The myth of the Design Saviour Design and Philosophy Society Journal 01 Term 01 2020 Royal College of Art SO ILO PH H Y P S & O C N I E G I T S Y E D&PD 01 INTRO POEM The Myth of the Design Saviour VALESKA NOEMI 02 On the Persuasive Power of Objects FANN XU 03 Crafting Sustainable Futures WOOJIN JOO EUPHEMIA FRANKLIN AND 04 Graphic Designers Won’t Save the Day RIONA MENEZES 05 Design Cripistemologies Remix KAIYA WAEREA 06 Comic HANNAH BRINKMANN 07 Human, Sexuality & Design, our daily menu BENEDETTA LOCATELLI 08 Utopian Objects IRINA STARKOVA 09 The role of the design saviour & our cities KRISTOF VAN DER FLUIT 10 Author(ity) for trust and transparency JOÃO ALVES MARRUCHO VALESKA NOEMI 11 Responsibilities & Opportunities of Design in the Economy MANGEL 12 Design can save us, but not through ‘problem solving’ LAURA DUDEK 13 The Importance of Boredom for the Design Saviour VIVIEN REINERT 14 Disclaimer, Acknowledgements and Sponsorship 01 the fetish of the doom hanging above their heads the ultimate drug in a rush to live a rebellion of a lust to last what’s not imaginable is not real the truth is outsourced to less promised lands The while they’re still dreaming it is all in their minds and elsewhere their dreams won’t sprout hours keep on turning darker their thoughts shall bring the light Myth like the last moth sunbathing in their deserts recalling their own gods carving bright ideas into their history undoing the world, made in 7 days – for decades or erasing their mistakes before dawn? of the bibles full of Futuras and Universes heads in the clouds being closest to the crowns of creation fighting to put their hypermaterials to death again but they hear their heavy breaths, read their broken, beating hearts Design listen to their moans and prayers starting to see nuances of their pain hope on their shoulders, wandering on their drafts for constant recovery whispering a word of modesty Saviour into the ears of their patrons VALESKA NOEMI no-one wants to hear how no-one knows whomever speaks a different tongue holds the power to reread their doom and the glory of their eye on beauty may lay a taint of harmony on coming sunrises 02 During my MFA I had a peer who proudly proclaimed that we as designers played the most important role in society. Designers, she said, can do anything! Unfortunately I did not share her sentiment. The idea sounded both preposterous and self-righteous! On the Yes, we as designers can do many things, we are trained to identify and solve problems, ideate and project future scenarios, we make beautiful and practical things, Persuasive we connect people. But to proclaim that we had a more important role to play than say, doctors, teachers, maintenance workers, or cleaners? I didn’t think so. Was I being too harsh on my self-proclaimed profession? Power This year’s covid-19 pandemic has been a humbling and eye-opening experience in many ways. Comforts and truths we had previously taken for granted in our every- day lives have suddenly been violently The list of essential workers Boris and his uphieved and vigorously challenged. A per- boys prepared consisted of those roles haps unforeseen consequence of this global that were crucial to keeping the country of Objects pandemic has been the ongoing conversa- running, ranging from NHS workers and tion concerning who can be regarded as an postal service employees, to national se- FANN XU essential worker. These brave and impor- curity staff, and child care professionals. tant human beings who play such crucial 2 Yet nowhere on this comprehensive list roles in our societal fabric that they need to with over 90 entries could I find them men- continue working, need to leave the safety tioning Product Designers, Art Directors, or No, this is how it works of their homes to face the unknown even UX Specialists. Still here I am, paying good in the face of a global pandemic. Everyone money to pursue yet another design degree. You peer inside yourself else is asked to stay at home to save lives, Am I completely uninterested in providing a so that these people can go to work and ac- constructive contribution to the world that I You take the things you like tually save lives. live in? Why am I still so interested in work- And try to love the things you took1 ing with and through things, when that role seems superfluous? – Regina Spektor “On the Radio” 1 Regina Spektor, writer, “On the Radio,” in Begin 2 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-cov- to Hope, 2006, CD. id-19-getting-tested#list-of-essential-work- ers-and-those-prioritised-for testing-england-only In 2011 a 17 year old boy in Eastern China sold his right kidney on the black market to To make things is a natural and integral finance his purchase of new apple products part of our human condition. To engage in (an iPhone 4 and iPad 2). 3 Earlier last year, the material world, to leave our mark on it the now 25 year old man became bedrid- seems to be essential to our nature. We don’t den and now relied on dialysis following only make things to become who we are, we complications from the organ transplant. also become who we are through the things The original story received its fair share we make, own, and care for. Donald Norman of foreign media coverage at the time. To examines the issue of how we create bonds which degree the details of the story were to objects with emotional and sentimental honestly and accurately reported is of less- significance in his book Emotional Design. er importance for my argument than the fact that the story so eloquently fed to our While it has since long become apparent We don’t only interact with objects on a insecurities. The guilt we feel for the screen that it is our anthropocentric stance that functional level, he claims, but rather be- time we allow ourselves and our children has made this world an unlivable place come emotionally involved with them. (especially in this new Zoom-age), our fixa- for so many of the non-humans we share “Everytime we encounter an object, our re- tion on objects and the sense of belonging this planet with, we still continue making action is determined not only by how well it they provide us with, is enough fuel to forge new things using more natural resources. works, but by how good it looks to us, and this kind of narrative into our truth. Anthropologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi by the self-image, loyalty and even nostalgia astutely described this behaviour as an in- it evokes in us.” 5 The things we surround ourselves with help paint a picture of who What is it in these objects that make us fall nate part of our human condition, stating we are. so headlessly, recklessly in love with them? “Man is not only homo sapiens, or homo What is it in us that makes us attracted to ludens, he is also homo faber, the maker Against the above mentioned backdrop, it something that can not love us back? Many and user of objects” 4. As a consequence becomes apparent that the role of the de- of these objects tha we value so highly do to this statement, making things, engaging signer is particularly precarious and com- not provide us with a usefulness that is pro- with material becomes an integral part of plex. It is this entangled landscape between portional to the price we are willing to pay our human identity. If we accept this state- maker, user, object, subject, human and to attain them (monetary or corporeal). Is ment and work with this as our reality, there non-human which frames their context. there a reason behind this longing, some- may emerge a new role for the designer to Rather than pretending that we are not af- thing innate in us which feeds our attraction fill. The traditional role becoming obsolete fected by the things around us, or that we to things that are not vital for our survival? at best, dangerous at worst. We can not es- are above or autonomous from them, we (Or are we simply living in a material world, cape our own materiality, nor our need to must reinstate objects into their rightful as material girls and boys?) engage with the material world. Instead, the place, as peers. We understand ourselves task at hand is to find new ways and meth- and become ourselves in relation to oth- We live, think and design in a world already ods to combine these contradicting senti- ers, both the animate and inanimate bod- burdened by an excess of things, yet we ments. If we have to design new things, how ies around us. Only through understanding keep creating new objects to add to the nev- can we do so responsibly? the persuasive power of things can we be- er ending pile. We design objects that will gin to create them with care and intention. outlive us, create materials that will outlast Only then can we begin to understand how their intended use. Why do we carry such someone may be willing to sacrifice a limb an irrational urge to make and create, to or an organ for something that would make have and to hold materials? them feel more complete than those body parts ever could.