Design in an Age of Uncertainty

We create, research and teach in an age of uncertainty caused by war, mass migration and climate change. Political and social shifts suggest we have reached an inflection point. The hope design might contribute to progressive social ideals is now challenged by reassertion of discriminatory beliefs and epistemic violence. Conceptions of education and research as fields of open inquiry are increasingly subject to hostile questioning. Yet where are we heading? Already in 2019 Nancy Fraser evoked Gramsci’s dictum that "the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear" and commented on the failures of neoliberalism and the dangerous rise of populism.

The conference asks questions relevant to design, academic and artistic communities, and also larger publics. What are the implications of these shifts for design practice, education and research? What alternative positive models can designers, educators, and researchers in design theory and history offer? What values can design and design history promote in their stead? What is the place for activism in design? Possible thematic foci include:

Imagined Futures, Imagined Pasts

A recurrent response to the experience of uncertainty has been escape to the safety of imagined pasts and futures. "Traditional" values are evoked, but also the interrupted promise of historical utopias. Walter Benjamin famously envisaged seeking redemption in the ruins of the past, while Indigenous knowledges are applied in design in an attempt to find forgotten skills, materials, ideas and techniques. Equally, uncertain presents are responded to by the embrace of possible futures. What form have such impulses assumed in design? What are their pitfalls? What can be retrieved from them?

Digital: Making Design Great Again?

The rapid growth of digital technologies in the 1990s was believed to hold the promise of liberatory revolution, enabling new forms of design and production, dissemination and consumption. However, initial utopian dreams have given way to concerns over the commodification of personal data, and the introduction of technological "neo-feudalism." How can the "Big Other" of powerful digital companies be addressed or challenged? Alternatively, which modes of design support or question them?

The Non-Human and the Interspecies

The anthropocentric orientation of contemporary culture is increasingly questioned with stress on the need to encompass relations to the non-human organic world. Awareness of how design impacts on human and non-human species has not only resulted in projects that design for nature. It has also prompted reassessment of existing practices and their effects on the non-human world. How has design shaped interspecies relations, and how does it help redefine them? What traditional practices and conceptions does a focus on interspecies relations call into question?

Ecology and Responsibility

The "provincialising" of Euroamerica has brought about a welcome questioning of old geopolitical uncertainties. Following Arturo Escobar’s call to design "a world where many worlds fit," questions regarding decolonial design practices are pressing. How can design history, practice, theory engage with such pluriversal ideas? Which shifts in our understanding of design are needed? What new paradigms are emerging?

Convenors
Marta Filipová, Veronika Hittmanová Rollová, Matthew Rampley & Julia Secklehner