Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards Brenna Carpenter.

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Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards Brenna Carpenter

Transcript of Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards Brenna Carpenter.

Page 1: Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards Brenna Carpenter.

Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards

Brenna Carpenter

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

-Margaret Mead

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Brief intro/history lesson…

• The interest of design activism within the professional design community is booming.

• 1999-2008- new organizations were established with an activist agenda focusing on social design, slow design, interdisciplinary design, and architecture.

• Utrecht Manifest (2005)• Changing the Change (2008)• Design for the other 90% (2007)• Design approaches are emerging to challenge the

sustainability agenda and look beyond eco-efficiency (co-design, social design, slow design, metadesign)

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Thinking about Design Activism

• ‘Socially Active Design’- focus of design is society and its transition and/or transformation to a more sustainable way of living, working, and producing

• “Sustainability is a societal journey, brought about by acquiring new awareness and perceptions, by generating new solutions, activating new behavioral patterns, and, hence, cultural change.”- Ezio Manzini

• “Design activism builds on what already exists, on ‘real-life processes from greening neighborhoods to transforming communities through participatory design action.” –Guy Julier

• Activism is “taking intentional action to instigate change on behalf of a neglected group.” –Ann Thorpe

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Target Audiences

Contemporary design activism differs whendealing with the two different audiences- • Over-consumers• Under-consumers

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Differences

• Over-consumers– Must adopt eco-efficient and positive behavioral

strategies to reduce overall consumption– Must be educated and aware of the impacts that

their consumption has directly and indirectly on the natural resources of the Earth.

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Differences

• Under-consumers– Struggle to meet basic physiological requirements

for life– Need to be educated on the appropriate levels of

consumption that improve their quality of life

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Raising Awareness, Changing Perceptions, Changing Behavior (over-consumers)

“Sustainability is learning about living well but consuming (much) less.”

In order to achieve long-term sustainability we must…• Move away from a ‘product-based well-being’• Focus on our needs• Realize the importance of cyclic consumption

rather then linear consumption

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Strategy:

First, directly improve the eco-efficiencies of the product or service throughout its life cycle.

Second, deliver eco-efficiencies indirectly by changing behaviors.

It is the designer’s job to invoke new ideas about how to live a better life with reduced consumption.

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Communication by Information

• Designers must find ways of engaging people to question their own responsibilities in the way they consume.

• Finding new ways to communicate requires imaginative use of design to penetrate beyond the ‘white noise’ of contemporary life

• Giraffe Innovation’s Changing Habbits project• Worldmapper • Timm Kerkeritz’s Virtual Water poster

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Giraffe Innovation’s Changing Habbits project

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Worldmapper

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Communication by Concept, Prototype, or Artefact

• Deployed to challenge an existing cannon or imagine future possibilities

• Asks the question, “what if?”• MIT Smart Cities project– Fab Tree Hab

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Communication by Event, Scenario, or Story

• Thomas Matthew’s event for Friends of the Earth– International Buy Nothing Day– No Shop

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Ways of Making and Producing

• What trends affect What, Where, and When products are made?– Rising oil costs- affects ‘distributed’ manufacturing– Growth in green, ethical, “organic” consumer markets– Localization– Easily personalized or customizable products– Internet

Could be a shift in the balance between what is made by manufacturers, designed by professionals, and what is self made.

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Half-way Products• Designer/maker/manufacturer only takes the product so far,

leaves space for the user to complete the making• Gives the user a much higher level of personalized/emotional

gratification• Approach attempts to create added layers of meaning for the

user by involving them tangibly in completion of the form giving• An emotional mortar is formed by the user becoming an active

participant in the final creation • Natalie Schaap- An Affair with a Chair• Martin Ruiz de Azua- Tache Naturelle• Kesselskramer ‘Do Hit’ ‘Do Scratch’

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“Affair with a Chair”

“Do Hit”

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Modular Evolved Products

• The model for mass industrial production generates huge quantities of short-lived stuff.

• A study done by Dutch Eternally Yours Foundation revealed that 20 to 90 per cent of discarded domestic electrical products were still working and offered the original functionality – “If functionality had not broken, then the

relationship between user and product certainly had.”

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Ethical Products

• Fair trade labels• Labor Behind the Label• The Clean Clothes Campaign

• Natalie Chanin’s cottage industry– Design led activism

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Rise of the Internet

• New visions of manufacturing • RapRep (Replicating Rapid Prototyper)– Open to the public– Opens up more opportunities for manufacturing

• Ponoko– Flat pack designs– Offers online space for co-creation– Make-on demand

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Meaningful Production

• Connecting Lines (Judith Van den Boom)– Works hand in hand with her employees– To humanize processes and encourage collective

intelligence to create a ‘smart factory’ where designers and employees co-create, co-design, and co-make

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Experiments in Bio- and Techno- cyclicity

• Waste= food• Growing furniture– “Plantware” – create living plants that are functional

household and office objects• Recycling• Sprout Design– Recycled Sony Playstation cases to create a chair

• Herman Miller– Celle chair is 99% recyclable at the end-of-life and

includes 33% of its components from recyclate

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Eco-efficiency Improvements

• Eco-efficiency products utilize materials with an inherently lower impact (recycled, biological origin materials) and reduce energy during the manufacturing and/or during the use of the product

• Trevor Baylis’s MP3 player• Marti Guixe’s Flamp

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Activism Targeting the Under-Consumers

• Under-consumers are focused on survival, striving to meet basic physical needs

• Need to consume MORE• Represent between 1/6th and 1/3rd of the

global human population

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Shelter

• Michael Rakowitz– ParaSITE

• Uses the waste of heat/cooling from buildings heating/ventilation/air-conditioning systems by attaching inflatable structures that provide temporary accommodation for the homeless

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Water/Food

• Kenya Ceramic Jiko– Portable charcoal stove

• Ceramic water filter

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Raising Awareness by Education

• Must have access to resources• Baygen Clockwork Radio– Powered by wind-up generator

• One Laptop per Child project– Nicholas Negroponte

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Health Issues

• Life Straw by Vestergaard Frandsen– Personal ceramic filters for obtaining clean water

• Solar Aid by Godisa Technologies– For those with impared hearing– Solar panel battery charger