UNTANGLING ALTERNATIVES: RETHINKING THE DESIGN QUESTION

Day02. Thursday, July 08, 15:30 EDT

We often encounter the term sustainability within an ecological context. But if we were to push the idea beyond that boundary, how might we reinterpret sustainable living? This rapid-fire talk critiques the ‘design-problem’, that which defines the scope, trajectory & nature of what we call ‘solutions’ in order to examine to what extent these solutions perpetuate the problems they are meant to solve for, and what research and practical work have been undertaken to address this.

Often we encounter the term sustainability within an ecological context. If we were to push the idea beyond that boundary, how might we reinterpret sustainable living? Designers such as Tony Fry, Victor Papanek, and Dunne & Raby have deeply inspired an inquiry into the de-futuring activity of their discipline, and human behavior more broadly.

For me, this line of inquiry has manifested into a critique of the design problem‚that which defines the scope, trajectory, and nature of what we call “solutions”. I wonder, to what extent do design “solutions” perpetuate the problems they solve for in an effort to validate their own existence?

This rapid-fire talk will dive into the context of this issue, we well as research and practical work undertaken to address it.

Laura Dudek is a science fiction artist and futures architect. Her work speculates on the potential of human existence by exploring the limits of the self and the systems that support it. Towards that end, she collaborates with diverse stakeholders, from leading industry experts to marginalized groups, in an effort to collectively re-imagine our relationship with reality. Dudek works across disciplines including installation, moving image, and new media, with an affinity towards immersive, world-building experiences.