89105 Design Activism

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Handbook description

This subject looks at the increasingly active role that design is playing within contemporary contexts of social critique and change. Students are introduced to the history of social activism in design, and to the particular contexts within which design activism is currently being pursued. Philosophical critiques of a human-centred conception of authorship and agency have important repercussions for the thinking of designers on their role as activists. This subject positions contemporary activism within post-humanist understandings of agency. Discussions and theoretical engagement foster critical understanding of the complex interaction of human and non-human, material and immaterial, memory, expectation, hope and experience within the unfolding social and political histories of designed things.

Subject objectives/outcomes

Participants who successfully complete and actively participate in all aspects of this subject will have demonstrated they are able to:

1. Engage with central themes and arguments that have informed contemporary design activism.
2. Develop a philosophical and theoretical understanding of post humanist critiques of agency.
3. Develop logical and persuasive arguments that engage with philosophical, theoretical and creative texts.
4. Have a practical understanding of design activist approaches, processes, methods and tools.
5. Be able to demonstrate a reflective and ethical approach to design practice.
6. Use text, visual and design based media to communicate, share and develop ideas drawn from relevant texts.
7. Be able to realise a clear verbal presentation.
8. Demonstrate an ability to work with collaboratively with others in an interdisciplinary context.

Contribution to course aims and graduate attributes

This subject contributes to the development of graduate skills in the areas of:

1. Critical thinking and research skills; especially:

• an ability to analyse and synthesise complex ideas;
• an ability to develop well supported arguments and rationales; and
• an engagement with relevant areas of academic research.

2. Creativity and innovation; by encouraging:

• an ability to challenge design conventions; and
• versatility in adopting appropriate aesthetic approaches.

3. Attitudes and values; by encouraging:

• a value for the designer’s role as a global citizen;
• an attention to issues of environmental sustainability;
• a reflective approach to design practice;
• a value for international and cultural diversity;
• a value for community service and professional networks; and
• a reflective approach to cultural context.

4. Communication and interpersonal skills; by fostering:

• an ability to engage with global transdisciplinary networks; and
• group leadership skills and appreciation of team dynamics.

5. Practical and professional skills; with an emphasis on:

• ethical approaches to practice; and
• versatile approaches to design practice contexts.

Teaching and learning strategies

Face-to-face classes will incorporate a range of teaching and learning strategies including short presentations, videos, simulations, discussion of readings and case studies and student group work. These will be complemented by independent student reading and participation in online discussion.

Content

Themes and arguments relevant to design activism include:

Post-humanist theories of agency

Vital materialism

Ontological design and redirective practice

Postmodern ecologies

Last capitalism

Post consumer society

Ecology of the image

Over consumption

Under consumption Speculative design

Collaboration, Co creation and practices of sharing

Assessment

Assessment Item 1: Case study

Assessment Item 2: Design Communication

Assessment Item 3: Proposal for Design Activism

Required texts

Set readings will be made available on UTS Online. To access eReadings please go to the UTS Library website unless otherwise specified.

References

Arendt, H. [1958] 1998, Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Bauman, Z. 2008, Does ethics have a chance in the world of consumers, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

_______ 2007, Consuming life, Polity Press, Cambridge, Maldon, MA.

_______ 2007, Liquid times: living in an age of uncertainty, Cambridge, MA.

Bennett, J. 2010, Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things, Durham and London, Duke University Press.

Borgmann, A. 1995, ‘The moral significance of the material culture’, in A. Feenberg & A. Hannay (eds.), Technology and the politics of knowledge, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indianapolis.

_______ 1992, Crossing the postmodern divide, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

_______ 1984, Technology and the character of contemporary life, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Botsman, R. and Rogers, R. 2010, What’s mine is yours: the rise of collaborative consumption, Harper Business, New York.

Cranmer, J. and Zappaterra, Y. 2004, Conscientious objectives: Designing for an ethical message, Roto Vision, Mies, Switzerland.

Carter, P. 2004, Material Thinking: the theory and practice of creative research, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

De Certeau, M. 1984, The practice of everyday life, trans. S. Rendall, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Dreyfus, H. 1995, ‘Heidegger on gaining a free relation to technology’, in. A. Feenberg & A. Hannay (eds.), Technology and the politics of knowledge, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indianapolis.

Dreyfus, H. & Spinosa, C., 2003, ‘Heidegger and Borgmann on how to affirm technology,’ in R. Scharff, & V. Dusek (eds.), Philosophy of technology: the technological condition, an anthology, Blackwell Publishing, London.

Ihde, D. 2001, Bodies in Technology, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Ingold, T. 2011, Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description, Routledge, London and New York.

Felshin, N. 1995, But is it art? The spirit of art activism, Bay Press, Seattle, WA.

Fry, T. 2011, Design as Politics, Berg, New York.

_______ 2008, Design Futuring: Sustainability, ethics and new practice, Berg Publishers, Oxford.

Fry, T. and Hart, A. 1999, A New Design Philosophy: UNSW Press, Kensington.

Fuad-Luke, A.2009, Design Activism: Beautiful strangeness for a sustainable world, Earthscan, London.

_______ [2002] 2004, The Eco-design handbook, Thames and Hudson, London.

Hand, M. 2012, Ubiquitous Photography: Digital Media and Society, Polity Press, London.

Habermas, J. 1972, Knowledge and Human Interests, Beacon Press, London.

Harman, G. 2002, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the metaphysics of objects, Open Court, Chicago and La Salle.

Heidegger, M. [1938] 1977, The question concerning technology, and other essays, trans. W. Lovitt, Garland Publications, New York.

Heller, S. and Vienne, V. (eds), 2003, Citizen Designer: Perspectives on design responsibility, Allworth Press, New York.

Heller, S. and Kushner, T. 2005, The design of dissent: Socially and politically driven graphics, Rockport Publishers Inc, MA.

Husserl, E. 1970, Logical investigation, Humanities Press, New York.

Jackson, T. 2008, Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet, Earchscan, London.

_______ 2004, Chasing Progress: Beyond measuring economic growth, New Economics Foundation, London.

Julier, G. 2008, The Culture of Design, Sage Publications, London.

Lasn, K. 2006, Design anarchy: Adbusters media foundation, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Latour, B. 2005, Reassembling the social: introduction to actor-network-theory, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

_______ 1992, ‘Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts,’ in E. Wiebe, E. Bijker & J. Law (eds.), Shaping technology/building society: studies in sociotechnical change, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

_______ 1991a, We have never been modern, trans. C. Porter, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

_______ 1991b, ‘Technology is society made durable’, in J. Law (ed.) A sociology of monsters: essays on power, technology, and domination, Routledge, London.

_______ 1987, Science in action: how to follow engineers and scientists through society, Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Mau, B. 2003, Massive Change, Phaidon, London.

Lefebvre, H. 1992, The production of space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Scarry, E. 1985, The Body in Pain: the making and unmaking of the world, Oxford University Press, New York.

Sennett, R. 2012, Together: The Rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

_______ 1994, Flesh and stone: the body and the city in western civilisation, W. W. Norton, New York.

Shove, E. A. and Hand, M. and Ingram, J. and Watson, M. 2007, The design of everyday life, Berg, London.

Simon, H. [1969] 1996, The Sciences of the Artifical, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Stiegler, B. 1998, Technics and Time, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Cal.

Thackara, J. 2005, In the Bubble: Designing in a complex world, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Thorpe, A. 2008, ‘Design as activism’, A conceptual tool’, in Changing the Change: Design visions, proposals and tools, Changing the Change conference, Turin, Italy, June 2008knUmberto Allemandi and Co, www.allemandi.com/cp/ctc/book.php?id=115&p=1.

Verbeek, P. P. 2011, Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

_______ 2005, What things do: philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park.

Winner, L. 1986, ‘Do artefacts have politics?’, The Whale and the Reactor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.