Design as Politics
About Design as Politics
First, following Carl Schmitt, he exposes resolutely the deadlocks of liberalism. The exercise of sovereignty through the representation of a multiplicity of interests pluralism , where candidates are treated like commodities in a marketplace [p], results in incompetent and unwilling processes of governance when addressing the necessary structural changes. The time frame imposed by the climate crisis is equally at odds with the endless short-term economic growth imperative imposed by the market [p72].
He means this quite literally: In the extent that he proposes Sustainment as a break from the anthropocentrism of lawmaking, it is a desirable perspective, in the same vein as the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth initiative.
Why not hold accountable more specifically the spectacle of democratic representation that essentially sustains capitalist and productivist interests? Once decoupled from the global economic order, why would striving for democracy especially in direct, non-mediated forms be incompatible with Sustainment?
Why would humans be intrinsically irreconcilable with their planet? This principle is now one of the core values in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador. The Enlightenment is presented as the source of anthropocentrism, responsible for the domination and the exploitation of Nature. I always thought the Book of Genesis would be a much better suspect?
Design as Politics
He also appears to take for granted the ideological mystification of late capitalism that pretends to be a civilisation based on logic and calculation, whereas in reality it behaves irrationally and pathologically, always on the hunt for more, destroying everything in its path. The Bolivian government has submitted it to the United Nations for consideration.
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Reflections from Bolivia on climate justice, social movements and the state, July It thinks like a drug addict: Perhaps the problem with the term Sustainment is that it can become as vague as democracy. It does not elucidate what kind of social relations are supposed to strive for or arise from Sustainment. Just like the term democracy, it can be hollowed out, aestheticised, highjacked.
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Why not have unjust austerity measures or go to war in the name of Sustainment? What about despotic rules in the name of Sustainment, as futurologist James Lovelock has disquietingly suggested? Some further ambiguities crave to be resolved. Fortunately, the book advances several proposals about how the sovereignty of Sustainment could be expressed and exercised through potential redirective design practices. He also enunciates a much more profound project: Regrettably, its conditions remain insufficiently elaborated, and its potentials deserve to be extrapolated further.
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The last part of the book mostly focuses on what design can become, more than fulfilling the task of physical retrofitting: Fry gives several hints of this project. Neu Bildung is presented as the design educational paradigm of Sustainment —not for training professional designers, but for unleashing the creative capacities of all [p75].
He has taught on a regular basis since Throughout his professional life, he has taught and carried out research at the Politecnico di Milano where he directed several national and international research projects and where he coordinated the Unit of Research DIS, the Doctorate in Design and DES and the Centre for Service Design in the Indaco Department. Design as Politics argues that finding solutions to this problem, of which climate change is only one part, demands original and radical thinking. He writes on the intersection of culture and politics for a range of scholarly and popular publications, from the cerebral, The Nation , to the prurient, Playboy. The exercise of sovereignty through the representation of a multiplicity of interests pluralism , where candidates are treated like commodities in a marketplace [p], results in incompetent and unwilling processes of governance when addressing the necessary structural changes. The Shadow of Carl Schmitt's Politics 6.
In conclusion, Fry succeeds in raising the right issues at the right time, but the ways he articulates them demand a thoroughly critical stance to make the most of them. While the design community is in urgent need of a powerful theoretical introduction to contemporary politics, this book carries the risks of puzzling them even more.
In other words, he seems more concerned with the designing of politics than the politicisation of design.
It is also a pity that he avoids mentioning present-day anticapitalist, ecosocialist and climate-justice critique, where many of the answers he seeks are not only convincingly articulated, but also put in motion by countless struggles across the globe. And now for something completely different? When do you put your personal politics on the backburner, turn a blind eye, and continue to work? Should we be radical in our practice? Is a profound change in our notion of work needed to ensure we can take care of ourselves as well as others?
Is our work itself a political act? Will we start our own practice, or go work for a larger firm? Will we work towards social issues, or stick to traditional capitalist markets? This, for me, is a vital choice we have to knowingly make as designers. By going with the flow, we may be unintentionally progressing policies we fundamentally disagree with. More of us will have to choose change, and rethink how our politics and our work integrate.
Buckminster Fuller is quoted as stating: To change something we need to build new models that make the old one obsolete. It is our challenge as designers to make these new models, to find ways to ensure we are working and advocating for those who need it most. To ensure others can dream of futures, to dream up things we never could.
Design as Political Practice Posted by Warning: So what is the convergence of politics and design?