Viktor Papanek is in my opinion the one who most convincing argued for the designer as a socio-cultural activist in his "design for the real world" published more than 30 years ago. His thoughts inspired a whole generation of conscious designers all over the world, and when I started as a designstudent in 1978 I believed, that the future designer would be doing a lot of intentional social engineering. We have done that indeed, but I still wonder whether the 'intentions' behind the last 2 decades of designers activity were right and deep enough.
Papanek set up different subjects (f.ex. medicotechnical equipment and design for the third world), that needed the designers concern, and although medicotechinical equipment at that time was almost untouched by designers, this area is a very potent and commercially interesting area for industrial designers today.
What still is missing is the deeper problem-oriented approach that goes beyond the dominant market-oriented product design, and actually look at the users future needs as a bit less productfocused. From this point of view there would still be a lot of work to do for creative engineering and designrelated cultural development f.ex. in the third world.
I tried once to find some of Papaneks old students by internet-searching on the names mentioned in the above mentioned book. I wanted to know how they today relate to the the design-philosophy, that Papanek must have given them, but I couldn't find any of the designers mentioned. Does anyone know what happened to the designers of this generation?
sincerely
Kaare Eriksen
Aalborg University
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Scrivener [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25. januar 2002 11:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design and future needs
All
I'm trying to follow this thread. I too am confused as to whether Jean
is interested in design which is intentional social engineering and
design which, as it were, accidentally shapes society.
The thread contains examples of both.
A few more examples of each. I recall, perhaps erroneously, a
presentation by the sociologist John Bowers, in which he argued that the
Paris Metro, then publicly owned, was designed with a different gauge of
rail to the then privately owned land railway system thus making it more
difficult for the system to fall into private ownership because the land
trains could not enter the metro system.
The relationship between crime and technological development is very
interesting. For example, the sex industry has always been amongst the
first to exploit new technology. It was quick for example to exploit the
telephone and the term "call girl" apparently originates from the early
use of the telephone as a medium for making appointments. I bet
Alexander Bell didn't conceive of the telephone shaping culture in this
way. Also, just look at cultural impact that the mobile phone is having,
for example, on language and the way that young people now communicate.
Any way, if Jean intends to produce a paper or something, I for one
would be very interested in receiving a copy.
Steve
Nicola Morelli wrote:
>
> I'm re-posting a message I accidentally sent only to Lubomir
>
> HI all,
> I didn't quite understand whether jean's request is about examples in which someone (designer or not) DELIBERATELY managed to change society or examples in which products shaped societies and cultural systems. I understand that some of those who answered to Jean's request refer to the second interpretation (technology shaping society), while I was trying to think of a possible answer to the first interpretatino (designers deliberately shaping society through technology). I can't find, at the moment examples in this direction, while the debate of technology shaping society (I mean unintentionally or quasi-unintentionally) is long and complex and would probably include questions about society shaping technology (on which several books have been written, especially in the area of the social construction of technology).
> I can add an example of technology shaping society (and viceversa): how many products and technological innovations have contributed to the development of new ways of working? A deliberate trial to use information technology to shape the way we work was based on telework. Although the prediction about a widespread diffusion of telework in western countries did not eventuate, there are several new work arrangement that are based on an intense use of information technology. For instance a lot of people can now work from any location, using the Internet to create connection with their original workplace. In this case was technology shaping society? or, on the contrary it was society shaping technology (because people did not like telework, but they did like to work while travelling, therefore the demand for laptop and other related facilities increased)?
> Cheers
> Nicola
>
> Dr Nicola Morelli
> Centre for Design at RMIT University
> GPOBox 2476V Melbourne Victoria 3001
>
> Web: http://users.tce.rmit.edu.au/e07643
--
Professor Stephen AR Scrivener
VIDE Research Centre
Design Institute
School of Art and Design
Coventry University
Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK
Tel: +44 (0)24 7688 7477
Fax: +44 (0)24 7688 7759
Mobile: +44 (0)7789 590 228
Email: [log in to unmask]
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