The following text is a transcript of my presentation at the very first Pecha Kucha #SNMtalks, organised by New Media Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University
Design changed in the 20th century. New fields emerged, we moved from the physical world to the digital one, and many theorists realised that the skills and methods of designers can be used not only for designing objects, but also for social change. And it is precisely this potential of design that I want to talk about.
To understand the extraordinary potential of design, let us turn, on the contrary, to an entirely ordinary object: the PET bottle. What is its function? What is its meaning? Most people will say that you can drink from it and that its shape was specifically designed for this use. The good old slogan “form follows function” applies here.
But people also use the PET bottle in other ways, for example in sustainable gardening, where the PET bottle suddenly acquires not only a new function, that of a flowerpot, but also an entirely opposite meaning: from a symbol of plastic waste it becomes a tool for a better world. But above all, function follows form! Because it was on the basis of its shape that people decided it would serve as a flowerpot.
What have we arrived at? We see that the meanings and functions of objects are not fixed, but socially constructed, dependent on context, on people, on chance, on creativity and so on.
Why is that so? Because as soon as we release objects into the world, they, metaphorically speaking, grow into a complex network full of things, people, relationships, contexts and ideas. And in order to understand not only the functions but also the meaning of things, we have to place them in a wider perspective; we have to look at them as a system.
Benjamin Bratton describes one possible view of the world as a system. He calls it the Stack, which consists of several layers, each of which provides resources to the others. It is a planetary megastructure made up of networks, the cloud, mobile applications, smart cities and the internet of things.
It must be said that such a system is constantly changing and is chaotic. So chaotic that creating something for it that is supposed to be perfectly functional is an illusion. Design is less about functionality than about non-functionality, and temporary patches.
That does not mean that designers are powerless against chaos, for what makes them unique is precisely their talent for moving in uncertainty. As if they liked wading through the mud of chaos, in which they are able to create new patterns, new meanings and new functions.
Design is thus a way of being that stands on the border between chaos and order. The designer is Friedrich Nietzsche’s true Übermensch, for he creates his own new values in this world, exactly as Nietzsche demanded. The designer is a theorist and a practitioner; he is literally a philosopher with a hammer, one who does not destroy but creates.
How exactly does the designer move in that chaotic network? By thinking in systems. Systems thinking means the ability to think at both macroscopic and microscopic levels, the ability to see new relationships, and at the same time knowing that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
I will start with an example of what it looks like when people do not think in systems: the architectural plan for Paris designed by Le Corbusier. Because he did not think in systems, he ignored people’s needs for greenery and for a sense of comfort and safety, and so he designed a big, dead, concrete cemetery.
On the other hand, an example of systems thinking is the iPhone. In my view it was successful mainly because it allowed users themselves to fill the complex network in which the iPhone as an object is situated with their own meanings and functions. How? The iPhone is a kind of container-platform into which we add applications, which are then the functions and meanings themselves.
For the iPhone does not mean just a phone to its users. It means a connection with my grandmother when I am abroad; it means looking for a partner, looking for a job; it means learning Spanish, playing games, reading a book, or even a very, very expensive paperweight when it breaks.
But designers can apply systems thinking not only to objects, but also to society and culture, even to economic and political problems that exist in a grey zone where neither the state nor the commercial sector has found the right recipe, not for lack of money, but because of an inability to connect disparate things creatively.
Let us call design for social change design activism, in which designers, with their talent, not only contribute to solving social problems, but also find problems. My favourite example of design activism comes from the Netherlands, where expensive housing causes difficulties for students and seniors alike. One project there is an example of a clever design intervention, solving the problems of both groups by providing a home for seniors where young people at the same time have free accommodation on condition that during the week they look after their older housemates. Another example of design activism is Uber, which, as a disruptive social innovation, ran into the resistance and the limits of the system itself, which are defined by politics and the law.
Humanitas Deventer
It seems that if something fundamental is to change in society, designers must turn their attention to politics as well. And this is indeed happening. From the Danish studio MindLab, which redesigned state education, to the European Union initiative Design for Europe, which supports innovation in business and in the public sector.
Does this mean that we will see more designers and fewer lawyers and doctors in politics? Hard to say; design certainly cannot replace politics, but design as a combination of theory and practice and of systems thinking has a very real chance of changing the world.
What is our world like? As you surely know, we have entered the new era of the Anthropocene, in which humans influence all planetary systems, which thereby become social. Humans influence all systems and are at the same time influenced by them through a feedback loop. And that is why we should demand systems thinking, which will create order out of the chaos of the world. And that… designers can do.