Project workshop at ENSCI-Les Ateliers
Digital Design Workshop
The Atelier de Design Numérique existed from 1997 to 2010 at Ensci-Les Ateliers. Its mission was to train in design and industrial creation. Its objectives are to «reflect» on new practices and spaces for design intervention in the digital and information society.
New materials
The workshop projects the specific process of design: reflections, proposals, creations, aesthetics, economics, technology and achievements on the territories of experimentation induced by the information society. Industrial design is part of a specific attitude: the project culture. It's a cross-disciplinary, innovative and cultural process that takes a sensitive, intermediary approach to society's uses, practices and expectations. It opens the way to new processes of innovation, the creation of new objects, new uses, new utopias, new transgressions... the valorisation of what to do and why.... Moving towards what to produce.
From the industrial revolution to the information society
During the industrial revolution, the centre of gravity for design and ideas shifted to engineers and manufacturers. This led to products that were free of any plastic, sensual, necessary or desirable proposals... Now that information flows are the driving force behind our daily lives, the digital society raises the question of the processes of design, creation, manufacture, use and purpose of contemporary objects. In this landscape, what proposals can industry put forward? What are the positions and proposals of the designer? What role will they play in a society invaded by “virtual objects” and “system objects” that are overturning economic models, production and distribution tools, access to knowledge, the geography of communities and the very notion of culture itself?
New objects, services and uses for a new industry
"The virtual object" is a metaphor for all the products, services and spaces that use ICTs as their functional engine. The virtual object has revolutionised “material” products in terms of form, use, duration and purpose. The postulate of “form as function” is no longer valid, at a time when digital functions have little mechanical influence on the forms that host them... Use and service are tending to replace the status, possession and durability of objects...
Cartography, Interaction, Representation
The virtual object has revolutionised the designer's conceptual approach and know-how. It has modified the conceptual tools of the project and hybridised practices, giving greater responsibility and power to the new designer. Understanding and organising information, creating relationships, building a representation.
New challenges
This observation leads us to raise the issue of ‘new materialities’... Understanding the substratum of information, representation and use to make it part of a modern approach to inventing new uses, new representations, new perceptions, new applications...
Area of intervention: research, studies and projects
The territory of intervention of the digital design workshop is first and foremost that of industrial creation.... It is trying to invent the design for the information society: domesticating the brutality of new technologies. The strategic axes of projects and pedagogy are grouped around the following fields: application, cognitive and narrative.
- The application includes everything related to the functional, machines and automata.
- Cognitive refers to everything related to information, communication, perception, knowledge and representation.
- The narrative includes everything that overlaps information, language, writing, image, hyperlanguages ...
Our territory is therefore organized around the crossing and exploration of all these fields regardless of their tangible or virtual characteristics. The practices of identified disciplines also serve to nourish and build the transcultural approach of our reflection and pedagogical mission: Architecture, graphic design, scenography, sound design, typography, plastic art, literature, mathematics, physics, algorithm and industrial creation.
The workshop projects the specific process of design: reflections, proposals, creations, aesthetics, economics, technology and achievements on the territories of experimentation induced by the information society. Industrial design is part of a specific attitude: the project culture. It's a cross-disciplinary, innovative and cultural process that takes a sensitive, intermediary approach to society's uses, practices and expectations. It opens the way to new processes of innovation, the creation of new objects, new uses, new utopias, new transgressions... the valorisation of what to do and why.... Moving towards what to produce.
From the industrial revolution to the information society
During the industrial revolution, the centre of gravity for design and ideas shifted to engineers and manufacturers. This led to products that were free of any plastic, sensual, necessary or desirable proposals... Now that information flows are the driving force behind our daily lives, the digital society raises the question of the processes of design, creation, manufacture, use and purpose of contemporary objects. In this landscape, what proposals can industry put forward? What are the positions and proposals of the designer? What role will they play in a society invaded by “virtual objects” and “system objects” that are overturning economic models, production and distribution tools, access to knowledge, the geography of communities and the very notion of culture itself?
New objects, services and uses for a new industry
"The virtual object" is a metaphor for all the products, services and spaces that use ICTs as their functional engine. The virtual object has revolutionised “material” products in terms of form, use, duration and purpose. The postulate of “form as function” is no longer valid, at a time when digital functions have little mechanical influence on the forms that host them... Use and service are tending to replace the status, possession and durability of objects...
Cartography, Interaction, Representation
The virtual object has revolutionised the designer's conceptual approach and know-how. It has modified the conceptual tools of the project and hybridised practices, giving greater responsibility and power to the new designer. Understanding and organising information, creating relationships, building a representation.
New challenges
This observation leads us to raise the issue of ‘new materialities’... Understanding the substratum of information, representation and use to make it part of a modern approach to inventing new uses, new representations, new perceptions, new applications...
Area of intervention: research, studies and projects
The territory of intervention of the digital design workshop is first and foremost that of industrial creation.... It is trying to invent the design for the information society: domesticating the brutality of new technologies. The strategic axes of projects and pedagogy are grouped around the following fields: application, cognitive and narrative.
- The application includes everything related to the functional, machines and automata.
- Cognitive refers to everything related to information, communication, perception, knowledge and representation.
- The narrative includes everything that overlaps information, language, writing, image, hyperlanguages ...
Our territory is therefore organized around the crossing and exploration of all these fields regardless of their tangible or virtual characteristics. The practices of identified disciplines also serve to nourish and build the transcultural approach of our reflection and pedagogical mission: Architecture, graphic design, scenography, sound design, typography, plastic art, literature, mathematics, physics, algorithm and industrial creation.
"The good old days! We were making connected objects before they even existed, it was a period of crazy effervescence! Who could have imagined that design, UI and UX would have taken on so much importance in today's uses?"– Cédric Magne
"When I arrived at the ENSCI and discovered DNA, I said to myself that I was in the right place"– Angelo Chiacchio
“It is really with DNA that I was able to define a contemporary and relevant vision of design. The experiences we made there have deeply inspired me, helped me to find a real motivation to be a designer and in some way still guide me today”– David Gauquelin
