Metadesign as an Emergent Design Culture

Leonardo

Metadesign as an Emergent Design CultureAuthor(s): Elisa GiaccardiSource: Leonardo, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2005), pp. 342-349, 300Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206081 .

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3



Metadesign as an

Emergent Design Culture

Elisa Giaccardi

E m

Jvery time the word metadesignis used, it causes

even more confusion than the word design. The term seems

vague, elusive. Semantically, the principal meaning of the

Greek word meta- when used as a prefix is "change of place,

order, or nature" [1]. Historically, since the 1960s, the term

metadesign has been used to focus on the possibilities of "de

signing the design"?possibilities that later, in the 1980s, were

realized by using information technologies. In the last two

decades, the idea of metadesign has appeared as both a theo

retical issue and an operational methodology; however, it has

always been an isolated concept, producing neither an estab

lished approach nor a coherent theory. The development of

the notion of metadesign can be categorized as critical and

reflexive thinking about the boundaries and scope of design, aimed at coping with the complexity of natural human inter

action made tangible by technology. Metadesign seeks to trans

form this complexity into an opportunity for new forms of

creativity and sociability. This text aims at tracing the devel

opment of the notion of metadesign and the multiplicity of

its definitions by offering a map of correlated concepts and es

tablishing the foundations of metadesign as a distinct and

emergent design culture.

Metadesign in Artistic and Cultural Debate Within the artistic and cultural debate, the idea of metadesign has primarily addressed the emergence of digital networks and

biotechnologies. Both represent alternatives to "juridical" models of communication, interaction and life?as embodied

by mass media and moral law.

In 1986, at the time of the emergence of advanced tele

communications and the first virtual communities, Gene

Youngblood wrote "Metadesign: Toward a Postmodernism of

Reconstruction " for Ars Electr?nica [2]. Inspired by the pio

neering work of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz [3],

Youngblood defined metadesign as a strategy for instigating a

revolution in the communication world and overcoming the

broadcasting style of mass culture. As such, metadesign deals

with the creation of context rather than content; it is a mode

of integrating systems and setting actions in order to create environ

ments in which people may culti

vate "creative conversations" and

take control of the context of their

cultural and aesthetic production

(Fig. 1). Some years later, in his 1995 essay

"Networked Art and Virtual Com

munities" [4], Derrick De Kerck

hove defined metadesign as a

quality of the new art forms that

were emerging over the Web in its .

early years. According to De Kerck

hove, metadesign is the kind of de

sign that puts the tools rather than the object of design in the

users' hands, and defines the conditions for the process of in

teraction rather than the process itself. However, in subsequent

writings [5], De Kerckhove has addressed metadesign as a

model of design actually mediated by digital networks rather

than an emerging quality of design promoted by art experi mentation. As such, metadesign can be described as the de

sign of tools, parameters and operating conditions that allow

an infinite flexibility in tailoring the industrial product and enable the end-user to take charge of the final design by choos

ing among many different options. In the same period, Paul Virilio expressed shock at Stelarc's

techno-performances. In his book The Art of the Motor [6], pub lished in 1995, Virilio wrote that he feared the advent of a neu

rological form of design directed at shaping our perceptual and cognitive systems via information processing and further

directed at reorganizing the organic according to a machinic

model. He called the aftermath of this "technomorphization" of society "metadesign."

Biologist Humberto Maturana refuted the idea that such a

process of adaptation to electronic media can ever take place in his emblematic 1997 paper "Metadesign

" [7]. In this paper,

Maturana argued that if a process of metadesign as design of

living systems does exist, this enlarges the issue of design to

include the nature of our very existence, and it implies an

epistemological and ethical rethinking of the relations be

tween human beings and technology. He strongly disputed any deterministic understanding of biological evolution, and there

fore of "human design." From Maturana's perspective, meta

design is a dynamic work of art: It produces an aesthetic

experience of the world that is intertwined with our social and

technological present. Like art, metadesign has the potential to open up new relational dimensions and create a grounding

reality in the course of human history. The social construction of reality is for Maturana?from a

ABSTRACT

I he concept of metadesign was adopted in the 1980s

regarding the use of information

technologies in relation to art, cultural theories and design practices (from interactive art to biotechnological design). This article introduces theories and

practices of metadesign and contributes to the unfolding of

metadesign as an emergent design culture, calling for an

expansion of the creative

process in the new design space engendered by informa tion technologies.

Elisa Giaccardi (theorist, researcher, designer), Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D), University of Colorado, ECOT 717, 430 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0430, U.S.A. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Web: <http://x2.i-dat.org/~eg/>.

Article Frontispiece. NOX, V2_Lab, 1998. (? NOX Architects) By means of their metadesign technique, NOX Architects adapt archi tecture to evolution. Their architecture is an interface for a dynamic organization of space in which visitors act upon architectural struc tures that respond in real time to their needs.

?2005ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 342-349,2005 343



design perspective?an ethical impera tive, as it is for Youngblood [8] and Gal

loway and Rabinowitz [9]. On this point,

Eugene Thacker, in a workshop paper, "Bioethics and Bio-ethics," for the 2002

conference "Towards Human Technolo

gies" [10], explicitly tackled the question of biotechnological design and bioethics.

In this paper, Thacker tried to clarify that

even though metadesign is a kind of de

sign that is not instrumental, but ethical, it is nevertheless not based on a moral

law. Metadesign must allow a social mode

of existence that is flexible and based on

mutual processes of affecting and being affected rather than on ajuridical model.

According to Thacker, metadesign repre sents a critical and creative investigation into the possibilities of transformation of

human beings and culture.

The ideas expressed around the last

decades of the 20th century by these few

but crucial theoretical writings on meta

design?reflecting on the scope, bound

aries and qualities of the expanded

design space that is engendered by in

formation technologies?have found

some conceptual frameworks and opera tive methodologies in several application domains. These ideas combine here with

design theory and methodology with

promising results.

Conceptual Frameworks and Practices of Metadesign The notion of metadesign has been ap

plied in many fields, including graphic design, industrial design, information ar

chitecture and system design. These ap

plications have focused differently on the

concepts associated with metadesign,

ranging from processes of high-order de

sign to participation and co-evolution.

However, these concepts are often tied

together. The idea of reflexive thinking about

design has been commonly translated in

the application field as the "design of a

design process." In graphic design and

industrial design, in particular, metade

sign has primarily been connected to the

idea of working with computational structures on a higher level of design [11]. Because a computational object has

a discrete structure, parts of the object can be easily accessed, modified and sub

stituted by other parts; it is not fixed and

it can be generated and manipulated without actually drawing it. In this con

text, metadesign can be associated with

the passage from traditional typography to interface design [12]. John Maeda [13], in a series of short essays published in Japan for MdNMagazinern 1995, men

Fig. 1. Mobile Image, Electronic Cafe International, 1984. (? Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz) An early example of a metadesign environment, ECI was a telecommunications system characterized as an accessible, flexible and end-user-modifiable system that allowed users the greatest possible freedom to design and control their own information environments.

VUMUUCtt Jony ?naftw fPWPftl:

Crfrtoth <4

.___?** TVIiwilCii 31

o44 Giaccardi, Metadesign



E3EJE3 Fig. 2. John Maeda, reactive graphics, 1995. (?John Maeda) Maeda's metadesign technique allows generation of visual experiences that involve the viewers in the creation of the form

by responding to their inputs in real time.

tioned the concept of metadesign in re

lation to his idea of graphic design not

as printed image but as "reactive" com

puter programs (Fig. 2). In architec

ture, similarly, Lars Spuybroek promotes

metadesign techniques [14] as tools for

constructing dynamic spaces where peo

ple can unpredictably and creatively interact with their environment (Arti cle Frontispiece, Fig. 3 and Color Plate F

No. 2).

Considering the capability of code to

define "transformation rules," Celestino

Soddu has addressed metadesign as the

design of an "artificial DNA" since 1989

[15]. In his work, the objective is the de

sign of "species of design": the designer is the producer of an "executable idea"

(the generative code), and the consumer

is the one who chooses one of its possi ble realizations. The creative process de

fines a "seed" able to generate endless

variations recognizable as belonging to

the same idea but open to change by the

client. Thus, the final consumer will

choose from this endless sequence of

variations the result that better fits his or

her needs and subjectivity (Fig. 4). Like

De Kerckhove [16], Soddu empowers the

user as consumer, making him or her

proactive, but does not question the

user's passive role as designer. Evolution

here is the result of the execution of a no

tation and its exploration, rather than

the aftermath of the user's full partici

pation in the creative process. In this gen erative process model, the "seed" can be

defined and modified only by the de

signer. In the last few years, two organizations

have been working on frameworks and

applications of metadesign: the Labo

ratory for Architecture and Urbanism

(Lab[au]), a collective of artists, archi

tects and computer scientists based in

Brussels; and the Center for LifeLong

Learning and Design (L3D) of the Uni

versity of Colorado at Boulder. These two

organizations have developed research

agendas that incorporate most of the

aforementioned theoretical statements

and operational methodologies. Lab [au] has adopted the term metade

sign with the objective of enacting a new

discipline of information architecture

[17]. For Lab [au], metadesign is a mat

ter of the setting of codes that allow data

to be organized in spatial and temporal forms?that is, a design process of a

higher order. Participation and evolu

tion, however, are important. The inte

gration of user interaction over time is a

key element in the collective's work, and

it represents an active component in

the structuring of information itself. Sim

Fig. 3. NOX, V2_Lab, 1998.

(? NOX Architects) Lars

Spuybroek and colleagues progress seamlessly from a

computer-generated process of forces, vectors and springs to the flowing transition?for

instance, between floor and

tables?allowing people to interact with their environment in a more open and creative

manner. ^;@p|pi^^" "

mm

Ciaccardi, Metadesign 345



? fr i

Fig. 4. Gelestino Soddu, Generated architectures to increase the Hong Kong identity, 2002. (? Gelestino Soddu) In this metaproject, a mayor can

customize the "morphogenetic code" of evolution for his or her town and use it to control the future identity of the local environment.

ilar to Galloway and Rabinowitz [18],

Lab [au] focuses on the construction of

electronic spaces, viewing information

not as content but as an environment in

which users' perceptual and cognitive ca

pabilities can be expanded (Fig. 5). At the Center for LifeLong Learning

and Design, however, metadesign seems

to have undergone a conceptual and op erational development that places it

in the context of current debate in de

sign theory and methodology. Gerhard

Fischer and his colleagues, particularly in the last few years [19], have consis

tently focused on metadesign. Concep

tually, metadesign represents to them the

question of how to create new media and

environments that allow users, when

needed and desired, to act as designers and be creative. By providing users with

social and technical support, the envi

ronments designed at L3D are intended

to sustain users as the actual "owners of

problems" [20]. Operationally, meta

design is viewed at L3D as a design

methodology characterized by activities,

processes and techniques focused on cre

ating socio-technical environments that

empower users actively and collabora

tively to engage with the original de

signer (s) in the continuous development of a system and to design solutions that

range from the creation of content to the

modification of code (Fig. 6). The con

ceptual framework developed at L3D re

flects some important objectives shared

with user-centered and participatory de

sign, but it transcends these objectives by

changing the processes by which systems and content are designed. To Fischer and

his colleagues, it is clear that existing de

sign frameworks and methodologies are

insufficient to cope with the emergent as

pects of reality and to support creative

practices [21].

Unfolding Metadesign as an Emergent Design Culture

By tracing a conceptual map of metade

sign theories and applications, we can see

that some elements emerge as crucial: a

focus on the design of general structures

and processes, rather than on fixed ob

jects and contents; the need for methods

and techniques that are fluid, rather than

prescriptive (such as diagramming or

seeding [22]); the call for environments that can evolve; and the necessity of re

lational settings that allow systems to be

based on a mutual and open process of

affecting and being affected.

Considering the current debate in de

sign theory and methodology, we see that

the contours of this map reveal a

thoughtful reflection on controversial de

sign issues, such as the problems of an

ticipation, participation and emergence

[23]. Users' needs and tasks, as well as sit

uations and behaviors, cannot be fully an

ticipated at design time because they are

ill-defined and change over time. There

fore, users need to be engaged in the

problem-framing/problem-solving pro

cess, both when the system is designed and when the system is used. Keeping the

system open to participation and evolu

346 Giaccardi, Metadesign



Fig. 5. Lab [au], i-Tube, 1999. (? Lab [au]) A metadesign environment, this project proposes a graphical user interface and a navigation

system for on-line databanks based on cartographies that display information as a process-oriented and generative space. Information

is transformed into membranes that are then folded into space according to user-defined parameters and behaviors.

tion at use time is meant to join social and

technical systems, not only to make them

optimized and efficient, but also to let

new conditions, interactions and rela

tionships emerge. In this way?by sus

taining emergence and evolution?new

forms of sociability and creativity can de

velop and innovation can be fostered.

The focus of metadesign on the success

ful integration of methodologies of de

sign by anticipation, participation and

emergence translates into the identifica

tion of a multidimensional design space

[24]. Whereas operational similarities show

metadesign to be a consistent develop ment in design theory and methodology, the cultural path that metadesign theo

ries and applications reveal is not unidi

rectional. On one side, metadesign has

been considered as a networked model

of design aimed at product refinement,

personalization and mass customization.

According to this approach, metadesign is conceived as a new praxis of design that

does not question the role of the user in

the process of production as consumer

but rather empowers the user in this role.

This development relies on operational

assumptions about metadesign, but it

does not fully achieve its potential as a

new design culture. On the other side,

and more interestingly, metadesign has

been conceived as co-creation: a shared

design endeavor aimed at sustaining

emergence, evolution and adaptation.

According to this development, the op erational terms and potential of design

ing at a higher-order level must be joined to a more reflexive and collaborative

practice of design.

Art practice and cultural debate have

been extremely active in promoting

metadesign as a reflexive method of

thinking about and beyond design, rather than as a new praxis of design

[25]. The idea of metadesign developed by Yevgeny N. Lazarev and colleagues as a result of a reflection on the emerg

ing relationships among art, technology and science is another case. Concerned

with an expansion of human creativity, Lazarev writes:

The specific perspectives of metadesign are hard to define since it is quite a new

phenomenon. But one can already see an exceptional vitality in this trend, whether it remains within the domain of

design or transforms into a phenomenon of human creativity that has never ex

isted or been possible before [26].

The connections between metadesign, telematic culture and interactive art are

significant and based on a similar call for

the expansion of human creativity. Some

overlaps, in particular, are interesting and can be pointed out as further indi

cations of how metadesign actually ex

presses the emergence of a new culture,

somehow at the convergence of art and

design. The idea of the interactive artist

as a "systems designer," for instance, elab

orated by Margot Lovejoy in her book

Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the

Age of Electronic Media [27], recalls Gal

loway and Rabinowitz's [28] idea of

the metadesigner as a "systems integra tor." Even more interestingly, some ideas

expressed by Roy Ascott in his article

"The A-Z of Interactive Arts" [29] recall

the operational methodology typical of

metadesign: the idea of "seeding," de

fined as a way of designing that should re

place top-down designing; the idea of a

"non-trivial interactivity," conceived as an

Fig. 6. L3D, The Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, and Reseeding (SER) Process Model.

(? L3D, University of Colorado) This process model is applied to the metadesign environ ments developed at L3D in order to integrate "design time" and "use time," and to allow users to act as designers at different stages of the continuous development of a system.

Seeded Information Space

m

Seeding

Developers Users

rW$ Evolutionary Growth

Evolved ReSeeded Information Information Space Space

\ ReSeeding

Developers Users

Giaccardi, Metadesign 347



open-ended and infinite interactivity

capable of accommodating always-new

variables; and the idea of "open-ended

systems" (OES), in which interaction

takes place within networked and evolv

ing systems that put the user or the envi

ronment in control of the interaction

itself.

Is Metadesign a Work of Art or a Work of Science? This paper introduces and promotes

metadesign not simply as a new design

methodology, but as a cultural develop ment exploring the new design space en

gendered by information technologies and ultimately concerned with expand

ing the creative process of emergence and invention of the world.

Metadesign represents a cultural shift

from design as "planning" to design as

"seeding." By promoting collaborative

and transformational practices of design that can support new modes of human

interaction and sustain an expansion of

the creative process, metadesign is de

veloping toward new ways of under

standing and planning with the goal of

producing more open and evolving sys tems of interaction. Metadesign can be

seen not only as a design approach in

forming a specific design methodology for the development of interactive media

and environments but also as a form of

cultural strategy informing and integrat

ing different domains. Rather than a new

model of design, metadesign represents a

constructive mode of design: an en

hancement of the creative process at the

convergence of "art" and "science."

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank (in alphabetical order): Manuel Abendroth, Ernesto Arias, Marco Brizzi, Hal

Eden, Gerhard Fischer, Kit Galloway, John Maeda, Anders M?rch, NOX, Jonathan Ostwald, Sherrie Ra

binowitz, Celestino Soddu, Yunwen Ye and the re viewers.

Glossary

co-creation?the emergent process of constructing and sharing intelligent and meaningful activities, ex

pressed by a socio-technical environment conceptu alized as a complex system.

co-evolution?the evolution of a socio-technical en vironment conceived as a living entity, by which

changes of each participant in the interaction process (either the software or the human subjects, variously organized) influence the evolution of the other par ticipants. In metadesign, co-evolution can occur by either gradual or disruptive adaptation.

design?generally conceived as the conception and

planning of the artificial (or the invented) as a nor mative form of science ("how things ought to be") in contrast to natural sciences ("how things are") [30]. Design is better defined today as an inquiry and

experimentation in the activity of "making" [31]. That is, design is a humanistic enterprise in which the subject matter is not fixed [32] and is meant to allow us to envision possibilities and elaborate them ("how things might be") in order to enable

people to experience the world in more and richer

ways [33].

emergence?the stage of metadesign in which plan ning is superseded by participation and the open processes of co-evolution and co-creation. The pro motion of tacit knowledge and situated action?and

consequently new forms of creativity and sociabil

ity?is crucial at this stage.

evolutionary design?evolutionary design can be ei ther generative or interactive?that is, it can rely on either the absolute autonomy of the software or the human guidance of the process; the further devel

opment of an initial "seed" (or a structure created by the seed) to adapt it to needs that were not accounted for in the original design. It aims at the best possible solutions through cycles of either parameterization or exploration.

generative design?the design of a piece of software

("seed") capable of autonomously generating design proposals by notation and execution. It allows the

348 Giaccardi, Metadesign

References and Notes

1. See terms such as metalinguistics and metadata, but also metamorphosis.

2. Gene Youngblood, "Metadesign: Toward a Post modernism of Reconstruction," in Ars Electr?nica Cat

alog (Linz, Austria: Linzer Veranstaltungsgesellschaft, 1986), <http://www.aec.at/en/archives/festival_ einstieg.aspx

3. See <http://www.ecafe.com/>.

4. Derrick De Kerckhove, "Networked Art and Vir tual Communities," in Claude Faure et al., eds., Ars lab: I Sensi del Virtuale (Milan, Italy: Fabbri Editore, 1995) pp. 103-110.

5. See in particular Derrick De Kerckhove, Connected

Intelligence: The Arrival of the Web Society (Toronto, On tario: Somerville House, 1997).

6. Paul Virilio, The Art of the Motor, Julie Rose, trans.

(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).

7. Available at <http://www.hum.auc.dk/~rasand/ Artikler/metadesign.htmx

8.Youngblood[2].

9. See [3].

10. Eugene Thacker, "Bioethics and Bio-ethics," in Towards Human Technologies Conference (Brisbane, Aus tralia: University of Queensland, 2002) <http:// www.uq.edu.au/gsm/Confpapers/thackerl.doo; see also Eugene Thacker, Biomedia (Minneapolis,

MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).

11. In industrial design, for instance, metadesign is

primarily used to mean the construction of a tem

plate that makes a product "that thing" without ac

tually designing it.

12. I owe this consideration to Lev Manovich, with whom I had a short e-mail correspondence on the

relationships between metadesign and interface de

sign.

13. See <http://www.maedastudio.com/>.

14. See in particular Lars Spuybroek and Cho Im Sik,

"Diagramming: Lars Spuybroek Interviewed by Cho Im Sik," in R.S. Vasudevan et al., eds., Sarai Reader 02: The Cities of Everyday Life (Delhi, India: Sarai? The New Media Initiative; Amsterdam, The Nether lands: Society for Old and New Media, 2002) pp. 243-248.

15. Soddu first adopted the term metadesign in his book Citt? Aleatorie (Milan, Italy: Masson Editore, 1989). Later, he started to substitute the term argenic design ?or metadesign. The Generative Art conference, which he has organized annually since 1998, gathers artists and designers who adopt and question metade

sign from a generative perspective; see <http:// www.generativeart.com>.

16. See De Kerckhove [4] and [5].

17. See in particular Lab [au], "MetaDeSign: The Set

ting of a Discipline," in TARCA, No. 178 (February 2003) pp. 2-5. See also <http://www.lab-au.com>.

18. See [3].

19. See in particular Gerhard Fischer and Elisa Gi

accardi, "Meta-Design: A Framework for the Future of End User Development," in H. Lieberman et al., eds., End User Development: Empowering People to Flex

ibly Employ Advanced Information and Communication

Technology (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Aca demic Publishers, in press).

20. For an understanding of the set of concerns sur

rounding the development of a metadesign frame work at L3D, see in particular Gerhard Fischer, "Social Creativity, Symmetry of Ignorance and Meta

Design," in Linda Candy and Ernest Edmonds, eds., Proceedings of the Third Conference on Creativity & Cog nition (NewYork, NY: ACM Press, 1999) pp. 116-123; see also Ernesto Arias et al., "Transcending the In dividual Human Mind: Creating Shared Under

standing through Collaborative Design," in J. Carroll, ed., Human Computer Interaction in the New Millennium

(New York, NY: ACM Press; Boston, MA: Addison

Wesley, 2001) pp. 347-372.

21. See Elisa Giaccardi and Gerhard Fischer, "Cre

ativity and Evolution: A Metadesign Perspective," in the Sixth International Conference of the European

Academy of Design (EAD06) on Design, System, Evo lution (Bremen, Germany: University of the Arts, 29-31 March 2005).

22. From a metadesign perspective, seeding is a par ticipatory and evolutionary technique that allows the

modification of a system and its adaptation to users'

emerging needs. The SER Process Model (Fig. 6) ar ticulates this technique in three different stages (Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, Reseeding).

23. For a more detailed description of the design is sues raised by metadesign, see Elisa Giaccardi, Prin

ciples of Metadesign: Processes and Levels of Co-Creation in the New Design Space, Ph.D. diss. (Plymouth, U.K.: CAiiA-STAR, University of Plymouth, 2004).

24. For a more detailed description of the design space entailed by metadesign, see Giaccardi [23].

25. Here, "reflexive" is used to indicate not only the critical attitude of reflecting upon oneself, but also the process of transformation that such a behavior involves.

26. Yevgeny N. Lazarev, "The Art of Metadesign," Leonardo 27, No. 5, 423-425 (1994) p. 425.

27. Margot Lovejoy, Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media, 2nd Ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997).

28. See [3].

29. Roy Ascott, "The A-Z of Interactive Arts," Leonardo Electronic Almanac 3, No. 9 (September 1995), <http://mitpress2.mit.edu/ejournals/LEA/TEXT/ Vol_3/lea_v3_n09.txt>.

30. Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences and the Artificial (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969).

31. Here I mean "making" in general?that is, any human activity where some kind of production is im

plied.

32. Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin, eds., Dis

covering Design: Explorations in Design Studies (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

33. Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences and the Artificial, 3rd Rev. Version (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996).



generation of endless variations recognizable as be

longing to the same designer.

metadesign?conceived as the design of a "metapro ject," metadesign shares with generative and evolu

tionary design the focus on the design of initial conditions or "seeds." In this sense, it methodolog ically comprises both generative and evolutionary design. However, metadesign transcends them by in

corporating the principles of participation and emer

gence and by changing the way in which systems and content are designed (see co-evolution and co-creation).

Manuscript received 7 June 2004.

Elisa Giaccardi has a background that brings

together humanities, media and design. An

abstract of her doctoral dissertation is avail

able on LABS at: <http://leonardolabs.

pomona.edu/>. She is currently a Research As

sociate at the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D), University of Colorado at

Boulder. In her work, Giaccardi combines in

teraction design, media arts and cultural

management. She has lectured and published on several occasions and she is a member of editorial boards and committees for MIT Press, ACM and The European Journal of Higher Arts Education. Her interdisciplinary research

in the convergence of communication tech

nologies and the humanities was awarded the

European grant 'Ideas for the Future " by Fon

dazioneEni Enrico Mattei in 2001.

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The California Tamarack Foundation

College of Extended Learning, San Francisco State University

CRSS Architects The Ford Foundation Interval Research Corporation Roger Malina The Malina Trust Rockefeller Foundation The San Francisco Art Institute Al Smith U.S. National Endowment for the Arts

Angel ($249 and under)

Aaron Alpar Charles Ames Art Science Collaborations Inc.

(ASCI) Roy Ascott Yasuhiro Asoo Bret Battey Marc Battier Mark and Lauren Beam Patricia Bentson

Timothy Binkley Anna Campbell Bliss Deborah Branton Bettina Brendel Robert A. Brown Ronald Brown Willi Bruns Leif Brush Annick Bureaud David Carrier Rosa Casarez-Levison Katherine Casida

Joel Chadabe Richard Ciar

Computer Art Studio/Gunter Schulz

Holly Crawford Ivo Cristante Elizabeth Crumley Mary & Michael Cunningam Danish Film Festival Bob Davis

Goery Delacote

Lily Diaz Emma Lou Diemer

Sforza Monument (The Bronze Horse) ($1,000 to $4,999)

Martin Anderson Art Science Research Lab Lisa Bornstein Donna Cox Creative Disturbance Char Davies The Daniel Langlois Foundation

Penny Finnie Steve Forestieri Intel Corporation

Marjorie Malina Christine Malina-Maxwell

Sonya Rapoport Itsuo Sakane School of the Art Institute

of Chicago Martin Segal Makepeace Tsao Rhode Island School of Design University of Plymouth, U.K.

University of Texas at Dallas

Steve Dietz

Augus Dorbie Hubert Duprat Elmer Duncan Mich?le Emmer Lawrence Fane William Fawley Theodosia Ferguson John Fobes Alan & Mickey Friedman

Ryozo Fujii David Gamper Jonathan & Donna R. Gennick Ken Goldberg Pamela Grant-Ryan Michael Joaquin Grey Karen Guzak Isabel Hayden Craig Harris Linda Dalrymple Henderson

Margaret Hermann Doris Herrick

Lynn Hershman Estate of Dick Higgins Anthony Hill

Toshiyuki Hiruma Gerald Holton

Hungarian University of Crafts & Design

Amy lone

Raymond J?rgens Eduardo Kac Robert Kadesch Melinda Klayman Ken Knowlton

La Gioconda (Mona Lisa) ($500 to $999) Lars Ole Belhage James D. Burke Una Dora Copley Arana Greenberg Rosemary Jackson Alan Malina Michael Punt Isabel Maxwell

Merrill Lynch Foundation Emanuel Nadler Sam Okoshken

Joel Silverman

Zdenek Kocib

Kenji Kohiyama Thomas Kostusiak Kathleen Laziza Levi Family Foundation

Guy L?vrier Carl Machover William Marchant Delle Maxwell Elliot Mazer Kevin Meehan

Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Mit Mitropoulos Mo?t Hennessy-Louis Vuitton

Jacques Mandelbrojt Jason Monberg Roger Mulkey Frieder Nake Barbara Nessim Alex Nicoloff

Greg Niemeyer Hiroshi Ninomiya Jack Ox Elaine Petschek Anne Brooks Pfister Victor A. Pickett Sheila Pinkel Ann Pizzorusso Frank Popper Herbert & Joan Webster Price Patrie Prince Wolf Rainer

Harry Rand

Trudy Reagan

Flying Machine ($250 to $499) Ray Bradbury George Gessert Oliver Grau Curtis Karnow Ed Payne and Liss Fain Mark Resch Eric Roll Sonia Sheridan Christian Simm Darlene Tong Jonathan Willard Barbara Lee Williams

Beverly Reiser Ron Rocco David Rosenboom Peter Rudolfi Mr. and Mrs. Robert Russett Colin Sanderson Piero Scaruffi Patricia Search Edward Shanken Allan Shields

Gregory C. Shubin Leonard Shlain

Joel Slayton John Slorp Kirill Sokolov

Rejane Spitz Anait Stephens Robert Strizich The Sun Microsystems

Foundation, Inc. Tamiko Thiel

Rodrigo B. Toledo Heinz Trauboth Mark Tribe

Joan Truckenbrod Roman Verostko Alexandre Vitkine Natalie & Mark Whitson Alan Thompson & Sharon A.

Widmayer Richard A. Wilson

Stephen Wilson

Gary Zellerbach Robert Zimmerman

Giaccardi, Metadesign 349



Color Plate F

(P'u ;>^?0^ , jiffiiifi?iifmmimiim?^t?ÊI?E^^^^^^^^^^ No*L Greg Niemeyer' vg, "^ ?^?fl^^HH^^^^^^^^H^^^^^^Î an installation at Biennale,

?S ' J???B^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^R La Villette Num?rique, Paris, . ̂K<?^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H The artist re-created instal

?. y?^?^^K^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Û from an earlier exhibi ' ^^^?^K?S^B?^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M San adapting

: :3eBBHEe3sBpeeH the piece to the Paris setting.

No. 2. NOX, V2_Lab, 1998. (? NOX Architects) The renovation of the V2_Lab by NOX Architects was developed in its

entirety with animation software, allowing for a non-linear and time-dependent architecture. It represents an example of

metadesign in the architectural field. See article by Elisa Giaccardi.

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Documents

Metadesign as an Emergent Design Culture