ACADEMY of SILENCE SILENCE of ACADEMY Design as a Medium Design as a Political Practice
2
Ece CANLI MFA thesis, The Experience Design Group, Department of Design, Crafts and Arts (DKK) Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design Under the supervisions of Rolf HUGHES, Petra BAUER, Çiğdem KAYA Stockholm, Spring 2012
3
For my parents,
4
“They
are
playing
a game.
They
are
playing
at
not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.� Ronald David Laing, Knots
5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Since this work means more than a master thesis for me, I would like to put more importance on it by recalling all those great names that have made this project possible and deserve more than my humble gratefulness. So, I would like to thank My father Zikri Canlı and my mother Fevziye Canlı for supporting me by any means, unconditionally and unquestioningly and for teaching me “how to fish” for the rest of my life; Mariana Campuzano Cabello for keeping me alive during these two years
with
her
never-ending
questions,
supports,
encouragements,
critiques and irreplaceable friendship; Çiğdem hitherto
Kaya
for
lending
me
awakening a
hand
me with
in
the
her
years
of
inspiring
searching
and
resistance
and
knowledge; Petra Bauer for seeing my inward crises, encouraging me to leave them aside and guiding me with her amazing advises and knowledge which have dragged me into a new world of sources; Rolf Hughes for supporting me, dealing with my confusions and helping me to stay on track; 6
Sevda Hamzaçebi for being with me during the whole process and keeping me motivated and connected to reality; Dikkat-Taciz-Var! and MSGSĂœ women for giving all those tremendous hearts and minds to each other and to me for empowerment; Nina Jeppsson for putting her greatness to our work and resisting with me hand in hand; TIR Performance Group for opening a new door for me to discover, to get lost, to expand and to shrink, and eventually to be someone else; Mahmoud Keshavarz for coming into my life and re-situating it.
7
FOREWORD
This
collection
of
essays,
which
encapsulates
a
two-year
research that has been carried out during my master education, is rather
a
knot
of
many
struggles
jumbling
into
each
other
than
a
written material. These struggles have arisen sometimes just against the delirium within the mechanisms that we all have been trapped such as professional responsibilities and needs for survivals; sometimes against
the
subject
that
I
have
tackled;
mostly
against
the
institutional and physical surroundings that I have been in such as a new
country,
a
new
culture
and
a
new
education;
but
always
and
invariably against myself. The last one, the struggle against the self, is most likely the essence of my practice and my being which has led me to wonder more, to dig more, and to resist more and to keep going whenever I falter. Once one accommodates the outer struggles into inner ones and learns how to live with both, the knots get looser to give place to understanding, analyzing, digesting and taking a stance on the face of the new coming struggles. As an inevitable consequence, those struggles have been situated in the very centre of my work; yet after a while they have been turned into the work itself. I do not utter some fancy justifications for my so-called ‘inner journey’ through a creation process. What I mean here is that the main motivation for working with such delicate and tough 8
subjects
does
not
come
after
the
practice
that
would
bring
some
struggles; in contrary struggle comes first, yet stands upon all as a main motivation to act against, and brings a discipline after its intention to approach to these subjects, to understand them and to work in them. Hence, it can be said that the main intention of this work interwoven with such struggles has been social suffering derived from
pressure
by
its
all
kind
of
agents
amongst
power
relations,
rather than the intention of designing in the first place. Therefore, this
shift
in
understanding
departure to
design
points which
might would
attribute likely
be
a
new
used
meaning
as
a
and
tool,
a
language, a medium, and eventually a facilitator or a catalyser for generating
counter-pressure
rather
than
a
“problem
solver”.
Indispensably, this shift and search for new approaches towards the state the
of
here
resisting/counter-pressuring and
now
considering
entails
political
critical
means
and
perspectives
politics
which
reflect themselves in my ‘design’ practice as a consequence of being a perpetual antagonist or kindly saying, dissident. These perspectives will attain their details in the following essays that have been fed by
design
theory,
art
criticism,
political
philosophy,
sociology,
feminist theory, and storytelling and above all experiences which have come via the real life, public debates, recent political situations, thereby increasing oppressions and endless discussions with people. However, my aim is neither to muddle all historical, theoretical and philosophical terms in one practice nor to strive to demonstrate 9
them as if they are universally accepted. In contrary, the intention is to interpret different concepts belonging to different fields with the language of my practice instead of adopting them for granted; and to build a substructure for my praxis that sometimes goes parallel and sometimes clashes with all those great theories referred. These considerations above have come out as a couple of essays in which the thesis project’s background, driving forces, process and methods are articulated. As it is repeatedly mentioned, this project should not be seen as only a short term thesis “product” for an exposure,
but
rather
a
kickoff
of
a
long-term
research-based
intervention. During the process, the topic has been narrowed down into the issue of sexual harassment in academies despite its wider political and social implications. Here, the question is about my own position on and within this crucial issue as a “designer”: a designer who has been striving to find a new way of transcripting the design language
into
discourse suspecting
can the
exploitation
the
realm
be
possible
use
from
of
of
this
“pathetic”
collective amongst realm to
in
conscious
diverse design
“fancy”.
where
political
disciplines
meanwhile
field
Therefore,
because this
of
its
practice-
based research is more about re-defining design as a medium and an alternative language for construction of “counter-pressure” amongst other disciplines. With respect to both abovementioned disciplinary approach and personal interests, the practice part of the thesis has ramified into 10
two sections regarding geographical, representational and contextual diversities Therefore, researches,
while the
having
practice
one
in
been
constructed
reflects
Turkey
and
two
one
around
parallel
in
Sweden,
the
same
issue.
investigations which
are
and
strongly
connected to and fed by each other while having no intention of a comparative analysis. The first part, Silence of Academy, represents both the process and the outcomes of a long-term practice that has been realised in Turkey with feminist activist women in universities. By starting to work
on
possible
future
policies
and
regulations
on
the
issue
of
sexual harassment against women in universities, our process has more centred
on
civic
actions
various
activities
such
than as
official
workshops,
documents. panels,
Alongside
discussion
many
forums,
demonstrations, video works and web-based mobilizations, this research process has canalized into a book in the form of dictionary which has been shaped during the last workshop with the aim of creating new public debates around the issue combining individual narratives and re-definitions
also
as
a
collective
documentation.
The
dictionary,
chosen as a symbolic and metaphoric instrument of academy that imposes predefinitions of things in an order, has been created by six women according
to
their
rapid
associations
and
experience-based
re-
definitions meanwhile consisting of images that have been captured during
the
discourses
process, that
have
individual been
narratives,
recently 11
appeared
slogans in
and
gendered
mainstream
media.
Although the main concern of the dictionary has been deployed around particularly sexual abuse in academies, the content of it is broadly addressed to power relations, gender issues, politics and state of oppression and emancipation. The aim of the dictionary, which is to deconstruct and to reconstruct grounded values and understandings of particularly unspoken conceptions, has been met via placing the copies in the university libraries as an abrupt intervention into the neutral and normalized zones in such institutions. The second part of the project, Academy of Silence, has been developed in Sweden regarding the concern of bringing a far distant work into the eyes of far distant audience. Not only the inconvenience of
linguistic
translation,
unexperiencability
of
but
“others’
also
the
sufferings”
unrepresentability in
another
context
or has
entailed another kind of translation which could raise the similar questions here for the audience instead of putting them either in a mere spectator status or in a so-called interactive participation. Therefore, after one-year collaboration with Nina Jeppsson, a Swedish feminist activist actress, the practice has resulted in a video work as
a
performance
that
reflects
our
collective
interpretation
and
translation of the first work – the content of the dictionary – in combination
with
her
individual
experiences
on
the
issue.
These
different medias and forms of expressions such as a dictionary-photonarrative
book,
a
performance-video,
a
room
that
is
set
for
the
exhibition according to the content and even me, myself, represent 12
only some of the possible mediums that design - or a creative practice - can be applied without a mere instrumentalization. Besides
this
short and concrete introduction about the work, the decisions behind the process and “design� outcomes are available to be seen in the following
essays
which
will
shortly
frame
different
concerns
and
backgrounds while explaining the methodology and ideas in detail: The first section is built on main intentions and motivations behind the research topic. It is based on my personal concerns and interpretations
on
pressure,
counter-pressure,
politics,
antagonism
and the phenomenon of sexual harassment as the main issue in the work. The second section reflects a critical study of design practice in relation to social, political and critical which differentiates itself
from
the
recent
activist
design
approaches,
meanwhile
delineating the positions of precedents and coevals amongst diverse new
definitions
of
design
branches
–such
as
Experience
Design-
regarding multi/inter/trans/post/in/non/disciplinary contexts. The third section is on narrative construction that has been used
as
a
tool
as
one
of
the
political
means
to
bridge
various
experiences. In other words, if design is a language in this project, collective narratives are words and symbols. The
fourth
section
depicts
the
decisions
on
bringing
the
practice from Turkey to Sweden, changing its temporal, spatial and 13
human
context
by
conveying
it
in
the
exhibition
space
and
(re)presenting it for new spectators. It is based on staging of the experimented work. The fifth chapter is the work itself realised in Turkey and represented in Sweden. Additionally there is another section in the end of the book which is built as an interview with the ‘self’ consisting of several questions and answers about the conception of ‘experience’ and its relation to Experience Design. Above
all,
even
though
this
book
is
considerable
enough
to
reveal the subtexts and the background of the project for an elaborate understanding, there is unprocessed tacit knowledge that lies along the process of research which was fed by both people who took part in any
step
and
the
resources
that
references, but as traces.
14
do
not
appear
in
this
book
as
1.
15
Experience of Social Suffering and Forms of Pressure “If one feels that there is nothing “we” can do – but who is that “we”? – and nothing they can do either – and who are “they”? – then one starts to get bored, cynical and apathetic.” (Sontag, 2004: 101)
The plague of cynicism and apathy has epidemically become a new myth in postmodern era that has been encountered either with anxiety by the warriors against power or with gratification by the ruling power
and
its
followers.
However,
this
pessimist
myth,
which
has
spread faster than the plague itself, has slightly given its place to an opportunist one which celebrates itself as a new media activism today.
Now,
injustice,
everyone everywhere
is
an
is
activist,
a
medium
everyone
for
a
speaks
protest
out
and
against
eventually
everything is ‘alright’. Nevertheless,
regardless
of
its
function
and
efficacy,
this
visionary image that is well accepted by especially precursors of technology and of its impacts on participatory democracy seems not only to misapprehend democratic participation and activism but also to overlook
the
actual
causes
of
the
problems
without
any
deep
understanding. Moreover, this illusion corroborates the power and the status quo which makes ‘they’ more alienated and excluded in the form of others, while regenerating more privileged, so-called democratic and
incorporated
citizens
out
of 16
‘we’.
Here
the
illusion:
to
dichotomize the self into well-off and miserable by exempting the self from
social
suffering
that
is
encompassing,
overwhelming
and
contagious. Here, social suffering 1 which is derived from not only “unequal distribution of material goods” but also from social misery: “people’s lived experience of domination and repression, including feelings – humiliation,
anger,
despair,
resentment
–
that
may
accompany,
for
example poverty, class or race” (Frost, Hoggest; 2008: 442) or gender. The reason is that “using material poverty as the sole measure of all suffering” which reflects itself in today’s Western charity for the East
amongst
new
media
activism
“keeps
us
from
seeing
and
understanding a whole side of the suffering characteristic of a social order” (Bourdieu, 1999: 4). For a more elaborate portraiture, “[…] social suffering refers to the hurt and loss accompanying the abjection that is a consequence of the continued existence of domination in democratic societies. Because the exercise of ‘power over’
others
appears
natural
and
legitimate,
the
hurt
that
produces shame and humiliation and the losses that lead to grief become detached from the social relations which generate them. The suffering
that
then
results
becomes
individualized
and
internalized […] Secondary damage is experienced when the defences an individual deploys to cope with hurt and loss have destructive consequences for self and others and therefore further separates the person from their sense of relatedness/belonging to the group” (Frost, Hoggest; 2008: 442). 17
Inextricably, this experience of hurt and loss that is first arisen from oppression and later permeated into the society qua social suffering then boomerangs for new forms of pressure that individuals unintentionally subject to their environment and to their self. This situation can be called as double suffering (Frost, Hoggett, 2008: 449). Within this vicious cycle, nonetheless, this phenomenon is at stake of being considered just as fate of some certain groups so long as
being
excluded
organizational, questions
that
from
power
institutional Foucault
relations and
(1977)
associated
individual put
long
means. time
with The
ago
its
any
enigmatic
during
his
conversation with Gilles Deleuze in which they discuss struggles among oppressed groups/classes and the practice of power is still relevant: “Isn't this difficulty of finding adequate forms of struggle a result of the fact that we continue to ignore the problem of power? Who exercises power? And in what sphere?” Here it is important to pay attention to his further suggestions in order to follow the questions: “We should also investigate the limits imposed on the exercise of power-the relays through which it operates and the extent of its influence on the often insignificant aspects of the hierarchy and the forms of control, surveillance, prohibition, and constraint. Everywhere
that
power
exists,
it
is
being
exercised.
No
one,
strictly speaking, has an official right to power; and yet it is always excited in a particular direction, with some people on one side and some on the other.” (Foucault, 1977: 212- 213)
18
Similarly, for Gramsci this is ‘moving equilibrium’ which means that
hegemony
reproduced,
is
gained
not
omnipresent
and
sustained.
and In
given,
order
but
to
it
render
has
to
their
be
power
“official and natural” dominant classes seek for new ways of hegemonic pressures in order to rule other classes by means of their votes and supports (Hebdige, 1979: 16). Every kind of hegemony and every kind of power is ipso facto oppressive and therefore this hegemony reproduces itself not only in the field of economy and politics but also in the realm
of
family,
education,
religion,
communication
and
culture
(Selek, 2001: 34; Clastres, 1977). As Raymond Williams supports, this ramification in system of values, meanings and practices is not a static constitution, but a process of enclosure and inclusion of those values intrinsic to modus vivendi via all kinds of institutions – educational sovereign
institutions
either
at
enforces
most.
the
Thus,
rest
to
this obey
reproduced and
comply
means with
of the
domination or excludes and exterminates them (Selek, 2001: 36) Here comes the shrewd side of the issue: oppression by power and hegemony does not manifest itself overtly embodied in one’s suffering as a result of maltreatments. In contrary, this systematic, organic and
violent
pressure
by
especially
states
and
its
organizations
transforms individual subject into something more general such as “a species, a specimen, a pathology and a class” in some categorical obliteration (Jackson, 2002:78) such as exclusion and suppression in most cases (Selek, 2001: 34). This is the greatest damage of permeated 19
oppression which degrades human status into nonentity and misleads people about the reality and validity of their own beings (Arendts, 1944: 114) and which particularly inflicts “others” embodied in sex and gender roles. With
respect
‘extracanonical’
to
sexual
this
being
2
,
embodiment among
many
that
addresses
to
others,
throughout
the
history, women have been one of the main ‘scapegoats’ subjected to any form of pressure and atrocity by either being victimized or being convicted.
Despite
movements
prompted
longstanding all
across
and the
pivotal
scrambles
world,
coercive
of
feminist
mindset
of
patriarchy, paternalism and even machismo is still ingrained in every single shred in society from ‘law and order’ to private relationships. In other words, the metaphor of masculinity is a metaphor that is embedded in articulation of thoughts and in ideals of minds; therefore is an agent of reasoning that ineradicably affects our ways of seeing ourselves as masculine or feminine. (Selek, 2001:47; Lloyd, 1996:8). Moreover, the subject is neither men nor women, but only concepts or principles which represent a masculinity that is about operation of symbols; because in the organization of sexual segregation what is feminine has not simply excluded, but the content of the femininity has been generated through the processes and the ways of exclusion (Selek, 2001:47; Lloyd, 1996:8).
20
Going
one
step
further,
instead
of
“male
hegemony”
Connell
explains this dichotomy with “hegemonic masculinity” which is strongly related to different forms of masculinity that is repressed as an extraneous
status
as
well
as
women;
yet
the
interaction
between
different forms of masculinity is also an integral part of patriarchal social order. There is not only the supremacy of men on women, but also the cultural hegemony which is symbolized with masculinity that is
hegemonic
and
public.
Hence,
inevitably,
this
“hegemonic
masculinity” goes hand in hand with “emphasized femininity” (Selek, 2001:
48;
Connell,
1998)
which
consolidates
the
legitimization
of
maltreatments against women as well as against other groups who resist fulfilling the gender roles being imposed by this hegemony. It refers to a kind of power contingent on body and sexuality that is fostered by
power
and
fosters
it
back
within
a
reciprocal
and
mutual
relationship (Foucault, 1993: 53; Selek: 2001: 54). Above all, all these theories about oppression, exclusion and obliteration
quo
power
relations
inherently
transpire
itself
in
practical implications amongst human relations of which one of the most
pervasive
forms
is
harassment
or
abuse
in
a
wider
term.
As
another exposure of sex and gender discrimination in the world of hegemonic masculinity, abuse is much more intractable and systematic under the roof of institutions; therefore it is even hard to diagnose and define the problematic as a result of this double sided pressure. Aforementioned,
besides
its
physical 21
harm
it
infringes
a
person’s
humanity by “reducing his/her own will into mere objectivity” that “implies
that
relationship
he
to
or
she
others,
no
but
longer solely,
exists in
a
in
any
passive
active
social
relationship
to
himself or herself, on the margins of the public realm.” (Jackson, 2002: 45) However, since the system of isolation, suppression and exclusion here is explicit, the question that ought to be revived is hinged
on
our
problematic?
own
How
position:
much
do
we
Which
accept
side and
do
even
we
stand
embrace
of
such
this
abusive
treatments surrounding us by normalizing and taking it on the chin in case more possible exclusions turn out to ourselves? Yet, to what extent
are
we
included
and
which
role
do
we
play
in
the
great
narrative: victims or perpetrators? Such questions are manifold and essential on the way of taking a stance and acting against any forms of
coercion
individually
or
collectively.
They
affect
our
way
of
3
deciding how to create a “counter-pressure” . Towards Counter-Pressure via the Critical and the Political Apart from that very specific form of pressure, throughout the history,
humanity
has
testified
numerous
ways
of
retaliation
as
response to repressions, sanctions, infringements and so on. Those testimonies have contained a wide range of courses from riots, street demonstrations, conscientious activist
and
marches,
objection,
strategies
and
civic
occupations
to
mobilization
organizations 22
have
civil and
so
been
disobedience, forth.
Such
gaining
new
alternative forms with new media and the Internet technologies that provide easy access to anytime, anywhere regardless of nationalities, races
or
classes.
To
go
back
to
early
comments
on
social
media
activism, almost everyone that has an access to the Internet gets included to any social and political problem all across the world by clicking
on
buttons,
celebrating
the
making
good.
comments,
But
then,
condemning
most
the
mentioned
bad
and
democratic
participation fails to make a change where the situation even goes worse in many societies in which the economic gap between classes, the hierarchy amongst genders and double standard for the privileged still expand.
Is
pressure
there
through
any new
other
possible
political
way
to
practices
procreate
apart
from
a
the
counter realm
of
politics? The answer might be yes, but the main query is how. One of the very first steps is to attempt a new inquiry for truth
which
politics
is
that
is
today
manipulated
supposed
to
be
and
determined
determined
by
by
truth
institutional itself.
This
Foucauldian (1970) approach to politics of truth, in which true and false are systematically produced by exercise of power relations and politically regulated, stands upon the problematic of social suffering of which truth behind is disguised and needs to be overturned. A new inquiry that
principally
would
shed
entails
light
on
new those
critical
perspectives
manipulated
truths.
and
analyses
This
critical
attitude has nothing to do with any temptation about post-criticality which
is
considered
by
some
scholars 23
and
practitioners
as
‘innovative’, ‘progressive’ and ‘reflexive’ as a response to critical theory’s ineffectiveness and even corrosiveness to human development (Cowherd, 2009). Post-criticality seems going hand in hand with the urgency for “doing something” for more developed human conditions – unsurprisingly economic one at first – in the world of innovation, determination
and
exposition
without
comprehensive
analyses,
reconsiderations or understandings. In contrary, a critical attitude that
is
not
“to
determine
the
conditions
and
the
limits
of
our
possible knowledge of an object” but “that seeks the conditions and indefinite possibilities of transforming the subject, of transforming ourselves” (Foucault, 2007: 179), to echo Rajchman’s utterances, "[…] is less like mankind learning to become an adult, more like a perpetual ‘minority’ in the various ‘mature’ forms our practices assume –a restless, unfinished thing, responding to historical, particular kinds of tutelage or forms of submission to a master thus requiring a pedagogy and mobilizing a public, more difficult to institutionalize once and for all.” (Rajchman, 2007: 23)
With respect to new interpretation of this form of criticality, today the problem is not critical theory itself but its distribution towards
public
realm
in
which
‘political’
is
‘exercised’
since
politics and its organisms usually conceal the nature of political. Although the intention is not to redefine the different implications of institutional/organizational politics and the political regarding numerous approaches4, it is crucial to mention that any attempt towards 24
counter-pressure is doomed to be held ‘in spite of politics’ and ‘if and only through the political’. This slight division manifests itself not only in theoretical and philosophical arena, but also in practice, especially with ‘law and order’ in which people suffer from both its ruling pressure and its defective implications. It simply means that people experience inequality both by being ruled by the ones who put laws
in
order
to
create
so-called
balance
and
justice;
and
then
ironically by being subjected to unfair executions of those laws which inevitably look after power groups’ interests. As this project’s main issue, take an example from sexual abuse against women particularly in an
academy:
At
first,
institutional
laws
and
policies
–everything
related to education, classes, social services and public offices and their meanings in practice – already put a student or an employee in a hierarchal order in
which she has to behave in a certain way by
knowing where to speak and where to keep quiet. This procedural and educational contract easily turns into such a pressure when it comes to exploitation or abuse of the ‘inferiors’ that is either normalized or reconciled by individuals in time. Secondly, when this person is subjected to any maltreatment by others who have higher positions in their
hierarchy
and
status,
the
competent
authority
that
she
is
obliged to consult is again this ruling recourse which indirectly precipitates the possible exploitation of the given status. Whilst in most cases such instances are doomed to remain unsolved – especially in states where the policies against such cases are still vague – it sometimes
becomes
even
more
reprehensible 25
as
a
result
of
double
standards in its executions. Its most common form is the concession of extenuating
circumstances
which
lies
on
the
relationships
between
political and judicial power under the name of ‘sense of community’ that is to reduce possible antinomies between law and public opinion (Moulin, 2007: 258). However, such standards put more unfair pressure on individuals physically and psychologically while stalemating the exercise of the political through only politics. What is worse is that this
iniquitous
manipulation
of
truth
conceals
itself
behind
the
idealization of “democratic education” which represents human rights and social equality with the celebration of “justice for all”. Here it is important to pay attention to what Hannah Arendt indicated decades ago
in
order
to
contemplate
more
on
decisive
applications
of
the
system, despite its opposing views by others: “The problem was […] that political equality inevitably became confused with social equality. This is a tragic confusion, as equality
can
only
be
political,
and
it
found
a
philosophical
expression in the insensate idea that individuals are equal by birth, in the chimera of the rights of man. It must be noted that […] only the rights of citizens are real; the rights of man are a fiction.” (Leford, 1988: 52)5
Why Collectiveness in spite of Agonism – Why Agonism in spite of Collectiveness?
26
Eventually, among the muddiness of such inextricable situations, here comes the need for counter-pressure as a political reaction as well
as
destructively
Moreover,
it
steps
–or in
deconstructively
where
politics
–
critical
–more
attitude.
practically
than
ideologically – and modern democracy fail to protect people and to integrate them into practice; yet put more oppression. So, to go back to aforementioned activist actions as testimonies, it is still pivotal to (re)act against atrocities via informal mobilizations as a civic power,
especially
individually.
when
Also,
it
is
the
aggrieved
crucial
to
cannot
have
a
cope
collective
with
them
action
by
striving new ways of exercising ‘the political’ that includes critical analysis
of
the
current
democratic
regimes
and
socio-political
implications; therefore collectiveness would help to define and to diagnose
the
problematic
through
different
perspectives
while
encouraging individuals to act against it. It is nothing to do with utopian
fantasy
of
constructive
solidarity,
but
rather
an
omni-
deconstructive process due to conflicts and antagonism in the groups. This agonistic approach 6 , that is being regarded as a dystopia can be considered as a response to those who have been celebrating deliberative especially
and and
participatory dangerously
democracy
heralding
the
for
a
vision
long of
time,
and
agreement,
consensus and even ‘empathy’. This new trend of creating empathy which is particularly blown up after the mass opportunity of “seeing others’ pain” by media has been playing another role in manipulative scenario 27
that leads people to concede the “truth” and makes them feel sorry and helpless
–or
sometimes
charitable
and
helpful.
Furthermore,
the
feeling of pity which is supposed to create awareness for the others induces people to exempt themselves from the great narrative in which the boundaries between excluded and exclusive are blurred and the roles are shifted. Within and without collectives/activist groups, one should
avoid
of
falling
into
temptation
of
feeling
‘for’
that
is
regarded as a constructive communication among people; nevertheless one should search more, ask inward questions, interrogate, discuss, de-construct, re-construct and keep the collective alive and fresh with the tension. Although tough experiences and traumas are regarded as negative phenomena, they would paradoxically stimulate a positive foundation 1999:
for
722-727);
both thus
individual they
and
should
collective move
the
identities
group
(LaCapra,
members
further
instead of deceiving them with unexperiencable incidents. Bourdieu, more effectively, puts it in another way and goes further: “Producing awareness of these mechanising that make life painful, even unliveable does not, neutralize them; bringing contradictions to light does not resolve them. But, as sceptical as one may be about the social efficacy of the sociological message, one has to acknowledge the effect it can have in allowing those who suffer to find out that their suffering can be imputed to social causes and thus to feel exonerated; and in making generally known the social origin, collectively hidden, of unhappiness in
all its forms,
including the most intimate, most secret.” (Bourdieu, 1999: 629) 28
Taking into consideration these delicate points, activists in collectives confront the challenges of implementing various discourses into
their
practice
by
not
only
gathering
different
dissident
perspectives and discussing them, but also finding new ‘alternative’ ways to exercise them out of institutional politics. Their resistance is not something that they express straightforwardly and inherently, but it rather indirectly manifests itself via manners and strategies (Selek, 2001: 38). Going parallel with this point of view, during the process in which this project has been carried out, the strategies such as using narratives, making informal interventions and hinging on antagonist/discursive platforms have been based on the critical manner of the group and the political needs of the problematic. Since the problematic makes some people more dissident to the power while making some more integrated to it (Selek, 2001: 36), it is essential to deconstruct
the
neutralized,
normalized,
implicit
and
explicit
pressure that surrounds them. Thus, this again goes back to critical and antagonist attitude within or without activist collectives and requires the most appropriate way of communication that is sometimes a dialog, sometimes an essay, sometimes silence. In one way or another, activist groups are doomed to transcend the situation of sustaining the status quo in order to achieve their goals (Shaw, 2001: 50) For formal organizations which are respected and taken seriously also by the ruling power it is easier to propose more effective strategies such as direct interventions to policies or 29
long-term
campaigns
that
stimulate
lobbying
as
political
pressures
(Shaw, 2001: 92) However, small-scale groups base their tactics and strategies
in
micro-level
such
as
initially
sharing
experiences,
requisitioning ingrained values, empowering each other. Then the rest of the community in long-term reveals and uncovers the problematic, speaking it out and triggering possible movements around the issues. All these aims and steps have been also prioritized in the research project located around the issue of sexual abuse in academia in other words universities, particularly in Turkey, while new questions have emerged during and after the research process. Nevertheless, apart from all other sub-objectives and intentions mentioned during this chapter, this research’s main driving force has been the urge for defying the pressure individually at the very first regardless of any discipline or tactical incentives. Social suffering is
not
merely
“Getting
bored,
visible cynical
but and
tangible, apathetic”
real, is
here
for
and
those
omnipresent. who
have
the
language but do not know how to speak. The language in this project has been design by the help of the political, criticism, collective narratives and agonism. “To be antagonist is to stay young in any moment and in any aspect of life without having any worries of bothering someone…Who mentions cosmetic young? Young is to resist disenchantment keeping the faith that another world is possible.”
30
7
(Türker, 2011)
2.
31
Commentaries on Design: activism, critical and political “A bandage covers and treats a wound while at the same time exposing its presence, signifying both the experience of pain and the hope of recovery”8
In
the
end
of
the
20th
century,
Polish
artist
Krzysztof
Wodiczko, as one of the leading critical practitioners in art and design field, referred this foregoing statement to his ‘interrogative’ practice one of which objectives is to merge technology and art into design while raising questions, provoking critiques and stimulating debates around different issues in society (Wodiczko, 1999). Design, as one of the foremost disciplines for decades with its increasing value and importance, has been indisputably undertaking the mission of pointing out those social wounds and treat them under the mission of ‘problem solving’. However, during the last decades this intention has slightly been turned into a pretentious motto of “Design can change the world” which let design seize the licence of obtruding to every single territory in society via the pretext of ‘responsibility’ while keeping on feeding the needs of the market. Today graphic design with its symbols, industrial design with its artefacts, interaction design with its actions and other recently emerging sub-disciplines in design with their various technological means all work on and for ‘social change’ regardless of their efficacy by bleeding into different kinds of
communities,
putting
them
onto
32
design
thinking
tables,
mapping
them,
brainstorming
them,
innovating
and
transforming
them.
Social
change almost lies upon the coloured post-its on the wall. Indeed, without a need of post-its, the term ‘criticality’ and ‘responsibility’ came into the terminology of design long before it has become a prominent figure all across the world. However, all those first critiques and attempts considered as activist design movements that are chronologically listed by Alastair Fuad-Luke in his vanguard book Design Activism (2009) were still responding to design itself which was rendering criticism enclosed only in the boundaries of the field despite their impacts to the society. For instance, whilst the movements
like
craftsmanship
Arts and
&
Crafts
defying
which
the
were
defending
reductive
the
aesthetics
idea of
of mass
manufacturing were dealing with the means of meanings and production, some movements from Constructivism to Deutscher Werkbund or even to Bauhaus modernism were endeavouring the utopian idea of “new society" –also referring to Soviet government propaganda, a society that would reach inexpensive and aesthetic goods of utilitarian and ‘democratic’ production of art and design (Fuad-Luke, 2009: 205). However, there are
many
doubts
emerging
when
such
examples
are
being
lengthened
towards the Post-War design movements and even Pop Design in which consumers were celebrating increased numbers of customer choices and cheap
and
poor
phantasmagoria
quality of
new
but
easily
democratic
accessible world
products
also
in
the
triggered
by
globalization. Even though there is no doubt that all those movements 33
have fused a great impact into their successors, they developed their practices only through the criticism of the preceding –criticism of the other – without introverting and facing the mirror to themselves. Being triggered by both portentous rapid growth in technology and political atmosphere of the time, by the late 60s, the mirror had slightly
been
turned
to
designer-self
and
to
users
in
the
new
postmodern consumer culture. Anti-Design and Radical Design Movements have brought new criticism into the field by indicating the field’s social
and
political
implications
in
particularly
institutional
realms. Meanwhile the bells were tolling for the environment as well. Punctually, one of the first self-mirrored design practitioners was Victor Papanek 9 in environmental design who had afterwards become a leading
figure
in
sustainability
(worth
counting
also
Richard’s
Neutra’s 1954 book, Survival through Design) -until sustainable design has turned into a new market serving ‘ecologic’ products with higher prices
for
higher
initiatives, sustainability efficient
classes.
design in
whilst
the many
Undoubtedly,
groups local of
and
today
co-organizations
communities
them
there
turn
back
that to
are the
are
a
that
lot
of
work
on
successful
and
origins
of
the
craftsmanship in a new rendition with contemporary design practice. Pertaining to various examples and approaches on junction of design and activism, it is important to emphasize that during this project no category for design has been taken for granted or embraced since it does not serve a purpose for any vocational classification. 34
The
enthusiasm
particular
of
class
categorizing would
and
result
situating
in
a
a
design
reductive
work
in
deductions
a or
preoccupations about the work instead of plausible extrapolations –if necessary. For instance, Ann Thorpe uses categorizations in order to demonstrate
remarkable
attempts
in
‘design
as
activism’
as
a
justification of their success. These justifications that are mostly based on distant observations mislead Thorpe both to put incoherent examples in the same sphere and to reduce the meaning of activism as a political
rebound.
Indeed,
as
indicating
design
in
relation
to
‘resistance’ and ‘protest’, particularly from social movements studies perspective, Thorpe reasonably frames the notion of design activism in four steps: “It publicly reveals or frames a problem or challenging issue; makes a contentious claim for change (it calls for change) based
on
that
excluded systems
or of
problem
or
issue;
disadvantaged authority,
which
works
group;
on
behalf
disrupts
gives
it
the
of
routine
a
neglected,
practices,
characteristic
of
or
being
unconventional or unorthodox—outside traditional channels of change.” (Thorpe,
2011:
6)
However,
she
stumbles
in
explaining
different
orientations of design activism from conventional protests to artefact using
as
criticism
with
practiced
examples.
When
it
comes
to
the
exercising of discourse, it is more obvious that any classification overtakes the content since the works either lack the deep analysis or cannot fulfil the needs of its class in practical means. That is to say
that
calls
for
‘social
change’
through
design
and
its
categorizations have already been running faster than the practice 35
itself.
Then
the
discussion
goes
back
to
the
aforementioned
problematic: design takes hold of any licence in discourse production that
proclaims
its
power
and
runs
rampant
all
across
the
fields;
recurrently branches itself into pieces and taking its inward dialects –aesthetic, form, function, production and so on- into consideration before the real content that is directly related to interlocutors of the act. As Thorpe herself also virtually concedes, activist purport in design is always contingent upon other kinds of purports such as function,
form,
and
structure
and
content
of
activism
inherently
vanishes; therefore “any structure or object is tied into a system that
colours
it,
and
this
problem
is
arguably
amplified
by
globalization.” (Thorpe, 2011: 13) This statement not only addresses to a contra-argument to design in/as/for
activism
in
practical
means,
but
also
signals
the
contradictions of its implications which glorify democratization and political effectiveness through a ‘common’ aesthetic that appeals to everyone
in
manifested
consensus in
and
for
collaborative
everyone’s
projects
in
sake. which
It
is
especially
participants
can
contribute and even produce, yet designers conduct, lead and even dictate. Then, is it the designer-hero again being able to speak for the others with the language of images, concepts and colours and to represent the activity of activist object? How far do things that are maximalized or reduced to optimum represent the differences of all of us and of every individual? Asking similar questions, Paul Ardenne 36
argues
that
it
is
in
contrary
the
betrayal
of
democracy
since
“everything, in this context, becomes intelligent, subtle, terribly “in”, offbeat but integrable, in short, in movement.” (Ardenne, 2009: 137) Far from satisfying the needs of different people, he says, “it intensifies,
on
the
contrary,
tempting
propositions
so
that
individuals, faced with these, experience not the feeling of their acquired liberty but a violent and cruel frustration if by chance they cannot attain the designed objects which the market offers them?” (Ardenne, 2009: 137). Going parallel, today this frustration has turned its face into another kind of demand in the realm of both art and design: demand for social and political projects not only for individuals that need it but also for the market that need to be asserted as ingenuous and responsible in the public eye (BAVO, 2007:7)
10
. Some scholars have
already called the other practitioners to contemplate on political implications of design one of whom is Tony Fry, as one of the leading figures in design’s relation to politics. 11 What he suggests by saying that all agents of change, therefore design practitioners, need to learn how to detach design from its economic function and to put it into a political frame (Fry, 2011: VIII) is utterly and definitely needed; moreover, the proposal of ‘to participate in a process of unlearning’ is also essential during this alteration. He brings about the importance of
37
“[…] rethinking political subjectivity, reconsidering the locus of the political outside the sphere of institutionalized politics, fundamentally significance
reconfiguring of
cultural
sovereignty,
difference,
understanding
identifying
a
the
political
ideology beyond democracy. Rather than design being marginal to these weighty considerations, it will weave its way through them as a vital political agent.” (Fry, 2011: X)
However, when he urges the need of “positioning design in relation to the political and then situationally developing it as a particular political in its own right” (Fry, 2011: 11) he unquestionably states that
“design
has
to
become
a
politics;
for
design
to
become
politicized, it has to directly confront politics.” (Fry, 2011: 7) But is
not
it
an
ironic
point
that
design
is
already
embedded
into
politics with its all institutional and organizational constituents that
regulate
including
not
taste,
only
professional
decision
making,
means
and
but
also
inclinations
human and
so
manners forth?
Moreover, the consequences of design developing its own politics are inconceivable. In contrary, the intention ought to be turned upside down: to break the term design out of its boundaries and to emancipate it in order to exercise the political without reconsolidating the status
quo.
Paul
Ardenne’s
commentaries
on
the
issue
goes
provocative step further as a counter-view to Fry: “In its relation to “politics”, design in fact plays a pacifying role: it puts spirits into forms, it gives additional soul to everyday objects, it embellishes the vulgarity of the real, it 38
one
reconciles the consumer to consumption insofar as the designed object transcends its utilitarian function to give value to its function as a cultural sign, and, as such, as an artefact that has passed from an ignoble status to the status … of a sign […]” (Ardenne, 2009: 136)
and then continues: “[the] excess of designed production, in political terms, poses a problem:
it
sanctifies
quantity,
accumulation,
variation.
It
distances the fundamentals of form, it nihilates the functional principle,
it
renders
erratic
the
relationship
to
the
world,
henceforward seen through nomadic, mutating, transitory, variable forms. In conjunction, it renders stable values suspect, those bequeathed by memory or the fantasy of native perfection: origin, purity, order, coherence, unicity. Above all, it makes politics to be forgotten and to be replaced by the headlong rush of the body of consumers, a body for whom uneasy shopping (what to buy?) has replaced the serenity born of solid convictions.” (Ardenne, 2009: 144)
This
proposal
can
be
extended
into
another
danger
zone
where
consumption and politics are employed together since, as Hal Foster supports, ‘commodities are no longer objects to be produced so much as data
to
be
manipulated
designed
and
redesigned,
consumed
and
reconsumed.’ (Foster, 2009: 22) In this sense, as in today’s digitized and
computed
world
-underpinned
by
design-
the
realm
where
the
political exercise is already under manipulation insofar as it is very 39
hard to distinguish which ‘social and political design’ works are meant to feed the market demands and which are not – or which of those who ‘contribute’ to these actions by clicking some links are activists and which are not. In the light of all these different intimations, it is still crucial to regenerate more counter-arguments upon design as social and political practice in order not only to make a mere opposition but also to invoke more confrontations toward a possible progress: is it really
possible
to
reconstruct
design
as
a
deed
without
any
compromises for settled categorizations? Design and its Counterparts in Disciplines Art and Design It
is
repudiate
any
rejection
is
not
to
name
say or
fostered
that
a
new
definition. by
its
approach
Since
opposition
should
-recalling in
order
dogmatically Foucault-
to
be
any
counter-
defined, struggles to be opted out of classifications would make this attempt reproduced itself again in the same context. Instead, it is better
to
keep
all
these
approaches
and
both
wise
and
fallacious
examples in mind and deconstruct them in order to bring about new predispositions that would render design emancipated from any other stringent factors.
40
Those stringent factors as impediments for emancipation are not only relevant to political and critical aspects of design, but also to its deployment in relation to other descendant fields. The appetite for segregation has also been very much pertinent to the demarcation between art and design. Here the intention is neither to muddle the former
discourse
up
with
the
latter,
nor
to
propound
another
discrepancy between them as if they are utterly polarized practices; but
to
stress
that
the
recent
debates
going
around
those
two,
alongside the political, jeopardizes the real content – which is the aim that they strive to act for – again by putting it into in the middle of the contextual complexity. If a new meaning is needed for ‘design’, as a deed, as a medium, as a possibility, it is crucial to point
out
its
configurations
according
to
diverse
critical
or
political implementations. Although there is a wide history of critical approaches in art, design and architecture ranging from 60s’ Situationist International (France) and Radical Design (Italy) to various concepts of design such as Speculative Design, Critical Design, Explorative Design, Hacktivism and Culture Jamming and so on, here the aim is not to explain and to define them from scratch, but to touch upon recent practices that are related. For instance, Interventionists who have become significant figures in the beginning of the century with their expositions at MASS MoCA 12 have been regarded as one of the most significant examples for political and social interventionism by means of art and design qua 41
several
ways
such
as
guerrilla
tactics,
revolutionary
attempts
in
public, rigorous critiques, lobby activities or just manifestations of artefacts
that
implicitly
convey
the
meanings.
To
simply
explain,
“they provide tools for the viewer/ participant to develop their own politics.
They
supply
possibilities
as
opposed
to
solutions”
(Sholette, 2004) through various instruments. These instruments are sometimes embodied in an art piece as a design work, sometimes as a performance and mostly as public intervention. This very bunch of instruments and procurements of possibilities for individual politics have been practiced regardless of their designation of art or design, but their very motivation lied behind. However, in some practitioners’ case, it becomes a matter of signification of the practice as well. For instance, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby who are highly regarded as the leading figures in critical design manifest that they “use design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry
and
implications
the of
public
existing
about and
the
social,
emerging
cultural
technologies.”
13
and
ethical
Despite
the
value of intention and their initiatives, their statement around the convergence of art and design is questionable since they suggest that: “Nowadays,
I
don’t
find
the
art
world
very
exciting
or
very
pragmatic, especially in the way it catalogues and monopolises other fields […] The fact of being an artist or a designer changes the economic ground and the organizational structures with which you operate. I don’t believe there are fundamental differences between the two, but I think that design could supplant art for 42
everything that concerns daily life. In this way, with the desire of society to integrate an existence full of meaning, art is a failure.
This
is
the
reason
for
which,
and
despite
it
is
irritating a lot of people, we don’t stop insisting on the fact that
we
do
is
design,
nothing
but
design
and
only
design.”
(Dunne&Raby, 2007)
Although their modality of design as dealing with daily life to ‘integrate an existence’ would be considered as honest and visionary that manifests itself particularly in their early works, there is a contradiction:
They
not
only
diminish
art
as
a
failure
by
underestimating its substantial context or its various effectuations, but also intertwine art’s and design’s economic and organizational ground in the same pot as many do today: design object in a museum or gallery and art piece as a sold artefact. In this sense, to glorify design over and over again seems like those organizational grounds find their supports only in new trendy and attracted disposition. Referring to Alex Cole’s book DesignArt (London, 2005) which addresses to new correlations of art and design, Rick Poynor likewise suggests that this concept of design-art is “so appealing to some dealers, galleries
and
collectors
that
the
idea
has
been
instantly
commodified.” (Poynor, 2009: 35) Even though as he also supports that art and design have been maintaining a mutual relationship especially in visual and imagery aspects of both – while graphic designers have been
influenced
artistic
approaches,
artists
have
used
visual
materials and technologies that designers used- when it comes to the 43
idea of supporting artistic context in design realm, he denies to do so because of design’s marketing and economic aspect. As crucially to say again, it is not to make a big distinction between two, but to still
strive
practice,
to
because
detach one
design
way
or
from
its
another
dominance
“proteiform
upon and
any
other
expansionist
nature of design dominates” (Midal, 2009: 49); thereby art and design itself have been at stake. Hal
Foster
articulates
the
issue
by
combining
it
with
a
postmodern critique of design: “Those old heroes of industrial modernism, the artist-as-engineer and the author-as-producer, are long gone, and the post-industrial designer now rules the supreme. Today you don’t have to be rich to be cast as designer and designed in one – whether the product in question is your home or business, your sagging face (designed surgery) or lagging personality (designed drugs), your historical memory (designed museum) or DNA future (designed children). Might this “designed subject” of consumerism be the unintended offspring of the “constructed subject” of postmodernism? One thing seems clear:
contemporary
design
production and consumption.”
abets
a
near-perfect
circuit
of
(Foster, 2009: 21)
So here, what is once again meant to say is that the matter is not whether distinguishing and polarizing art and design or blending them together, but being aware of contingency of both as appealing
44
instruments
of
consumption,
especially
when
they
are
staged
as
political and social interventions. Disciplinarity The similar consideration comes to mind for also about design’s correlation
to
other
multidisciplinarity,
disciplines
which
interdisciplinarity,
has
been
regarded
transdisciplinarity
as and
recently postdisciplinarity. Those new approaches, all having their own objectives and methods, have recently taken part in the agenda of design as well as of art, although they have been in use for decades. Their extreme importance in design, particularly for practices in such issues
in
this
book
that
are
relevant
to
sociology,
psychology,
philosophy, law or other social sciences, cannot be denied as long as they are not merely considered as other forms of “innovation” like today. To recall Foster again: “[…] contemporary design is part of a greater revenge of advanced capitalism on postmodern culture – recouping of its crossing of arts and disciplines, or a routinization of its transgressions […] late
modernism
had
petrified
into
anonymous
abstraction
and
postmodernism promised an interdisciplinary opening. But this is no longer our situation today. It is time to recapture a sense of the political situatedness of both autonomy and its transgression, a sense of the historical dialectic of disciplinarity and its contestation. This is not to turn against critical theory and interdisciplinary work; instead it is to set them in historical 45
perspective in order that they might be practiced anew. Today one hears
that
we
have
too
much
of
both
theory
and
interdisciplinarity; on the contrary, we have never had enough… We are not yet sufficiently theoretical, nor are we yet rigorously interdisciplinary.” (Foster, 2009: 24)
There are many good examples that scholars and practitioners have been working on through cross-disciplinar methods and milieus in order to achieve one common objective. One of the notable works, which can also be contextually associated with the subject of this research project,
is
Kültür:
Ein
Gender-Project
Aus
Istanbul
–
Kunst-
Feminismus - Migration (Culture: A Gender Project from Istanbul – Art – Feminism - Migration) which was initiated by artist and curator Ursula Biemann in 1997 in Turkey, Istanbul. The project was realised in collaboration with a group of Turkish women who were sociologists, artists, curators, poets and writers and who was actively working on political issues; particularly on feminism. Although the project was firstly
derived
from
the
question
of
representation
and
image
of
Turkish women in Western society being asked by Biemann to herself, then
process
of
working
in
collaboration
–
one
can
say
in
“transdisciplinar milieu” – was later dragged the practitioners into the problem of immigrant women in Istanbul who live in suburban areas and work mostly without any insurance and with a very small amount of money. After a long process of researching in the field besides and practicing, also with the worker migrant women involved, the project became more and more elaborated ranging from the issue of migration, 46
urbanization, roles,
colonization,
labour
and
gentrification
east-west
to
situation
women
whilst
rights, Biemann,
gender as
a
practitioner in art and curatorial works, was questioning the politics of
representation
and
reflecting
her
own
position
on
the
issue.
Moreover, as Biemann articulates, the matters of debate, fieldworks, threadings and drawings became artistic expressions themselves without turning into installations and productions of some certain objects (Biemann, 1997:13). In order to understand the essence, aims and the “results” of the project, it is better to pay attention to Meral Özbek who was a sociologist and an educator in the group and carried out a collaborative work with her students as a part of a project based on their
own
stories
about
migration
which
resulted
in
mixed-media
narrativity by individuals. She puts her concerns into words asking: “How
can
we
use
the
approaches
and
the
methods
of
literary
criticism and sociology together by merging public with private, structures with meanings, and historic with biographic at the same time?
Also,
in
such
cultural
studies,
how
can
we
manage
to
incorporate visual representation and production per se into this process of constructing and interpreting the personal narratives and lived experiences?” (Özbek, 1997:43)
Since similar questions are also asked in this research project in terms of implementing design into a collaborative practice with the light of individual narratives and experiences, it is important to take such experiments into consideration especially the ones that are 47
focused
on
the
disciplinary manipulation.
process
differences
rather for
than the
the sake
results of
the
while
using
issue,
not
their for
14
Stills from Kultur Project. The left one shows the map the practitioners made which they had flagged the factory zones the immigrants work in –some illegally – while the right one shows the women workers.
48
Stills from Kultur Project. They show the group meetings and the display of the project.
(All
are
extracted
from
the
project’s
website:
http://www.geobodies.org/curatorial-projects/kultur)
Why a new approach? So, with respect to this overall perspective on relations among design activism, politics and criticism as well as relations among design, art and other disciplines, it is time to go back to the origin and to the reason of this thesis since the issue needs a clarification about such questions: today, how much is it possible to distinguish contextually
rich,
theoretically
coherent
and
intentionally
candid
practices from opportunist ones? Where should our scepticism lie upon; on
their
practical
implications 49
or
consequences
in
the
great
narrative?
How
and
why
is
it
important
to
recompose
a
new
understanding for design in political activism instead of political activism in design? First of all, after all those desperate denunciation on design, it is crucial to say that there is nothing to do with disciplines and disciplinar collaborations in themselves, but the matter is how and for what they are being used. Today it is crystal clear that in such disciplines ‘the tool’ has overtaken ‘the content’ which means that instead of using skills and technology in order to confront a problem, such problems are used –exploited indeed – in order to expose those skills and technology that are manifested as spectacles. Therefore, the
vicious
cycle
of
theory
and
practice
reproduces
itself
via
representation by being embodied in illusory discourses. For instance, today if you look over web pages of any higher education in arts and design, you will encounter numerous descriptions of a ‘new education’ that
pledges
the
“critical”,
“social”
and
“political”
practice
embedded in a fancy rhetoric – its variations get manifold according to
programs,
such
as
“cultural”,
“technological”,
“environmental”,
“responsible”, “economic” etc. – Nevertheless, the question of how many of them really practice such issues within or outside of academy is still obscure statistically, but the situation in practice today is obvious:
Those students either have their share of being so-called
political and social by going to ‘third world countries’ –the more they
are
undeveloped,
the
greater 50
the
potential
is
–
for
‘participatory’ design, art or curatorial projects or keep their seats comfortable by adding more projects to the realm of spectacle and searching for something to criticize as an ornament. Here to recall Arendt’s division of public and private –refers to
social
where
they
intermingle
and
to
political
where
it
is
distributed – the deed of design must be intrinsically social and therefore
political.
However,
systematically,
organizational
and
institutional implementation of the very act of designing, which has become a discipline in the end, has achieved to detach it from where the social is exercised and to depoliticize it where the political would
potentially
ironically,
after
jeopardize the
the
decades
of
power this
if
it
isolation
is
exercised.
and
And
privatization
venture of design, it seems that it has been redistributing what it has stolen, but in a more proper and projected way. Unsurprisingly, it goes hand in hand with what systematic inculcation of consumption and marketing does: occupying all ‘free’ times by obliging people to work more,
to
produce
more
and
to
drudge
more
and
then
offering
them
products, services and experiences in which people can ‘reclaim’ their free
times
they
deserve
–an
exotic
holiday
experience,
a
la
mode
automobile that drops them into their work faster, a stylish food processor that provides faster meal to keep more time and so on. In short,
this
clockwork
that
processes
on
first
seizing
and
then
deigning is not only peculiar to political and social understanding of
51
design,
is
also
inherent
to
design
and
its
relation
to
those
capitalist strategies. Since
naturally
this
manifold
scepticism
from
near
and
far
brings about a lot of hesitations and inhibitions for non-categorized practitioners in the field, it is essential for them both to consider their positions in the group in such works and to understand what all this flux of words and conceptions mean; thus to question the real intention of the self over and over again. Similarly, during a long part of this project, there have been more struggles than a planned method in case the project would potentially face another sort of ‘use of people’ or exploitation. Socially and politically engaged projects have been becoming much more apparent via the Internet and social media; therefore, there have been numerous websites, blogs and online campaigns initiated by collaborative groups including designers taking part
particularly
in
visualization
and
concept
development
besides
artists using different types of media. In such projects and attempts there is extremely thin line between usefulness and pornography – for instance
some
websites
on
sexual
harassment
that
are
welcome
for
people’s stories to be recounted and their conversion into disutility over time. This is why the position as a designer/design researcher as an
activist
and
feminist,
being
in
an
activist/feminist
groups
belonging to different disciplines, on such a delicate topic, has been exceedingly crucial and fragile. This is also why there have been no
52
initial attempt for a mere production, creation or creative action taken for granted as well as any other design methodologies. Concisely, this almost experimental use of design is meant to help redefining the act of “design� as a medium, as a channel, as a tool or as a catalyser; as creating, (de)constructing or facilitating. The power of design here is its aesthetic and political interpretation and implementation in collaboration with other disciplines. Regarding this disciplinary aspect, it is also worth mentioning that in such activist
groups
in
political
realm,
instead
of
prioritising
the
professional participants, there must be individuals with their common concerns that bound them together and enable them to use their skills belonging to different disciplines later on. That is to say that all those cross-disciplinary approaches mostly celebrate the collaboration of disciplines whereas here the emphasis is on their objectives and their use as tools. The main objective, therefore, is to contribute to means of resistance inside and outside the collectives in order to provoke the questions, to empower each other or to call other people attentions. Hence, with this motivation design can potentially be used as a language in the light of lived or witnessed experiences: it is inevitably and strongly connected to Experience Design that will be elaborately explained in the further chapters.
53
3.
54
Politics of Storytelling “Compared with the reality which comes from being seen and heard, even
the
greatest
forces
of
intimate
life
[…]
lead
to
an
uncertain, shadowy kind of existence unless and until they are transformed, deprivatized and deindividualized, as it were, into a shape to fit them for public appearance. The most current of such transformations occurs in storytelling and generally in artistic transposition of individual experiences.” (Arendt, 1958:50)
Despite the great alteration in the milieu of storytelling and artistic transposition since the times Hannah Arendt had mentioned them
by
suggesting
new
correlations
between
private/public
and
political/social realms, their magnitude and impact on these realms still stay the same. As one of the foremost thinkers of modern era particularly on civil rights, violence, authority and freedom, Arendt puts
a
great
emphasis
on
storytelling
that
also
underpins
the
conception of Collective Narratives in this work which goes hand in hand with the act of storytelling: an act that is “the articulation of the
idiosyncratic
as
something
common
to
everyone”
(Jackson,
2002:100). First and foremost, each and every single entity that surrounds living beings, including living being itself, is ipso facto associated with narratives either in the context of subject-object correlation or in the form of constituents like time and space; and ultimately in the 55
body of other narratives as frame tales. In a similar vein, addressing innumerable worlds of narratives, Barthes characterizes the notion of narrative that “begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative” as often shared within
different
backgrounds
groups,
(Barthes,
different
1977:79).
cultures
and
Regardless
of
even its
opposing structural
disposition and literary explanation 15 narrative as a connotation of story, has been disposed to be recounted for the purpose of not only transferring information, tradition and values, but also transforming this
information
establishing
new
into
insight,
dialogs
exchanging
through
moral
experiences
implications
among
the
others.
and In
other words, narratives are no longer mere instruments in the wake of apprehending the history and grasping the sense of living in the past (Stone, 1979: 13) as an explanatory tool whereas having been wielded as a constructive tool in particularly social, cultural and political states.
This
variant
of
conceiving
narratives,
thereby
circulating
them wherewith stories, renders storytelling not only as an oral and verbal
transmission
reconfiguration canonical
and
as
of
traditionally
ingrained
normative
being
conventions
identifications.
done,
and As
but
also
as
deconstruction
of
Jackson
immediately
supports the account: “Stories may confound or call into question our ordinarily taken for granted notions of identity and difference, and so push back and
pluralise
our
horizons
of 56
knowledge
[…]
critique
becomes
pivotal, with the possibility glimpsed that there may be no human experience that does not exist in potential within every human being and within every human society” (Jackson, 2002:25)
The question of reformulating identities through sharing stories in terms
of
subject-object
relations
bring
about
the
notion
of
subjectivity, thereby phenomenology. Combining Harendt’s theories on politics of storytelling in accordance to intersubjectivity 16 , Jackson continues
articulating
the
‘meaning’
of
storytelling
as
narrative
exchange by stating that: “Storytelling does not necessarily help us to understand the world conceptually
or
cognitively;
rather,
it
seems
to
work
at
a
‘protolinguistic’ level, changing our experience of events that have
befallen
us
by
symbolically
restructuring
them
[…]
Storytelling reworks and remodels subject- object relations in ways that subtly alter the balance between actor and acted upon, thus allowing us to feel that we actively participate in a world that for a moment seemed to discount, demean and disempower us.” (Jackson, 2002: 15)
This foregoing statement is substantially revealing for this work in order to be conceived in terms of not only storytelling as an act, but also the actors involved, particularly in affinity groups that congregate for a common objective. The actor aspect brings the topic back to intersubjectivity within the scope of relationships both among people and between people and their milieu as Jackson states 57
that “being is not only a belonging but a becoming” regarding its interactivity to the others and to the world (Jackson, 2002: 13). Recounted and shared experiences, in this sense, are essential to build this state of ‘becoming’ by means of storytelling.
Polletta
fairly puts it into words: “In telling the story of our becoming, as an individual, a notion, a
people,
we
define
who
we
are.
Narratives
may
be
employed
strategically to strengthen a collective identity, but they also may
precede
and
make
possible
the
development
of
a
coherent
community and collective actor.” (Polletta, 2006: 12)
This state of constitute a collective actor is not merely to celebrate collectiveness, enclosed
rather
stories
or
it
is
a
process
imaginations
and
of
breaking
transforming
passivity
them
into
of the
dialogs from inner monologues towards a social discourse (Jackson, 2022:
14).
Indispensably,
this
social
discourse
is
intrinsic
for
activist groups especially for the ones of which aim is to open the discussions up for the rest of the community and not to keep these experiences isolated in a certain spheres unlike therapy groups. In the meantime, so long as political, social, environmental and cultural conventions of the world constantly change, regarding to the ever-changing disequilibrium of the norms, “activism” as a term has also been changing and been converting into a more flexible structure. The more incoming predicaments of new figures of capitals derived from 58
new administrations have become too perspicuous to comply with; the more people have strived to seek for other tools to expose their reaction
and
resistance.
Thus,
since
namely
activism
can
be
“progressive as well as regressive, visionary as well as reformist or reactionary”
(Thorpe,
2011:
1),
storytelling
by
means
of
sharing
experiences that provide participants an open access from ‘self’ to ‘the other’ has been playing a crucial progressive and reactionary role. in
One of these most significant roles had been staged especially
‘60s-‘70s
women
rights
and
liberation
movements
as
Francesca
Polletta adduces in her inspirational book It was Like A Fever, while adverting it as a period that women paved the way for speaking about abuse and rape cases and making the problem loud by leading these self-transformative
stories
to
the
institutional
transformation
(Polletta, 2006: 116). Even though the main impact was not visible as a direct change at the very moment, in long-term these movements have led societies to open up new discussions around gender issues, women rights and to empower other people in even other countries and other nationalities. These stories of particular cases shared by numbers of women have demonstrated the fact that the problem has been universal and
not
wholly
unspeakable
though.
Continuing
emphasizing
the
significance of individual stories recounted in groups that utilize them so as to create deliberation, motivation and eventually action against oppression, inequalities and injustice, Polletta goes one step further
and
claims
that
stories
even
may
strengthen
institutional
politics by legitimating protestors’ successors and by consolidating 59
the
emblematic
borders
between
decision
making
and
commemoration
(Polletta, 2006:144). However, whether the main point is to deal with institutional politics and laws or not the results of such movements are mostly more perceivable in the realms of everyday life than in institutional politics (Polleta, 2006:6). As she points out later, “When members of disadvantaged groups recount their experiences of particular
policies,
supposedly
neutral
deliberators needs
and
an
they
expose
policies
empathetic
priorities.
and
the
disparate
invite
understanding
Far
from
in
of
simply
impacts
their
their
of
fellow
distinctive
asserting
personal
experience as the basis for policy, such stories serve to reveal the false universality of existing standards- and that may open the way to construct more truly universal standards.” (Polletta, 2006: 83)
As a reinforcement of the argument that storytelling is able to create motivation for action in society, Marshall Ganz who has spent his
life
devising
effective
mobilization
strategies
for
and
with
locals and any other non-profit group campaigns considers storytelling as
a
core
of
mobilization
for
activist
organizations.
Defining
storytelling as an “action speech that translates our values into motivation to act” (Ganz, 2009: 7), he does not only mention personal and
moral
values
of
storytelling,
but
indicates
the
collective
empowerment of storytelling by stating that storytelling is “how we interact with each other about values; how we share experiences with 60
each other, counsel each other, comfort each other, and inspire each other to action.”(Ganz, 2009: 9) But of course, here it is important to mention a nuance with Jackson’s words: “To
argue
that
storytelling
is
crucial
to
this
process
of
reempowerment does not mean, however, that stories themselves have power;
rather,
it
implies
that
by
enabling
dialogues
that
encompass different points of view the act of sharing stories help us to create a world that is more than the sum of its individual parts.” (Jackson, 2002: 39)
Above
all
these
analogous
approaches
to
potentiality
of
storytelling in political activism among hundreds of others denote the importance of sharing individual stories for collective action, or if one would like to recall it so, a way of reaching an insider identity which
is
“directly
linked
to
the
quality
of
outside
connection.”
(Latour, 2011: 3) Likewise, “it is not that speech is a replacement for action; rather is a supplement” (Jackson, 2002: 18) since the main intention is basically to create a deliberative milieu in order to act and react. These interpretations and advocacies of storytelling as catalyser in groups beget a new premise for terminology that can be named Collective Narratives which will be portrayed and categorized onward by reconsidering different perspectives whilst underlining its efficient use as activist strategies.
61
Collective Narratives Collective Narratives has gained its definition in virtue of Scott
Rettberg’s
participatory
essay
that
narratives,
depicts
attributing
a his
contemporary
image
arguments
web-based
to
of
participations, hypertext linking, new wave reality games and virtual worlds. Although he mostly addresses to collectively created databases such
as
Wikipedia
and
open-source
fictional
stories
his
categorizations and analyses on process of participatory storytelling are quite relevant to main implications of collective narratives in this paper. He categorizes three different types of participation for hyper-texted
collective
contributors
are
Participation
fully
that
narratives: aware
of
contributors
Conscious
evident do
not
Participation
construction; necessarily
that
Contributory
know
about
the
overall idea or architecture but put their efforts to the process consciously and; Unwitting Participation that contributors do not have conscious 2005:
7).
engagement This
but
grouping
have could
an
indirect
delineate
contribution a
framework
(Rettberg, of
use
of
collective narratives for tactical groups whereas the other forums shuttle amongst these three because of the fact that they do not follow a definite goal to reach a particular form of participation as a strategy. Even though these definitions would seem as very specific models
of
a
particular
technique
of
a
medium-based
narrative
participation, it gives numbers of hints and inspirations about how
62
collective narratives would/should be for the sake of socially-engaged discourse in praxis: What is meant by Collective Narratives apart from its usage in hypertexts and participatory story creation is a sort of collection, compilation and articulation of individual stories and experiences in groups of people who have faced similar complications either by being neglected, oppressed, excluded and victimized or being devoted into these challenges and critical situations. Collective Narratives does not mean an archive of different stories on a certain topic. Nor does it aim to reveal a consensus about the problematic that is being told by
many
people
in
different
ways.
A
Collective
Narrative,
on
the
contrary, refers to an open-ended narrative source fed by many people having undergone different experiences; furthermore it depicts a wide range
of
colloquiums
that
include
resemblances,
intimacy
and
commonness among people on one hand, and antagonism, diversity and even dissent on the other hand. In activist groups that are to share stories and build a collective narrative, it is always important to at least behold many other preferences and different settings of these preferences even though narrators or audiences do not change their minds
according
to
new
stories
told.
So
long
as
this
recognition
transpires in the community, people become more flexible to accept different associated
choices; with
henceforth
legislative
this and
public
deliberation
governmental
issues
could
which
be
could
precipitate a new citizen engagement through institutional policies 63
(Polletta,
2006:
characteristic
85).
of
Therefore,
collective
inherently,
narrations
the
transforms
exploratory
itself
into
a
constructive ground where people would be able to proceed towards movements by means of deliberations. Collective Narratives, as contrary to narrative’s disposition, does neither lay on a sequential and chronological order nor have particular plots or protagonists. Nevertheless, since all collective narratives have a certain context and content behind according to their triggers –it could be about any other subjects; for instance sexual
abuse,
domestic
violence,
conscientious
objection
against
military service, new salary regulations for employees and such, they also have a coherent intention and motivation behind that is shared by participants.
Even
if
people
do
not
talk
about
the
same
problem
exactly in the same way, during the process of sharing and expressing of the ‘self’ one can ‘connects the dots’ in others’ stories through the intercommunication within their shared values (Ganz, 2009: 10); henceforth one can grasp the ‘ellipsis moments’ (Polletta, 2006: 103) in others’ stories even if the storyteller had not been able to fill the ellipses by him/herself. Ganz steps in here once more: “A public story is not only an account of the speaker’s personal experience. All self stories are “nested”, including fragments of other stories drawn from our culture, our faith, our parents, our friends the movies we’ve seen, and the books we’ve read. While individuals
have
their
own
stories, 64
communities,
movements,
organizations and nations weave collective stories out of distinct threads” […] “Organizations that lack a ‘story’ lack an identity, a culture, core values that can be articulated and drawn upon to motivate.” (Ganz, 2009: 11)
In
through
the
way
of
creating
collective
identity
for
a
collective action for protest as resistance, aforementioned before, telling stories, collecting narratives and sharing experiences should be understood not only just as an oral and verbal deed, but also as any other latent and even unexplored forms of conveying the message. However, especially when people use this collective narration for the sake of democracy, which would be regarded as a form of deliberative democracy, they often face the fact that conversations and public speeches do not let all participants talk equally –but for those who are
already
Bourdeiu’s potentially
privileged terms
and
Polletta
reproduce
rhetorically exemplifies
existing
skilled. this
inequalities
Following
handicap by
which
mentioning
Pierre would upper-
classes that have more linguistic competence compared to lower ones (Polletta, 2006: 26). Besides Chantal Mouffe’s antagonist approach, Iris Marion Young and Lynn Sanders also put it in a similar way while criticizing the obstacles of deliberative democracy by saying that deliberative democracy is not equal and available for everyone that participates, but on the contrary it is mostly for the ones who are already privileged: white, men, rich, western and so forth (Young, 2000;
Sanders,
1997).
17
This
situation
would
position
different
participants in groups over different latitude and longitude where 65
some of them are able to articulate their concerns while the others keep silent; therefore it would build another form of power in the group
dynamic.
Moreover,
this
imbalance
would
bring
about
preponderance of some arguments over the others since the dominant ones
are
well
expressed;
therefore
it
consensus even if it is not meant to be.
would
entail
indispensible
With Chantal Mouffe’s words,
this sort of practice “[…]
foments
dissensus
that
makes
visible
what
the
dominant
consensus tends to obscure and obliterate. It is constituted by a manifold of artistic practices aiming at giving a voice to all those
who
are
silenced
within
the
framework
of
the
existing
hegemony.” (Mouffe, 2007: 4)
Regarding these obstacles which are also considered during this work, it is crucial to mention that first of all Collective Narratives requires miscellaneous ways of telling stories that allow participants to
decide
their
own
mediums
to
recount
their
lived
or
witnessed
experiences. Since there are many ways of sharing and transferring experiences, narrators should be able to choose the tools they feel comfortable to use without being exposed to any sensation of power. Secondly, resistance
the
need
among
for
groups
new
forms
and
of
through
constructing groups
should
new not
methods ground
for on
consensus, but on agonism pertaining to different considerations and different
identities.
In
terms
of
sharing
experiences
through
narratives, this new approach to deliberation should provide openness 66
to interpretation which means not to “create interest in contention”, but to “allow diverse groups to see their interests as alike enough to act collectively” (Poletta, 2006: 19) of course within the frame of the group’s objectives and the prospective outcomes. Different Mediums in Sharing Stories From
foregoing
considerations
to
practical
means,
it
is
remarkable to state that creative disciplines, particularly art and design, have been acting through ‘socially-politically engaged’ and critical methods via participation on one hand while approaching more personal and subjective human states via storytelling on the other. Here, the question is whether this ternary alliance amongst activism, storytelling and creative fields would be able to carry mobilization and
action
exclusion,
forward
in
suppression
order and
to
empower
alienation.
If
people so,
who
how
suffer
much
from
can
they
contribute to this realm as a facilitator, but not a rule maker? The power of this kind of works is not merely that they are able to make people ‘aware’ and ‘responsible’ or naïvely saying to ‘change’ already
established
systems
of
order,
but
they
all
open
up
a
‘dialogic’ interaction among enablers, participants and audiences, as in
Socratic
discussions,
understanding new
of
deliberations
dialog and
new
that
leads
approaches
public to
into
new
argumentative
interlocutions. Although this dialogic notion, of course, has been a longstanding approach being used prevalently in art and design fields, 67
it is substantial to investigate and interrogate the ways it is used or
the
reasons
that
it
is
derived
from:
to
what
extent
do
such
practices ‘use’ people as participants in their creative works with their tough experiences in order to present them to audience who is sometimes sole outsider? While this use of people reveals itself in artistic or curatorial works as exploitation and victimization, in design works it appears as consumption and publicity. For instance, recently there are many campaigns, web sites and concept works that use individual stories combining with design interventions by using either
conscious
or
contributory
example, Hollaback
18
of
raising
consciousness
participation.
As
one
of
recent
is quite well known and successful work in terms and
attention
getting.
However,
the
core
section of the work that allows people who have experienced sexual harassment in different forms is at stake of being consumed as in almost pornography. The visibility of all those recounted stories that are being overloaded after a while overtakes the main intention which is
to
empower
other
sufferers
through
individual
experiences;
therefore without reinterpretation or reconstruction of those stories they remain as mere accumulation or collection that are reproduced over and over again just as their flat versions in media. In such examples,
despite
its
potential
efficacy
as
a
medium,
design
intentionally or not happens to come to the fore again with interfaces or attracted applications and to surpass collective narratives and real experiences.
68
Regarding these concerns about the intention of design that would enable different mediums for collective narratives to be built, it is important to consider the point that “[…] stories seldom represent experience as straightforwardly as a mirror represents an object. Rather, stories create a semblance of truth,
creating
effects
and
contriving
solutions
to
recurrent
human quandaries.” (Jackson, 2002: 101)
It is very much alike to design role in creating such mediums; not a mere object that generates real solutions but an indirect enabler. This medium that is provided by design –or as a form of design– would reveal itself in physical or virtual discussion and sharing platforms, in artefacts, in visual or auditory material, in even manifold time and space. The importance here is to originate those realms by taking into account both diversity of expressions in activist groups and the intention behind the use of collective narratives. Moreover it is also crucial to consider the configuration of participation whether it is conscious, intimacy, through
contributory will
and
different
or
unwitting
privacy. mediums
In
this
would
lead
since way
it
would
transferring
people
both
to
designate experiences take
into
consideration limitations and virtues of sharing and to portray a common problematic through individual stories. Polletta exemplifies it with tough issues just like the main subject of this work:
69
“[…] For example, women’s stories of fending off unwanted sexual overtures, told first in small circles of intimates, gradually forged the ground for what has come to be recognized as sexual harassment.
In
storytelling
formal
may
deliberative
lead
to
the
settings,
identification
too, of
personal
new
issues
demanding discussion.” (Polletta, 2006: 86)
This new demands for upcoming discussions should be ever-engendered in the groups that use collective narratives as empowerment. Since “far from being oriented merely to self-expression; stories are a way for their narrators to involve others in making sense of experiences and options” (Polletta, 2006: 88), it is crucial to rebuild new conditions for this involving process by considering all other components of the stories: not only lived experiences and subject-object relations, but also
time,
according
space,
to
plots,
different
witnesses
conditions.
and
their
possible
Those
are
substantial
variations to
evoke
motivation, action and thereby counter-pressure firstly within groups and then eventually outwards.
70
4.
71
Representation of Sufferings “In the Society of the Spectacle (1967) Debord defined spectacle as ‘capital accumulated to the point where it becomes an image’. Of course spectacle has only become more intensive in the four decades since then, to the point where media-communication-andentertainment
conglomerates
are
the
dominant
ideological
apparatuses in our society, powerful enough to refashion other institutions
in
their
guise,
art
and
architecture
worlds
included. Today, then, the corollary of the Debordian definition appears true as well: spectacle is “an image accumulated to the point where it becomes capital” (Foster, 2009: 30)
Despite long and erratic decades along various poststructuralist theories Spectacle
on
image
(1964)
and to
representation
Baudrilliard’s
from
Debord’s
hyper-reality
and
Society
of
simulacrum
(1981), today Foster’s statement on spectacle as capital is one of the most convenient ones particularly in art and design fields beside media. Since image and visibility have overtaken the content for so long, today almost any work is ‘cool’ enough if only it is captured by a high-quality lens and showed off in a webpage and of course after being exposed in a white cube: sublime. This new trend would have been still acceptable if it could have managed to stay only within the boundaries of the white cube context without venturing to go beyond the limits of vulnerability: this new trend has created opportunities not only for designers but also for 72
artists to go across the continents, to approach the ‘intact’ and ‘undiscovered’ and to bring them into the ‘safe’ and ‘decent’ zones to the
eyes
of
spectators
looking
at
those
exotic
sufferings
as
degenerating and alienating. It goes a bit further and peaks to the point when these discoverers speak for those who ‘cannot speak’ or cannot make their voices heard due to tough conditions in the ‘other’ parts of the world. But for which spectators and for which actors are these people being represented in completely another context? What triggers
those
attempts?
Until
what
extent
do
those
practitioners
contribute to ‘awareness’ or to exploitation and even to pornography of sufferings? In her book Regarding the Pain of the Others which is written on this
imagery
photography, overall
presentation considering
critique
about
of
similar
sufferings questions,
exploitation
of
and
sufferers
Susan
Sontag
sentiments
through puts
-as
an
pity,
compassion, indignation (Sontag, 2004: 80), consumption of them and normalization of sufferings via their visual exposition in any kind of medium from books, newspapers, televisions and magazines to billboards and more relevantly here to galleries and museums. Whilst she rightly states
that
‘hunting
for
more
dramatic
images’
is
‘part
of
the
normality of a culture in which shock has become a leading stimulus of consumption and source of value’ (Sontag, 2004: 23); this metastasis of extreme images seem to have turned their shocking potency into inertia or even silent indulgence. On the other hand, ironically, in 73
media
this
inertia
has
not
been
derived
from
mass
exposure
of
sufferers’ images. Sontag similarly states that: “Parked
in
front
of
the
little
screens—television,
computer,
palmtop—we can surf to images and brief reports of disasters throughout the world. It seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before. This is probably an illusion. It's just that the spread of news is ‘everywhere’.” (Sontag, 2004:116)
This illusory quantity of extreme sufferings is also addressed by Jacques Rancière in his stunning book The Emancipated Spectator (2009)
in
which
many
groundbreaking
arguments
on
image
and
spectatorship are articulated. Rancière argues that the apprehension that every day we are being subjected to flood of horror images which drag us into desensitization is a delusion. Although it strives to be critical, it exactly goes hand in hand with the operation of the system: the sovereign media does not bombard us with numberless images that
have
world,
on
witnessed the
massive
contrary
it
atrocities literally
or
horrors
eliminates
all
them
across as
much
the as
possible into one certain type of images. By doing so, media only and simply explains the meaning behind those images over and over again by dismissing
any
kind
of
different
explanations.
More
elaborately,
Rancière alleges that we do not see on the screen various bodies suffering, but rather we see numbers of anonymous bodies: the bodies that are not able to give the eyes back to us and they do not have the right to speak whereas they become the object of the speech (Rancière, 74
2009: 89). Inevitably, this argument is strongly related not only to incidents and their images but also to how they are (re)presented. They implicitly tell us how they should be perceived and until what extent people can bear such representations as outsiders, since there is always a certain level of accepting suffering and extremity that appear
in
films,
television,
comics,
and
computer
games
(Sontag,
2004:100). Moreover, the imagination of atrocity is bounded by our endurance (Türker, 2011) which means that we can only envisage such atrocities so far as they are conveyed through images. Here, it is important to mention that the criticism is not directed to the limited understanding of suffering as if glorifying so-called empathy, but rather to the imagery representation of those sufferings that manifests itself in various forms. For instance, this contrived
proximity
between
the
audience
of
a
gallery
show
or
a
privileged viewer of a television and the faraway sufferers begets misleading mystification of the real relations between us and power (Sontag, 2004: 102). Therefore, it leads distant audience to create a new mindset of victimization and marginalization of the others as if they are completely exempted from the reasons of those sufferings. Moreover, they even go one step further and thank their ‘lucky stars’ by being aware of their comforts which also influence any possible attempts towards those sufferings negatively. As Sontag puts in words: “Making suffering loom larger, by globalizing it, may spur people to feel they ought to "care" more. It also invites them to feel 75
that
the
sufferings
and
misfortunes
are
too
vast,
too
irrevocable, too epic to be much changed by any local political intervention. With a subject conceived on this scale, compassion can only flounder—and make abstract. But all politics, like all of history, is concrete.” (Sontag, 2004: 79)
That is to say that this imagery bombardment of extremes in one way or another ends up with victimization, alienation, marginalization or
normalization
and
thereby
stupefaction.
Even
if
some
representations both in media and art/design works are displayed as sagacious
critiques
predicaments,
the
representation
that
and rest is
convenient is
the
attributions
doomed
to
“product
of
be
to
conceived
wrath,
divine
various as or
mere human”
(Sontag, 2004:40) as spectacle. So, here it is important to scrutinize the notion of spectacle, its agents as spectators and its exercise as spectatorship in which the main content is conveyed. Spectacle and Spectatorship Besides all, this probe should not drive us to a sole dispraise of spectacle, but to a more comprehensive understanding of the idea of representation. The criticism of spectacle and the discourse about its un(re)presentable characteristics have fostered a new scepticism today which
indeed
(Rancière,
is
2009:
a
result
95).
of
the
Therefore,
76
rampant it
is
reliance
important
in to
the
past
carry
the
discussions forward in order to gain insight about their exercises in practice. Spectacle, as a game of sophisticated relationships that is played
between
visible
and
invisible;
spoken
and
unspoken
is
an
alteration that occurs in this chain (Rancière, 2009: 87). It is a constituent of a mechanism which creates a sense of reality and a certain commonsense as a ‘sensible data’ which is an association of things of which visibilities, conceptions and imputed meanings are shared
by
everyone.
Therefore
the
question
is
not
to
institute
a
contrast between the reality and its patterns; but to constitute new realities, new forms of commonsense and thereby other mechanisms of space-time continuum, other words and things and other associations of forms and meanings. This work of constituting is not only composed of storytelling,
but
also
consisted
of
fictions
that
can
build
new
relationships between words and images, saying and writing; here and there; and then and now (Rancière, 2009: 94). With respect to this approach that intends to reconstruct new meanings and associations in conveying expressions over and over again, the relationship between spectacle and spectator is also essential to be reformulated regarding the notion of (re)presentation and their distance to each other as well as to content. Rancière claims that this is only possible via “emancipation” of spectator; while emancipation is only possible via the vagueness of boundaries between actors and spectators as well as individuals
and
members
of
a
collective 77
(Rancière,
2009:23)
This
process of blurring the boundaries is a significant one since to be a spectator does not imply passiveness that compels us to become active, but it is our normal state of being; because every spectator is the actor in her own story while every actor is the spectator of the same story at the same time (Rancière, 2009:22) However, this emancipation lies behind not only positions of agents but also behind the explanandum and the construction of reel and fiction. The criss-cross threading of real and fiction entails possible divergence both within the work and among the actors and spectators; therefore this divergence brings about contingent mediums for
new
subject
debates and
exercises.
that
object Moreover,
comprise relations, it
new
forms
and
reveals
new itself
of
interconnections,
instances not
for
only
in
new
political imagery
representation, but also in performative, artefactual or conceptual ones. For instance, the similar concerns were propounded by Brecht in his
epic
(dialectic)
theatre
(1927)
in
which
the
criticism
of
capitalist and class society was made not via manipulation, agitation and
superficial
scenes;
distinction,
thereby
relationship;
hence,
but
via
destruction aforesaid
alienation, of
revelation
determinist
reconstruction
of
and
cause-effect meanings
and
alternative ways for the political discourse could have been possible. In time, this remote form of representation has reversed into the ‘close’ in participatory and recently interactive one particularly in stage & performing arts as well as fine arts by being fed by design as 78
well. This desire of creating ‘interactions’ among people through an art or design work and making them ‘collaborate’ or ‘participate’ either in the process or in the result of the work celebrates the removal
of
the
distance
between
the
work
and
the
spectator;
nevertheless the content is at risk of remaining in the background. Especially in recent artworks, which have also been consolidated with the
conception
of
Relational
Aesthetics
participation has reached its climax
19
(1998)
the
prevalence
of
– sometimes merely to invite
people meet and integrate; sometimes to open up new debates among participants regarding a certain issue, sometimes to build something in
collaboration.
Here,
the
aim
is
not
to
incise
the
different
artistic conceptions, but it is important to mention the fact that today participation, as a new form of spectatorship, has almost taken the
place
of
imagery
representation
and
incorporated
the
physical
manifestation to the visual one. Displaying the Practice on the Stage Since
these
concerns
about
mere
imagery
representation
of
sufferings and redundant forms of spectatorship were another central questions in this research project, the decisions about staging the work that has already been practiced in another country (Turkey) and that has been brought to another physical and contextual conditions (in
an
art
school
in
Sweden)
have
been
made
regarding
this
sensitivity. To put a subject which is particularly ‘sexual harassment in universities in Turkey’ directly into the eyes of spectators of 79
whom big percentage is Swedish or international would have been coarse one; however the same problematic does exist and is experienced in Sweden as well, with its different implications. Therefore, in the exhibition, the possibility of putting what has been done in Turkey as a direct documentary or of setting a stage that would enable people to participate or to interact in order to ‘experience’ the essence of the work
has
been
ignored.
The
reason,
with
respect
also
to
the
aforementioned criticism, is a potential exploitation of sentiments derived
from
the
sufferings
of
‘the
others’,
mystification
or
marginalization of the faraway problems and moreover being at ease with ‘taking part’ in the problem by ‘feeling for’. Instead, the stage for displaying the work is used as another medium regarding also the overall design approach by transferring the information into another language, another discourse, and another kind of intention but the same kind of problematic. So, concisely, how could be possible to open up similar discussions on the issue in another context while losing, expanding and transforming the meanings that have been reconstructed during the practice and the setting. Furthermore, how could these possible debates be expanded into the other forms of expressions and into the other dialects on the way to stimulate
new
forms
of
“counter-pressure”?
As
more
elaborate
explanation can be seen in the following chapter, it is better to put an end to the theory by recalling Sontag’s words for the last time referring to conscious or unconscious audience of other’s pains: 80
“They
need
Content
is
reflective
to no
be
stimulated,
more
engagement
than
jump-started,
one
with
of
these
content
would
again
and
stimulants. require
a
again. A
more
certain
intensity of awareness—just what is weakened by the expectations brought to images disseminated by the media, whose leaching out of
content
contributes
most
to
(Sontag, 2004: 106)
81
the
deadening
of
feeling.�
5.
82
Silence of Academy Silence of Academy is the first fragment of this research work which has been realised in November 2011 and March 2012 20 with women feminist/activist groups in Turkey. Having been initially started in one
small
group
that
has
been
working
on
the
issue
of
sexual
harassment against women, the rest of the project has reached the larger number of participants who are mostly students in different universities in Turkey and work with a more specific problematic which is
sexual
harassment
in
academies.
The
project
has
been
named
regarding the connotations of its both institutional and situational aspects in which “victims” are in most cases subjected to silence and resignation
besides
the
clandestine
silence
by
perpetrators,
authorities or other actors included. To work in such topics as a designer, design researcher or practitioner does not denote a position situated on the borderlines between activism and design discipline, nor does it bring any social or political ground into the field of design. It instead reflects the question different
of
how
way
‘design’
than
it
is
can
be
been
redefined today
–
and
be
regardless
exercised of
its
in
a
modern
applications that feed the invented needs of desires – in order to contribute to ‘activism’ which has indeed become another populist need in society and needs to be reformulated practically. With respect to these intentions, in this project, design that is considered as a language, as a tool, as a medium and mostly and importantly as a 83
political
practice,
has
been
wandering
within
the
boundaries
of
different fields and among people belonging to different disciplines; with the consideration of the fact that the political and the social are not such things that can be detached from the reality in which all those disciplines, thereby design and art, are exercised. Regarding this short brief of subject matters, the project has been substantiated by an elaborate research that comprises wide range of
literature
review
enriched
by
panels
and
conferences;
deep
protracted discussions with people who are involved in the issue in one
way
or
another;
fieldwork
with
activist
groups
that
has
also
defined disciplinar and individual positions in groups; then workshops and their materials both as facilitators and as outcomes; and finally public
interventions
as
‘counter-pressures’.
Inherently,
components of this process have been interconnected to each
all other
meanwhile they have not had a linear flow, but often a concurrent one. Now it is important both to go into more detail in order to slot things into place and to give an overall idea about the process of getting involved into the issue and finalizing it as a concrete work despite
knowing
the
fact
that
it
is
a
never-ending
process
of
struggling. Designer-self / Activist-self / Collective-self In August 2010, a group of feminist activist women who have been exhausted of overwhelming rate of sexual harassment by men decided to 84
get together with the aim of looking for new ways to fight against it. Since the root of the problem is much deeper than it is presented in media and in public discourse, they agreed on proceeding with regular meetings that consist of feminist literature readings, discussions, film
screenings
and
groundworks
for
upcoming
events
such
as
demonstrations, public statements, protestations and celebrations and so forth. These various activities have prompted women not only to become organized well for other prospective actions in the field but also
to
dynamic
know in
each
their
other way
better
of
in
order
developing
to
their
comprehend own
the
politics
group
and
own
decision-making mechanisms. However, it does not mean that the group’s intention is to develop
their
politics
in
the
political
arena
where
many
actors
including major and mainstream organizations have been playing crucial and formal roles, but to act as a civil and unofficial initiative. Furthermore, even though they do not aim at changing policies at first hand,
they
meddle
in
the
public
sustaining
discussions
amongst
especially
around
issue
the
debates; other
of
take
the
feminist
sexual
initiative
activist
harassment;
and
of
groups create
empowerment for each other meanwhile opening the group up for new participants.
The
question
of
empowerment
is
based
on
not
only
supports that they give to each other but also everlasting fierce derived from the urgency of “speak out� against sexual harassment. 21 Moreover, apart from empowering women to speak out any form of abuse 85
in any public sphere such as streets, public transportations, cafĂŠs or restaurants; they also strongly deal with the same problem that exists in educational institutions and workplaces in which everything is much more obscure, clandestine and oppressed due to power relations within them. Hence, the more the necessity of getting to the roots of the problem
has
been
working
on
it
becoming
by
obvious,
structuring
the
the
deeper
discussion
the
group
around
has
been
masculinity,
patriarchy, media manipulations, power relations and the need for reconsideration of all these questions over and over again. With
respect
to
these
foregoing
intentions,
the
group
has
deployed the problem of sexual harassment in the very centre of its definition
in
private
as
well
as
its
perception
in
public
realm.
Especially this slight difference between perception and definition has
been
realized
that
it
needs
scrutinizing
by
means
of
more
elaborate explorations including sharing lived experiences, exchanging similar cases that appear in media and putting more importance into individual contributions that reflect personal skills. Moreover this conjuncture
around
the
individuality
in
a
group
is
intrinsically
related to disciplinary contributions by people belonging to different working fields. For instance, while one of the lawyers in the group was informing the others about the judiciary process and the legal procedures, sociologists and anthropologists were approaching to the issue in terms of human relations and methodologies in fieldworks. In parallel, even though my position in the group as an individual has 86
come long before my professional-self as a “designer”, after getting sure of the non-hierarchal status in the group among participants and their professions, I have left my reluctance and hesitation about using design and decided utilizing and adapting it into the field just like the others do. Furthermore, this situation is also quite relevant to my aforementioned approach about cross-disciplinary collaborations. Besides, during this process of getting involved into a pivotal political issue within one specific group it is significant to mention that my role as a designer has been bifurcate: 1. Designer who has been responsible for visual and technical needs of the group: posters, websites, placards, materials that are going to be used for demonstrations and video works as well as concept developments for some certain tactics or actions. This first designer-being has been exactly equal to the other practitioner activists in the group who have taken several initiatives in order to provide continuance and to make things work without a hitch; therefore there was no question
of
being
an
outsider
as
a
researcher,
but
a
participant from inside. 2. Designer
and
design
researcher
who
has
been
seeking
for
other understandings and forms of “design” as a political practice
and
utilizing
it
for
the
sake
of
the
real
intention. This designer-being has been more in the pursuit of new mechanisms and new implementations of design into the 87
field of activism whilst taking more distance both to the issue and to the group compared to the first one because of the fact that it would not have been that effective to be completely immersed in the mere topic during the research process; therefore it was needed to see the situation as an observer. Although this slight separation, but at the same time correlation, between being a participant and an observer is crucial to scrutinize within the whole process in terms of praxis, it cannot camouflage my other positions in the group which has also been stimulated by the very essence of the subject, by collective subjectivity and by other circumstances
that
have
led
me
to
have
a
political
posture.
In
addition, it is necessary to emphasize that my involvement in the group has started long before I have begun working on this topic under the roof of academy. This is to say that my position has not only been as a mere observer-researcher since the beginning, but it has been partially shaped according to the uprising questions of “what can we do more?� and it has turned into a more systematic study. The Process and the Method As it has been previously mentioned in the chapter on design, one
of
the
most
important
features
of
this
practice-based
design
research was not to take any design methodology for granted since any of them do not suit the implications of such political works. Some 88
prominent design methods such as brainstorming, design thinking or prototyping have already been discarded because during this project has stood out of conventional understanding of design. Moreover, none of the foremost co-design or participatory design methods has been used. This choice of not using any predefined methodology does not mean to spurn all approved procedures, but to coincide with the new approach
to
design
which
is
about
redefining
designer’s
role
in
political works and the process of the praxis that is intertwined with the
notion
of
activism,
collectivism,
participation
and
cross-
disciplinarity as well as with the concern of non-exploitation. Here is better to encapsulate the reasons behind this choice: In most of the design works, because of the very nature of design’s
problem-solving
mission,
designers
and
creative
teams
identify the problem, sketch the plan they are going to use, decide the methods that suit the possible solutions, design, test, redesign, retest, and prototype and get a final result and produce it. Besides, there are also other methods that design practitioners have come up with particularly who work with the participatory and social aspects of
design.
22
However,
regarding
also
aforementioned
criticism
on
privileged status of design, in such works, there is always a designer who stays one step ahead from the rest of the community that takes part in design work and who makes creative decisions for the sake of “the
change”
in
the
social
situation.
In
contrary,
during
this
project, since there was no designer role that has been played as a 89
decision maker, decisions have been made by all actors in the group according
to
the
circumstances
which
have
made
me
an
enabler;
therefore this position has enabled me to analyze the whole process as a set of decision-making which has turned to another kind of method in the end that will be articulated later in this chapter. But for now, it is time to go through some key points: First
of
all,
it
is
important
to
rearticulate
that
my
involvement with the group in Turkey has been longstanding before my concerns
on
the
topic
of
sexual
harassment
have
fallen
under
the
research project in a master thesis. This new “formal� form of my work has
inherently
brought
some
requirements
such
as
methods,
documentations and visual expositions although I have taken decisions to use them just only considering the issue and the people I have been working with. For instance, during our collaborations in November, I have not documented any meetings since other participants did not would like to be recorded in no circumstances. On the other hand, during our intensive works in March, the recording was needed for all of us because we wanted to go back to discussions later on as well as to distribute them to the other women. In the second phase of the research
I
have
used
an
audio
recorder
to
record
the
whole
conversations and a still camera to capture some important scenes meanwhile I have been using a personal notebook in the form of a diary in which I noted everything that I have done with the women during the process by considering both good sides and obstacles of the project. 90
During the period of November 2011, we mostly underwent the process of non-documented activities which were built mostly around the
issue
of
designer-self
sexual has
harassment
worked
in
more
public
on
places.
designing
My
participant-
things
with
the
consideration of the group’s choice. During the process of making posters, stickers, logos, and video works 23 , there were some crucial points
in
which
I
confronted
my
designer-self
and
questioned
my
position over and over again. I would like to share some of those moments of confrontations: “19 November 2011, Meeting Notes […] When I was starting this project, one of my main concerns was to transform the individual to the collective. The determinant was to approach to the issue not as a designer at first, but as an individual. Here I had some difficulties while making it happen, putting it into the practice. It was very hard even to decide a type font for the stickers and logos, because we had different understanding of “aesthetics”. We discussed about the character of a font and of an expression with one of the women for a long time and after. After a while we chose one of those fonts which I did not
really
feel
ok
with,
but
they
did
so.
I
had
the
same
intervention while I was trying to change the images too. I call it “intervention” intentionally because the question of “Who is the interventionist?” is a crucial one; especially while I try to come out of designer shell. It was also very important to come to the end after an antagonist process of making decisions in which 91
there
was
addition,
no I
consensus, really
but
an
appreciated
equilibrium their
of
demands.
self-confidence
In and
straightforwardness. Because many times, in such groups I was given the authority by people who say “…but you are the designer, you should decide…you know better…” But here, it was completely open as I suggested. However, in the beginning I also got very much irritated by their interventions despite the consciousness of my approach. Then I pushed myself to get rid of talking with visual language and the pre-existing knowledge about design. I think it was one of the processes that I needed to undergo […]”
This
process
of
growing
into
some
cooperation
has
been
inevitably challenging but at the same time preparatory for the rest of the works that have been done during March and have been going on in the light of subsequent collective actions and design approaches. The second phase of the research, which has been carried out during
March
harassment
in
was
similarly
institutions
deployed but
around
particularly
the in
issue
of
sexual
universities
that
represent academia. Since the problem has been already appeared in discourse, the main focus of the issue during the activities has been to develop a new policy and a regulation that would comprise new definitions, implementations and sanctions about sexual
harassment.
Having already been working on the issue, during March, I got involved in feminist groups in universities of which members are also active in the group that I have been working with. Considering both the urgency and the delicacy of the issue, we have extended the discussion over a 92
period of week in which we organized a couple of workshops as well as meetings with other women in other universities. There are couple of important points about those workshops and the process that need to be mentioned: -
The
aim
of
the
first
two
workshops
was
to
open
up
new
discussions on both existing policies on sexual harassment in other schools and the prospective policy in the school that we were working in/with. The main intention was to put the
problem
progressions
on
the
before
table
the
for
new
“solutions”
perspectives
as
formal
and
documents
reach to decision makers. Furthermore, especially student activist
women
generate
a
rights
were
doing
collective
of
abused
implicit
document
without
lobbying
which
would
conniving,
in
order
to
protect
the
compromising
or
mediating. -
The workshops were announced in social media, by emails and by posters around the schools. The invitees were all women – and who define themselves as woman – in any university in Turkey who contemplate on the topic of sexual harassment in academies.
-
Although the participation to workshop was not massive in terms
of
everyone,
quantity,
the
especially
participants
share
intensity
when
their 93
the
was
substantial
group’s
experiences
more
dynamic freely
for let and
sincerely. This implicit confidence has also rendered all participants more emancipated from the boundaries of academy ironically whilst talking about the insecurity of academy under the roof of academy. -
Since these two workshops were based on oral discussions and storytelling,
active
participation
by
everyone
could
not
really be reached as a result of difference on speaking skill – as stated previously as a concern in the earlier chapters. However, all these discussions have helped us a lot in our way to produce “something” that would empower both the participants and the other people staying above the fray. Because the question of “What is our role between the zero point where people remain unresponsive or insensitive and the formal prosecution which is only possible with the official actors involved?” is crucial, we have elaborated our
practice
with
more
concrete
outcomes
in
order
to
redefine the problems over and over again and to make the problem visible for also before the other people’s eyes.
Practicing Design and Political as A medium As a requisite consequence, the next workshop which has been initiated
by
me
has
supervened
upon
the
aforementioned
concerns,
regarding the previous workshops and following discussion panels on 94
the
issue.
around
the
Therefore, aim
distributed
to
of
this
workshop
producing
other
a
was
handbook
universities
as
an
particularly that
would
abrupt
and
constructed be
later
on
discomforting
document. Even though the idea of producing a handbook was not a new but a pre-considered one in the group since the beginning, the content and the form of it, as well as the way it has been produced, have been “designed” with respect to overall discussions and the modus operandi of the group. So, the workshop has been performed with a set of decisions: -
In parallel with the long-lasting discussions on the subject of sexual harassment in universities, the theme has been encircled with the problem of “silence” in such cases. Thus, the topic has centred upon more about breaking the silence and speaking out against all the actors that take part in this silence ranging from academia, state or ruling power to individuals and even “victims” themselves.
-
The invitation of workshop has been announced to women, who I had been already working with and who had been familiar to the earlier discussions, through email and social media.
-
I prepared materials for the workshop in order to ease the process of generating outcomes and I preset the materials before
the
workshop
started.
Then,
I
gave
a
short
introduction as a reminder. Although the form had already been
decided
as
a
handbook, 95
pertaining
to
the
former
deliberations on the need for redefinition of “academy” and “harassment”, my suggestion of making a dictionary-handbook got embraced by participants. Then, the process had started. During
the
workshop,
we
did
not
consider
the
outcome
as
a
priority, but rather focused on the process of building the content that would lead the outcome to be more efficient. The content, as a rapid and spontaneous flow of action, has slightly come out as we all were
putting
our
definitions
onto
the
table;
sometimes
as
portraitures, sometimes as narratives and sometimes as expressions. The
words
we
swiftly
put
were
the
ones
that
are
associated
with
“sexual harassment against women in academies” in one way or another; hence strongly linked to power relations, gender issues, oppression, exclusion, silence, pressure, masculinity, patriarchy and so forth. This
unplanned
participants
to
process unveil
of
rapid
their
redefinition
subconscious
has
while
also
enabled
rendering
them
emancipated in expressing, manifesting and revealing their feelings and experiences, sometimes in the form of satire, sometimes triggered by anger.
96
97
The materials that I prepared and brought to the workshop. The second picture shows the cards that participants used for the definitions of the words (one definition per a card) while the third one shows the cards for the words (one word per a card). The rest illustrates the other materials that were ready before the workshop.
98
Stills from the workshop: Women write their definitions and expressions of the words that come to their mind in accordance to the issue of sexual harassment in universities. 99
100
Stills from the workshop: definitions are categorized under the words; words are categorized under the letters.
Following the process of redefinition, reconstruction and renarration of the overall problematic word by word, the next step which was
implying
the
process
of
orchestrating
the
content
as
well
as
technically and aesthetically “designing” the outcome has been once again decided collectively. Although it was me who has undertaken the responsibility materials, components together.
of
“production”
assembling that It
would
means
phase
information take
that
part the
in
which and the
has
objectifying outcome
“after-process”
101
included have
was
gathering
them, been
also
all
chosen
held
in
cooperation;
while
some
of
us
were
producing,
some
of
us
were
distributing it. Apart from all these practical explanations of the work, here, it is time to touch upon the significant points that need to be emphasized regarding my disciplinary approach, the process and the methods that have been used and the praxis itself: 1. The technique that have been experimented in the workshop which has included moment-to-moment writing of what have been said enabled participants to “document� their own process simultaneously; so I call it self-documentation. Even though I used an audio recorder, couple of photo shoots and my personal diary –which I am not going to use for
the
public,
the
way
we
have
documented
ourselves
during the process that also reflected itself in the book as
an
explicit
outcome
is
very
much
coherent
to
my
approach and sensitivity about documenting. 2. Instead of exposing something informative, didactic and educatory as traditional academies do; the content of the book happened to be more spontaneous, self-reflective, and satiric but very direct and even adamant at the same time. On the other hand, this is also a very way of opening new discussions for the rest of the community without prevarication, but with even provocation.
102
3. One of the most important substantiations has revealed on the argument of equal participation by means of different tools. Since I have been claiming that having an aptitude for using different instruments within collectives -such as talking, writing, picturing or drawing-
affect the
group
have
dynamic
and
the
participation,
we
used
different tools that we all felt comfortable with. For instance,
while
in
the
earlier
workshops
some
participants have remained above the fray as a result of their indisposition of substantially getting involved, in the last workshop some told their experiences orally as narrations;
some
framed
their
definitions
in
mere
sentences; some wrote poetic phrases and some used images that have been captured during the process of working on the issue. Therefore, it has given to participants the authorization of expressing themselves effectively. 4. Going parallel with the previous clause, there has also been no practice of consensus, but a different sort of deliberative taken
for
discussed,
exercise. granted
or
sometimes
Decisions
mostly
mediated, antagonised
but and
have
not
been
many
of
them
in
the
end
superimposed without a consensus-based incorporation. 5. The conception of collective narratives has also been the core of all the workshops. Sharing both lived experiences and perspectives by means of conscious participation has 103
sheds many lights on the latent side of the problem. Those shared narratives are also manifested in the book in different forms. With respect to the main intention of this project which has been to redefine the deed of “design” as a medium and to re-exercise it within the realm of the political, this outcome as a dictionarybook
cannot
ramification
be for
a
final the
result,
next
but
practices.
can
only
be
According
a
to
precipitating
this
approach,
design, especially when it is exercised as a political discourse does not have to manifest itself as embodied in an artefact; nor has it to be aesthetically and functionally satisfying the needs of everyone – which is not realistic. In contrary, it should be canalized into other possible mediums, multiplied and tried out as another form of being catalyser, enabler and facilitator in collective-political actions. Therefore, during this research project, design has been fragmentized into -
a setting of workshop including its method;
-
a dictionary-book as an artefact,
-
a
public
installation
intervention of
this
which artefact
is
a
distribution
in
public
libraries; -
a website as a virtual and open-source bridge;
104
and
universities’
-
a performative video work that has been derived from the similar workshop method;
-
Physical
platform
that
is
the
space
of
exhibition
which
comprises different materials in the same space. However, both the method that has been derived from the workshops and the
outcomes
are
open
to
be
multiplied
and
developed
by
the
new
practitioners who work in the same issue in order to reach a wider understanding and exercise in the issue.
105
106
Some words and definitions from the dictionary-book
107
A narration by a participant about the word GYNECOLOGY that takes part in the dictionary
108
A sexist speech by a family consultant that has recently appeared in Turkish media which renders women more oppressed, dependent and aggrieved while also paving the way for abuse
109
The excluded letter section in which many sexist arguments and statements that have
been
emerged
in
the
media
take
place.
This
also
refers
inadmissibility of those arguments and the need to disregard them.
110
to
the
A photo that was captured in the preparation for a demonstration against sexual harassment in same week in which workshops and discussions were on the boil. It reflects another kind of turn of phrase.
111
Academy of Silence As specified in the chapter about staging and spectatorship, the concern
of
bringing
the
documentation
of
a
work
that
belongs
to
different country and different context has resulted in deconstruction and transformation of the work into a new one. Instead of putting the audience
in
the
position
of
“experiencing”
the
other’s
sufferings
through linguistic or imagery translation, the second part of the work called Academy of Silence has been constructed around the argument that some experiences are not conveyable in so far as particularly in precarious conditions there is no realistic point at saying that “put yourself
into
someone
else’s
shoes”.
facile
“understanding”
should
not
search
for
but
conveying,
there
However,
always must
be
this
result
in
other
ways
temptation giving of
up
of the
generating
debates in different forms applied to different circumstances since the same problematic exists in other contexts. Therefore, within the scope
of
this
work,
although
the
implications
of
sexual
abuse
in
academic institutions come out differently both in discourse and in reality, the problem rests in silence regardless of social, political and geographical diversity; thereby in Sweden, in Turkey or any other country. This very intention of putting the same question in another form and in another time-space context has resulted in another one-year research period in Sweden with a group of Swedish artists women one of whom
the
work
has
been
realised 112
in
collaboration
with.
Being
a
feminist
activist
actress
in
Sweden,
Nina
Jeppsson
has
also
been
working on the similar issues by using her own practice and artistic expressions granted
as
tools
perceptions
discursive
milieus
in and
in
order
to
deconstruct
understandings
which
new
by
possible
and
to
redefine
the
putting
audience
in
conversations
could
be
prompted. By considering the same approach, in our work that is a video
work
based
on
two
synchronized
performances,
these
possible
conversations have been built not only between the audience and the work, but also within the work itself, between me and Nina, between Nina and herself, between the dictionary book and the video and within the space the rest of the installation is in. Although
they
belong
to
different
medias
and
different
languages, the process of the video and the dictionary-book has been parallel in terms of structure, method and the form of collaboration. The video work has similarly emerged after extremely long discussion meetings and a workshop, especially the ones regarding the translation of the dictionary book in a non-linguistic wise. During the workshop, we
worked
on
a
different
kind
of
“dictionary”
which
has
been
manifested with a collection of questions define our “silence” in such extreme conditions and a series of individual narratives that break this silence while going parallel with those questions. Although there are many crucial choices and decisions behind the video work and the content, they can be better “understood” by taking the position as an audience or as an “active” actor before the work. 113
However, it is still important to indicate that the reason of why we have chosen video as a media while having used a book before as an artefact
was
more
content-based
than
collaboration
into
consideration,
the
Nina
form
and
I
itself.
have
Taking
searched
our
for
a
common way of expression which in this case is a combination of a performance and a design setting in addition to artistic decisions. Moreover, this video work could be seen as another documentation of the
similar
method
that
has
been
used
in
different
contexts
with
different people. Besides, another important point to mention is that women in Turkey that I have been working with have different ways of expressing themselves, since they come from different disciplines and are activists mostly interested in direct practical interventions in the
field.
On
the
other
hand,
being
an
actress
and
speaking
the
language of art, Nina has a very idiosyncratic way of communicating through
her
conversations
body with
and
gestures
audience.
to
This
express situation
meanings has
and
to
build
definitely
given
another dimension to the work and to the translation by also shifting my position, my use of knowledge, my discourse and my expressions in two different collaborative practices. Apart from the singular works that are embodied in a book, a video work and a blog, Academy of Silence refers rather to a physical platform in the exhibition space in which all these works take place and communicate to each other and to audience by both breaking the silence and putting the audience in a position that would make them 114
silent just like the questions that appear in the screen and make us swallow our own possible answers. Although it is not appealing to all audience, the platform communicates both with the people who
have
already experienced and can grasp the content intuitively and with those who would confront only with the silence and the wildness of the distorted language and writings around the space. While first one would
reinforce
the
empowerment
among
women,
the
second
that
is
representation but more importantly confrontation of the silence would a
new
possible
tool
to
create
counter-pressure
narratives.
115
through
collective
Still from the video: Starting with a touch on the papers.
116
Stills from the video: Left individual narrative; Right: “Are you sure you are ok?�
117
Stills
from
the
video:
Left:
“Map
over
egentligen?”
118
my
dreams”;
Right:
“Hur
mår
du
Stills from the video: “How is this possible.. (in reality)?�
119
A Short Interview with the ‘self’ on Experience Design -
In which respect is your work Experience Design -if you call so? Well, I think that some definitions become over-identified with
their
pioneers.
categorizations
Especially are
in
design,
referred
with
all
people
those who
terms
and
sub-
pre-exercised
and
denominated their works with those categorizations. For instance, as mentioned in design chapter, you can associate Interrogative Design with Wodcizko, Critical Design with Dunne&Raby; even User-Experience Design with Nathan Shedroff and so on and so forth. It does not mean that
these
categories
are
only
identified
with
their
first
practitioners, but they put a reference point in order to designate the discipline and also to expand it for upcoming works. In this case, since Experience Design is also regarded as a discipline under the roof of Konstfack – with the claim of being the first Experience Design program all across the world – it is not contextually possible to detach it from its very origin which is based on I-Cubed economy (information, innovation, intangible), experience economy, leadership, business, productivity, entertainment and marketing and so on (you can visit
the
website
for
more).
Indeed,
these
keywords
are
still
ok
because there are already practitioners who work within the boundaries of
developments
on
human,
technology
and
new
media
such
as
User-
Experience or Interaction Designers. They do well, though. However, here,
the
danger
appears
when
it 120
is
said
that
“it
is
an
open
discipline and we define it all together.” Then, you happen to say that the design exhibition Futurama in 1960 was Experience Design in which designers including Raymond Loewy and Bel Geddes displayed a stunning
experience
for
audience
as
a
journey
in
time
and
space;
meanwhile saying that, let’s say, performance artists Marina Abramovic and
Ulay’s
(Uwe
Laysiepen)
work
Imponderabilia
in
1977
is
also
Experience Design in which they stand nude in the doorway facing each other and force visitors to experience of passing through between them, squeezing and feeling discomfort…Does it make sense?
Shall not
we say that the distinction must lay upon the content, not on the name? Shall not we assert that the question of “what” and “why” is substantial for the essence of a work whilst in Experience Design starts with the justification of “because” – “I want to give some experiences to people”. -
So what about your work then? To
“designing
come new
to
my
approach,
experiences”
I
for
have people
not for
had
any
granted
intention
of
without
any
content. I strongly believe that we have enough experiences which are mostly devastating and overwhelming; that is why I have chosen to work on such experiences that are already built and grounded in the society with a great need of being deconstructed. Therefore, lived experiences have been keystones in my work. It is not “designing experiences” but “designing through experiences” and “deconstructing definitions and 121
the ways people experience them”. It, then, inevitably brings out new mediums that people can experience. -
But you still do not want to name it as ED? No, I cannot.
-
You seem that you never compromise. It is not about compromising; it is about taking a position
against incoherency and defending my practice. It is like to resist putting a cloth on that does not suit you.
-
Ok, but how did you approach to the notion of experience in your work with your concerns then? I like the article The Politics of Experience in which R. D.
Laing puts it into words very mild and slight by saying “…I do not experience your experience. But I experience you as experiencing. I experience
myself
as
experienced
by
you.
And
I
experience
you
as
experiencing yourself as experienced by me. And so on…” This woven convergence enables subjects to come across each other’s experiences but not to slip through. Therefore, in my work, I have thoroughly been aware of the unexperienceablity of the issue that I have been working with,
even
in
the
group
in
which
personal
lived
experiences
were
shared. I also never intent to take the outcomes before audience as if making make them “empathize”, “feel for” or “become aware”; but to put more question, to derange the grounded values and understandings and to drag them into the possible answers regardless they are passive or 122
active
actors.
It
is
very
important
for
me
to
state
that
some
experiences are not for everyone to understand and to feel, but when it
is
directly
linked
to
the
power,
everyone
is
responsible
for
especially extreme experiences in one way or another. This fact always triggers me to do something against those “experience-makers” many times in the field and sometimes in through my own practice. -
Can you call your work as “critical design”, “interrogative design”, “design activism” or such? Is there any name you can attribute
to
your
work
and
any
existing
discipline
you
can
relate to or are you trying to create a new category? My answer is no for each question. It is not only because I do not try to categorize, to classify and to name my practice, but also because
there
account. political,
One
are can
many
differences
inevitably
interrogative,
and
if
we
take
characterize
my
exploratory
and
definitions
work so
as on,
into
critical, but
those
attributions would remain as mere adjectives. Actually I am very much into the possible extensibility of disciplines, but if only works are contextually and contently coherent to their congeners. In this case, if we consider aforementioned sub-categories related to my work, there are definitional, practical and procedural differences as well as the intervention-wise. I rather call what I do as design as a political practice or design as a medium. It is not another category but at least a reference point to identify it. 123
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ENDNOTES
1
Scrutinizing different thinkers’ theories -especially Pierre Bourdieu’s- Liz Frost and Paul Hoggett’s article “Human Agency and Social Suffering” elaborately delineates the conception of social suffering with its different driving forces, categories, agencies and means. For more information on also its sociological and psychological aspects, it is better to check the article and the other sources. 2 Undoubtedly, there are many people that have been being oppressed and exluded as a result of their denial to accept ‘proper’ gender roles in society; not only because of their biologic uncomformity, but also their desire to have an emancipated being both bodily and mentally. Here, it is very much in consideration that the issue of “women” or “being women” is also very much controversial. However, during this project, for the sake of more efficient analysis of a narrowed topic, other forms of discussions are looked aside and it has been decided to focus on “woman” and those who experience of being woman or define themselves as woman. 3 Counter pressure is an invented term that is frequently used in this book and that diverges from “counter-attack” since it rather refers to informal ways of reacting against any form of oppression than “attack” in literal sense. Counter-pressure might preferably destructive but not physical or violent. 4 Some of the prominent ones who have been taken into consideration during this research have been Jacques Rancière’s conception of polis; Chantal Mouffe’s understanding of politics and political; Hannah Arendt’s distribution of politics, political and social and Slavoj Žižek’s post political over politics. 5 Besides her great analyses of totalitarian regimes, problems with bourgeois and human conditions, Hannah Arendt’s separation between private and public, political and social, man and citizen and so on is crucial to scrutinize more. 6 In her article on agonistic pluralism, along her many other inspiring arguments on democracy, Chantal Mouffe articulates what it is meant above: “Antagonism is struggle between enemies, while agonism is struggle between adversaries. We can therefore reformulate our problem by saying that envisaged from the perspective of “agonistic pluralism” the aim of democratic politics is to transform antagonism into agonism. This requires providing channels through which collective passions will be given ways to express themselves over issues, which, while allowing enough possibility for identification, will not construct the opponent as an enemy but as an adversary. An important difference with the model of 131
“deliberative democracy”, is that for “agonistic pluralism”, the prime task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions from the sphere of the public, in order to render a rational consensus possible, but to mobilize those passions towards democratic designs.” (Mouffe, 2000: 16) 7 (Translated from Turkish by the writer. And the translation of the article’s title is “Standing Tall in Hard Times”) p.16. 8 Krzysztof Wodiczko, Critical Vehicles. p.17 9 As a designer and an educator, Victor Papanek was both practically and philosophically active on social, ecological and humanitarian implications of design by claiming that our responsibility as designers very slightly lies upon aesthetics, but mostly on the essential aspects of design. (Papanek, Victor. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. New York: Pantheon Books. 1971) 10 BAVO, a Belgium-based research group on art and activism, takes this problematic further and articulates it: “This societal demand is, in fact, a bogus one, since art’s critical or utopian mandate is simultaneously limited by the constant warning that its activity should remain realistic and especially constructive. Such constructive criticism is, of course, nothing but a coded way of saying that it should not question or undermine the win-win combination of representative democracy and free market economy – the two ‘golden calves’ of this self-acclaimed age of the end of history. If artists do get carried away by their iconoclastic or revolutionary enthusiasm, they are immediately accused of regressing into backward, totalitarian forms of society, preaching anarchy or even paving the way for terrorism.” (BAVO, 2007: 7) 11 It is not a coincidence that some design thinkers such as Fuad-Luke, Thorpe, Fry who write about political means and activism come from originally studies of sustainability. I believe that it is a remark of this ever changing trend of responsible design and its lost faiths on each stop, such as recycling and sustainable products. So, consequently, these people have looked back and forth, have seen the contradictions and have changed the direction into a little bit more contextual investigation. 12 “The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere, MASS MoCA's 2004-2005 summer exhibition, opened May 29, 2004, surveyed recent and current interventionist practices, showcasing the work of 29 artists and collectives, including eight newly commissioned works.” http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=38 13 Retrieved from their website: http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/biography 132
14
For more information about the project: http://www.geobodies.org/books-andtexts/kultur 15 Here the question of what narrative or story is and their various definitions in literature are overlooked since it is not the main issue in this book. There are also numerous techniques and theories for narrative analyses which have been consulted during this project as supports but not as primary concerns. 16 Intersubjectivity is philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytical and sociological term that is mostly encountered as phenomenology. In consideration its various definitions, in this book it briefly suggests that a subject is not a complete identity, but divided and decentred that can be defined just only in accordance to the other ‘selfs’ (which can be considered as ‘objects’ otherwise) and to the world. It inherently includes antagonism since ‘one’ self is always in conflict with the ‘other’ self by the recurring process of constructing and deconstructing. Besides, according to this approach, experiences are intrinsically intersubjective since experiences are also just only dependent on our environments and other selfs that surround us and make us ‘perceive’ them. 17 Young, Iris Marion (2000) Inclusion and Democracy, New York: Oxford University Press; Sanders, Lynn (1997) “Against Deliberation,” Political Theory 25 (3, June): 347-76. The fact that privilege has the licence to ever-speak and to speak for the others, especially masculinity and patriarchy, constitutes the main basis of this work. Particularly the second part of the project questions that licence that should in some cases convert itself into the silence. 18 Hollaback! is conceptually and visually designed campaign which deals with location-based sexual harassment. It has been being spread all across the world by the help of various activities and organizations. For details: http://www.ihollaback.org/ 19 Relational Aesthetics is a conception that has first been brought into the artistic discourse by the curator Nicholas Bourriaud in his book Relational Aesthetics (1998). It refers artistic practices that are theoretically and practically based on human relations and social context. Although it basically departures from the idea of socially engagement in a public space instead of private one, there are many dissident art critics and scholars like Claire Bishop, Grant Kester, Stewart Martin and Kim Charnley who criticize the concept regarding the politics of participation, its political implications and aesthetic competency. 20 One of the main reasons behind the months that have been chosen is the dates of 25th of November and 8th of March. Since 25th November is “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women” and 8th of March is “International Women Day”, during those one week or two weeks periods – 133
sometimes it lasts for a month- a lot of activities are carried out meanwhile debates around gender issues become much more vivid and intense. 21 This concern also projects itself in the group’s identity: its slogan is: “Watch out! Here sexual harassment!” and the graphic depicts a woman shouting aloud the slogan towards a megaphone that is ironically in the form of a witch head: http://dikkat-taciz-var.blogspot.se/ 22 It is important to refer here that my critiques on conventional design methods goes parallel with the ones which have been mentioned in design chapter: design works that claims that they are social, political and democratically participatory, but that uses “the others” and renders the problem popular but unsolved. Otherwise, there are also good methods that have been being applied by practitioners and design researchers; for instance the ones that are initiated by design researchers who work with local communities or craftsmanship. 23 Since these works are a part of the process of getting involved as a designer but not the the work itself, I have decided not to put any images and I keep it short.
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