Designers and artists have the special ability to keep creating and are able to make concrete proposals that show how things could be. They discover and create out-of-the-ordinary perspectives for familiar scenarios and pose questions to which there appear to be no answers. They specialise in mediating complex subject matter, not just through language, but also through objects, images and stories. They also counter uncertainty and limitations in projects and combine them productively in their own work. They develop methodical repertoires of art-related knowledge. They use these to involve and encourage people, groups and organisations to discover and adopt alternative approaches.
These are the sets of skills that constitute the School's research. On the one hand, this is focused on clearly identifiable problems and challenges, which are tackled in an application-oriented way with the help of industrial, cultural and administrative partners. The School's research also has a pure component in which it attempts to develop its own disciplines, step-by-step. The School combines the qualities of art and design with the certainties and uncertainties of research as a process; it sees artistic/design-led and scientific processes in terms of creative practice.
Design research and artistic research adopt positions on the indistinct line that divides the scientific laboratory from the world as a collective real-world experiment. They operate between theory and practical procedure, between design, art and other disciplines. The Lucerne School of Art and Design benefits in particular from its proximity to the Lucerne Schools of Business, of Engineering and Architecture, of Social Work, and of Music – interdisciplinarity is high on the School's agenda. The School is also keen to see its research acquire local relevance and international significance.
