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Human behaviour and the circular economy: Social, behavioural, and cultural dimensions of the circular economy transition
Get PDFThis insight report collates the evidence and insights gained throughout the duration of the NICER Programme on the role of human behaviour in the transition to a circular economy. By synthesising onthe-ground insights and experiences from researchers across NICER with academic literature, we present a view of the challenges and opportunities in implementing circular principles with a particular focus on systems change. In doing so, we highlight the interplay and interdependencies between technological innovation, social dynamics, and economic structures in driving successful change at scale. Through this integration of practical research outcomes and theoretical context, we aim to provide an understanding of the pathways towards a more sustainable and resilient CE, offering new insights for policymakers, businesses, and communities alike. Human behaviour plays a pivotal role in the successful transition to a CE. Individual and collective actions, from consumer purchasing decisions to corporate strategies, directly impact the adoption and effectiveness of circular principles. Understanding and influencing these behaviours is crucial, as they shape consumption patterns, drive demand for sustainable products, and determine the success of new initiatives such as reuse and recycling. Behavioural insights can inform policy design, product development, and communication strategies, helping to overcome barriers to circular practices. Moreover, fostering a ‘circular mindset’ among individuals and organisations is essential for creating a culture that supports long-term systemic change. As such, addressing human behaviour is not just one component of CE discourse, but a fundamental driver of its realisation and success. In what follows, we present nine insights, based on the synthesis of the key learnings from across the NICER Programme. These insights also point to the directions of future research, policy, and innovation, with specific focus on the humans in the CE
Jewishness under erasure: Persona work in the UK
No full textThis talk will contextualise and theorise works by UK based Jewish women artists who work with personas as a cipher that challenges the stability of the commonly held identity debates. A perspective outside of the US hegemony can offer insights of a small diasporic community under erasure, what it has meant to ‘act’ as a Jew in the UK and what it might yet mean under the current hypervisibility. Building on British Scholarship (Vikki Bell, Devorah Baum, and my own work) and US scholarship (Lisa E Bloom, Jonathan Boyarin, Judith Butler) I will explore what is at stake in the following works: Anne Bean (1950-) lived as Chana Dubinsky in a small town for a year reflecting on her troubled South African childhood, Susanne Treister (1958-) invented a time traveller, Rosalind Brodsky to save her grandmother from the Holocaust and Oreet Ashery (1966-) as Marcus Fisher explored queer sexuality and Chasidic Judaism. These works will afford a reflection into a range of antinomies: Absurdity and humour in relation to the embrace/repulsion of Jewish identity, the confrontation of the elision yet hyper visible discourse around Jewishness and Identity politics in the UK as well as a kind of ‘coming out’ (Stratton). I analyse what this strategy, and its reception, offers as a way of giving agency as well as to problematise Jewish subjectivity in the UK
Smart light-emitting textiles as affective interfaces for the autonomous vehicle interior
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the use of dynamic smart textiles that emit light in different colours and intensities for car interiors, aimed to enhance vehicle users’ emotional states and their relationship with the immediate environment. Autonomous vehicle developments represent a paradigm shift for today’s automotive industry. With no distinction between passenger and driver, a vehicle’s interior can transform from a driving to a living space, with a focus on user/passengers’ experiences. Technological advances in Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) and ‘affective interfaces’ mean that smart reactive systems can now sense and respond to human psychological states, creating dynamic user experiences. Affective interfaces are currently being tested to improve safety and enhance ambiences, which is most relevant at SAE Level 5 automation, which is in the focus of this study. This research builds on previous studies by testing users’ psychological associations and preferences for lighting variations in a simulated autonomous vehicle interior. Further, it attempts to understand how users respond to coloured lighting variations, in simulated driving scenarios: (a) a motorway journey, (b) on busy inner-city streets. The simulated driving scenarios are hypothesized to cause, boredom, in scenario (a) and stress in scenario (b). Qualitative interviews were conducted where test participants were shown driving simulations with a combination of red/orange and blue/purple light- emitting smart textiles. Specifically designed questions examined whether these coloured light transitions could suitably address individual users’ emotional states and strains hypothesised in these scenarios. The outcomes of this proof-of-concept study of the CHAMEOLit simulation, will lead to the creation of a prototype model of the smart textile. Autonomous vehicles are not yet fully developed and it is accepted that testing methods are limited to simulated driving scenarios. Nevertheless, data collected from the qualitative research testing the first version of the prototype, and refined in the second version of the prototype, retains the potential to advance the development of smart textile systems for affective interfaces in future cars and further industry research is recommended. With safe driving foremost and centred on individual, human design, such tangible interfaces can recreate the emotional intelligence of autonomous cars, in dynamic ambiences
A survey to investigate approaches, methods, contents and objectives in education for sustainable design
Get PDFLimited research has explored the delivery of sustainable design in higher education globally. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate educational practices on the topic. Through an online survey, we investigated numerous aspects of units of study exposing topics related to sustainable design with a focus on contents, teaching methods, and educational objectives. The survey was accessed by almost 400 educators in the field of sustainable design. The data shows that a variety of teaching methods are used, with a critical role played by project-based learning in addition to traditional lectures. Most respondents rated all investigated Intended Learning Outcomes as relevant or very relevant. In terms of contents and methods treated by the respondents, Product eco-design and Design for X are the most frequently taught methods. Educational approaches and teaching objectives are poorly affected by the discipline of the degree in which units of study are taught. In terms of contents, design degrees include approaches to sustainable design at the spatio-social level more frequently than engineering degrees do
Closing the gap: Writing a curatorial PhD to practise differently
Get PDFWith a longstanding career as an editor of publications related to artistic and curatorial practices, I was increasingly struck by how little attention was being paid to the complexity of the highly collaborative networks of production, dissemination and reception that publishing relies on. To explore how persistent hierarchies of value in different kinds of work in the art world could be challenged, and by extension my editorial practice could be (re)situated as part of a spectrum of contemporary curatorial activities, doing a PhD emerged as a potential strategy. While undertaking my PhD, I continued teaching and was managing editor of several critical curatorial anthologies, copy-edited issues of an open-access peer-reviewed journal and worked with several artists on publication projects. Although these circumstances seemed ideal for an active exploration of the questions I wanted to address through practice, my chosen approach suggested I take on what Bruno Latour calls a ‘controversial authorial agency’ and articulate my thinking as it developed by way of descriptive writing. Although my theoretical anchoring points would eventually shift towards ideas posited by Isabelle Stengers and Karen Barad, write I did, eventually submitting a thesis with close to the maximum word count. In this essay I detail how undertaking my PhD in the context of a more traditional university rather than an arts-oriented context highlighted that understandings of practice vary greatly and that what I understood as my own needed clarification. I consider how the shift in focus from a descriptive approach to the embrace of Stengers’s idea of ‘ecology of practices’ paired with Barad’s notion of ‘intra-action’ proved to be particularly productive. Applying a combination of their critical propositions allowed me to develop a comprehensive assessment of what I felt were shortcomings in current ideas of ‘the curatorial’ and how an analysis of my mode of practice might contribute to filling a gap
Exploring pleasure-driven design through Internet of Things (IoT) transformations
Get PDFThe Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed numerous analogue products into IoT products with embedded sensors, advanced features and novel experiences. As these connected objects become ubiquitous, designers have shifted from a tool-oriented to an experience-oriented approach. However, the focus on maximising living efficiency and profit growth has often obscured the importance of pleasurability and experimentation in designing IoT products. Recognising the historical and psychological significance of pleasure in human experiences, this thesis proposes “pleasure-driven design” as an overarching concept for designing interactive product experiences that prioritise pleasure. While several general pleasure-driven design methods exist, they have not adequately addressed the distinctions between analogue and IoT products in terms of pleasurability, leaving a gap that this practice- based design research seeks to fill. Additionally, concerns over privacy and automated decision-making in IoT objects pose challenges to designing pleasurable experiences. Therefore, this work explores new possibilities for pleasure-driven design by leveraging the transformation of analogue products into IoT products. This work adopts an emergent methodology that integrates a research-through- design approach with a mixed methods approach, employing multiple methods including questionnaires, workshops, material speculation, co-speculation, technology probes and interviews. It begins with a literature review outlining the importance of pleasurable experiences in IoT transformations, analysing the role of pleasure in experience design and assessing existing pleasure-driven frameworks and IoT creativity-supporting tools. The exploratory practices identify differences between an IoT product and its analogue form in terms of pleasurable experiences and uncover deficiencies in current frameworks. Subsequently, the Internet of Things Transformations for Pleasurable Experiences (IoTT for PLEX) Framework is developed to support designers in delivering pleasurable experiences by utilising IoT transformations as materials and to enable design researchers to explore pleasure- driven design in this context. The framework is initially tested with designers and then with human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers through material speculation. Based on the new framework, the CloudPlanter – a technology probe and research product – is developed by the author and applied in a co-speculation experiment involving four pairs of participants to explore the future relationship between humans and networked objects. This thesis makes a valuable contribution to both the design and HCI research communities by expanding upon existing pleasure-driven experience design approaches specifically for IoT products and uncovering the mutual influence between pleasure-driven design and IoT transformations. The major contribution of this PhD project is the development of the novel IoTT for PLEX Framework, proposed as a new design and research method for exploring pleasure-driven design through IoT transformations. The research also generates knowledge at an intermediate level, including reflections on applying established approaches and an emergent methodology of investigating pleasure-driven design within the specific contexts and cases of IoT transformations. The thesis, presented as an annotated portfolio, embodies and enacts design theories. It offers new possibilities that should help designers create novel experiences through IoT transformations, inspire future research in IoT experience design and empower the IoT product industry to create more pleasurable and meaningful products
As another voice: Hidden political expression in contemporary Chinese allegorical painting
Get PDFCultural censorship, as well as self-censorship, has been the main means to reign in the criticism of the Chinese government’s political systems, policies, and leaders throughout Chinese history. In response, Chinese literati painters started to use implicit speech – an allegorical method originated from traditional Chinese literature and philosophy – to communicate political expressions in their practice as a form of passive resistance. Since the increase of particularly severe cultural censorship dating from 2013, political artists in China have been compelled to express the political dimensions of their work in increasingly subtle ways, grappling with the dual challenges of cultural censorship and self-censorship. Meanwhile, when contemporary Chinese artists make or present political allegorical paintings in the West, their artistic autonomy is always ignored by a Western discourse of simplifying political expressions into a mere political stance. Although political expression in contemporary Chinese art has been widely discussed in the fields of art history and cultural criticism, to date very little critical attention has been paid to painting, especially through the lens of allegory. In this case, this research identifies and examines art and literature that puts forward theoretical generalisations about Chinese allegorical paintings in the contemporary era in order to reformulate a more comprehensive account of understanding political expression in Chinese allegorical paintings under censorship. My research contributes a vital perspective to art criticism and political science, highlighting the complex dialogue between cultural heritage and contemporary artistic expression in the face of political constraints. The central question of this project is: To what extent, or how, can we understand and approach allegorical painting as a critical practice operating under self-censorship and cultural censorship in China? The supporting questions are: 1. What are the historical and cultural conditions of allegory in Chinese literati painting and post-Cultural Revolution political paintings? 2. How does Bada Shanren’s use of allegory and irony, ahead of its time, resonate with contemporary socio-political issues and provide new insights into navigating censorship? 3. Drawing inspiration from Bada Shanren and Jörg Immendorff, how can allegory and irony in my practice navigate and critique the dual constraints of cultural censorship and self-censorship in contemporary China through bridging aesthetics, ethics, and politics together while maintaining its artistic autonomy? In order to answer these questions, this research will work through practice and writing. In my practice, I will combine the spirit of traditional Chinese painting and the Western form of oil painting, especially Neo-Expressionism, to explore how allegory can serve as a mechanism for cultural critique and resistance under censorship. On a theoretical and methodological level, I will read paintings as literature, using a combined strategy that sits between close and distant readings, as well as applying critical theory (Benjamin and Jameson), ideological critique (Jameson and Moretti) and colonial discourse analysis (Tang and Spivak) to examine the current position of Chinese political allegorical painting in the post-modern era, defending its complexity in representation as a cultural product instead of political stance
Interstitial thinking
Get PDFThis paper offers a response to Mieke Bal’s 2022-2023 College de France lectures, engaging in a dialogue with her concepts, in particular the concept of the inter-, which she also calls the ‘being-between’ (être-entre). My aim is to take Bal’s concepts in directions that reflect current and emerging topics of concern, notably the question of the orientations and potentials of art in a planetary age
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, …”: Josephine Baker and modern architecture across the colonised Arab world
No full textNanocomposite hydrogels reinforced with vinyl functionalised silica nanoparticles
Get PDFThis work reports double network hydrogel/silica nanocomposites with increased mechanical toughness and strength compared to their soft polymer-only counterparts. Applications are in tissue repair, such as cartilage, soft robotics and motion sensing. Covalent coupling of the sol-gel silica nanoparticles and the gel is vital because the gel swells on contact with water. Here, coupling was achieved through vinyl functionalisation of the silica nanoparticles (VSNPs) that enabled cross-linking to the network using photopolymerisation. The double network gel was an interpenetrating network hydrogel (IPNG) with 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane-sulfonic acid (AMPS) as the first network, and acrylamide (AAm) as the second network. The effect of vinyl silica nanoparticle size and loading concentration were investigated on swelling behaviour, microstructure, compressive properties and nanoparticle retention. Increased size and loading concentration of VSNPs allowed for tailorability of swelling properties; nanocomposite IPNGs swelled less (88%) compared to control gels (97%). The nanocomposite IPNGs, with 20Wt% VSNPs, exhibited a max compressive strength of 810 ± 80 kPa at a strain of 75 ± 6%, similar to the lower range of articular cartilage, and an order of magnitude higher strength than control gels (90 ± 20 kPa, at a strain of 40 ± 3). SEM images show VSNP-polymer integration, with nanoparticles within the mesh walls. The nanocomposite structure provides reinforcement and toughness to soft IPNGs, making them suitable candidates for soft material repair