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Submission 2
Darwinian Metaphors.
Objects and Technical Systems
in Evolutionary Perspectives
Silvia Pizzocaro
Abstract
The set of man made artefacts and systems have been frequently observed in
an evolutionary perspective. Natural sciences offer an uncommonly rich
apparatus as a source for analogies to be applied to the domains of the
artificial. The literature on the evolutionary analogy is rich.
The genealogical perspective is recurrent. According to this perspective the
evolution of the artificial is mainly the evolution of artefacts (or objects, or
products). As a unit of evolution, the artefact may represent the unit of analysis
of genealogies, whose variations (or mutations) may trace the pathways of
morphological and functional developments. The population perspective - on
its part - may be outlined as the perspective on competition and selection
dynamics applied to technical systems at the large scale. The population (or
ecological) perspective opens a systemic horizon that is absent in genealogical
visions.
While revisiting the notions of genetics of the industrial object, technical
species, demography of objects, this paper outlines some more recent systemic
perspectives. It will be assumed that no strict similarity has to be theorised
between living organisms and artefacts, between natural and technical systems.
Rather, it is more a matter of assuming that at the base of structurally similar
systems that proceed by different rules, there may be general principles. The
possible unity of thinking may not reside in wrong applications of evident
rules (such as natural selection) to singular contexts (such as technological
change), but rather in the search for more general rules of structure and
change. The paper concludes that comparison of some phenomenological
characteristics of natural systems with those of man made artefacts and
systems might serve as a heuristics.
Keywords: evolution, genealogies of artefacts, systems of artefacts as
ecosystems.
Introduction
The most generalisable ideas on the analogy between biology and technology
are recurrent in many disciplinary areas. Some of these studies are little
known, as it is the case of the theoretical contributions to the concept of
progress in living systems and technological systems (Urbanek 1988)1.
Developments in the field of bionics - on the contrary - largely spread out2.
The evolutionary theories of technological change, on the side of economics,
encouraged approaches that invested as much the laws of technological change
as the ways through which technological development leans on economic
implications (Penrose 1952; Winter 1964; Nelson and Winter 1974, 1977,
1982; Di Bernardo and Rullani 1984; Saviotti and Metcalfe 1991; Faber and
Proops 1990, 1992).
In a position uncomfortably placed between the praxis of bionics and the
formalisation of economic evolutionary theories, a further tradition of study lacking formal elegance as well as disciplinary autonomy - may go under the
denomination of technological Darwinism. This denomination is not the
indicator of the homogeneous nature of the theoretical contributions it gathers
- quite heterogeneous indeed. Rather, it simply highlights a common approach
that interprets the way artefacts and artificial3 systems evolve.
A common methodology is the unifying ingredient for the above mentioned
different approaches: a natural system (or organism, or structure, or process) is
used to derive a model for interpretations to be extended to an artificial system
(or artefact, or structure, or process). The model, or the interpretation, does not
directly provide a resolutive pattern. Rather, it is more question of obtaining
design-oriented patterns that may provide a frame to embed temptative
analytical, conceptual or design solutions.
Natural evolution, cultural evolution, technological evolution
Why may we learn more (or differently) on man made products and systems
by looking at natural systems evolution? Is the analogy just a non-sense?
Some founding elements of the analogy between biological evolution and
technological evolution should discourage - rather than encourage - any
comparison. A sort of an intellectual trap, as in Gould (1980), the evolutionary
metaphor may be often more harmful than useful: biological evolution is a bad
model for any cultural change, due to basic motivations:
(i) the rhythm of cultural evolution is incomparably faster than any biological
change;
1
A first bio-technological approach was opened in the Thirties, with the studies of the German
zoologist Franz (1935), introducing the term bio-technical progress to define those structural and
functional improvements of organisms, which could be measured through their efficiency. The
meaning of progress in living systems and technical systems was further investigated throughout
the Seventies in the Soviet Union, producing studies (Zavadski 1970) on the essential similarities
related to those tendencies towards growing complexity, autonomy, reliability, that both systems
may share.
2
The simulation of vital processes and structures has motivated the approach resulting into operative
programmes; in this case natural structures and processes are converted into models for design of the
artificial (Yeang 1974; Pearce 1978).
3
As in Simon (1969, 6): “ ... you will have to understand me as using “artificial” in as neutral sense as
possible, as meaning man-made as opposed to natural”.
(ii) any cultural change is Lamarckian, as changes are acquired and transmitted
directly to offspring. On the contrary, natural evolution is Darwinian, the
favourable changes being transmitted to offspring only if originated from
genetic changes;
(iii) biological evolution is a process of constant divergence: once a change has
appeared, mutation or variation, evolution is irreversibly at work. Also the
tree of culture may diverge, but it also converges, any change being reversible,
past and present entwined.
Why, therefore, in spite of these premises, the analogy still makes a sense?
Here we will simply assume that either cultural evolution, of which material
culture is part, and natural evolution are patterns of historical change: both are,
as the ethimology of evolution suggests, forms of deployment whose order is
open to systemic investigation. Comparing Darwinian principles, derived from
either the classical theory or the Modern Synthesis, to principles of artificial
evolution is not intended as a formal contribution to expected theories of
technological change. What is demanded, at the most, is whether it is possible
to obtain better (or improved) common understanding, in order to identify
those general patterns that may be at the base of all systems that evolve
historically. It is more a search for the regularities that govern the laws of
change (not depending on the nature of the considered system).
There is no similarity, therefore, to be theorised between living organisms and
artefacts, between natural and artificial systems, between men and machines.
Rather, it is matter of assuming that at the base of structurally similar systems
that proceed by different self-evident rules, there may be general principles. In
the light of the contemporary advancements of epistemological studies on the
general nature of change in biological and cultural systems, it is plausible to
assume that a unity of thinking may be found not in wrong applications of
these evident rules (such as natural selection) to singular context (such as
technological change), but rather in the search for more general rules of
structure and change.
Genealogies of artefacts
Biology - like natural sciences in general - offers an uncommonly rich
apparatus as a source for analogies to be applied to the domains of the
artificial. The due premise rests on the choice of that part of theory proving to
be effectively useful as a model. Once such an element is detected, the
procedure implies a series of successive phases: the selection of the natural
system to be investigated, the supposed coherence with its artificial analogue,
the process of abstraction necessary to define the boundaries of the system to
be investigated, the translation by which the representation of the model is
produced.
Businaro (1983, 464) argues that, when dealing with biological evolution, one
may even refer to three points of view: (i) that of the palaeontologist, (ii) that
of the biologist, (iii) that of the molecular biologist.
The first aims at understanding the phyletic evolution of the biological world
(Grassé 1973); the second deals with the evolution of single species through
the study of populations (Dobzhanski 1970); the third investigates the basic
principles of evolution at biochemistry level (Monod 1970).
Also the evolution of the artificial may be approached from multiple
perspectives. A hierarchy of perspectives may include at least:
(i) the paleontological perspective on artefact evolution,
(ii) the population perspective on families of products.
The genealogical perspective is recurrent. It moves from pre-industrial times
(Butler 1863) up to contemporary analysis (Deforge 1985, Simondon 1969,
Campbell and Whelan 1985, Businaro 1982, 1983, Basalla 1991). According
to this perspective the evolution of the artificial is mainly the evolution of
artefacts (or objects, or products). As a unit of evolution, the artefact may
represent the unit of analysis of genealogies, whose variations (or mutations)
may trace the pathways of morphological and functional developments.
The analogy based on the Darwinian model of evolution rests on the
Darwinian principles of the struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest,
the concept of variation. On the evolutionary model Simon (1969, 52)
observes: “One way to create an artefact is to let it spring from the brain of a
creator. Another is to let it evolve in response to some kind of selective force.
The simplest scheme of evolution is one that depends on two processes; a
generator and a test. The task of the generator is to produce variety, new
forms that have not existed previously, whereas the task of the test is to cull out
the newly generated forms so that only those that are well fitted to the
environment will survive. In modern biological Darwinism genetic mutation is
the generator, natural selection the test”.
Considering the artefact as a unit of evolution, most contributions to
technological Darwinism tend to converge in a vein describing the evolution of
the products of human activity as a genealogical reconstruction of the artefacts
offspring (Pitt-Rivers 1906; Blackwood 1970; Basalla 1988; Pantzar 1993;
Steadman 1979). The sequence from simple to complex, from homogeneous to
heterogeneous, represents the principles on which the scale of material
progress is often based. Natural history plays a role as a source to derive
methods or systems to be extended to artefacts classifications, so to obtain
genera, species and varieties providing diachronic and synchronic
descriptions4.
The key concepts of Darwin's theory are often reduced to a paleontological
vision of material culture. A concept of an orthogenesis of tools was
introduced by Leroi-Gourhan (1964), admitting the hypothesis of the analogy
with paleontological evolution as a technical general fact. The principle of
variation has given raise to fruitful reflection on product variability. This
resulted into interpretations for the notions of model and type, artificial
genotype and phenotype5, inherited variations and environment-induced
4
A problem may be the missing links, that is the difficulty in establishing the adequate insertion of
an object in a sequence, or the gaps of intermediate forms.
5
For Businaro (1982, 27), the genotype of a product could be the product specification and its technological
regime. A specific design of a product could represent its phenotype and the product of a firm, a population.
Ranges of products might be the equivalent of races or subspecies.
modifications in artefacts, selective processes affecting artefact survival and
adaptation (Businaro 1982, 1983; Campbell and Whelan 1985; Grassman
1985; Pantzar 1992). The progress of technological evolution proceeds by
continuous improvements, the slow succession of sequences being invested by
artificial selection allowing the evolution of the fittest, gradually modifying the
survivors, discarding the less fit.
Beyond its evocative effect, the evolution of artefacts may have rather limited
extensions, resulting into a palaeontology or classification of artefacts. A
positive functions has any way to be recognised to this approach: taxonomies
and genealogies foster insight in the artefact status of existence: the object is
not an inert entity any longer, but the living, active step of a sequence (a
genealogy) that can be retroactively analysed, toward the ancestors and its
genesis.
A further re-evaluated comprehension of the object - now as product of the
industrial culture - takes shape in the work by Yves Deforges (1985),
approaching the evolutionary dimension as an essential tool for a reflection on
industrial techniques. Beside the evocative dimension of the natural history of
things, Deforge turns the evolutionary model into operative instruments: the
notion of genetic offspring for industrial products, their laws of evolution, the
systemic dimensions where systems of products co- evolve with the
environment.
Getting over the strictly metaphorical approach or the paleontological
description, Deforge assumes the concept of evolution as a real, although
rough, operative tool. Among the instruments proposed by Deforge, both the
idea of genetic offspring and the formulation of evolutionary laws converge in
elaborating the vision of industrial products diversification as a genetic
continuum as well as a progressive adaptation to the context.
This genealogical perspective is often centred on two levels of analysis: the
phenotype and the genotype. In one case, morphological and technical
variations affecting artefacts and products are explained in terms of survival of
the fittest, progression from simple to more complex structures, increase (or
decrease) of product variety, dominance or decline of morphological and
functional solutions. In the latter, the reflection mainly invests the idea of type
as artificial genotype that is the equivalent of the genetic heritage. Mechanisms
of Lamarckian or Darwinian selection may be also proposed to interpret
product proliferation or extinction, providing interpretations on product variety
(Pantzar, 1992).
It is however the hypothesis of the associated environment of a product that
may open the innovative horizon of a systemic dimension. Here genealogies of
artefacts can be analysed from multiple points of view: products as evolving
within a system of production, machines and tools within a system of use,
objects within a system of consumption. An evolutionary unit integrating the
industrial object and its relation with the environment, i.e. the milieu associé,6
may be modelled.
6
Using Gilbert Simondon's words (1969, 57).
Ecologies of products
The population perspective may be outlined as the system perspective of
competition and selection dynamics applied to technical systems at the large
scale. The population (or ecological) perspective opens a systemic dimension7
that is absent in paleontological visions.
With his theory of objects of sociological nature, Abraham Moles introduced
the concept of demography of objects8 some decades ago. This demography of
artificial products - with species and subspecies, rates of birth and ageing of
products - leads to at least two kinds of considerations open to reflection:
(i) an ecological perspective is outlined, with artificial species and their
relationships (competition, predation and commensalism) as subject of study
and a field of investigation;
(ii) those populations enlighten an area of investigation which is absent in
ecology: the continuous appearance of new artificial species9 (as compared to
the relative fixity of living species in nature).
The perspective opened by Moles is sided by the definition of technical species
(Simondon 1969) formulated in the same years. The technical species defines
distinctions between objects on the basis of their practical purpose. The
technical object is interpreted in the dynamic dimension of its evolution as in a
philogenetic line; it contains in itself structures and schemes that may
determine its successive developments.
Also Simondon - in his investigation of the evolutionary dynamics of technical
“beings” - frequently uses notions as genesis, ontogenesis, philogenesis,
morphogenesis, mutation, advocating a strict analogy between the rationales of
living beings and the rationales of techniques (Maldonado 1998, 210).
For Hottois (1984, 29) intuitive, self-evident common factors legitimate the
analogy:
(i) morphological continuity (that incorporates novelties and perpetuates old
forms in nature; the evolution of species would correspond to the appearance
of new artefacts in the artificial world);
(ii) the progressive occupation of the ecological niches (on one side the
survival of living species in the appropriate micro-habitat; on the other,
technical species that may coexist only within infrastructures that assure its
reproductive processes, conservation, and nourishment);
(iii) a general principle of the struggle for survival (the fittest imposes itself in
the biological as well as in the technologic world);
(iv) the tendency to morphophilia (on one side the extraordinary exuberance of
morphologies and interspecies variations, not strictly motivated by related
7
According to this approach, human populations and populations of artefacts coevolve through a selective
use of technological systems to produce socio-cultural systems (Gallino 1987, 186). Here evolutionary
units are technological systems, whose survival and reproduction may depend on the selection operated by
other systems.
8 In the sense of the description of populations and their variations.
9
The definition of species still raises disputes among biologists. In case of sexually reproducing individuals,
a species can be defined as a reproductively isolated group of populations. Others prefer to define species
only as a taxonomic group, with individuals classified because of their similarities. In the case of man made
objects, only the taxonomic definition provides a correspondence (Businaro 1982, 15).
needs in term of function and adaptation; on the other, patterns of proliferation
of products);
(v) the abundance of variations, which do not always find an application (the
unfavourable or recessive variations in nature; inventions and patents in
technology);
(vi) the nature of innovations as an integrative process (which as much in
biology as in technology can reorganise everything that already exists);
(vii) the sequence of stability and sudden discontinuities (mutation in nature,
inventions in technology).
On the premise of these intuitive aspects, it is further argued (Hottois 1984)
that the transformation induced by a techno-evolution may acquire a
mutational nature (that is a properly evolutionary) completely different from
the implicit continuity of any historical transformation (1984, 132). The
evolutionary perspective may support a category of discontinuity that is more
radical than any historical hiatus. In this sense, technical progress may have
never experienced the gap that the concept of mutation implies.
The evolutionary perspective also drives to the vision of technical progress as
a combining proliferation, where any invention is placed on a crossroad of
multiple technical vectors, as an almost spontaneous self-growth (Ellul 1977,
229-248).
About evolutionary units
When referring to natural systems, main evolutionary units are:
(i) the organism (basic unit of independent life that contributes to
reproduction),
(ii) the species (set of all organisms whose genotypes are so similar to allow
interbreeding),
(iii) the biological system (consisting of a set of interacting species).
A long running-debate in evolutionary biology has led to the contemporary
recognition that the most representative evolutionary unit may not be the
individual organism - central in the classical Darwinian perspective - but the
population (aggregation of members of a species) or the whole biological
system, where either genotype and phenotype evolution can be observed.
Also within the artificial systems a hierarchy of evolutionary units can be
traced, including the single artefact (in the typological perspective), the
product aggregates (in the population perspective), the artificial system as an
ecosystem (the enlarged systemic perspective)10.
Technology itself - as the set of a population of material and non-material
systems and as a set of organs, and more analytically of traits, properties or
characteristics, subject to continuous variations, which are accepted or
transmitted in differential form by human populations (Gallino 1987, 181) has been placed in a neo-Darwinian perspective11. Gallino (1987) argues that
each technological system and its successive replicas are gradually modified in
10
In economic studies (Saviotti and Metcalfe 1991) two main levels attracted theorists: that of the product
and the one of the industrial system. Emphasis on the product as an evolutionary unit has been progressively
substituted by a systemic approach that considers the industrial system as a whole.
11
The theoretic bases of the neo-Darwinian perspective lay on the synthesis of the progression and
discontinuity of evolution.
time, so that at a given moment a technological population will present a
distribution of variants different from the preceding moments: which is
evolution (in Darwinian terms), or micro-evolution, as the Modern Synthesis
defines it.
But, there is also the possibility that structural new systems may appear as the
equivalent of the leaps defined as macro-evolution (i.e. system changes that do
not derive from micro-evolution). This could explain the generation of
technological systems that can substitute former ones, while co-existing with
them.
Beyond the heuristic sense of the metaphoric procedure, wider perspectives are
now opened towards co-evolutionary visions where biology, technology, social
and cultural processes works as links of a general evolution. Human
organisms, technological systems and socio-cultural systems interact in a coevolutionary circuit, where human populations influence the idoneity of
technologic systems and, through these, they affect biological and sociocultural evolution. As Gallino observes (1987, 186), organisms of the first
order (human beings) selectively use organisms of the second order
(technological systems) to reproduce themselves and to reproduce organisms
of the third order (socio-cultural systems); human beings accelerate the
evolution of technological systems and their dependence on these, with longterm effects on the probability of collective survival.
This circuit has not yet been the product of an intentional design. Through
their technological choices, social actors join in determining the future of their
species. The technological populations that will descend from the
contemporary ones will be the result of these choices, carried out in a
relationship between technology and society, which goes through states of the
process of co-evolution between biology and culture12.
Adaptation as a dynamic process
The developments of the notion of adaptation (Lewontin 1977) may provide
further useful insights for possible interpretations of the evolutionary dynamics
of man made systems and the related design strategies.
Richard Lewontin (1977, 198) observes that adaptation is a concept related not
only to life evolution but to culture in general, where it appears as
functionalism: it's a concept stating that there are “problems” that living
organisms or societies have to solve: present forms of life on earth or present
social organisations are solutions to those problems. The description of
adaptation in terms of "solutions" to "problems” implies that a problem comes
first, and then organisms adapt to that condition with a dynamic process: this
process is called "adaptation" and the result is "being adapted" (Lewontin,
1977, 199).
The fundamental question raised about this traditional vision of biological
adaptation concerns the pre-existence of problems. The admission - as
12
In their analysis of technological change as guided by a principle of survival of the fittest,
Campbell and Whelan (1985, 284) propose that “just as genes are the units of biological
evolution, and memes those of cultural evolution, venes are the units of technological selection”.
indicated by classical evolutionary theories - that organisms adapt to the
environment implies that ecological niches exist apart from organisms. But
this is in contradiction with the definition of the ecological niche, which is
made up of the multidimensional relations of an organism with the
surrounding environment (Lewontin 1977, 200). To avoid this contradiction it
has to be assumed that organisms themselves define the niche: but in this case
all species should be already adapted and they needn't be adapted any more.
So how could a species be adapted and in adaptation at the same time?
(Lewontin 1977, 201). In biology the paradox has been solved with the
admission that the environment is in constant decay and that its organisms are
forced to evolve to maintain their condition of adaptation.
It is the so-called Red Queen model (from the character by Lewis Carroll),
theorised by Leight van Valen. This theory assumes that the environment is
unceasingly decaying and that selection operates so that the organisms'
adaptation is maintained, not improved (Lewontin 1987, 37). Evolutionary
adaptation is an infinitesimal process: organisms are unceasingly adapting,
following the conditions of an environment that is constantly changing
(Lewontin 1977, 201).
Assuming the notion of adaptation as a dynamic process of constant
adjustment of organisms to their environment suggests coherent visions of the
relation between organisms and their environments. In the classical context of
the survival of the fittest the environment stands as a resource and an obstacle;
furthermore, while the organism is active the environment is passive and static.
Orthodox approaches focusing on organisms and considering the environment
as an auxiliary category are overcome by new perspectives (Lewontin and
Levins 1978, 1041-1045) where organisms and their environment can not be
isolated: the environment is the product of the organism activity.
Specific observations related to this statement at least imply that:
1. organisms select their environments, positively reacting to favourable
signals;
2. organisms modify their environments by consuming resources, disposing
wastes deriving from their activity, building habitats;
3. organisms define their environments;
4. environmental factors interfere with the physical structure of organisms;
5. organisms react to environmental changes;
6. each part of an organism acts as environment for other parts: in this sense
evolution can be considered as the reciprocal adaptation of the different parts
of an organism.
A considerable part of modern evolutionary biology thus assumes that the
evolution of living beings is an active agent of transformation of the
environment, which in turn influences organisms (Lewontin 1977, 201). The
environment cannot be considered an independent process any longer, as there
is no organism without its environment nor environment without its organisms
(Lewontin 1983, 91).
Should the above statements turn into analogies to be extended to artificial
systems, we could assume that:
1. artefacts, products, technical systems select their environments, positively
reacting to favourable conditions;
2. artefacts, products, technical systems modify their environments by
consuming resources, disposing wastes, building artificial habitats;
3. artefacts, products, technical systems define their environments;
4. artefacts, products, technical systems react to environmental changes;
5. artefacts, products, systems are integrated in their environment, so that no
components of a man made system can be isolated from its environment;
6. a dynamic process may take place, where each evolutionary unit of artificial
systems (artefacts, families of products, product populations) is in evolution in
relation to the others;
7. man made systems and the natural environment are related to such an extent
that effects on the latter depend on the first one and viceversa.
Extreme environmental changes
There are limits to the constant process of co-adaptation between man-made
systems and their environment.
As we know from evolution sudden environmental change of large entity may
allow neither chance nor time to systems to adapt to new conditions. At the
micro-scale of industrial products this may occur whenever a specific need
ceases, causing the extinction of products related to that need. At the macroscale of the industrial systems, the hypothesis that a technological system and
its environment constitute an integrated unit goes with the possibility
(Luhman 1986) that a man made system may affects its environment on such a
large extent, that it can not exist in that environment any longer: a process
defined by biology as the excessive exploitation of an ecological niche.
That is to say: a process of adaptation - either for natural ecosystems and
artificial systems - is not always beneficial. As Gregory Bateson (1979)
remarked, the cases of adaptation making nature appear so intelligent and witty
can be the first steps to pathology and excessive specialisation. Among the
adaptations that are ruinous in the long term there is the case of the species so
well adapted to its niche to destroy it: such a dynamics can be applied to
artificial systems, mainly in terms of those technological alternatives that
although positive in the short term turn to be negative at length.
Adaptive changes may be positive at the beginning, but they can exhaust any
system flexibility in the long term. No cultural barriers exist to avoid the
influence of rapid environmental changes causing adaptive changes in man
made systems (Degli Espinosa 1990, 194): whereas biological systems are
protected by the so called Weissmann barrier from too fast environmental
influences (the barrier avoiding the Lamarckian transmission of acquired
changes), in social, technical and cultural systems no barriers of any kind
prevent from influences deriving from environmental changes.
Conclusion: towards innovative interactions
Could it be useful to start drawing maps of the elementary interactions among
the components and structural parts of man made systems as ecosystems? If
we look again at natural systems we learn that all the different interactions
between pairs of species can be essentially classified into:
a. competition (a species having an inhibiting effect on the other);
b. commensalism (each species having an accelerating effect on the growth of
the other);
c. predation (the predator having an inhibiting effect on the prey and the prey
having an accelerating effect on the predator).
Competition is virtually the only category of interaction to be studied beyond
the disciplinary borders of biology13. Comparative economic studies on
competition, selection, or commensalism in industrial system are traditionally
embedded in the concrete reality of market laws and factors. An evolutionary
system perspective might go beyond the aseptic analysis of economics to
demonstrate that artefacts and systems interactions may get over market
factors, by taking place within a more complex environment that is not made
up only of market elements nor it is made up of a priori conditions.
Going back to the ecological niche model, a man-made evolutionary unit could
be essentially described as the complex including:
(i) the physical conditions within which populations and system of artefacts
evolve (including natural constraints and resources limits);
(ii) the framework of relations set up by the artificial system components
(relations between technical species and populations of products, and between
species and population and their niches);
(iii) the effects that technical species and artefacts population produce on their
niches.
This comprehensive environment stands as a flexible evolutionary unit, where
man made systems and products can not be isolated from their context, each of
them being at the same time subject and object of the other's evolution,
according to a constant, reciprocal process of successful or failing adaptation.
New interactions are open for investigation from the design angle: from
symbiosis between families of products to commensalism for product
populations.
Would the idea of a symbiotic design for products be feasible? Are designers
aware of the commensalism properties that could affect – positively or
negatively - product strategies for the future?
Would designers be attracted by future visions where no product or system
design can be isolated from the texture of its environmental interactions?
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13
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Words 5,568 (excluding footnotes)
Biographical note
Silvia Pizzocaro, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano.
Academic experience includes appointments as Professor at Politecnico di
Milano since 1996 for the Degree course in Industrial design; tutor and
research supervisor within the Department of Industrial Design of Politecnico
di Milano; post-doctoral research fellow; co-ordinator for research projects
funded by the European Commission; scientific co-ordinator and chair of the
organising committee for the Design plus Research conference held in 2000 at
Politecnico di Milano. Principal areas of research interest are: theory of design,
the design of research into design, doctoral education in design, research
methodology.
Contact
Prof. Silvia Pizzocaro
Politecnico di Milano
Facoltà di Design, Dipartimento di Industrial design
via Durando 38/a, 20158 Milano, Italia
phone: 39 02 2399.5984
e-mail: [email protected]