, and published on the pages of *Vogue Italia* in March 1978 with the model Pia Soreson in the role of the personification of nature or of the seasons. Apart from the clothes, the only element on the set is a black throne that, like a Proppian magical element, speaks of transformation.

Equally emblematic is the campaign shot by Occhiomagico launching the F/W 1981– 82 collection of the new line called Cinzia Ruggeri – a line that from 1981 was produced alongside the Bloom line. Even in this case Ruggeri used a throne. This time the models ironically interpreting the collections are the owners of the boutiques that used to buy and sell Ruggeri's collections around the world. With their imperfect bodies these models confirm the wearability of the clothes and that "felicitating" factor that is activated when they are worn (Fig. 1, 2).

#### **2.4 Clothes as a Scenic Object**

For Cinzia Ruggeri the act of choosing our clothes is always an intentional gesture we perform in order to play our role. The performative component, sometimes brushed off by the fashion journalists of the time as a sign of extravagance, pervades all the projects of this *stilista* that go beyond the distinction between real clothes and costumes. The tactile quality of her clothes made them perfect as stage costumes, endowed with an expressive potential that was activated when they were worn. It is in fact the bodies that

**Fig. 1.** Cinzia Ruggeri, S/S 1982, advertising campaign. Najla Tabiat, boutique Bint El Ishrin, Kuwait.Photo credit: Occhiomagico

inhabited them that provided the real engine of this process leading to the creation of images and of their meanings.

Like other *stilisti*, Ruggeri designed theatre costumes. In an earlier joint study based on the analysis of a group of drawings preserved at the CSAC archives of the University of Parma, the author has investigated the collaboration that occurred at the Teatro di Porta Romana in Milan between Cinzia Ruggeri and Valeria Magli, the artist who paired different techniques and forms of expression such as dance, visual arts, and vocals. [21].

To accompany Magli's moves, Ruggeri designed costumes matching the atmosphere and the themes of the shows, conceiving them as stage props providing the trained body of the dancer new elements to shape her performance, becoming an active element of the creative project.

The steps, i.e. the element of the six-ply tunic designed to be assembled in front of the audience in a cerebral reverse-striptease performed by Magli in *Banana morbide*

**Fig. 2.** Cinzia Ruggeri, F/W 1982-83, advertising campaign. Annamaria Venzi Timpano, boutique St Tropez - Rome.Photo credit: Occhiomagico

(1980), and the kinetic decorations that in *Banana lumière* (1981) are activated by Piero Fogliati's "fantastic lights" transforming the dancer's body into a mobile, reappear in the lines and materials used by Ruggeri in the collections presented in the prêt-à-porter fashion shows and then produced.

The steps in particular, together with the cone, and the inclined plane are formal elements that recur in the designer's projects and with which she explored the deviation from the rule, which determined – as Ruggeri herself declared on multiple occasions – the "loss of balance."

They are archaic and at the same time recent forms, also explored in the sphere of new Italian design, indicating an unresolved coexistence of ancient and modern, the awareness of which matured in the aesthetics of the 1980s. These motifs tend towards infinity and combine with the idea of motion, inspiring a two-directional reading; these shapes lend themselves to the transformation of the bodies wearing them and, moving in space, modify them in turn.

Already in the early Bloom collections, the designer interpreted these motifs on the two-dimensional surface of fabrics, inserting inlays and applications, and in the structure of the clothes and blouses, for example cutting the two sleeves differently with wave or geometric add-ons. She then transferred them to the three dimensions by playing with scales: from an earring, to a clutch bag, to the actual architectures for the body. Paradigmatic interpretations of the staircase motif are *Omaggio a Lévi-Strauss* (Homage to Lévi-Strauss*,* F/W 1983–84) – now preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – and the *Ziggurat* dress (F/W 1984–85, ACR), which express a proudly exhibited concept of femininity: the steps provide support and, in the game of courtship, offer an invitation to climb or descend them.

Textile research was a constant of Ruggeri's activity; it evolved in parallel with the need to charge her fashion proposals with emotional values and integrate technological elements. In the S/S 1982 collection the designer inserted LED lights connected to a battery and a switch on her clothes so that the wearer could turn them on to satisfy his or her wish to appear (*Abito di luci a 12 W*, ACR), while in the following collection she worked directly on the fabric. It was in fact in 1982 that she applied liquid crystals to the fabrics. Graduated on certain temperatures, these crystals changed colour depending on body heat. The result was mutant clothes that, once worn and moving in space, signalled the modifications of the body and the environment.

When she used traditional materials, such as silk and linen, she worked on the concept of emptiness with a sensitivity close to Japanese aesthetics; she endowed holes, openings and slits with meaning, sometimes embellishing them with the surprising presence of pearls or chains, to create interstices and favour an exchange between inside and outside, between body and space. Interviewed in 1984 by art critic Giorgio Verzotti, Ruggeri declared "I want my things to contain empty spaces, interstices, empty areas that are available to be loaded." [22].

Her creations were objects to be experienced with body and mind, that once worn turned into scenic devices with which the wearers could communicate or say something about themselves. They did not offer solutions, but opportunities.

#### **3 Conclusions**

Cinzia Ruggeri is presented in the pages of *Casa Vogue* as the creator of an "archi-moda" imbued with references to Postmodernism. [5] Alessandro Mendini, the theorist behind Alchimia, defined her as the creator of "neo-fashion" because of the proximity to the communicative demands of "neo-design", [23] while the dance critic Marinella Guatterini chose to use "art -stilista", as she considers Ruggeri's creations behavioural devices creating connections between the slow pace of thought and the immediate intelligence of the body. [24] These neologisms conceal the critics' efforts to define Ruggeri's approach to fashion, finding names related to the collaborations that she intertwined with exponents of the world of architecture, design and performing arts from the beginning of the 1980s. In a recent talk, the curator and contemporary art consultant Mariuccia Casadio used the adjective "irrestituibile" for Cinzia Ruggeri, [25] thus reaffirming the inadequacy of any label to describe a multifaceted production and attitude transcending any disciplinary fields, while eroding their boundaries.

As a matter of fact, her practice was about adopting different languages without adhering to currents or movements, preferring to explore the specificities of the means of expression. She used clothing – a medium intimately close to the body and immersed in space – using the communicative power of fashion to first and foremost express her own story. Autobiographical elements can indeed be found in all of her projects, even those developed after her activity in fashion had come to an end. These traces are hidden in the puns with which she enjoyed naming her works, or in little word puzzles prompting a reaction from the observer. Her clothes required an active brain and heart.

A critical insider of the 1980s Italian fashion system, of which she publicly contested the progressive creative impoverishment and inflation of the *stilista*'s import, Cinzia Ruggeri presented her collections on the Milanese prêt-à-porter catwalks from the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, proudly claiming her autonomy from seasonal trends, paired with her sincere interest in the concept of change. Far from considering fashion a reflection of social and cultural changes, Ruggeri, if anything, acknowledged its power to affect and bring about these changes, anticipating a critical position that later developed in the field of fashion studies. [26] Fashion, so connected to the desire for novelty, and the design of clothing so intimately connected to the body, allowed her to address the gestures, behaviours and therefore the experience of reality in transformation.

Understanding, through the analysis of archive records, the process that guided Cinzia Ruggeri in the definition of her clothing project, can assist us in interpreting her entire production, which circularly explored art, fashion and design, pervaded by that "felicitating factor," that pleasure of sharing and manifesting emotions she made clear in 1983.

**Primary Sources.** ACR: Archivio Cinzia Ruggeri, Milan.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **Environmental Affordances: Some Meetings Between Artificial Aesthetics and Interior Design Theory**

Fabrizio Gay1(B) and Irene Cazzaro2

<sup>1</sup> University IUAV of Venezia, 191 Santa Croce, 30135 Venezia, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS><sup>2</sup> Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 2 Viale del Risorgimento, 40136 Bologna, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract.** The contribution supports the following thesis: the use of semiotic methods of the structural school in applications of Artificial Intelligence allows to deal with aesthetic and historical-critical issues with greater documentation capability. In particular, the contribution concerns an actualisation of the axiology of spatial enhancement built by Jean Marie Floch assuming it as a fundamental semantic framework to construct an interior morphology valid in the various areas of interior design.

Floch's semiotic analysis allows us to better specify the notion of "environmental affordance" developed in James Gibson's phenomenology of ecological perception. Following Gibson, the authors indicate an 'environmental' specification of the "affordances" and pose the question of their objectification and measurement.

For the purpose of this objectification and measurement of environmental affordances, the contribution advances the hypothesis of using some Artificial Intelligence applications usually employed, nowadays, in the processing of large data sets of digital documents, to achieve creative, critical, historical-archival aims.

In conclusion, the contribution outlines some fundamental conditions of possibility of such an objective measurement by describing some initial characteristics of an artificial system of recognition of morphological categories of interior spaces starting from huge data sets of documents.

**Keywords:** Human Factors · Affordances · Deep Learning · Interior Design

#### **1 Introduction**

#### **1.1 Rewriting Floch Today**

If the great semiotician Jean-Marie Floch were still alive and could rewrite today his famous marketing study on the usage and consumption behaviour of Parisian metro users [1], would he use more advanced tools than those available forty years ago?

Perhaps he would! i) Floch today would use digital tools to acquire data in the field. ii) He would also assume a theoretical framework resulting from thirty years of evolution of structural theory in the Greimassian tradition. He would perhaps use a kind of semiotics not limited to the analysis of the 'text' but, by acquiring the perspective of the "semiotics of practices" [2] that he developed, Floch would now have a model of the "generative process of the plane of expression" articulated in levels (figure, sign, text, object, practice, strategy, ethos).

i) In the study that he conducted in the 1980s, Floch had acquired information on the consumption and usage behaviour of the users of the Paris metro essentially by means of participant (ethnographic) observation supplemented by quick sketches from life; finally, he had collected quantitative and qualitative data by means of a systematic interview campaign and the collection of some narrative accounts.

Today, travellers in the capital's metro network are almost all equipped with wearable technologies and are therefore easily traceable in the speed and form of their spatial routes, as well as in their consumption choices in web channels; for some of them, it would be even possible to detect the values of biological parameters indicative of part of their emotional states. The data set collected with digital tracking could today be supplemented by interviews or tests in a more traditional format, constituting an immense data set of traces of gaits and trajectories, consumption preferences, narratives, photographic snapshots, etc. Moreover, today this huge data set could be variously visualised and mapped, synthetically interrogated according to parameters referring to different classes of qualitative factors.

Despite the current development of the means of observation, recording and analysis, it is probable that Floch today would not change the essential structure of his study at all. The on-site analysis of behaviour in the same place would still be necessary to directly compare the behaviour of users in the same places in order to highlight different ways of valorising spatial displacement and the use of time. The interest would not lie in forming a collection of "social types" or "psychological types" at all, but would always lie in constructing an axiology of different ways of valorising the same place.

ii) We believe that, despite the new theoretical acquisitions of Greimassian tradition semiotics, Floch would not at all change the four extreme terms indicating empirically detected behaviour: "explorers, sleepwalkers, professionists and *flâneurs*". These four terms derive from the projection onto the semiotic square (Fig. 1) of the semantic category of "continuity vs. discontinuity" of the given experienced space.

**Fig. 1.** The taxonomy of spatial enhancement modes used by Jean-Marie Floch in the analysis of the Paris metro users' behaviours, Interpretation made by the authors from the semiotic square of J-M. Floch [1].

IV. [1, –1] Finally, the semantically opposite term to "professionals" and which denies the space of "sleepwalkers" is the one that valorises the pure "**non-continuity**" of the local space; it is embodied by the figure of the "*flâneurs*" understood as those who stroll seeking the unexpected encounter, valorising the incidents of the route, undertaking deviant programmes that enrich the potential of the journey.

In these four terms Floch does not indicate 'social types' or psychological profiles, but moments and ways in which subjects grasp the given (morphological and mereological) affordances of a place in their course of action. Obviously, these four extreme cases are only the terms in which classification parameters are maximised and presuppose an infinity of intermediate cases between [–1, –1] and [1, 1]. Moreover, in the course of their experience, each traveller goes through a part of this constellation of states in exploiting different potentialities and virtualities of the same objective situation.

Whoever imputes the different ways of enhancing the same space to the contingent personal inclinations of each user must also admit that these subjective inclinations objectively encounter a different spatial resonance depending on the given situation. Thus, it is the environmental affordance itself that is more or less at the measure of "explorers, sleepwalkers, professionals or *flâneurs*". An entire environment can only be suitable in different and clear measure (expressed in conditional probability) to a given form of spatial enhancement; and only within certain limits can the subject adjust what he feels *in* and *of* the ambient space.

Assuming that these differences in valorisation possibilities can be measured, we propose to take Floch's four terms as four spatial types (morphological and mereological), all of which are possible to be felt in the same place, but to an objectively different extent.

An environmental affordance is a phenomenon emerging from a multitude of factors; to study it through a semiotic approach is to highlight which aspects of an object and a practical scene correlate significantly.

However, the concept of affordance arises in quite different, even opposite terms to any semiotic approach. "Affordance" is in fact a notion that originated in the psychological studies by James Gibson, swhose contribution is very different from the standard cognitive one and – as Costall and Morris [3] have documented – is still very much misunderstood from the most elementary psychology texts.

We would not add ourselves to the list of those who try to assimilate Gibson's dissidence with computational, inferential [4] or even semiotic cognitive models of the structural school. However, the importance currently acknowledged to the notion of affordance in design theories [5] requires some clarification.

#### **1.2 Affordance or Factitiveness? Objects or Environments?**

In the field of design studies and theories, the notion of 'affordance' formulated by psychologist James Gibson [6] has played an important role, especially in his latest book: *The ecological approach to visual perception* [7]. 'Affordance', according to Gibson, is what our lived body feels of its own possibilities of potentially interacting with objects in the surrounding environment: it is our bodily feeling of potential feasibility in relation to things and semi-things perceived in the moment; for instance, it is the feeling of being able to 'walk', 'grasp', 'embed', 'throw', 'climb', 'fall', 'shelter', 'sit', 'immerse', 'ingest', 'feed', 'warm up' and any other action that the parts of an environment can (potentially) allow a subject acting in it.

This was followed by the idea that the design of an object is understood as the prefiguration of its affordance, but in the field of design studies the notion of 'affordance' was initially incorporated [8] in ergonomic terms, it was understood as the (empirically measurable) ability of a physical object, or of a human-machine interface, to make the user perceive the right way to use it, without the need for the user to be instructed to do so. In functionalist design theories, the notion of the 'affordance of objects' objectively accounts for ergonomic properties of prostheses and tools: e.g. the seatability of a chair or the habitability of an interior.

The main idea that was retained from Gibson's notion is that we perceive our surroundings in a completely unreflective, automatic, synesthesic, pre-semiotic way, simply by grasping the 'affordances' offered to us by the actual surfaces of things plunged in the physico-chemical pregnancies of the atmosphere. However, in the applications to design, the concept of affordance has lost some features of its original meaning; for instance, [9, 10] affordances that could be real or fictitious, perceivable or non-perceivable, acquired as expertise by the user were admitted. To the ability of objects to suggest practicable actions with them was added the idea that perception can educate itself to grasp new affordances.

Thus the term 'affordance' also refers to the object's ability to teach its use, a concept that has found increasing popularity especially in digital interface design, contributing to the very notion of 'usability' established in standards such as ISO 9241-11 (1998) and 9241-210 (2010). However, conceiving affordance as emerging from an expressive process came to disavow its originally non-semiotic or pre-semiotic meaning.

Acknowledging the interactive character of affordance, one understands the fact that, even if a subject believes he is making an everyday object perform in a course of action, he realises that this course of action is bound not only by the object's operative functionality, but also by its active communicative functionality. It is thus admitted that the user acts on the tool in the terms in which the tool itself acts equally on the user, in a series of reciprocal manipulations and counter-manipulations. Thus Jacques Fontanille – as already exemplified by Jean-Marie Floch – proposes to replace the psychological notion of affordance with the semiotic notion of the "factitiveness of objects" since: «… Ce que l'affordance désigne sans le distinguer, le concept de 'factitivité' permet déja de le décliner au moins en trois types différents et complémentaires: 'faire-faire', 'faire-savoir', 'faire-croire'»1. [2, pp. 37-8].

In other words, affordance, when viewed through the modality theory of Greimassian semiotics [11, pp. 121 and 102-4] translates into 'factitiveness', i.e. a typology of possible reciprocal manipulations between user, objects and environment that concern both the virtual and potential use of an object, as well as its actualised or realised use in a course of action.

We believe that it is not acceptable to equate Gibson's phenomenological theory either with a kind of 'imprecise semiotics' or with an anti-semiotic fanaticism; rather, it should be better considered in its more recent version.

It should be made clear that throughout his latest book Gibson sketches a much more articulate definition of affordances for at least two essential and often overlooked points.

1°) Gibson clearly distinguishes, on the one hand, the direct perception (preintellective, not mediated by any processing) of the physical environment and, on the other hand, the understanding of objects that support representations on themselves and that are immersed in the environment, among which he also includes psycho-perceptual tests that highlight optical illusion phenomena. This gives rise to automatic environmental affordances in which, however, the perception of specific representational artefacts also comes into play, requiring the unfolding of clearly semiotic cognitive processes.

'Environmental affordances' are understood by Gibson as objective phenomenological properties because they are defined as emerging from the encounter of the objectivity of the percipient subject's lived body with the objective morphology of bodies in the shared environment. However, the distinction of representational parts in the natural environment entails a semiotic process for the subject, i.e. the generation of a plane of expression.

2°) According to Gibson, there is no direct visual perception of space itself; what we directly see is only the spatial deployment of surface textures; that is, we see in 2.5D. He – like Florensky [12] – conceives the spatial content in the consciousness of visual perception as a geometric construct, an abstraction resulting from cognitive processing that exceeds instantaneous perception. Thus, the transition from the direct vision of the surface of things to a consciousness of environmental space in its totality of presences does not happen in the same way.

<sup>1</sup> «What affordance designates without distinguishing it, the concept of 'factitiveness' already makes it possible to declare it in at least three different and complementary types: 'doing-doing', 'doing-knowing', 'doing-believing'» (authors' translation).

As an example: we cannot say that we see a painting and the room where it is exhibited in the same way, or the stage area and the stalls of the same theatrical space; there are thresholds and regions of space within which we carry out interpretative processes of an explicitly semiotic type, if not acts of actual coded reading of a merely depicted space.

This does not detract from the evidence that we all feel an overall, holistic and objective feeling of an environment anyway, even if this feeling is amended in the course of experience.

This fact is obviously of great practical importance in interior design and satisfactory answers are often sought from its theory.

When design is understood as the total planning of inhabitable environments, environmental affordances are more relevant than objectual ones, especially – as happened a century ago in the schools of the modernist avant-gardes, from the Vchutemas to the Bauhaus – in the creation of 'interior environments' organically configured to exert intense and sometimes radical aesthetic properties.

If the holistic feeling that an environment offers is fundamental, can we only rely on the poetic competence of the creator?

But if what counts above all is the semantic clarity of the parameters taken on by the project, then the priority of a fundamental structure of morphological categories is decisive.

In this second case, the question doubles:

#### **2 Experimental Surveys in Artificial Interior Aesthetics**

In order to attempt a documentable answer to the questions posed above, we undertook the study of the potential of Floch's axiology of spatial enhancement by testing it with current digital probing tools through platforms instructed with deep learning algorithms.

We believe that these tools of an artificial aesthetic can provide us with enormous and new possibilities of correlation between descriptive parameters, correlations that can prove to be more or less relevant, fragmentary, doxastic in deciding the way in which a set of subjects experiences the feeling of a place.

In the specific case, we are testing the analysis of cases and aesthetic categories in the interior design using digital tools and prioritising an axiology derived from Floch (ex. Fig. 2). The current study concerns the conventional genres of interior design and is conducted by means of Deep Learning tools for the processing of documentary data sets concerning different social domains: healthcare, catering, museography. In this case, Floch's semiotic square constitutes a first map with two orthogonal coordinates that identify the initial value pair of each record processed according to subsequent evaluative dimensions so that it can then be found as an element of a final atlas in continuous stabilisation.

**Fig. 2.** Illustrative images of spatial enhancement categories in three interior design domains (museography, foodservice and healthcare) selected by a parametric web search software. The construction of these data sets is the first part of the research programme pursued by the authors.

#### **2.1 Top-Down/Bottom-Up: 'Aesthetic Categories' and 'Image Descriptors'**

Initially it is enough for us to accept the fact that "culturally conventional environments" are given and that these (generally aesthetic) categories are 'ideal objects', hence, 'social objects': one can give lists of terms, labels. These are cultural categories implicit in the distinctions between literary, cinematographic, theatrical and musical genres, especially in the genres of interior design or typical landscapes, up to the thematisations of museography, theatrical scenography and retail design, made explicit in the related marketing studies on commercial spaces.

Without needing to discuss and specify the aesthetic or historical-critical meaning of these terms, we can initially accept them as simple verbal labels that are preferably associated with interior spaces represented through texts, images and videos, contenting ourselves with the simple doxastic and statistical value of these labels.

To this end, software designed to assist interior design by providing sample collections of stylistic classes has emerged in recent years. These tools are capable of processing images and digital documents of any format from immense data sets in order to derive synthetically representable classifications according to parameters referring to different classes of qualitative factors, such as the sensorial categories conventionally attributed to materials, shapes, textures, colours, spatial patterns, potential paths, evocative values, etc.

In more specific cases [13] the result of these doxastic analysis applications is the production of a series of collections of interior images found on the web and associated with the statistical distribution of terms – present in the textual descriptions contextual to the images – referring to stylistic categories and prototypical atmospheres.

For the time being, these results are of little critical value, at most only useful for listing a few stereotypical classes – "romantic", "pop", "casual", etc. – and calculating their statistical consistency in a given repertoire. However, the development potential of this software and the applications that can already be derived from it are multiple and very important, thanks to the rapid development of calculation systems based on deep learning algorithms applicable to 'pattern recognition' and 'pattern production' in various expressive formats (visual, acoustic, verbal, dynamic, etc.).

#### **2.2 The True Fakes**

First of all, it must be remembered that applications based on deep learning algorithms are nowadays not limited to supervised learning, but can also train themselves by analysing preselected data sets – e.g. a homogeneous corpus of images – either in order to identify the rules that give coherence to the input data set, or in order to measure the exceptions of new input data, or even to deliberately produce new analogous data – e.g. images – that serve as new exempla consistent with the discovered rule.

As an example, the artificial production of 'fake' graphic, pictorial and musical works has become almost fashionable, especially using software with Generative Adversarial Network [GAN] algorithms that extract the statistical weights of image and text descriptor data from the given corpus of original *exempla* and then define and learn the co-construction rule – through a dual (adversarial) deep learning procedure –producing new (fake) *exempla* of the given set with this rule.

Furthermore, the possibility of analysing data *corpora* in composite formats – whether visual, acoustic, textual or video – allows these applications to construct new categorisations and new taxonomies, not limiting themselves to the mere recognition of a few classes of objects depicted in digital images according to an already given classification (*a priori*). They can in fact derive new taxonomies that will only be given *a posteriori*. That is, they can explore taxonomies only *in fieri*, following the semantic principle of 'family similarities' along a learning process that can be observed by us, step by step, as the construction of family categories is drawn up through the analysis of immense lexical and iconic databases accessible online.

The most creative applications have not been conceived, so far, for descriptive or historical-critical purposes; they were explicitly generated as new production tools for artists. For instance, the DALL-E software [13] is capable of producing new hybrid yet perfectly coherent visual images from a huge set of lexically labelled source images; these images are produced as iconic responses to questions that the user formulates with simple verbal sentences.

The sense of a historical-critical use of applications of this kind remains to be explored.

After all, the great panoply of software that filters information in the wearable technology devices that, by facilitating our web searches, fill our daily lives, as well as the new artistic research tools generated from the rapid developments in AI, form an invisible but pervasive artificial aesthetics [14] that is still waiting to be integrated into the aesthetics produced by human reflection.

The essential question for our discourse around the possibilities of objectifying the notion of environment is: do applications based on deep learning also make it possible to move from an approximate, doxastic investigation to a possible morphology of interiors?

#### **2.3 From Subjective Stylistics to Objectifiable Morphometries**

We would be wrong to believe that the main purpose of software with GAN-type deep learning algorithms is only to produce plausible hybrids or plausible fake works from corpora of real exempla: fake works such as the countless fictional 19th-century Chinese landscapes composed in 2021 by Alice Xue's software [15] or the fake portrait of a hypothetical Edmond Belamy made in 2014 with the algorithm of the French collective Obvious, a work sold for between USD 7,000 and 10,000.

Curiously, pattern recognition software has been proposed much earlier for exactly the opposite purpose: to discriminate cases of fake works from original works, especially in situations where their perceptual complexity exceeds the human abilities of processing and comparison. For instance, such a situation is the problem of deciding on the attribution to Jackson Pollock of a dripping paint work of dubious or suspicious provenance. The complexity of the calligraphic ductus in the dripping paint technique makes traditional morphological attribution methods in art history ineffective; hence, the use of digital morphometric tools was attempted.

Such a(n) (artificial) solution for this purpose was suggested in 2015 by computer scientist Lior Shamir; he adapted 'pattern recognition' software originally designed to automate histopathological analyses (to recognise specific morphologies of cancerous tissues) [16]. The original software was designed to be trained with countless images of histopathological slides, but Shamir adapted it to be trained only with the digital images of 26 dripping canvases believed to have been performed by Pollock between 1950 and 1955. He asked the system to extract from each of the 26 digital images the numerical values of various descriptor parameters – e.g., statistical distribution of pixel intensities, colour, position, edges, shapes, regions, fractal order, polynomial decomposition, etc. – thus values that do not concern a verbalisable semantic level, but only pure eidetic characteristics of the digital image.

Shamir constructed the discriminating rule between true and false Pollock by comparing these resulting 26 data sets and i) sorting the descriptors by resulting importance, ii) selecting 25% of the significant descriptors, iii) writing the rule in the form of Fischer's linear discriminating algorithm.

This rule was tested by Shamir by subjecting random sequences of images to the software: both original works by Pollock and works by artists emulating his dripping technique. Shamir reports that in 93% of the cases he randomly tested, the software was able to correctly distinguish original works from fake ones. This excellent result highlights three points:

Because of these characteristics of scientific correctness, Shamir's algorithm is not suitable – as GANs are – for producing ex novo (a priori) images of real fake Pollocks. The application is made to measure past facts – measuring them on the basis of a (predominantly 'frequentist') retrospective statistic – and not to predict future facts.

We report these findings because they exemplify – by analogy – two aspects of the doxastic study of conventional environments in interior design.

**Acknowledgements.** We would like to thank the reviewers for their thorough work and the relevant advice they gave us.

#### **References**

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**PROCESSES. Dematerialized Processes**

### **The Critical Forms of Design Futures Scenarios: Introducing Unconventional Ways of Scenarios Making**

Ammer Harb(B)

Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract.** This paper discusses the critical forms of design futures scenarios; these forms aim at debating, interrogating, and questioning future visions rather than extrapolating on the status quo. They aim to problematize future issues in order to enact social change and mitigate the consequences and implications of today's actions and decisions.

**Keywords:** Critical Design Futures · Scenarios · Speculative Design · Design Futures

#### **1 Introduction**

#### **1.1 Context**

Resource depletion, climate change, and social injustice are a few examples of selfevident future challenges that design needs to encounter. Since the role of design in shaping the future is paramount (Margolin 2007), design should find a way to introduce alternative future visions and take an oppositional stance towards the hegemonic structures that created these challenges. Fry and Nocek (2021) argue that design lies at the heart of the ontological crisis. For years, design has served the capitalist-driven market inquiry, which led to the current state of unsustainability. In response to this, several design directions have emerged to counter the negative effects of design (they could be collectively referred to as "critical design"). These practises are critical about design itself; they try to interrogate the status quo and propose alternative future visions aiming at enacting change in the present, thus leading the world toward more sustainable futures. Under the overarching umbrella of "critical design", some of these practises are specifically concerned with the futures, which is referred to in this paper as "Critical Design Futures" (CDF). Indicative examples of these practises are Speculative Design (Dunne and Raby (2013), Design Fiction (Bleecker 2009), and Experiential Futures (Candy 2010), to name a few. In the first section of this paper, CDF practises will be briefly introduced. In the second section, a concise explanation of "the Critical Catalyst" which is a set of design activities and tactics developed by the author to facilitate the process of triggering criticality in design futures practise and research, will be provided. The Critical Catalyst follows the 10 Pillars framework that aims to work as a self-reflexive device and tool for designing and making the future. The third section focuses on the paper's main topic, critical forms of scenarios that aim to push design futures scenarios beyond their usual and conventional boundaries.

#### **1.2 Critical Design Futures (CDF)**

CDF describes a set of practises that are trying to operate outside the external borders of market-driven inquiry to question and redirect the actions we take today. They are meant to better handle the uncertainty of the future and look critically at the "otherwise" possibilities. The final aim is to enact constructive social change through design to mitigate the unfavourable consequences of the actions we take today by a) offering alternative visions of the future or b) showing the consequences and implications of today's design actions. c) democratising the visions of the future through participation and public inclusion.

Provocative critical actions are used in CDF practises to call the contingency of futures into question. They interrogate, question, and induce discussions about future issues through design. Criticality in this context aims to facilitate the induction of a discursive space. It indicates being critical, as in the etymologic meaning of "breakdown" or "dissect" of future challenges and issues.

CDF practises explore the borders of the issue to problematise it. It is more of a problem-finder or problem-maker rather than a problem solver. CDF does not refer to a linear and relaxed sequential process for a designer, but rather to a process of complex decisions, fuzzy actions, foggy roads, blurry destinations, and unexpected arrivals. The peculiar nature of CDF makes it very difficult to follow a defined path; its process is packed with uncertainty, indeterminacy, and philosophical enactments. The complexity of CDF has always raised questions about their methodological approaches, and many scholars have noted the importance of tackling this gap in the literature (Bardzell et al. 2012; Ferri et al. 2014; Ozkaramanli and Desmet 2016; Pierce 2021). To address this gap, the author introduced the Critical Catalyst as a non-prescriptive framework that can help design researchers and practitioners adopt a critical position in their projects.

#### **2 The Critical Catalyst (CC)**

The critical diegetic scenarios are the focus of this paper, but it is important to briefly introduce the critical catalyst before explaining them. The Critical Catalyst (CC); is a set of reflexive design activities, tactics, and devices developed by the researcher to fill the gap in the methodological approach of CDF. The CC serves as a catalyst for designers' reflections on future challenges and as an initiator of critical debates in design futures. The CC started as an outsourced lexicon of methods, approaches, concepts, and techniques excavated from the literature review as well as case study analysis and backed by the interviews. Then, the CC was refined through cycles of validation with expert interviewees and through observing and developing validation design experiments. The CC is a catalyst; it supports and facilitates rather than guides. It provides practitioners and researchers with tactics to problematise a future challenge and to look at the hidden and intangible sides of it. The CC follows a structural framework that builds on Ollenburg (2019) participatory design futures model and Jonas (2007) Research through Design (generic design process), as well as the Voros Generic Futures Model (2005). The CC layers build on the findings and insights gleaned from all of these models combined. The model is set to have four macro layers: (A) analysis, (B) projection, (C) synthesis, and (D) communication and reflection (Fig. 1). The first three layers have a wide agreement in futures studies, while the fourth layer, "communication and reflection," is added since the author identified it as a fundamental factor in CDF practises (Fig. 1).

**Fig. 1.** The Critical Catalyst process model, by Author (2022)

#### **3 Critical Diegetic Scenarios**

#### **3.1 Conventional vs Critical Design Scenarios**

Before identifying the critical forms of design scenarios, it is important to make a distinction between conventional and unconventional scenarios.

On the one hand, conventional scenarios refer to scenarios as a tool to depict alternative futures (Dator 2018). Scenarios could be materialised as storytelling or reporting (as in Futures Studies), yet they could also be design output, solutions, or mapping in design futures. The latter could be referred to as Design orienting Scenarios (DOS) introduced by Manzini and Jègou (2003). DOS provide a structure to design and realise new products and product service systems (Manzini et al. 2009). Design scenarios can 1) show alternative futures, their implications, and risks. 2) They tend to create a shared language or vision for many parties and actors to understand the focal issue, 3) have a focus on particular options, potentials, or possibilities, and 4) analyse contexts and products (Zindato 2016).

Evans (2010) puts three structural elements for design scenarios: a) Current worlds: Based on the information, data, and intelligence gathered during the scanning exercise. B) Plot or Story: depicts what made this scenario happen or arise. C) End state: what situations, circumstances, features, or properties prevail at the end stage of the scenario? D) Logics: what is the rationale of the plot or the events that caused a scenario to arise. What logically explains the plot.

These pillars would make up a traditional or typical progressional scenario that shows an alternative future or how a concept should be placed in the future.

On the other hand, the critical forms of design scenarios aim at subverting this view of scenarios. They comply with the function of CDF to provoke, debate, resist, twist, and trigger thoughtful insights. Critical forms of scenarios seek to call into question the sociocultural and technological contexts in which this product may be found. They do so by exposing the factors that motivated these changes to appear on the features of such futures-oriented products; although both types, the critical and the conventional, might, in some cases, seem utilitarian scenarios, they have different purposes, functions, and agendas. Tharp and Tharp (2019) note that discursive (critical) scenarios can be clearly distinguished by the intention and quality of the scenario to set a context for rhetoric. They allow "the designer to communicate substantive ideas through what might otherwise be thought of simply as a utilitarian or aesthetic object for the marketplace. (Tharp and Tharp 2019, p.18).

#### **3.2 Features of Critical Diegetic Scenarios**

Critical scenarios rely on fictional and narrative world-building since the aim is to examine how the world could be rather than how it is now (Dunne and Raby 2013). Dunne and Raby define this concept as a trip from the real world to a fictional one for the purposes of reflection, critique, and inspiration. Thus, the need to create a fictional world is fundamental to developing critical scenarios. Dunne and Raby argue that the core of the scenario is the ideological background behind it. The core value lies in identifying what drives a critical scenario and what values are being put under investigation in the end state of the scenario. Critical scenarios start a conversation about the complex relationship between the reality we live in now and make us wonder and think about it, as well as enjoy the unreality in critical forms of scenarios (Dunne and Raby 2013).

Scenarios are where the object of critical design is positioned and situated. They allow the user to have a context for understanding the future narrative that the designer wants to convey and discuss. Scenarios here are the world where all the elements can fit together in one narrative. The elements of criticality here are transversal elements that pass through all of the scenario elements and their supporting media, such as video, images, or sketches. The narratives here are meant to ridicule and expose the flaws or errors in the topical issue under discussion (e.g., environmental impacts of design, such as climate change) (Malpass 2017).

In terms of world-building, it is critical to explain diegesis (from which the term "diegetic" scenarios is derived). Diegesis means story world, and the creation of diegesis leads to world-building, which is the context and setting where the CDF elements are positioned (for example, diegetic prototypes (Kirby 2010) refer to the objects that are situated in the diegesis with all the values of the new "built" world. This means that everything that lies within the diegesis (built world) is called "diegetic" and has the features of this world. A diegesis of the future should show the qualities of this future-oriented world, and through these features, critical designers could debate the implications and consequences of particular (present) issues.

From the premises put forth, it has to be clear that the features and qualities that differentiate conventional futures scenarios from critical diegetic scenarios are distant, contrasting, and do not share the same purpose and function. In this section, the gathered features of the critical diegetic scenarios are articulated and discussed. Five main features were identified for critical diegetic scenarios.

**Plausibility:** The concept of plausibility is often mentioned in futures studies and in design futures as well. Plausible means something that is not obviously untrue. Plausibility is what can suspend doubt about future-oriented scenarios. This happens through the creation of plausible prototypes that lie within a diegesis or story world (Coulton et al. 2016) and helps bridge the perceptual gap of the audience (Auger 2014).

Plausibility indicates the credibility and believability of a particular concept to the audience it should interact with. It also indicates the potentiality of being true. However, plausibility is a difficult issue because how a concept is perceived by each individual with a different cultural background, worldview, and experience is subjective.

**Verisimilitude:** In conjunction with plausibility, the second quality is verisimilitude, or the quality of being verisimilar. Verisimilitude in philosophy indicates "truth-likeness," which refers to propositions that appear truer than other propositions (Stanford Philosophy Encyclopaedia, 2001). In fiction, "verisimilitude" refers to the similarity and closeness to reality. The action represented should be convincing enough and close to the audience's knowledge and experience in order to be accepted. This has been used by fiction writers to suspend disbelief about improbable actions, events, or technologies within the borders of the narrative. James Auger (2013), in his influential paper about crafting speculation, argues that verisimilitude is an important quality where a designer can smartly adjust the borders of speculation so that it is not too far away from the "here and now" so that it turns out to be unbelievable and thus ineffective. Verisimilitude, according to Auger, is the ability to blur truths in order to suspend disbelief. This quality allows the audience to be the protagonist and experience the concepts being discussed in the CDF project since the audience's reaction and reflection are the actual product of CDF and not the project itself (Auger 2013).

**Ambiguity:** It means "a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways: an ambiguous word or expression". It can also be a synonym for uncertainty. Ambiguity in CDF draws on the works of William Gaver from the early 2000s, who identified how ambiguity creates a space for deeper interaction between the artefact, scenario and the user. Gaver et. al (2003) note that ambiguity can be "intriguing, mysterious, and delightful. "By compelling people to interpret situations for themselves, it encourages them to begin grappling conceptually with systems and their contexts, establishing deeper and more personal relationships with the meanings provided by those systems" (p. 1).

According to Gaver et al. (2003), ambiguity can allow designers to express their ideological point of view while allowing users from various socio-cultural backgrounds to interpret these ideologies or concepts through their own worldviews. Ambiguity is an attribute that gives a design the advantage of conveying more than one meaning, thus opening alternative interpretations for the users, which might, in turn, lead to an unexpected landing. Ambiguity is necessary to get people to use their imaginations and to get around the fact that familiarity with design and usefulness limits the user's ability to understand and think creatively (Malpass 2017).

**Dissonance:** Tharp and Tharp (2019) argue that the scenarios should be discordant with what the audience already knows, their experiences, and their sociocultural reality. This makes it different from conventional progressional scenarios, which tend to extrapolate on what is already known and what is expected to some extent. A critical and discursive scenario should challenge these sorts of future visions rather than embrace and affirm them. Dissonance sets the platform for the critical objects to be irrational and not normal, thus indicating that there is a different or alternative world to explore. It is a key aspect of conveying messages and balancing the discursiveness in a project. Dunne and Raby (2013) discuss that if the scenario is too consistent with reality, it will pass unnoticed, and if it is too dissonant, it will be ignored if misunderstood. This balance has to do with the audience and the message that is being conveyed, considering how to play it right.

**Satire:** Humour, playfulness, and irony are essential elements that can be seen in many CDF projects. Dunne and Raby (2013), Malpass (2017), and Tharp and Tharp (2019) identify satire in critical practises as a central aspect that works as constructive social criticism. A scenario or narrative being humorous is one of the central features in CDF, humour can be used to engage the audience in an active discourse. Satire diminishes an issue by taking it to a ridiculous state, aiming at evoking various attitudes from indignation to amusement, contempt, or scorn (Malpass 2017). It is used to criticise individuals, environments, systems, society, or the discipline itself, aiming to trigger actions for improvement. Since both CD and satire share the same corrective purpose, it is not merely about mocking or being sarcastic for no reason. Satire is a device that offers critique in an interesting and attractive manner that affords critical reflection.

#### **3.3 Tactics for Critical Diegetic Scenarios**

Besides the features, the researcher identifies three important tactics for critical diegetic scenarios that are used in CDF. These are thought experiments, logical fallacies, and counterfactuals and hypotheticals.

*Thought experiments* are used in CDF to interrogate future visions and critically dissect a hypothesis or logically examine the implications and consequences of particular views about the future that come from the extrapolation of the status quo. Thought experiments are meant to provoke intellectual discussion, review logical consequences, and interrogate common understandings or widely agreed-upon concepts. They could test concepts, refute theories, and challenge the borders of particular issues. These qualities are particularly relevant to CDF's purpose and function. Dunne and Raby (2013) use thought experiments to step out of reality to be able to think about complex issues. They move away from solid narratives and toward "thought experiments," which are a collection of constructed ideas designed to investigate specific issues or hypotheses. Thought experiments are interdisciplinary; they expand to overlap with other scientific fields, such as biology, cognitive science, and mathematics, other than philosophy. They are, in particular, important in philosophy as they tend to trigger topical issues in meta-philosophy, including the nature of imagination and the role of intuition in human cognition (Stuart et al. 2017).

*The second tactic is logical fallacies,* which is a close form of thought experiment. A logical fallacy is meant to show an absurd logical argument that usually leads to unexpected output. Fallacies are typically reasoning errors, a disruptive mental and logical line of thought that may lead to an irrational path of logical consequences. The fallacy usually takes the form of an argument. There are other types, but this is the type that CDF could be interested in. Originally debated by Aristotle, the definition of fallacy is very challenging, and it is difficult to find a concrete description for it, yet a logical fallacy could refer to:

"*to (a) a kind of error in an argument, (b) a kind of error in reasoning (including arguments, definitions, explanations, and so forth), (c) a false belief, or (d) the cause of any of the previous errors, including what are normally referred to as "rhetorical techniques."* (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, n.d.)

*Counterfactuals and hypotheticals* are the third form that critical diegetic scenarios could take:

The term "counterfactual" refers to events or world states that did not occur. Yet, they are constructed with factual knowledge of the current world either implicitly or explicitly (Kulakova et al. 2013). It simply means changing a historical fact that already happened to see what the current state of the world could be if different circumstances happened. Counterfactuals can support explaining causal relations (Woodward 2004) or delivering logical arguments. (Kulakova et al. 2013). A counterfactual is travelling back in time to imagine a change in what actually happened (Gerstenberg 2022). It is also a good way to create an alternative present so that the audience can know how we reached this alternative now (Dunne and Raby 2013).

On the other hand, Hypotheticals activate the suppositional component. A good example of it is the "What if?" question. A what-if question departs from the present to hypothetically imagine an alternative future state. Although both counterfactuals and hypotheticals are concerned with possibilities, the main difference is whether the change to reality or actuality happens or is imagined occurring (Gerstenberg 2022). Counterfactuals are about imagining a past event in a different way than facts or reality, whereas hypotheticals are about imagining possible futures, and one doesn't need to travel back in time to consider past events and different states of the world.

Either counterfactual or hypothetical events are used in CDF scenarios so that a designer can create a parallel reflection on a past event, imagining how it could lead to an alternative present, or to depart from the "now" and show the implications and consequences of particular events that are happening or have already happened in the present.

#### **4 Conclusion**

The paper discusses the critical forms of design futures scenarios; it explains the notion of critical design futures as an umbrella concept for the critical design practises that are concerned with the future. The paper briefly discusses the critical catalyst, which is a device that facilitates the process of developing a CDF project in which the critical diegetic scenarios are situated. The paper discusses five features of critical diegetic scenarios and three tactics that could be used to develop them.

It is paramount to highlight that the features and tactics described in this paper are meant to be suggestive elements for designers or design researchers who wish to create a CDF scenario, they are not prescriptive, and they are not meant to be used all in one scenario. A designer or design researcher should instrument their usage and tactically select suitable features according to the purpose of the project. A provocative CDF project is different from an inspirational one. One project might need to use harsh satire to provoke the audience, and another project might require the use of plausibility and verisimilitude to make people believe in an encouraging future vision. It is also important to note that the critical diegetic scenarios are part of the whole framework of the critical catalyst so that they function in combination with the project paradigms, project motivations, and designers' positions, as well as ways to disseminate and communicate these scenarios.

From a critical point of view, the features and tactics discussed in this paper are tools and means to provoke the audience towards positive actions aiming to enact social change. They are also tools that design researchers can use to think critically about their research, look into and propose different futures, and see the hidden goals of social, political, or economic systems behind design.

However, if CDF are used as means to produce visually interesting concepts or to be used for marketing purposes, in this case they would be deviating from their main purpose and functions, as Coulton and Lindley (2017) describe them as "vapourworlds" since they show visually entertaining artefacts yet are shallow in terms of content or core values in an artificial world with technologies that will never be realized. It has to be clearly highlighted that CDF proposals are about being sincere and transparent in exposing the issues incorporated in the systems where they operate.