Making Meaning

MAKING MEANING MITALEE PARIKH MDEF 2019-20 IAAC + ELISAVA + FABACADEMY CONTENTS Summary Area of interest and weak signals....................................................................1 Area of intervention and description of your intervention.....................................5 State of the art..............................................................................................9 Interventions (Term 1 and 2) and reflection on their results................................11 Future scenarios.........................................................................................19 Designing in emerging contexts: COVID-19....................................................21 Hyper-local / Hyper-Global............................................................................23 Project and personal identity.........................................................................33 Projecting interventions into the future............................................................35 Final Reflection ...........................................................................................39 SUMMARY This study is an inquiry and exploration into how we make things by gaining in- sights into how we buy, use and sell things. After the industrial revolution, manufacturing processes have become so efficient that mass-producing things has become faster and cheaper by the day. The technologies we have developed have a way of keeping up with our imaginations. The question then is - what futures do we imagine? We have systems for mass customisation using automation as well as making machines for markets of one, so how we make things that make sense and add value to the world, is an important part of the exploration. The systems and patterns of capitalism, consumerism and consumption that have shaped the Great Acceleration are evident not only as climate change but also in social and economic equalities, human health, and relationships with other species. Our relationship with objects has changed way beyond their intrinsic value and our aspirations attached to owning things. Influenced by the psychoanalytic methods used in advertising and propaganda, this exploitative nature of the systems that we have created are now failing us. My aim through this research is to deconstruct or reduce the value of a thing to its core and then re-attach a meaning to it in a way that it accounts for the intangible positive as well as negative impact it creates in surrounding spheres. The first part of the study is about understanding what we have put out there, what it’s like to make our own things, and what it means to live with the minimum. It focuses on the fast moving consumer goods industry, because cleaning products, soaps are used by everybody all over the world, and they are bought again and again. Learning from the mistakes of the past industrial revolutions, progress and growth need to be redefined by how the peripheral conditions have affected our planet and how we have come to build the Anthropocene. Designing and making for the long term must not only balance it’s own systems but also make amends for the past. Natural resources can not be treated as infinite and free anymore. The direct relation between shorter product cycles and increased waste make redesigning not only objects, but systems, cultures, habits for a just future inevitable. The second part of the study deals with more specialised manufactured objects like electronic parts, and explores the possibilities of being self-sufficient in a mar- ket that is majorly dependent on global supply chains. Finally, adapting to the new constraints created by the pandemic situation the final part is about using the advantages of distributed open source design and the power of distributed local manufacturing to add value to society. “ Designing for emergent futures needs inquiry into not only why we The study concludes with a model/framework to make meaningful interventions in do what we do, but also and especially, how we do it. ” the world and understand what it means to make things that make sense. AREA OF INTEREST INTEREST FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING / production technologies & circular models CONCERN CULTURE OF CONSUMERISM / consumption and capitalism AREA OF INTERVENTION HOW WE MAKE stuff < > HOW WE USE stuff Hack into the patterns and models of consumption, consumerism and capitalism to redesign the future of manufacturing and production. The advancement of mechanical and digital technologies has made production of things so efficient, that buying new things has become easier, effort-wise and cost-wise, than maintaining, repairing, or fixing broken ones. We throw away a whole, instead of repairing a part. Because buying just a part is more difficult and sometimes impossible. By buying the whole again, we create more demand. And that increases supply. Building in quantity is cheaper to make and cheaper to buy. More things = more waste, more energy, more imbalance. The advancement of capitalism and its narration has made human aspirations connected to buying and owning things. (ref: work of Edward Bernays, Century of the Self, all modern advertising campaigns) Climate-emergency, land-fills, plastic waste are all proof of the imbalance. Possible experiments / personal research areas: FINDING CONNECTIONS by studying the area between MAKING < > USING History and future of making - man- The mindless habits and patterns ufacturing - production - distributed of consumption - consumerism in a design - distributed manufacturing - bits cultural context in different parts of the to atoms - global / local - mass cus- world - sociology and consumerism , tomisation, digital optimisation - mega politics and capitalism, economic evolu- factories - consumer = creator = main- tion of capitalism - social status - cheap tainer = destroyer - industrial revolutions - convenience - observe & document 1/2/3/4 - circular models of economy buying habits of self or others - niche - product life cycle evolution - logistics - practices like minimalism, the tiny globalisation - deconstructing practices house movement, zero waste lifestyles, - deconstructing projects that attempt decluttering - Innovation is born out of similar interventions necessity - define (un)necessary Making Meaning 1 2 WEAK SIGNALS Life in the times of surveillance Designing for the anthropocene After the Nation State Contextualizing AREA OF INTERVENTION using an ATLAS OF WEAK SIGNALS capitalism Climate Conscience Making world Governance The weak signals serve as a lens to inquire about my INTEREST and CONCERN. Attention Protection Inter-species collaboration Rural Futures Dismantling Filter Bubbles Long-termism Pick your own Passport Some signals are directly relevant, while some may potentially connect, and some Circular Data Economy Carbon Neutral Lifestyles Refugee Tech Truth Wars Fighting Anthropocene conflicts Welfare State 2.0 are favourable as by-products of the intervention. Redesigning Social WEAK SIGNALS: ReDESIGNING FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE Life after AI - the end of work kill the heteropatriarchy Technology for equality Non-heteropatriarchal Innovation Make for the LONG TERM Fighting AI bias Non-western centric futures with CARBON NEUTRAL LIFE CYCLES Imagining new jobs Reconfigure your body Making Universal Basic Income Gender fuildity through a system of CIRCULAR DATA ECONOMY work Disrupt ageism using HUMAN MACHINE CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS Human-machine creative collaboration LONG TERMISM & CARBON NEUTRAL LIFE CYCLES Learning from the mistakes of the past industrial revolutions and globalisation, progress and growth need to be redefined by how the peripheral conditions have affected our planet and how we have come to build the anthropocene. Designing and making for the long term must not only balance it’s own systems but also make amends for the past. The direct relation between shorter product cycles and increased waste make redesigning not only objects, but systems, cultures, habits for the long term inevitable. Ref: Climate Change and Capitalism CIRCULAR DATA ECONOMY A circular system is better for eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Data being an asset that also takes up physical space in the way it is stored and transported, and, considering the exponential increase of data in the recent past and the upcoming future, it makes sense to have a circular structure to its creation, use and death. HUMAN MACHINE CREATIVE COLLABORATION Machines were invented as tools, to make human life better, easier, more efficient. Redefining what machines can and cannot do, keeping into consideration the unfortunate consequences created by exploiting human capabilities and greed, and re-balancing purposes for both man and machine will be inevitable to human and planetary survival in the future. If we design for necessity, question the necessity. No necessity is FAKE, because things have different meanings to everybody. Necessity is relative - dynamic - attached to meaning - intangible value - what they stand for. Supply - demand is a vicious cycle - people need = companies make more be- The intersection of these cause its cheaper - people buy because it gets cheaper and more convenient… areas defines my potential AREA OF INTERVENTION. taking responsibility for stuff that you make and buy. Making Meaning Surplus of energy / stuff vs scarcity of energy / stuff - balance by redistribution? 3 4 AREA OF INTERVENTION Further focusing my area of interest, while learning about various subjects through the weeks of term

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