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Description

In an era of political, ecological and epistemic uncertainty, design his tory is frequently employed to lend legitimacy to optimistic narratives of progress, or to provide readymade references for contemporary practice and education. However, this text argues that such approach es reduce historical knowledge to a linear and instrumental resource, thereby obscuring its role within longer and more complex cycles of per ception and production. Here, the historical process is examined as an iterative cycle that en compasses both material production and perception. Building on the work of David Walker and Nigel Cross, the analysis considers how ma terial production unfolds through iterative processes in which objects are repeatedly reworked, standardised and normalised under specific economic and technological conditions. At the same time, informed by Georg Lukács’s aesthetic theory, perception is understood to be equally iterative and shaped by historically sedimented social and ideological structures. In both cases, iteration is structured by market forces and ideological frameworks, rather than operating as a neutral process. Bringing together design theory and aesthetic theory grounded in his torical materialism, the article examines how historical objects function as both products and producers simultaneously. Innovation and rupture appear less as breaks than as moments of reorganisation within ongoing perceptual and material continuities. The ‘unstoppable wheel’ of design history thus describes a cyclical dynamic in which change is frequently registered at the level of form while underlying structures persist. In this respect, the argument resonates with Gramsci’s observation, invoked by Nancy Fraser, that ‘the old is dying and the new cannot be born’. Design history shows that, even during periods of transition, cycles of percep tion and production continue, providing a way to understand how un certainty is materially constituted and culturally experienced.

Publication Date

4-9-2026

Publisher

Design History Society y Department of Art History, Masaryk University.

City

Brno, República Checa

Keywords

Design history, Historical materialism, Perception and production, Iteration, Design theory, Aesthetic theory, Uncertainty.

Comments

Design History Society Annual Conference 2026, “Design in an Age of Uncertainty”, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, 3–5 September 2026. Presented on Friday 4 September, Morning Block 3, Session 3D “Critical Historiographies, Theories and Methodologies” (room B2.24). Author affiliation in the conference booklet: “University of Design Technology and Innovation of Madrid” (UDIT). Evidence: Conference Booklet (pp. 69–70) and conference programme (arthistory.phil.muni.cz/dhs2026/programme).

The Unstoppable Wheel of Design History: A Cycle of Perception and Production en [Ponencia] Design in an Age of Uncertainty, Design History Society Annual Conference 2026

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