Most people know about mass media but here I offer a more precise and elemental definition of the concept of media that support my theory of design. Media are
– material: this is why artists speak about their « medium ».
– polysemiotic: designers make meaning with any kind of media whether linguistic, visual, sound, olfactory, or tangible.
– They organize a distance from our active relation to the world. They open a design space where we can try different combinations and test new modalities of expression, new format of representation, new meaning making practices.
– They are manipulated and therefore need people who are able to use expressive tools: either languages, photography, drawings, videos, or different types of materials.
– They are part of a reflective process because they re-present the world, our activities.
– they are part of a communicative process: designers share their production that can be discussed and remembered.
The concepts of media and medium are therefore central to the understanding of:
- design as a free space of conception,
- material agency as the way materials react and form our meaning making processes.