Networks of Design 2008 Conference of the Design History Society

University College Falmouth, UK

September 3rd - 6th 2008

The theme Networks of Design responds to recent academic interest in the fields of design, technology, humanities and the social sciences in the ‘networks’ of interactions within processes of knowledge formation. The interest in networks emerges from actor-network theory (ANT) and the work of, among others, the social theorist Bruno Latour who, along with the international designer and Droog collaborator Jurgen Bey, and Jeremy Myerson, director of research and innovation at the Royal College of AArt, is a keynote speaker at the conference.

Studying networks foregrounds infrastructure, negotiations, processes, strategies of interconnection, and the heterogeneous relationships between people and things. Within the wider context of post-modernism, it seems, we are experiencing a paradigm shift in design history and visual culture, and this conference offers an opportunity to address, explore and assess that shift, providing a platform for international debate and exchange.

Networks can include people, social groups, artefacts, devices, entities and ideas. Papers will be organised around five broad themes:

Networks of People including collectives and individuals
Networks of Texts including images, documents, databases
Networks of Technology including mechanical and virtual technologies
Networks of Things including material and technological artefacts
Networks of Ideas including theories, disciplines and concepts (among them design history and ANT)