Five Confrences, Five Dilemmas: The role of ethics in reflective practice

This inquiry is intended to highlight a number of ethical points of debate, with regards to practice within the field of art & design. Furthermore, it aims to distinguish how design practice and art practice differ in their approach to ethical issues.

On examining the contrast in the disciplines of art and design,  it proposes that engagement with tools such as; scale and texture (these terms are not intended to be used in the same sense that are common among artists and designers, rather they have been extracted from their studio usage and projected into a theoretical framework), are possible means for reflection in design in order to arrive at ethical positions and understandings.
This paper is a joint submission, bringing together the practice of its authors; design and anthropology. As such, the authors have been developing a dialogue between their practices and aiming to bridge the role of design within an ethical framework, whilst reflecting on ethnographic practice, from a similar perspective. This debate has been part of the discussions that have been developed and advanced with the anthropologist George Marcus.
In order to mediate this debate within a context of the discourses addressed, the paper is formed around five conferences attended by the authors. At each conference a number of pertinent issues have been raised, during discussions and debates and the body of this paper refers to these incidents.
Five Conferences, five Dilemmas

In each conference, the question that was raised for the authors was one that challenged the role of criticality with regards to the practice of design and art.
– Art & Anthropology, Oslo–
George Marcus raised the differentiation between the ethical distinctions in art practice and ethnography. In response, Barth & Raein, proposed the theme of Holding Patterns as a tool for mediating between stakeholders in situated practices. Is this a feasible tool for mediation?
Question; Can we map the role of participants in a practice?
– Sensuous Knowledge 5, Bergen –
Ingrid Book og Carina Hedén where questioned by Raein with regards to the ethical dilemmas within their practice and asked about their relationship to their informants.
Question; Can artists and designer create an autonomous position with regards to their informants and if so what could be the ethical consequences of this position?
– Institute for Cultural Research, the Power of Stories, London – Power of the personal, private and public narratives.
Vieda Skultans presented the question that after traumatic upheavals people give great importance to the use of words that may re-present their experiences.
Question; Can we say the same of images that represent us during upheavals and if so who is the author of these images?
– Grafill, Visuelt, Oslo;
Jan Wilkers of the New York based design company KarlssonWilker  presented work carried out by his company. However, during the presentation a number of negative and humiliating comments were made with regards to the clients and users.  This made a number of the attendees rather uncomfortable.
Question; Is it possible to publicly question one’s clients and if so who can represent the missing professional in this scenario?
– Cities Re-imagined 1, Oslo;
Steven Bode presented the work of the artist Dryden Goodwin and then read extracts from his own writing about the artists work. During the presentation a small film was shown during which Goodwin asked a member of the public if he could draw him. The man – a foreigner – is heard (and not seen) responding, while struggling with English, that he is in a “difficult situation” and does not wish to be exhibited. Yet his voice is being distributed in public.
Question;  Who represents and defends the “third voice” in art and design?
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The paper inquiry will not deal with these questions specifically, but will rather navigate through them in order to present some of the research of the authors in this area.

Maziar Raein & Theo Barth
Førsteamanuensis og studieleder MA design & Førsteamanuensis

Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo (KHiO)
Faculty for Design – MA Design Programme