Making Sense & Meaning¶
The following reflection is in response to the learnings from this course through discussion, readings (referenced below), and the questions given:
- How can design reconfigure systems of extraction?
- Which worlds can we design with the power of today’s tools?
- How can we design the transition towards these worlds?
Looking at the world through a lens of design is a double edged sword. On one hand, design is a means of seeing opportunity for efficiency and can make our surroundings more inspiring visually and physically comfortable. However, it also comes from a source of individualism, can be disconnected from nature, and biased with a westernized perspective. In order to move from extraction to regeneration, we need new perspectives of design. First I will look at how systems of capitalism have brought us to where we are today and relate them to our current state of design. Exploring learnings from nature and offering alternative modes of thinking to reconfigure and provide alternative ways out.
In Patel and Moore’s “A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things”, they call out the relationship between humans and nature. They explore the exploitative relationships humans have made through capitalism in correlation with nature, work, care, food, energy, money and lives. Capitalism looks at all of these aspects as opportunities for extraction in the cheapest forms possible to make the most money possible. They define cheapness as a way to fix crisis or a strategy to temporarily fix something, while managing the relationship between life and capitalism. Cheap is a strategy or practice that results in humans and nature having the least compensation or respect as possible. Since there is the constant race of needing to stay relevant in order to compete and be able to afford the world we live in. Design is intertwined with these notions of cheap things because design has been successful and gained value in the eyes of capitalism. It is now used as a means to compete with each other to perform and create at higher levels. Design can become another cheap thing or used as a tool for regeneration and reconfiguration.
There is an urgency with capitalism that we live under, and a learned behavior of not having enough time. This lack of time then becomes an excuse to make poor decisions, which in turn capitalism preys on as opportunities to make money when people are in this vulnerable state. For example, fast food preys on this vulnerability and provides an easy but harmful solution. We have been trained to pick the easiest and cheapest route, causing a lack of awareness and stress. This stress then leads to furthering our desire for the easiest way out, which consequently affects other humans and nature in the worst ways. An alternative presence would be to value slowness, relationship, and nature. Can we learn from non-western perspectives to have a healthier relationship with time and break the illusion of urgency we are currently under?
Another main issue is how we perceive others around us and specifically in design contexts. In design education, we are taught to think of a user which aims to humanize a hypothesis and reduce bias. The act of picking a user though can be idealized and over simplifies the complexities and range of humans in reality. In terms of marketing, this user is described as an ideal target audience that can have an ideal race, age, and gender attached to it. In digital products, the number of users are looked at as “the unit of a measurement for entrepreneurial success” (Slavin, 2016). In this case the user is distilled to a number that is in direct relation with money. In order to avoid this narrowing down and over simplification, design can be made in co-creation with the intended users in order to keep in check the complexity and specificity that they are designing towards, allowing for a more nuanced solution. There is also a desire to scale everything up, where in fact having small scale nuanced solutions could be more effective in the long term.
When looking at our relationship with nature and resources, design can be used to educate and show possibilities of how we can revalue our waste. We are living with our waste, digesting it and ultimately need to do something about it. Not only do we need to sort, collect and use this waste but design with alternative methods and materials in order to not add to it. We can use tools of tracking waste, transportation, resource management to see how our materials and waste are affecting one another. The waste that western societies are creating are sent directly to developing countries. Waste has been colonized to take precious resources from developing countries, and in turn dump used resources back onto these lands. This extraction of people and land through colonization over the course of history has led us to this ecological crisis. Art and creativity offer an alternative to seeing everything around us as a possibility for new creation. Offering awareness and inspiring action to change the wasteful habits we have become used to.
As the planet warms, there is a growing need to design solutions for the global south because natural disasters seem more obvious in these contexts. There is a fine line to be crossed of design being another form of colonization. We have to be careful to not design solutions in western contexts as a type of charity. Changing the thought of helping or improving “others” to instead be collectively working together to decrease the harmful practices in our world. This need to solve for outside our context could feel rewarding because issues in our own areas can feel too complex to address. Understanding this, addressing as much as we can in our own societies and contexts first is important before assuming solutions for others. From the learnings you find in your own context, parallels then can be made between societies because in the end we are all facing similar problems in different contexts. At the end of the day, we are all humans who need food, shelter, relationships, and suffer from pollution and disease.
In a capitalist society it is difficult and daunting to see any way out. These systems are so large and intertwined, and the grief behind the state of the world and climate can be immobilizing. Design itself has been capitalized, and we need new ways to reconfigure our forms of extraction. Looking at Gregory Bateson’s “Ecology of Mind” and Donna Haraway’s “Staying in the Trouble,” they both look at the world in respect to nature and the learnings we find among it.
Bateson suggests ways for how we could create more healthy societies with a healthy ecology. As each civilization has risen and fallen, it has done so with exploiting other humans and nature. Each new invention makes room for flexibility but also that flexibility leads to other detrimental consequences. Bateson says, “flexibility of the civilization shall match that of the environment to create an ongoing complex system..” The issues we are facing and the people in them are complex and cannot be solved with simplicity. We can no longer design systems for a single user, let alone distill users down to a monetary number. In this fast paced age of instant connection with the internet and social media, ideas are spread quickly. However systems are still disconnected and people are isolated in their filter bubbles. Currently we try to simplify everything, when in fact we need to stay with the complexity and not be so rushed for a quick and easy solution.
Bateson suggests that we can have room for technological advancements, as long as societies stay flexible to change and are inclusive of “genetic and experiential diversity of persons.” In relation to nature, we should limit our use of natural resources and only use them if it is for necessary advancement and define what that advancement is. A new world of design would look at how we can reduce our greed to not over exploit a resource. As well as sitting with complexity and making small flexible solutions, instead of a stressed ad hoc solution to one part of a complex issue.
Right now there is an imbalance of flexibility in the distribution of it. Currently the variables in society that should be flexible are not and those that should be steady have been let loose. In our societies we have inflexibility on how one must conduct their lives in order to stay in order and have success, leading to unfair rates of incarceration, homelessness and exclusion. While in relation to how much we are required to work and what we are allowed to take from nature is open and loose. New systems would allow for more flexibility and safety nets for humans to make mistakes, have inclusive and open education, and be working towards an inclusive social system rather than an exclusive one. Teaching people how to exercise their flexibility and freedoms, encouraging new thought, breaking habits, and fostering creativity.
When we talk about fostering diversity we also see how people are tackling similar issues, but how do we bridge them together to create more interconnected systems? Open source platforms are a way to build databases of ideas, however we need to do this in a way that preserves local thought and ideas. Giving credit where it is due and being acutely aware of appropriation. One great thing about online communities is that it can allow someone to ask a question where people all over the world can offer ideas and alternative perspectives. This is one way that design is beneficial, it can create spaces that facilitate ideation and problem solving. To do this as a way to empathize and broaden our world view is a way to transition into a more informed and empowered society. Donna Haraway talks about co-creation as a way to create among non-human and human species. But also creating in a community and managing power dynamics within that community. A designer needs to be aware of their ego and place, knowing when to lead and listen. Being upfront with expectations, skills, and offerings in a way that is not imposing or replacing others. Not only are we co-creating with other humans but keeping in check our relationship with nature and how materials, spaces, consumption is not extracting but symbiotic to our surrounding environment. In terms of climate grief and immobilization, offering spaces of community creation can be a way to combat loneliness and overwhelm. Creative expression among communities can spark hope and new ideas. Communities that are accessible to different age groups and encourage multigenerational interaction. Haraway uses the metaphor “string figuring,” where like we see in nature there is a constant giving and receiving of participation through diversity of knowledge and care. We can create communities that take on collective responsibility not feel that it is any one individual’s problem to be solved. Solving together and uplifting voices brings a hopeful approach in moving forward and resilience to the challenges we will continue to face.
Overall, there have been civilizations before us and there will be others after us. Nature is constant and offers many solutions to us as the ultimate teacher of care, diversity, and empathy. Design in an evolving world means embracing the complexity of the issues we face, encouraging grace and safety nets as we move forward with flexibility. Creating with others and striving for symbiotic relationships with nature and listening to local communities. Using the internet to foster creativity rather than isolation and division. With small flexible steps, we can face life and its challenges.
Reference:
Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, 2000.
Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham (N.C.) ; London, Duke University Press, 2016.
Moore, Jason W, and Raj Patel. HISTORY of the WORLD in SEVEN CHEAP THINGS : A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future Of… The Planet. S.L., Verso Books, 2018.
Slavin, Kevin. “Design as Participation.” Journal of Design and Science, 24 Feb. 2016, https://doi.org/10.21428/a39a747c.