Dr Jamie Brassett
Title
Reader in Philosophy, Design and Innovation
College
Central Saint Martins
Email address
Tags
Researcher Research

Biography
I am Reader in Philosophy, Design and Innovation at University of the Arts London and Programme Research Director at Central Saint Martins. I am also a Visiting Professor in the Design Department of Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (Dessau, Germany) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; as well as also a member of the British Academy of Management. Until February 2019, I led the MA Innovation Management at CSM, a course I started in 2008.I was awarded a PhD in Philosophy from The University of Warwick (1993), producing a thesis on Deleuze and Guattari, Kant and Bachelard, called 'Cartographies of Subjectification', which was supervised by Dr Nick Land. I have been publishing philosophical work since 1991 and speaking nationally and& internationally at conferences since 1989, chairing ‘Out of Control’, the 8th International Conference on Design and Emotion in 2012. 'Deleuze and Design' (Edinburgh University Press) was a collection I co-edited with Betti Marenko and published in June 2015 as part of the ‘Deleuze Connections’ series. My work for this volume dealt with philosophy, design, innovation and complexity biology. Other recent journal articles and book chapters focus on technology, style, fashion, scenario planning, superheroes, anticipation, photography and speculative machines.
I have also consulted for a number of commercial, public and voluntary sector organisations and I'm currently Principal Consultant for Studio INTO, as well as co-founder of futures agency The Swerve.
Research interests
My work currently crosses the boundaries of ontology, futures studies (especially Anticipation), creative practice, ethics and social and political design. With these specific examples to highlight:
• Creative Philosophy;
• Process Philosophy;
• Creative Ontologies;
• Designing and creative processes;
• Disruption and Complexity in Innovation and its Management;
• Spaces, heterotopias and topologies;
• Relational Ethics;
• Philosophies of Excess;
• Superheroes.
I have recently co-written with John O’Reilly a chapter for a collection of essays called 'Advancements in the Philosophy of Design' (Springer, 2018) on the work of Roman poet, philosopher and physicist Lucretius, titled ‘Collisions, Design and The Swerve’, and a journal article on anticipation and the contemporary for the French journal Prospective et Stratégie. We are working together editing and writing for a volume titled 'Anticipation, Creativity and Design' for the new 'Routledge Research in Anticipation and the Future' series. For this collection, my chapter will look again at Lucretius, Michel Serres and the value of Love in future creativity. We have presented on these subjects at the two recent international conferences on Anticipation (2017, 2019).
With my colleague and world-authority on superhero culture, Richard Reynolds, we wrote a chapter on Killgrave and Foucault's concept of biopower for a collection on comics and violence, which was published in 2019. Currently, we are working together editing and writing for a volume called 'Superheroes and Excess' for 'Routledge Advances in Comics Series'. My work for this book will be on Legion, fugue and multiple ontologies.
Research Outputs
Article
- Brassett J, O'Reilly J. Retour en 2078 : Réflexions sur l'anticipation et le contemporain (2018)
- Brassett J. Creating Affective Social Design: An ethical and ontological discussion (2018)
- Brassett J. Speculative Machines and Technical Mentalities. A philosophical approach to designing the future (2016)
- Brassett J, O'Reilly J. Styling the Future. A philosophical account of scenarios & design (2015)
- Roubelat F, Brassett J, McAllum M, Hoffmann J, Kera D. Probing Ephemeral Futures: scenarios as fashion design (2015)
- Brassett J. Networks: open, closed or complex. Connecting philosophy, design and innovation, part 3 (2013)
- Brassett J, Booth P. Design Digestion: work in progress (2008)
- Brassett J, Booth P. Ecstatic innovation: Digesting, designing and democracy (2008)
- Brassett J. Emerging cyber subjects (1999)
Book
- Brassett J, Marenko B. Deleuze and Design (2015)
Book Section
- Brassett J. Atoms and Worms (ontologies of fragments) (2019)
- Brassett J. Creating Different Modes of Existence. Towards an Ontological Ethics of Design (2019)
- Brassett J, Reynolds R. Killgrave. The Purple Man (2019)
- Brassett J, O'Reilly J. Collisions, Design & The Swerve (2018)
- Brassett J. Creating Different Modes of Existence. Towards an Ontological Ethics of Design (2017)
- Brassett J. Poised and Complex: The Becoming Each Other of Philosophy, Design and Innovation (2015)
- Marenko B, Brassett J. Introduction (2015)
- Brassett J. entropy (fashion) and emergence (fashioning) (2005)
- Brassett J. Become-Cyborg! (1997)
- Brassett J. Space, Postmodernism and Cartographies (1994)
- Brassett J. Creativity
Conference, Symposium or Workshop item
- Amano T, Brassett J, Green L, Hestad M. Rethinking the prototyping process for applying design thinking to business model innovation (2017)
- Brassett J. Affect, Assemblage and Modes of Existence. Towards an Ethological Design-Driven Social Innovation (2016)
- Brassett J. Restless Innovation. Mapping the ontogenetic opportunities of creative change (2015)
- Hestad M, Brassett J. Teaching ‘design thinking’ in the context of Innovation Management - from process to a dialogue about principles (2013)
- Brassett J. The uncertainty project: managing uncertainty in innovation education (2012)
- Brassett J. Affecting Bodies Affecting Design (2007)
- Brassett J. Nonlinearity for Design (2006)
Teaching
Current research students
- Lesley-Ann Daly, Critical design examination of the impact of Sensory Augmentation and ethical issues relating to the Technology (Joint supervisor)
- Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Becoming Strangers: Defamiliarisation as Critical Research Method in Participatory Design (Joint supervisor)
- Lydia Kaye, Fashion, Technology and the Post-Gendered Body of the Future (Lead supervisor)
- Jon Martin, 'What is ‘creative block’ (: dimensions; properties; forces)' (Joint supervisor)
- Jonathan Martin, What might we make of creative block? (Lead supervisor)
- Yemima Safra, Interactive Realities: Harnessing collaborative interactive-documentary for upstream policy development (Joint supervisor)
Past research students
- Tsuyoshi Amano, Prototyping in Business Model Innovation: Exploring the Role of Design Thinking in Business Model Development. (Lead supervisor)
- Mark Donoghue, Seeing into Japanese Landscape Prints through Deleuze's Transcendental Empiricism (Joint supervisor)
- Betti Marenko, Body marking/body mapping: technologies of shifting subjectivity through skin shedding machines. (Joint supervisor)
- David Preston, The Logic of Corporate Communication Design. Design coordination and the shifting materiality of practice for consultant graphic designers in post-war Britain, 1945–1970 (Lead supervisor)
Subjects
3D design and product design
Business & management, and science