Rethinking politics from design (and design from politics)

In this brief article, I discuss the politics of design, specifically how the older art movements like Art Deco, Brutalism, et.al. have made a comeback. I discuss the tussle between Steve Jobs led skeumorphism and the flat designs, and question if the Google's 2014 Material Design offers the solution to the same or if that's just an easy answer. The perpetuation of negative space has been discussed. In the post-Weinstein world, the effects of #metoo on design are also covered.

Nordes 2015: Design Ecologies, 2015

This paper is a theoretical attempt to formulate an ontological understanding of design as a set of articulations and modes of acting that manipulate the materiality of the world in order to re-direct and re-orient the possible ways of inhabiting, accessing and shaping the world. Such an understanding puts forward a way of approaching the question of politics in, of and for design that design and politics should be understood as a twofold embedded in one environment. This then has consequences both for design and for politics. I argue that these consequences can be understood better through unfolding the political forms made possible by design as well as the material and designed forms that have become necessary given today’s political situation. By drawing on a series of examples, I will argue how design is already a political form and how politics is a form of material articulation. Such an understanding then gives shape to the recognition of the activities and forces that already exist in the world and sketches out possibilities of acting upon that recognition.

Design Philosophy Papers, 2013

When people cite Herbert Simon's defi nition of design (as they frequently do) as an activity that seeks to Change Existing Situations Into Preferred Ones, this is usually an entrée into what they really want to discuss, which is "how do designers do this?" Here lies the history of the 'design methods' movement that sought to rationalise design as process, and the counter-reaction to it as researchers and designers began to conceptualise their work in terms of human-centred design, participatory design, co-design, design ethnography, and so on. 1 But what's been overlooked in Simon's oft-repeated defi nition of design is the change bit-the move from existing to preferred is glided over as if obvious. If pressed to name the gap between the existing and the preferred, those who cite Simon would perhaps say something like-better functionality, performance, convenience, effi ciency, aesthetic appeal, and so on. The parameters of change are assumed as given, as issuing from the client, thus they are circumscribed, delimited, not an issue. Today it is the nature of change that is the issue. The need for signifi cant change has become harder to

The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography, 2017

Design is on the march. Terms and practices that once circulated primarily within the fairly circumscribed worlds of professional designers— " charrettes, " " prototyping, " " brainstorm-ing, " and so forth—have permeated worlds as diverse as business management, statecraft, and public education. Ethnographers have not been immune from this extension, and, if anything, some of our most esteemed practitioners have helped to promote it. For Bruno Latour (2008), the spread of the word design attests to the collapse of faith in modernist narratives while also signaling more humble, democratic, and open-ended ways to make collective futures. For Paul Rabinow, George Marcus, James Faubion, and Tobias Rees (2008), the practices of professional designers offer promising ways for rethinking contemporary modes of anthropo-logical inquiry and textual production, and the design studio represents an exciting model for teaching and learning ethnographic practices. For Alberto Corsín Jiménez (2013), " prototyp-ing " is not only a term of art among select communities of practice; it is also a more general model for how a polity might mutually prefigure configurations of objects and sociality. While ethnographers who have recently advocated for design have done so in different ways, they tend to share a desire to not just interpret the world but also to try to change it. Put differently, many ethnographers' recent interest in partnering with designers can be seen in part as an interest in exploring new modes of doing a material politics. 1 Given this renewed interest in the political possibilities of design, this short chapter explores some of the ways that design does and can do political work. After offering a brief rationale for why ethnographers should examine design as a mode of doing politics, I primarily focus on three, often intra-related, political processes in which design might play a part: prescribing, publicizing, and proposing. 2 The chapter ends with a brief exercise in, and argument for, attending to the unevenly situated character of design-ethnography as a mode of doing politics.

DergiPark (Istanbul University), 2024

Today, 'design' has become a concept that is frequently used in every field, in an awkward and populist manner. Hair design, nail design, feng shui design, wellness design, and city design are some of these conceptions that reduce the value of design, manipulate its meaning, as well as empty its content. For professional designers and design scholars, this situation has become more critical, as they start losing their intellectual voice and professional legitimacy among all those who use and consume the concept of design, regardless of its context. On the other hand, when we consider it from a global perspective, we see that design is one of the most dominant concepts in the strategic planning and development policies of developed and/or developing countries. In a way, it has also become a powerful tool of politics, reconceptualized in populist discourses and practices of authorities and decision-makers.

Design was born in turbulent times. The great transformation of the Industrial Revolution was undoing the old ways of relating to Nature. A brave new artificial world was unfolding, where everything would be shaped according to human design. This was the promise of a brand new discipline: infused with the Enlightenment and aligned with Capital, design would address the needs and desires of people by the mass production and consumption of objects, market goods, commodities.

Meaningful conceptual examination of contemporary design should account for some aspect of the discipline’s moral, social and political agency as a matter of course. Any critique should employ approaches that allow for more productive elucidation and that circumvent parochial tendencies to evaluate practice from merely aesthetic, transactional or prudential perspectives. With this admonition in mind, this essay examines the differences between seminal political meta-narratives promulgated by liberal democracy and particular philosophical conceptions that have and continue to inform design practice. In so doing it illuminates the ways in which design operates as a salient counterpoint to normative political beliefs that shape cultural production, notions of self and understandings of the relationship between individual and society. It also asks the question, if this contrast were exploited, would ‘illiberal’ design be able to spark and sustain a more durable common good.

There's been a recent call for designers around the world to take more than a cursory interest in democratic discourses and political happenings in their domains; although, this is aimed at strengthening democratic practices, the intricacies and dynamics of contemporary political systems currently makes this, antithetical to the traditional role of the designer in a society. Thus, this paper highlights the conflicts surrounding the characterizations and practicality of contemporary democracy and the challenges of associating it with design and designers. It further argues that the design community as an entity lacks the requisite credibility to lead a pro-democracy campaign in view of its own questionable democratic credentials. The paper concludes that rather than join the populist bandwagon of slogan-chanting pro-democracy activists, the design community as an entity should become politically agnostic, but more socially-conscious – focusing solely on the social welfare of the people in every community it serves – whether in democracies, monarchies or communist states.

The Design Journal

This document is a report on the structured discussion workshop at the EAD 2017 Design for Next (Society) conference in Rome, Italy. The workshop was hosted by Bianca Herlo and Andreas Unteidig from the Berlin University of the Arts and joined by İdil Gaziulusoy from Aalto University and Wolfgang Jonas from the University of Braunschweig.

Sapienza University of Rome | Interdepartmental Center Sapienza Design Research, 2021

Digital transformation and biotechnologies offer powerful means, through which autonomy and automatism could lead to new governance models. As institutions failed to timely grasp their profound implications, a concerning disconnection grows between political and social life. As design moves towards social and political gaps, it now participates in social transformation by challenging current habitus. Whether in a contesting or reforming attitude, design agency generates pressure in and out everyday life, impacting the way politics is thought and practiced. Guided by a correlational approach, the contribution aims to frame a field of research in which design acts politically as a "vector of the present" to cope with instability. Embracing the unfinished character of societal artifacts, design fuels contradictions as vital functions of the democratic discourse, pushing for new conceptions about politics and democracy themselves.

Author and design theorist Tony Fry recently released Design as Politics (2010). The book packs a wallop and extends the thinking Fry voiced in two earlier works, A New Design Philosophy (1999) and Design Futuring (2009). In his latest effort, Fry knits a rich tapestry of rigorous argumentation out of diverse strands of thinking situated outside the mainstream of environmental theory and philosophy — e.g., philosophers Foucault, Heidegger, Levinas and Latour, political theorist Carl Schmitt, economist Joseph Schumpeter, sociologist Theodor W. Adorno and many others. Interestingly though, he couches his philosophical stance in rhetoric that often evokes the eschatological tenor, dystopian polemics and fundamental reorientations more typically associated with apocalyptical forms of environmental discourse.

Design Philosophy Papers

This essay draws on the connections between design, intelligence and creativity to address some overarching political and ethical responsibilities of design choices.

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