Performing Tribal Rituals: A Genre Analysis of 'Crits' in Design Studios

What I read

In this text, Dannels examines the oral genre nature of design critique—the types of things that are spoken and enacted, that have become central to the way criticism is provided in an educational design studio context.

Dannels identifies the need for this form of research in increasing demands from business and industry, who are looking for employees that can do their job, but can also speak clearly. The nature of this communication is discipline-specific, and has been researched in other contexts, such as medicine. Oral genres have been identified as an important quality of how disciplines evolve and form; an oral genre perspective looks at how "structured, typified, rhetorical oral events" are central to the way work is done. Dannels cites their previous work in developing a framework called "communication in the disciplines," as fundamental to understanding how students should learn within the context of a specific major or area of study. Her previous work was focused on engineering, and others have studied the presence of oral genres in medical fields; both show unique use of language based on precedent.

Design, also, relies on oral communication, and a major part of this is through a critique. This is the focus of the research: on identifying the oral genres present in design studios, the unique features of these, the skills that are necessary in this form of "performance," and the role these play in communities. The research itself took the form of ethnography in studio critiques, and was also informed by interviews with faculty.

Dannels describes four types of critique: design crit, pin-ups, juries, and open houses. Each is discussed in more detail. A desk crit is the "most informal of the oral genres," and Dannels notes that it seems to be somewhat "random." The pin-up is about "public feedback on in-progress work." A jury can occur midway through a project or at the end, where the end is "the most formal oral genre." The open house is public and also formal.

Next, Dannels describes unique elements in the oral genre of a design studio: the wall (and visual nature of design presentation) and feedback from the audience. The wall is a "commanding force" in the studio, and Dannels, and faculty, describe it as a focusing space upon which oral communication occurs. Students need to "establish a connection between the wall, themselves, and the audience," and emphasizes the visual nature of design. The wall also prompts feedback, the second distinguishing feature of oral genres. This is sometimes based on small groups, or teams, providing their opinions and critique of the things they see. Faculty view that it's important for students to "learn to become critical," and to "propel forward thinking about a design project."

There are five skills that define success in the context of the studio-specific oral genre. The first is emphasizing the nature of explaining the process, not the product or outcome, and explaining process as a story. The second is curating and prioritizing the information displayed, and learning to select what information is important. Students need to manage design jargon effectively, using it specifically as reference points but also considering that audience members may not understand the language or references. The fourth skill is observing and listening, and "noticing other students' work,"—that a critique should help one student see how their work compares or contrasts to the work of another student. The last skill is the ability to "separate work from self." This is about overcoming a tendency to be defensive.

The main discussion, in Dannels's fourth research question and reflected in the title of the paper, is that oral genres in design exist as "ritualistic performances"; critique is how design "performed its culture, relived its historical roots, and socialized newcomers into the traditions of design education." Professors used the word "ritual" and "tribe," and recognize that some of the traditions of past creative critiques were "absolute devastation" and so these oral rituals are abandoned.

Oral genres in design "are, at core, performative in nature." Faculty described a critique as theatre, as an "intellectual dance," and as a choreographed experience. A critique has an audience, like a play. The "performances were recreations of traditions and rituals at the core of the discipline of design education."

Dannels discusses the findings. One is that "faculty viewed the functions of oral genres as more complex than teaching students design concepts or testing students on their knowledge of design decisions." Critique as a performance was really where faculty "re-created the historical rituals and traditions of design for a contemporary, participatory audience." They are a rite of passage, and a way of socializing students into design studio norms. A base issue that shows up in the performance of critique is that "owning the work yet not taking feedback as personal seemed to cause students anxiety."

What I learned and what I think

As I understand now (but have never heard before), an oral genre is how a discipline is discussed by those within it. I struggled a little with this as a frame. I think, after doing some other pretty basic web searching, it is sort of like a myth or folklore of a topic, how that is transferred within a group through speaking, and how it is unique to a specific group or discipline. I'm not entirely sure I'm reading that correctly, but if I am, one main point seems to be that design education has its own conversational rituals which are embedded in a process of critique, and students learn those rituals in addition to learning about design itself. This highlights that the "ritual of critique" is not just about putting work on the wall and talking about it; it's that putting work on the wall and talking about it is disciplinarily unique, and is taught and learned.

After I wrote that, I'm thinking that actually, maybe it is as simple and straightforward as "the ritual of critique is about putting work on the wall and talking about it" (and other things.) That really is a very different way of thinking, working, and learning than most other subjects, such as giant-room-calculus class or rotation-based-dietetics class.

Oral genre is an interesting frame; I wonder if it's the most useful one for something so visual. I don't know if there is a "visual genre" form of analysis—there must be—and it seems like that would be an equally or more effective way of examining the space of critique. If it's choreographed performance, then it's about props, spatial layout, the content itself. "The wall as participant" is great, and I think it challenges a little of the notion of where knowledge lives. If the thing itself really is performing, then it has knowledge, it doesn't just present it.

Critique as performance really resonates with me; it's directly in line with design as storytelling. My view of the performance has been on design presentation as persuasion, but this approaches it from a more top-down or dance-like view of the performance as idea progression. That's really different than consulting, which makes sense—in consulting, I'm trying to walk a line of "getting my way" and "helping my client," mostly based on time and money. Designers need to learn that in school, but critique in its wall-based sense is really grounded in improving the work itself.

I keep walking around the virtual critique idea in my head, and I'm reluctant to touch it. I'm not sure why. It clearly has changed how critique works, how "the wall" works, what the performance is and how it works. I don't necessarily want to push on critique in my actual research work, but if I did, that's probably an important place to do it.

As aside; I also continually struggle with the way Schön's work is positioned in the context of critique. A reflective practitioner's communication is about implicit, real-time dialogue between themselves and the work; it's in someone's head, and prompted by what they push out of their hands. This is the visual sensemaking part of problem solving, and it's really not about any of the four types of critique presented here. It almost feels like a convenient thing to wrap into arguments, and I see it over and over. I don't know exactly why it matters, except that it just feels separate.