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Prototyping a Useless Design Practice: What, Why & How?

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Prototyping a Useless Design Practice: What, Why & How? 2014 | Volume III, Issue 4 | Pages 5.1-5.18 Prototyping a Useless Design Practice: What, Why & How? Søren Rosenbak, Umeå Institute of Design ABSTRACT valuate and actively traverse the growing chasm This essay sets out to rectify the false dichotomy between the industrial and the post-industrial between the notions of uselessness and usefulness design paradigm. in relation to design, in order to argue for a useless design practice. The argument is structured into In essence useless design is an invitation to make three main parts. useful, here “useful” understood in reappropriat- ed terms, beyond its currently one dimensional, Part I opens with an introduction and goes on to confined state. On that note, the essay concludes by frame design as a hybrid discipline that has been shifting its gaze from the abstract insights gathered characterized by usefulness since it was born of throughout the essay towards the concrete urgent the Industrial Revolution. The notion of useful de- task of prototyping a useless design practice. sign and its continuingly intimate relationship with the neoliberalist growth economy is subsequently Keywords: Useless design, usefulness, valuation, post-indus- unpacked through scrutinizing the basic demands trial design, critical practice, design activism, neoliberalism. for quantification & acceleration, conflicting use and temporality with special attention paid to the She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected as useless all that did Anthropocene. not contribute to the immediate desires of her heart… (Flaubert, 2013 [1856]) Part II elucidates the ambiguous relationship be- tween the useless and the useful through the relat- ed critical/conformist dichotomy present in Dunne PART I & Raby’s A/B Manifesto as well as through useless Introduction and useful design fictions. From here the unuse- The useless and the useful have their shared foun- less chindōgu by Kawakeni and the unfindable dation in the basic notion of “use” (noun and verb), objects by Carelman together frame the useless as a concept so crucial for the design discipline. When a “useful overdrive.” Additionally they illustrate we today term a design artifact as being useless or the constant risk of assimilation, festishization and useful, it seems evident that we make a value state- spectacle that disruptive useless design artifacts ment: why is one design artifact deemed useful and face within the neoliberalist growth economy. In another useless? Why do we only add these labels the digital realm The Useless Web accentuate the to certain design artifacts while leaving others post-ironic and absurd qualities in useless design. without any such designation? What is the relation between the useless and the useful? And is all this Part III asks: what is useless design, why do we fixed or does it change in time? need useless design and how could useless design exist? From five opening propositions, useless This essay concerns the rich elusive concepts of the design is positioned among related concepts such useless and the useful in relation to design. When as Redström’s “design after design” (2008), Hunt’s framing design through such an ambiguous lens, it “tactical formlessness” (2003), Tonkinwise’s becomes vital to set a certain focus, knowing that “designing things that are not finished” (2005), many interesting tangents will be left outside of and Jones’ “pure design” (1984). Useless design this particular framing. The field of human-com- is finally argued to find its value from its ability to puter interaction (HCI) is an example of one such tangent. Much important work exist within this field 5.1 Figure 1. Philip James de Loutherbourg: Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801. Source: Wikipedia. Copyright [2002] The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei [DVD-ROM]. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. discussing usefulness and uselessness in relation to wicked problems that the useless/useful dichotomy interaction design, Norman’s notion of affordances poses for design. However, I would consider any (2002) and the arguments by Gaver et al. for ambi- provisional interface that may arise as an invitation guity as a resource for design (2003), to name a few rather than a trespassing. I would further hope for major works of obvious relevance. While acknowl- a continued discussion around the useless and edging the importance of the many contributions, the useful across fields and disciplines, within and this essay wants to take a broader critical view both beyond design. in a horizontal and vertical direction: enquiring into the wider sense of the useless and useful artifact A Hybrid Discipline on a societal level and arguing within a two-hun- Design is a concept full of purpose. In fact, this dred year continuum, from the industrial to the has been one of the key characteristics attributed post-industrial. Thus, contextuality and temporality to design in the ongoing discussion around a solid becomes key concerns for unraveling the dynamic definition of what design is. Design serves a pur- relation between the useless and the useful within pose. Design is motivated, not purely accidental. design. Despite the fact that the essay takes this Design carries intention, to move from A to B, from a broader view, it is important to note that the argu- given situation to a preferred one, from one future to ment ultimately heads towards the concrete proto- another. Design enables. Design is useful. typing of a useless design practice. A statement like “design is useful” of course rests It is extremely hard to avoid edging not only HCI, on a rich historical narrative, with the Modernist but also areas such as philosophy, phenomenolo- movement, functionalism, Bauhaus, Utility Design, gy, science and technology studies (STS), histo- good design etc. Rather than accounting for the ry, politics, sustainability, psychology etc. when full historical trajectory of “usefulness” within the venturing into the murky waters of wrangling such design discipline, this essay instead argues along Artifact | 2014 | Volume III, Issue 4 | Pages 5.1-5.18 5.2 a continuum ranging from the Industrial Revolution Quantification & Acceleration around 1800 up until the present. While design in Design is not only subject to time, it actively uti- one sense is as a deeply human activity that has lizes and navigates it. From design subdisciplines existed since ancient times (Nelson & Stolterman, such as interaction design or fashion design that 2012), the Industrial Revolution gave shape to the relies on temporality as a key element, to what design discipline in its current state. Edging hard industrial designer Brook Stevens termed “planned science, humanities and the arts, much time has obsolescence” already back in 1964 (Adamson, been spent on articulating a design discourse, or in 2003). Planned obsolescence has since been used more design specific terms, to articulate “a design- frequently in different contexts and discussions. In erly way of knowing” (Cross, 2007). Alongside this this essay the term refers to design artifacts (arti- effort for a disciplinary consolidation and articula- fact understood in the widest possible sense) with tion, fields like business management, engineering, life cycles carefully attuned to the yearly product marketing and others continue to utilize design as a release spectacles and the continuous feed of tech useful leveraging tool for making sense and profit. innovation, thus falling apart or otherwise digress- ing into the realm of obsolescence at the perfect(ly Despite the fact that successful design in this designed) time. This mechanism allows the user to applied sense sometimes comes across as a pre- have a temporally limited, yet satisfying product scribed universal magic formula, design appears as experience, ultimately resulting in a desire to buy a a highly dynamic, contextual endeavor from within. newer edition: an upgrade. Located in-between an ever-shifting landscape of economical, technological and social driving forces, While the neoliberalist growth economy creates a design is in a constant state of iteration, exploration steady acceleration in the demand for “newness,” and maturation in the search for new answers and design maintains its strive for usefulness. The questions. usefulness promised by the design artifact often Figure 2. Banksy: No Stopping in the Rat Race. Photo by Duncan Hull, 2012. Artifact | 2014 | Volume III, Issue 4 | Pages 5.1-5.18 5.3 Figure 3. Tobias Lunchbreath: The Semi- Annual Adapter Parade, 2011. co-accelerates with the need for faster economic It is very hard to think of a design artifact that is not returns as continuous design improvements result intended to be useful on some level. Useful extends in new functionality, a new look etc., being 3mm the immediate quality “of having use” in the further slimmer, having 4 hours longer battery life, receiving unpacking of the word: being “full of use.” With a 2 more sustainability certificates and so on. While design artifact like the iPhone (made by Apple, a one possible umbrella term for all these continuous company argued to be one of the most prominent improvements could be qualities, this focus would and controversial companies to perfect planned obscure the fact that these qualities too follow a obsolescence (Rampell, 2013)), e.g., you can surf the market-driven need for quantification. As noted web, make a call, check your emails, make use of a by author and collaborative design strategist Ann million different applications, take pictures, record Thorpe, one of the key problems with the neoliberal voice memos, play games, etc. All of this is packed market is the lack of valuation beyond monetary into a convenient, carefully constructed form, fitting means: neatly into your pocket, allowing you to carry it around at all times. The device is evidently full of It is now widely understood that the market use. Extending the immediate physical qualities and its financial or capital resources (for exam- it emanates an Apple brand, carefully projecting ple, money, buildings or equipment) sit within certain values and sociocultural codes unto its user.
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