Double Blind: Re-imagining Research Methods in a Culture of Creative Literacy
The worst effects of the broadly held misconception that science is in some way separate from the work of artists and designers is of concern to art and design schools committed to empowering students with the agency to confidently assume a place of relevance in discourse on the most compelling issues facing contemporary societies.
This presentation will look at an experimental new research initiative being piloted at the Rhode Island School of Design that applies a set of alternative premises and methodologies to situate the mind and hand of the artist/designer as a central catalyst in scientific research and its application. The thesis of this work is that most research and much of applied "real-world" problem solving is organized around a set of culturally dominant cognitive processes and social structures that disadvantage the extraordinary value of integrative and lateral perspective, context-based methodology, and interrogative outcomes. The result is that artists and those applying “artistic sense,” are relegated to make contributions at the periphery of “scientific method.” The intent in this initiative is to go beyond the territory of traditional "art and design research" as a distinct realm of extended inquiry.
We will review several recent Partnered Research projects that assume a central role for artists as equal collaborators in the development and application of a new and strategically inclusive model of research that assumes the involvement of scientists and engineers as essential collaborative perspectives. The presentation will link project overviews with key insights and potential research implications gathered thus far.
Executive Director, Research and Partnered Programs
Rhode Island School of Design
Daniel Hewett is the executive director of Partnered Research and Programs at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is an architect and teaching faculty in the departments of Landscape and Interior Architecture and has held teaching and research appointments at Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Architecture and at MIT, where he lectures in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies. He is a frequent critic at architecture schools and serves on several community-based design advisory boards.
He founded and directs URBANFRAME, a nonprofit that mobilizes youth to design and build experimental architecture in direct response to local needs. An architect in professional practice since 1993, Hewett was the Director of Design at Dyer|Brown in Boston. Following his undergraduate work in literature and sculpture, Hewett earned an MArch from Rice University’s Graduate School of Architecture.
