GISODIV`s Research approach
The Group of Socio-cultural Studies of Design in Venezuela develops systematic studies in order to define the different elements comprising the symbolic ecology surrounding the introduction of foreign designs in Venezuela as well as designs purposely created for Venezuelan users / consumers.
To this aim GISODIV stands on: (1) an understanding of human activities as inevitably linked to specific environments and repertoires of objects, and (2) envisages innovation in design as an activity oriented towards structuring socio-cultural ways of doing things (e.g. eating, sitting, and commuting).
The idea is to outline the reasons behind the adoption / use of particular types or trends of design as well as determine the key aspects to avoid any negative socio-cultural impact in the Venezuelan population. In this sense, the studies carried out by GISODIV pursue the generation of knowledge and guidelines for a CULTURALLY CONSCIOUS and SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DESIGN.
As part of it, some design proposals are also produced to solve particular problems of the Venezuelan population, so that the research lines of GISODIV are, at the same time, lines of work in which the knowledge derived from the former is applied for the development of the latter.
Research themes/ lines
The Group of Socio-cultural Studies of Design in Venezuela has five lines of research confined within two major themes. They are:
Theme: CULTURALLY CONSCIOUS DESIGN / Research lines:
• Cultural identity of Venezuelan design.
• Introduction and impact of foreign designs in the Venezuelan society.
• Adaptation of foreign designs to the socio-cultural conditions of the Venezuelan society.
Theme: SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DESIGN / Research lines:
• Design to confront natural calamities in Venezuela.
• Design for disable people in Venezuela.
Research strategy
GISODIV carries out synchronic (in present time) and diachronic (historical) research to define cosmological, technical and moral aspects affecting graphic, industrial and architectural designs used by Venezuelan people or purposely created for them. This is a task achieved through studies such as:
- The characterization of designs through the study of formal stereotypes: what kind of features help products to be understood as gender-oriented (male- or female-oriented), as traditional or new, as local or foreign, durable or perishable, hygienic o unhygienic, etc?
- The characterization of physical surroundings through the study of particular activities and the objects related to such activities (ecology of objects): What objects and types of spaces do people link with the appropriate development of their everyday and specialised activities?
- The determination of culture-based models of use / interaction incorporated to graphic, industrial and architectural designs, through the study of the ways in which Venezuelan people understand and carry out their activities in relation to particular objects and built environments (architecture).
- The generation of attractiveness (user appeal) in design proposals through the configuration of their physical features, i.e. clarification of the aesthetic promises of use-value and exchange-value thought as part of those design proposals as well as the role of certain design features to define advertising and self-advertising values.
- The reduction of user’s / consumer’s rejection of designs through the re-formulation of their features, through studies about the levels of aesthetic elaboration and functional clarity of products from the standpoint of their intended users / consumers.