Depth of Field: Discursive design research through film

Abstract

IntroductionIn the last decade, interaction design has found itself in a rather unique position. As an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon many domains such as Human Computer Interaction (HCI), product and graphic design, informatics, art, engineering and critical practice, it has grown the potential to situate itself in a critical position between emerging technologies and culture. In particular, there are emerging modes of doing exploratory design research that result from the newfound relations between product, interaction and communications design.In this article we discuss our design research activities that use film as a material for exploring, conceptualising and communicating with emerging technology. We analyse this through existing framings of audiovisual media in HCI, technology, and interaction design research. The central research question we address is how does audiovisual media enable new kinds of practice-based design research with emerging technology?In posing this question several others also arise. How might designers use and shape audiovisual media to support processes of understanding and conceptualising with emerging technology as part of their practice? And what opportunities do audiovisual media open up for design in explanation and communication within a broader social and cultural context?The article develops two main aspects: film as a material in communicating and conceptualising new technology and the role of film as a tool in the design research process. The concept of depth of field here opens up three things for us. First, we investigate the boundaries between the field of design research and the critical conceptualisation of technology. Secondly, in our design practice we use film to probe the depth and materiality of emerging and often invisible technologies. Third, depth of field is one of the cinematic qualities of film that is used here to both communicate about technology, and to help understand the role of audio-visual mediation in the design and development of technological products.Film is a communication media that involves audiovisual representations that have immersive and experiential qualities, and that can be very selective in conveying and framing subject matter. By using film, we imply a mode of production and display that involves cinematic qualities such as genre, narrative and cinematography, not simply video as a tool for documentation or analysis, but film as a purposeful, constructed, designed and directed experience. Seven short films are included within this text. They have been produced over several years as an integrated part of our research. They are embedded in the article where they form topics and construct a path through the research as is argued for example in the field of visual rhetoric and through the genre of the visual essay or 'pictorial texts' (e.g. Mitchell, 1994).The films are thus meant to be watched at critical points in the text where they act as both cases and arguments. We analyse these films through addressing their role i...

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