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Sketching Kansei Studies as a Complex Unit

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Emotional Engineering, Vol. 9

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Abstract

The field of kansei studies is intrinsically a multi-disciplinary field of study, centred on the notion of kansei. This quality of the field generates both a richness for the kansei disciplines, and a challenge to define its core term, kansei. Taking into consideration this richness and this challenge, I propose an original way to look at kansei studies, and to adopt a complex thinking approach to describe the dynamics of the field. Considering kansei studies as a complex unity helps to understand the impossibility of obtaining a common definition of kansei, and yet to stimulate necessary inter-disciplinary collaborations through dialogic. Kansei design is then taken as a starting point to exemplify such necessity and value of considering kansei studies as a complex unity. Proposing a kansei design framework inspired from Japanese philosophy and culture and centred on thusness and irregularity, the notion of appropriation appears to be a challenge both for kansei design and for the field of kansei studies at large. Studying appropriation through kansei studies in a dialogical way, will not only inform design on this challenging notion, but also help us to understand the benefit of considering kansei studies as a complex unity through practice.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dicen-IDF, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, 292 rue Saint Martin, 75003, Paris, France

    Pierre Lévy

  2. Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Pierre Lévy

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  1. Pierre Lévy
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Correspondence to Pierre Lévy .

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  1. Tokyo, Japan

    Shuichi Fukuda

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Lévy, P. (2023). Sketching Kansei Studies as a Complex Unit. In: Fukuda, S. (eds) Emotional Engineering, Vol. 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05867-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05867-7_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-05866-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-05867-7

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