Dear Jurgen and all,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I believe this is an invaluable discussion and it will certainly help steer some conversation at the upcoming meeting.
One last pondering...
Perhaps the starting point is unsustainable design.
An acknowledgement that "unlearning" is necessary. This requires designers to give up their "expertise" and to develop deeper knowledge of systems which no longer serve the greater good such as "patriarchy, colonialism and capitalisms" (Escobar, 2018).
To be responsible, one must care enough to act. And to act, one must understand that there is choice. Choice is the action - it's a choice of being. Choice in itself is a system change (creating a new paradigm) which allows for new patterns of organisation. My own work is moving in that direction - looking at the choices of change makers.
Perhaps "world design responsibility" needs to learn from other fields such as Anthropology or feminist literature when it comes to the language of "responsibility" or "care" - as you rightly point out - this too can be a dangerous territory of playing "god" as touched on in Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's book, Matters of Care and Joan Tronto's concept of a "life sustaining web". Thus caring to be responsible becomes a revolutionary set of actions based on maintaining and regeneration of our "worlds" in which we go beyond the human, to the scale and temporality of the ecological (and all of life).
When thinking on the matter of responsibility and/or care, I find this lens of relationality to be very helpful -
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together"
(Lilla Watson at the 1985 United Nations speech - a motto for many activist groups in Australia and elsewhere which Watson herself refused to claim ownership for as she felt it was born of a collective process)
It is an honour to be part of this collective process.
Have a great weekend.,
Britta Boyer
PhD Doctoral Candidate
Institute of Design Innovation
Loughborough University, London
www.brittaboyer.com <http://www.brittaboyer.com>
On 06/03/2020, 14:11, "PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in on behalf of Prof. Dr. Juergen Faust" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Britta and all,
the term World Design Responsibility was taken by me since because of a lack of a better word, to indicate a change to respond to the need for designers to change (rhythm), ... I wouldn't say paradigm yet (Don pointed out in a former post that a paradigm shift is not needed), but I am as not sure at this point whether a paradigm is already indicated.
Therefore I want to include as well Terence Loves observation, which he puts out in a post afterwards. I quote him here and I put my comments inside:
Terry wrote:
I think it's worth remembering four things:
Firstly, using design to support users, societies, humanity and the
biosphere was the driving force behind the start of sustainable
design/eco-design/design for the bottom of the pyramid/community
participation in planning/ co-design/ alternative technology/appropriate
technology/intermediate technology/small is beautiful/design for
development, engineers without borders, counter-culture etc.
JF: I do agree.
But how does Genetic Engineering and our responsibility for this planet fit into that? Is it wort to sustain the human race, the planet, the animals? If yes, do we need to engineer the human being which is immune to diseases? What do we sustain? Do we need ti sustain live, or death as well?
Terry:
Secondly, many of these movements were started with a real rage against the
conventional practices of professional commercial designers, architects
and planners, or at least a sense that something needed to be done that was
very different. They had a strong political origin.
JF Okay
Terry:
Thirdly, mosttly these movements were all started OUTSIDE, against, and as
an alternative to, commercial design practices as taught in design schools
and universities. In almost all cases the aim was to protect the majority of
society from the decisions made by professional designers, architects and
planners.
JF: Okay
Terry:
Four, many of these humanity-based and ecologically-based design movements
became corrupted - to focus only on products and technology - as soon as
they became taken up by professional designers and design students trained
in universities and schools of design.
JF: Okay
But I have my doubts whether the term 'sustainable' can signify the responsibility we are having as designers and a community of designers, thinkers, intellectual workers, etc.
I know that there is a philosophical historical debate whether terms, words are definable...
I have been dealing with this differences during my tenure in US, being immersed by nominalists. (They reject of abstract objects, and the universals)
I remember the scholastic debate whether a general exist or whether general concepts are human constructions.
But from my framework and construction, I tend to say picking the wrong term, makes it at least more complicated that it can be.
Thank you Terry for your thoughts.
JF:
Britta, I answer you within your text and your provocations are very welcome:
Britta:
The following is deliberately provocative (not disrespectful as I value the dialogic process) - In some ways, I would say that Design is advocating for unsustainability as it is implicit in co-delivering inequality in many areas of the world - there is much is what is being "done" in design that is "unsustainable".
JF:
Yes Britta, I can follow. My point is whether the term sustainable and unsustainable will let us frame what we need to frame.
If a term doesn't allow to differentiate what we want to differentiate, then it is worthless to use it.
Britta:
I am unable to comment on the links as I don't fully understand but more intrigued why you don't believe that sustainability would fit into "biology?. Wouldn't this be the most suitable place? Though Tony Fry's "sustainment" may be better suited.
JF:
The term sustainment or sustainability doesn't allow us to differentiate what we are designing. If we design a biological entity which helps us to get rid of human decease (many will survive) and in the same time we need to take the responsibility that we don't know how this 'biological' entity will mutate in nature and will threaten us?
Risk estimation would be the answer.
We (designers/scientists/engineers) have done that many times and we have an increasing disaster, even on a global scale!
The more we are working with sustainable design the faster we are change the world, as it seams?
I have experienced that during my live. When I studied chemical engineering we celebrated the invention of plastics (we thought of sustainability as well, because of recycling). Now we have the first animal named 'Eurythenes plasticus' https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2020/03/eurythenesplasticus/,
because it builds plastic inside its body.
What do we want to sustain?
Which stage needs to be sustained?
Britta:
Some ponderings...
How can siloed design sectors/niches co-deliver values (or responsibility) if there are so many different terminologies and each open to interpretation?
JF:
Right that is an extreme challenge since knowledge is accelerating urther. I have not a clear answer to that. One aspect is to work among disciplines.
Britta:
What responsibility do we have (as designers/design researchers/industry) to co-deliver a "responsibility" that is adhered to by Design as a whole?
JF: I have mentioned the article with the headline about the CRISPR design possibility: we play god.
We are designing the human, the animals, species and new species.
If we play god, we need to take responsibility as a gods.
Britta:
How do you understand the word "sustainability"?
JF:
see before: I don't know which stage needs to be sustained? Therefore the term is confusing.
Britta:
What is the meaning of "world design responsibility" when the term "world" itself could also be argued to be an empty signifier - whose world are we talking about? (who is included, excluded?), this is particularly important from my own perspective as a female in the UK when Design is predominately white male (78% white male according to the Design Council, 2018) and even worse for BAME in the UK, let alone if you are in the Global South - and most likely even worse if you are an animal.
How is World Design Responsibility different to Pluriverse? (or is it?) - worlds too are constructed.
JF:
Yes that is right Britta, we would need to define 'world design responsibility', as we started to do that within this discussion in order to prevent emptiness. If some communities and if we share our thinking and we are successful with coining this term, communities will take our WDR over and in new directions, we will not be happy with it. At a certain point it will be out of our control.
I experienced that within DT, design thinking.
Within this 'space' we are in a co-designing space with other thinkers, I can't control my design anymore.
Here comes a novel in my mind: 'The physicists from Friedrich Duerrenmatt. I have no answer to the general question raised in that novel, whether we as an individual need to keep certain ideas away from the world or not (ethical question)?
There is no answer given in this novel!
But we can defend our thoughs/designs as we see as well within this community, therefore people are sometimes tough with each other as we have been able to read.
Britta:
Where does responsibility sit?
Who is responsible for what?
JF:
We as Homo Deus would need to take responsibility for everything and what we design, whether these are animals, plants, ourselves as for everything what is listed in Terry's first point, the world, or worlds.
Thank you Britta, good questions!
Prof. Dr. Jurgen Faust
Macromedia University, Munich
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