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Our Bodies are Supernal in thier Bionic Dynamism
Get PDFMy research explores recurring automatic processes used throughout time that develops conceptual and physical aptitude in the performer. During my research I define automatism as a process formulated as ACG Automatic Corporeal Gesture in a Flash where I work to make art from an inspirational sensation in my body. The main way that I have been doing this is through automatic mark making and then working to define images as they appear on the
substrate that emerge from this activity. ACG is a kind of automatism that I use in various ways through process to make Art without fear. It is a performance process that uses
perception and action intrepidly while in an apparatus to maintain corporeal balance, integrity, and momentum during the event. Practicing ACG changes the way qualities in material are affected over time which changes the way meaning is made from it. The change in qualities that
happens during performances between people and the material involved are always particular to each even
ESSENTIALLY INCLUSIVE AND VERSATILE BATH CARE Product Design for Women over 70: Ageist designs in bath care products
No full textDignity in matters of personal hygiene, bath and shower care must be afforded to all age groups. Specifically, older individuals, who live alone. For my topic's inspiration, I modelled the target demographic after my mom and coupled by the fact she has had carpal tunnel surgeries during the pandemic. What surfaced to light was the ageist product and packaging architecture that may restrict her from showering and bathing, and therefore, preventing her from living independently in this aspect of normal daily life. There is now an added emphasis on self-isolation brought about by the pandemic, which led me to wonder how older women in a similar situation and lifestyle as my mother practised self-care from the viewpoint of product design.
My project seeks to understand the often-overlooked designs in everyday bath care products that could be ageist and unintentionally exclusionary. By honing in on the target audience of women over 70 years of age, I can catch a glimpse of what might truly be an unnecessary hurdle in the lives of senior women facing ageist product designs lurking in their shower care, by concentrating specifically on the opening mechanisms of bath and body care bottles.
Study findings via semi-structured, qualitative interviews helped shed light on the lived experience of the older demographic and their journey in using products and bottles with limited consideration to their abilities that come with age. Based on my own research and experience as an aromatherapist, I was able to design a product for bath care, keeping usability and delight for my audience in mind.
Findings can be used to launch further research when it comes to product design to limit ageist designs in other fields as well
The Counterfeit Outsider: Qigong Drawing, Peasant Woman, and Modernism of Chinese Contemporary Art
Get PDFAfter being professionalized by the Long March Project in 2002, former rural factory worker Guo Fengyi (1942-2010) began to become the renowned mysterious peasant woman artist as soon as questions about her artist identity had been raised. There are many ways to discuss her relationship to the elite praxis of Chinese contemporary art, yet existing conversations hardly elicit the study of her and her art; instead, it charges at the elite center of the Chinese art world, arbitrarily places her drawings in many different elite-designated curations and problematized her existence by classifying as an outsider for their own need. Addressing the problems, this paper seeks to re-examine Guo’s outsider position in the Chinese art world in three contexts. First, Guo’s visual form in comparison to the socialist visual culture and contemporary art practice in the post-socialist period; second, the self-authorization in her drawing that faces the intersection of feminism discourse and modernization; third, the subjugation of her as part of the normalized “peasant participants-urban art personnel” collaboration in the Chinese art world. By examining these overlooked contexts that are associated with Guo’s drawings, this project confronts the role of an outsider, explores the potential of the understudied heterogenous female in Chinese contemporary art, and hopes to give light to plights that not only Guo Fengyi but also many heterogenous others are facing in an era of internationalization
How do you think systemic design’s scholarship system should work?
Get PDFThe Systemic Design Association (SDA) recently presented the scholar’s spiral, an iteration of the previous “publication ladder” of scholarship. The linear nature of the ladder did not fit with the multiplicity of inputs and outputs of the scholarly process recognized by SDA members. Further, it implied that the highest form of impact was, by default, a scholarly publication in a single preferred destination. A solution to these problems should be celebrated.
However, the core problems with the old model persist in the scholar’s spiral.
It still shows the scholarly progress of an idea or project as a stepwise function, beginning with conference presentations. This suggests conference publications are less important than later publications. It also implies a standard narrative for the evolution of a scholarly idea. It still specifies an ultimate destination—Contexts: The Systemic Design Journal. This suggests that an idea should ultimately be presented in Contexts for posterity (if only before it goes on to have a further impact).
Further, despite centring on systemic design, the model fails to include gigamaps, synthesis maps, and other non-traditional forms of knowledge (Jones and Bowes 2017; Sevaldson 2018). Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the framing of the spiral introduces a new problem. Scholarship is knowledge innovation — it is fractal and systemic, requiring and spinning off parallel innovations of many forms, scales, and degrees (Murphy 2016).
Alternative systemic designs for the scholarship system are possible. For example, the Scholars’ Spiral model proposed in the paper associated with this workshop emphasizes five systemic principles:
1. co-creation
2. multiplication
3. nonlinearity
4. transdisciplinary
5. de-centring the scholar
Multiple pathways through the scholars’ spirals provide wayfinding for scholars of different paths.
Comparing these three models inspires some important questions about scholarship in systemic design: How should scholars be incentivized, assessed, and rewarded? What is the role of prestige in this system? And how can we effectively judge scholarly impact while managing fair and equitable competitions for grants and positions?
This session represents an appreciative inquiry-based conversation (Lewis, Passmore, and Cantore 2008) about the scholarship system. After hearing from a set of provocateurs sharing different perspectives on systemic design scholarship, participants engaged in discussions to discover, dream, and design alternative prescriptions for the future of scholarship in systemic design
Investigating new scenarios in food preservation
Get PDFCreating products has great responsibility involved. Papanek (1984), Thackara (2005), and Manzini (2006) warned about the risks of the design activity, as well as the consequences of bringing products to the world (Fiore, 2018). Products create consequences: direct and indirect, intended and unintended.
Systemic design at the product scale is a dialogue between facts and concerns: navigation of multiple overlapping and interconnected systems, most often undertaken with incomplete information, awareness, and understanding.
With the premises of the related focus, products are systemic objects; this workshop intends to investigate new unexplored scenarios regarding food preservation. It treats the topic with a systemic design approach to understand the strengths, possible unintended consequences, rebound effects, and trace the boundaries of new systems. Considering the current ‘refrigerator object’, i.e., the appliance in charge of food preservation, during the workshop, participants will explore how this is closely linked to many household dynamics, including food waste (O’Neill et al., 2022). It results in a system that can be observed at different levels of detail (Tamborrini and Fiore, 2020). Sometimes objects designed with a function can lead to the opposite. For example, fridges and freezers, typically designed to preserve food, ‘very often operate as coffins of decay that play an active part in carrying discarded food towards the waste stream’ (Evans, 2012, p. 1132). This workshop combines the systemic design approach and “alternative nows” as design methods for investigating alternative scenarios such as the distributed refrigerator, the inside/outside refrigerator, the social refrigerator, and the locked refrigerator. The activity is structured as a focus group with researchers, designers, and non-designers that ended with a systemic design sprint on food preservation related to one of the four scenarios presented
The Age of Planetary Systems Complexity
Get PDFIn this workshop, we will discuss the key intellectual, social, and political trends that have been unfolding over the past sixty years, which are reflective of a regenerative paradigm. Generally speaking, these shifts represent an interest in cultivating well-being for people and planet, combined with an awareness of the cross-scale complexities that can arise across globalized systems. They might be summarized as follows:
(a) the designation of a unique set of eras;
(b) rising concern over environmental degradation, natural resource consumption, extreme poverty, and social inequality;
(c) counterplay between utopic and dystopic, optimistic and pessimistic narratives;
(d) critique and amendment of conventional methodologies in research, innovation, and governance, amidst uncertainty and high-stake problem scenarios;
(e) extension of power, agency, and governance as lenses of critical analyses;
(f) hyper restructuring of modern modes of thought, organization, production, and development;
(g) vacillation between micro- and macro-level frameworks in problem analyses and management;
(h) extrapolation of ecological into complex systems and relational worldviews; and,
(i) reinvention of the sacred.
Workshop participants will map these intersecting areas of thought and action, identifying the conceptual and methodological advancements implied, therein. The workshop will close with groups pitching ideas for related applications in social, service, institutional, product, industrial, architectural, landscape, and urban-based systemic design
Bridging the empathy gap to create systemic value in products
Get PDFIntegrating methods and practices into the transformative processes of systems design play a key role in deciding their value and future impact. As the challenges become increasingly complex and interwoven, they require an interdisciplinary approach to empathy to enable collaboration, creativity, and purposeful innovation. This activity session will demonstrate a new and unique tool for empathy, Active Empathy, and its core concept – the empathy gap. Active empathy is a collaborative tool grounded in design-driven methodologies to build deeper connections between various stakeholders and blur preconceived boundaries that hinder sustainable action. The intention is to reduce the empathy gaps between designers and stakeholders and introduce an empathic platform for systems design (Active Empathy, 2022). To do that, the participants will work with one of the components of the empathy gap – the priority gap. They will discover different aspects and develop ideas on reducing them in the context of the given challenge – “activating empathy in the hybrid world.” Design can no longer be reserved for designers if the aim is to achieve better system impact. As designers and people, we must encourage the empathic flow in favour of meaningful exchanges to tackle complex needs, solve pressing issues, and provide long-term value. The current state of systems design is infused with proactive initiatives that need strong shared language and purpose to improve the conditions for life on the planet. We advocate for a bolder approach to connecting people and systems through the direct experience of empathy as a cycle of activities based on discovery, learning, sharing, and acting
Making Systemic Design Increasingly Accessible: Building the bench
No full textSystemic design is an important methodology, set of tools, and approaches that collectively help us address the increasing complexity of our time. The need for its application is great, but adoption, while growing, is not to the level of the need.
The Circular Design Lab was launched to bring systemic design to community members interested in learning and using it to help with local challenges. We’ve spent the last few years experimenting with different approaches and formats in service of our three aims: build community, build capacity, and drive change. Over the last year, we’ve focused on developing a guide with a focus on making it approachable for people with little or no experience with systemic design.
In our activity session, we share a bit of our history and then break into discussion groups to share experiences and ideas. The goal of doing so is to help all participants (and facilitators) make systemic design more approachable in the service of growing our community and fostering broader impacts.
At the end of the session, we’ll come back together to share some of the key insights and ideas. We’ll also offer an opportunity to join a chat group to carry the conversation forward in service of continued sharing and learning.
Background
Systemic Design is an important methodology, set of tools, and approaches that collectively help us address the increasing complexity of our time. The need for its application is great, but adoption, while growing, is not to the level of the need. The Circular Design Lab was launched with the idea of bringing Systemic Design to community members who wanted to address local challenges. We did so with three aims: build community, build capacity, and drive beneficial change.
What we’re up to
We’ve spent the last year developing a guide to help others start efforts like CDL. In doing so, one focus has been on making it approachable for people with little or no experience with systemic design.
We’re now in the latter stages of creating the first draft of our Systemic Design Guide, a resource that we have developed with a focus on making it accessible to people with little or no experience with these ideas, approaches, and tools. The guide’s front matter introduces the CDL’s purpose and outlines the rest of the book. The main body is broken into two parts. The first part shares our shared philosophy around leading change, as well as a section that aims to help newcomers to systemic design find their own path. The second part is deep dive into our framework, which includes suggested tools and approaches for each phase. The back matter includes a glossary of relevant terms, an index of relevant toolkits, and links to related resources.
As we work to finalize the first draft (which we intend to iterate as the guide is used and we receive feedback), we are now thinking more about how to engage with relevant audiences within and beyond the systemic design community. How do we get people with no experience using systemic design to pick it up, and more importantly, how do we bring more people to the practice in general?
Our session
With those questions in mind, we’ll share a quick overview in the activity session of our efforts with the Circular Design Lab, including our current aims and plans for the guide. From there, we’ll break out into discussion groups to share experiences around bringing newcomers to systemic design, as well as to discuss ideas and possibilities to test. At the end of the session, we’ll share key insights from the breakouts. We’ll also offer an opportunity to join a chat group to carry the conversation forward in service of continued sharing and learning (and maybe we’ll find other ways to connect and collaborate further if that’s of interest).
The goal of the session is straightforward. We want everyone who participates to share and learn from each other in the service of making systemic design grow in its impact. We want to continue working to make it approachable for people with little or no experience with systemic design so that we all might have a greater positive impact through the others who come along