Dr. Dulmini Perera

Vita

 

My research focuses on the complex systemic relations between ecological questions and questions concerning technology within the design context. I am interested in histories, theories, methods that emerge from design's encounters with other disciplines that engage with complex living systems (particularly cybernetics, systems sciences, process philosophies) and how the social and political aspects of these encounters keep influencing our present-day knowledge and practice models. My current research is organized around two main trajectories. The first involves a critical historical mapping of these interdisciplinary encounters between design, ecology, technology and systems theory. The second consists in contributing to a reflexive research and practice framework that promotes designerly ways of engaging systemic complexity (beyond providing technological fixes), which is beneficial for designers and others who deal with multiple crises of the present. I was awarded the Heinz von Foerster award (2021) for my emerging work on developing such a reflexive framework. As the principle investigator of the DFG-AHRC funded collaborative research project Enacting Gregory Bateson’s Ecological Aesthetics in Architecture and design I explore what an ecological theory of action could mean within such a reflexive framework. 

Wicked problems (design problems) are complex and messy because of the broader questions of social and political differences (power, inequality) surrounding technological systems. The changes required in design theory education that enable students to engage in wicked problems are not simply a matter of better articulating design’s complexity but also about developing forms of disseminating concepts that facilitate other forms of engagement. Methodological explorations of this content-form relationship are central to my teaching practice. I experiment with various dialogical and play models, further enriched by communicational and learning frameworks that emerge from cybernetics and systems theory. 

Research interests

cybernetics, systems thinking, systemic design
design theory, critical theory, philosophy of technology
ecological design, ecological transition, transformation research, design in time
wicked problems, design research methods
decoloniality, Global South
Futures research, cosmologies and stories, design fiction
Play, game design