Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Babak Amraee ¹
• Sajjad Baghban maher ²

¹ Assistant Professor of Design Faculty, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran

² Assistant professor of Museum and Tourism, Art University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Traditional design is a term that is used in two meanings, first, it means drawing decorative patterns and motives, with a historical background, and second, it means design and the process of reaching the form of a product. This research focuses on the second meaning. Traditional design (with a second meaning) is a topic that has been talked about a lot, but very little research has been done in this area. One of the consequences of this scientific gap is the misconceptions and stereotypes about traditional design. At the heart of these stereotypes is the issue of “creativity in traditional design”. Therefore, this study examines creativity in traditional design with a social historical approach. Consecutive research questions include: How have socio-cultural fields influenced the cognition of creativity in traditional design? And with a social historical approach, how is creativity in traditional design? The first goal of this study is, to deconstruct the current understanding of creativity in traditional design and crafts, (especially with a focus on the sociology of art) and second, to draw a new theoretical framework to study this issue. For this purpose, a theoretical-qualitative research method of descriptive- content analysis has been used. In the first step, the components of theoretical foundations are categorized as analytical concepts. Then, in the analysis section, the subject categories have been analyzed by reasoning method. The results of this study show that: Traditional design itself is a modern constructed concept, and traditional design is not fundamentally different from modern design.

Keywords

• Design
• Traditional Design
• Crafts
• Social History of Art
• Creativity

Main Subjects

• socialhistory and art

Extended abstract

Sociological historical analysis of creativity in traditional design

 Traditional design is a term that is used in two meanings, firstly, it means drawing patterns and decorative arrays with a historical background, and secondly, it means Design and the process of arriving to the Form of product. This research focuses on the second meaning. Traditional design (with the second meaning) is a subject on which very little research has been done. this scientific gap causes false ideas and assumptions about traditional design. The focus of these misconceptions is the issue of creativity in traditional design.

Creativity in traditional design, as an interdisciplinary subject, can potentially be investigated by various theoretical frameworks and approaches including: Socio-Cultural studies of Design, Art Philosophy, Theoretical Socio-Cultural studies of art, Contextual History of Design and the Psychology of Creativity. all the mentioned approaches, have considered the creativity in traditional arts very superficially. especially in the field of Islamic Art Philosophy, attention has been paid to the topic of creativity in traditional arts with a special approach, but almost no attention has been paid to the topic of traditional design and creativity in traditional design. Due to the fact that this issue has been formed in a modern context, this research examines creativity in traditional design with a social history approach.

The social history studies investigate the context of the formation of a work, an art movement or even the evolution of art as a whole, in the "past". For this reason, these studies use "historical research methods" and try to identify various factors (cultural, political, economic, etc.) affecting the formation of the subject. Studies of the social history of art can be considered a branch or result of the fields of art history, social history and cultural history. Social and cultural history distances itself from the chronology of political history and instead, tends to investigate the history of societies and the role of culture and social structures on the cultural and even political developments of society. In the same way, contextual art history also departs from the chronological approach of art history and examines the role of social structures on the formation of works or trends. The point here is that the works and movements that these studies investigate their historical background, are often the ones that the history of art has considered them as kings.

The consecutive questions of the research are: How have social and cultural fields affected the understanding of creativity in traditional design? And (with a socio-historical approach), how is an understanding of creativity formed in traditional design? The purpose of this research is, firstly, to deconstruct the common understanding of creativity in design and traditional crafts, from the perspective of social studies of art, and secondly, to draw a new theoretical framework to investigate this issue. To approach these goals, a theoretical research method, descriptive-content analysis, has been used. In the first step, components are categorized as analytical concepts. Then, in the analysis section, the topic has been analyzed.

The results of this research show that the common understanding of creativity in traditional design is the result of a negative semantic field around this issue. A field that has been formed in the modern era and in line with its hegemony. By deconstructing the false field of meaning that has been formed around the issue of creativity in design and traditional crafts, the issue can be identified from a new perspective. In this context, it can be emphasized: the crafts context, in its organic interaction with its social historical context, has benefited from creativity and design, but the form of creativity in the crafts context is different from the form of creativity in a self-referential art field. In a traditional system, creativity and innovation are done in a specialized network of division of labor. crafts, like the machine industry, have been operating in the frameworks that are made by value gatekeepers in society. Gatekeeper structures are the same in today's industry and past crafts, the difference is in the valuation system. Today's gatekeeper system (in a commercial competition structure) values the defamiliarized form, but the crafts system (in line with his system of social norms) rejected such creations. It is the difference in the valuation system that makes the result special, not the differences in the design process.

Design (whether in the context of machine industry or in crafts) is a cultural phenomenon that basically occurs in a "cultural network" and the designer is a part of that cultural network. This system is institutionalized in the designer in the form of mental queens (common knowledge or perceptual schemata) and each designer operates in this network in the domain of culture, perceptual patterns and habitats (acquired from society). This activity is a creative one, which it is not individual, but collective. It means, it is carried out and repeated synchrony and diachrony (even over generations) with the participation of a wide range of people. The result of this activity is not only the developments of products, but a network of solutions (technical, semiotic and aesthetic) are also developed and given. This network can be called "Trade-itonal system". Traditional design is only a modern concept and in terms of its nature, it is not different from industrial design, the only difference is in design situations (needs) and solutions (technical, semiotic and aesthetic) used in these fields of production.