SILVER LINING / Master Thesis / Contextual Design / DAE / Giorgio Gasco
environmental
conflict between
An inner
SILVER LINING
SILVER LINING An inner conflict between environmental engagement and the freedom of making.
2017/2018 Gasco Giorgio
Master Thesis Contextual design program Design Academy of Eindhoven
Index A story not only about trash
5
(0.0) Introduction 6 (1.0) Anthropocene 13
(1.1) Nature vs human nature
21
(2.0) Problem solving 28 (2.1) Notion of ecologism 34
(2.2) The surplus of ecological awareness
36
(2.3) Design and science 44
(3.0) Alternatives to problem solving, case study
47
Max Lamb 49 Dominic Wilcox 51 Thomas Thwaites 53 (4) Conclusions 59 Bibliography 62 3
A story not only about trash. I was crossing a square in my hometown, Torino. It was late evening and it was becoming dark. I remember when I first noticed the bags. To my eyes, three full extra-large yellow trash bags were shining in the dark like gold nuggets in the middle of some gravel. I walked towards them when I realised there was also a man sitting on a bench right behind. He was leaning down, busy with some papers coming from the bags. Curiosity overcame my diffidence and I approached him, asking what he was carrying in those bags. It turns out it was a real gold mine. “Horse riding game rules are complex,” he replied to me. “They are meant to be. If you bet on the horse number 4, but for some reason it decides not to get out from the stalls, you are supposed to have your money back. But on the screen of the store, it only displays the winning horses. Most of the people at this point already have another ticket in their hands and the old one is here in those bags.” His self-initiated job is to meticulously double-check every single bet in order to find the mistakes that distracted people commit. His salary equates to the collected mistakes committed and, once re-converted in the store, it varies between 900 to 2000 euros per month I thanked him, surprised but satisfied, thinking of how beautiful our society is. This episode is a side story written to introduce the reader to certain critical approach before entering the main argument of the thesis. Gambling is, without any doubt, a dangerous and poorly regarded activity, but, instead of trying to solve the problem or giving in to the temptation, the protagonist developed a lateral thinking strategy that allowed him to discover hidden potentials in it. My research invitesw designers to develop a similar behaviour. Just like the protagonist of the story, my goal is to analyse the scenario of the Anthropocene beyond the current design approaches in order to find new design opportunities. 5
Introduction When I first looked at the mood board that I assembled in order to come up with a topic for my thesis, I faced a world of imagination, colours, weirdness, excess, and extravagance. The created mood board was from
artists,
scenographers,
designers, and photographers. I have been collecting images that caught my attention for their strong contrast between reality and imagination. It is not necessary to be aware of the artists’ real intentions to be trapped in the tension provoked by the uncommon use of proportions, colours, juxtaposition, and materials. These characteristics create an alternative perception of normality by altering or eliminating social, environmental, or physical constraints. The contemporary Chinese artist Tianzhuo Chen, for example, ‘describes his work as an attempt to transcend the self and create 1. Laura Castagnini. “Tianzhuo Chen.” Frieze, Nov. 2015, frieze.com/article/ tianzhuo-chen. Issue 175
‘a state of madness’1. His installations are obscene scenarios characterized by visual excess, absurd costumes, and scenographies. There are recurrent images of the dollar, marijuana, gold jewellery, anime eyes, and masks, symbolic of his idolization of consumerism. In retrospect, by looking at the mood board, I could recognise a
6
G. Gasco, moodboard
a bizarre mashup of fantasies
common language and the aesthetics in which I find myself. I distinguish, for example, a common abundance of details that trap the eyes like horror vacui does in art. This creates a possible bridge between the complexity of the surroundings and my intent of representing it, but what I was missing was content to reflect on, a context. In contrast, last year I came across the topic of the Anthropocene, an aspect that was totally missing in the mood board I created. ‘Like a fly in a room’, with this subject in my mind I couldn’t fully concentrate on the making; a state of confusion and a crisis regarding my position as a designer started. Considering my background in strategic and systemic design with a dominant orientation toward sustainability and also considering my tendency to work mostly with waste or found materials, how is possible that themes like sustainability, recyclability, or climate change were not contemplated in my intuitive vision for the future? The tension between environmental responsibility and the freeness of making, as well as research regarding a personal equilibrium between the two, was the right path to investigate. The desire to conciliate the rational with the instinctive, the moral with abstraction, inspired me to write this thesis. It is the current state of affairs that humans have drastically changed the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. An incredibly long list of catastrophic phenomena are constantly stored in our memories and affect our daily lives, actions, and designs. 11
Many design projects already address this issue by attempting to solve the biggest environmental changes in the world; however, are there any chances of coexistence with climate changes rather than trying to solve these problems? What are all the different reactions to the Anthropocene beyond the current rhetoric of sustainability? The goal of my thesis is to explore the contemporary behaviour of design practices in relation to the scenario proposed by the Anthropocene theory in order to answer to these questions. My intent is, considering the vastness on the topic, initially, to summarise the complex dynamism involved in this system, such as the causes and consequences of the Anthropocene, in order to understand how design has approached these issues. Secondly, with a series of case studies, I research the context in which artists and designers are able to create, free from the burdens brought by ecological responsibilities. This research gives appetite to an impatience of making, which must not lack responsibility but instead re-appropriate the courage of experimenting and the joy of creating.
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The term Anthropocene was first introduced in the year 2000 by Paul Crutzen, a Dutch chemist, and Eugene Stoermer, an American biologist. They defined a new geological era, the post-Holocene, in which the global environment is dominated by human behaviour. The effect of anthropogenic activities, such as carbon dioxide emissions, are the cause of global climate change that “may depart 2. P.J.Crutzen, Geology of mankind, Nature, vol 415, 3 January 2002, p 23.
significantly from natural behaviour for many millennia to come.”2 Environmentalists determined that, starting with the beginning of the industrial revolution and the subsequent nuclear age, human impact reached a new dimension, compared to the Holocene. The evidence of those geological modifications were gathered by groups of scientists and geologists like the Anthropocene Working Group. Below are the 4 main macro-level changes they underlined:
variety of anthropogenic processes such as
colonisation, agriculture, urbanisation and global
warming;
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• erosion and sediment transport associated with a
• the chemical composition of the atmosphere,
oceans and soils, with significant
anthropogenic perturbations of the cycles of
elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus
and various metals;
• environmental conditions generated by
these perturbations which include global warming,
ocean acidification and spreading oceanic 'dead zones'; • the biosphere both on land and in the sea with
resulting habitat loss, predation, species
invasions and the physical/chemical changes noted
above.3
3. The Anthropocene Working Group, Anthropocene Defined, Anthropocene, 20 Apr. 2017, www. theanthropocene. org/anthropocene/.
Among specialists, the concept of the Anthropocene has an extremely broad consensus: as the Australian scientist John Cook observed in 12,000 climate abstracts from 1991 to 2011, of those “expressing a position on [anthropogenic global warming], 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming”.4 During the research on the Anthropocene I step, however, in to many critics and considerations that are certainly worth mentioning for a better understanding. Interested by the title ‘Against the Anthropocene’’ ,on the 12 December 2017 I attended the lecture of the art historian and
4. Cook, John, et. al. “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature.” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 8, no. 2, May 2013, p. 24.
cultural critic TJ. Demos at the Environmental Humanities Centre, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. With surprise I discovered how the assumption of the geological effects of industrial activities on the environment led sociologists, 15
philosophers, and historians to investigate possible parallel causes of this phenomenon rather than assume universal human guilt. Somehow, I felt relieved. Demos critiqued the Anthropocene model as lacking historical and social principles that addressed human diversity. For example, the model does not consider the inequality between occidental countries and other cultures where the relationship with nature is completely different from our own. During
the
lecture,
Demos
presented
several
alternative
interpretations to the Anthropogenic point of view: the Econocene (Norgaard 2013) Gynecene (A.Pirici and R.Voinea 2015), Pyrocene (D.Ballantyne 2015), Technocene (Hornborg 2015), Plastocene, Necrocene, and Catastrocene. One of the most recognised is the Capitalocene by Jason W. Moore. If Paul Crutzen’s theory, on the one side, blames human behaviours in contrast to an innocent nature, the Capitalocene offers a much more complete explanation of the causes of the environmental shifts. “The Capitalocene signifies capitalism as a way of organizing 5. J. W. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, PM Press, 2016 page 6.
nature—as a multispecies, situated, capitalist world-ecology.”5 This concept has been consequently resumed and strengthened by the American professor Donna Haraway, who ironically introduced the term “Chthulucene”. She argues that even if ‘Capitalocene’ offers a better understanding of who benefits and who suffers from the environmental practices, it doesn’t propose any solutions:
16
17
18
Unlike either the Anthropocene or the Capitalocene, the
Chthulucene is made up of ongoing
multispecies stories and practices of becoming with in
times that remain at stake, in precarious times, in which
the world is not finished and the sky has not fallen — yet.6
Haraway suggests a mythological narrative figure, the Chimera, as a symbol of our new era of Chtulhu.
6. D. J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016, ch. 2
This creature, according to Greek Mythology, takes shapes from an assemblage of different organisms. This fictional phenomenon, called endosymbiosis, gives an evolutionary advantage because of an exchange of forces and heritage between the original species. This new attribute enables the figure to survive in a larger number of ecosystems.7 This story is an occasion for Donna Haraway to create a metaphor with our society model: the Chthulucene represents the sympoiesis system in which a stronger nature, in constant relation and sharing between
7. W. E. Krumbein, C. A. Asikainen, L. Margulis, Chimeros and Consciousness. Evolution of the Sensory Self, The MIT Press, Cambridge 2011, p. 3.
individuals, is opposed to an autopoietic system, based on the selfdefinition of the autonomous elements.8 The second system is closer to the Anthropocene concept where nature is a separated subject from humankind and is seen as a resource or land to be occupied, conquered, or preserved. In contrast, the sympoiesis system considers all the creatures on earth for their inner relation with each other.
8. D. J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2016, p.61.
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Donna Haraway therefore proposes the Chthulucene as an epoch made on a net of relations that can evolve together with nature. Mythology is a narrative tool that enabled the American theorist to create new imaginary and lateral thinking, but her concept also testifies that the Anthropocene entered into broader discourse, it was not only limited to geological and stratigraphic researches. Besides the scientific community, the Capitalocene interests a 9. W.J.Autin and J.M Holbrook, Is the Anthropocene an issue of stratigraphy or pop culture?, GSA Today, v. 22, no. 7, 2012, p. 60–61.
broader audience, a ‘popular environmental movement’9 composed of artists, sociologists, philosophers, and also designers that can contribute to the topic. I identify in this last reflection a strong potential for design, not only as a solver of the problems related to geological changes, but as a discipline that can engage this cultural ferment and give space for new reflection, criticism, and discussion.
20
Nature vs human nature “The idea that humans interact with nature is not new, and philosophical ideologies about human responsibility permeate historical thinking”10
Anthropocene offers a concept
fundamentally different from many
precursors. Present human society does
not have a symbiotic relationship
with nature. Humanity now modifies
natural processes, such as biogeochemical
cycles, ocean-atmosphere transfers, and
flux of superficial sediments11
A response to the Anthropocene in the ‘popular environmental movement’, bought, therefore, into the glorification of a pre-industrialization
10. C.Hamilton, Requiem for a species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, Washington, DC, Earthscan, 2010, p. 286.
11 W.Steffen, J.Grinevald, P.Crutzen, and J.McNeill, The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, v. 369, 2011 p. 842–867.
past and the need to re-appropriate a lost, romanticised nature. This consideration points out a contradiction within the relationship D. Friedrich, Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, 1818
between an organism and the environment. On the one hand, the descriptions of ecologists prove that many phenomena, life included, are not under our control. Let’s think of a few examples: illnesses, death, and how physicists cannot reach the high mechanical strength of a slim thread like the spider’s web. 21
On the other hand, what about climate change, pollution, or resource scarcity? We are used to seeing geological changes as something independent from us, but now, on the contrary, with the beginning of the Anthropocene, 12 Timothy Morton, extract from: The Conversation podcast, episode n.10, 11 june 2012 min 6
“geological time crossed human history�12 we are the protagonist of the transition from nature as existence to nature as human creation. With a small exercise, I wanted to investigate this new perception of nature. I took colours and a white canvas and, like an impressionist, I painted a small river that flows near my house. A bottle floating by caught my attention and became part of the surroundings. Plastic seems like it is the lone impurity inside the vegetation, the one human intervention; however, while painting, I realized that, actually, the whole river existed because of a man-made drainage and the plants and the trees existed because of the careful design of an urbanist.
G. Gasco, human nature, 2017
Certainly humans can influence and control the climate, but to what scale? The following chapter attempts to find an answer to this question by analysing how designers approach the biggest climate change issues.
22
By reading the well-established conditions presented by the Anthropocene, an enormous sense of responsibility started to influence my life and therefore my designs. Side by side with the increasing awareness of the catastrophic consequences of the Anthropocene, many designers tackled the discourse with an approach of problem solving, and so did I. The desire to counteract anthropogenic climate change was accomplished first by the politics of sustainability, social campaigns, calls for awareness, and later by geo-engineering studies. In the following chapters, I will describe how designers engage the above-mentioned approaches by confronting my personal experience to it. I can safely say that this research brought me to a totally unexpected conclusion. It was, in fact, for me, the beginning of a transition from a rigid, sustainable practice to the mistrust in the role of designer as problem solver and the hope in lightening my design-making from
Swine studio, Sea chair, 2012
incorrect moral obligations. I remember the first time I approached
the
theme
of
climate change. It was in April 2012 when visiting Salone del Mobile in Lambrate, Milan, I saw Sea Chair by Studio Swine. The fascination for this stool, together with the impressive discovery of the Pacific Garbage Patch, caught my attention and
28
since became an inspiration for my future projects. In the same way, my bachelor design course at Politecnico of like sustainable development and recyclability and named Ecodesign.
From both social
and environmental viewpoints, we embraced the problems
G. Gasco, from umbrella to swimming shorts, 2013
Turin was based on topics
outlined by the Anthropocene in order to minimise the impact of our designs. Quoting the introduction of the Ecodesign master course website:
With its peculiar Systemic Approach [the course] prepares
designers to configure and to manage in its entirety the
activity of designing processes and industrial products
with the purpose of “zero emissions”.13
My bachelor design thesis is fitting in this context; it was a study of sustainable solutions within the relation between the producer and consumer in Rivalta, specifically an attempt to create an urban food strategy that could minimise problems like excess CO2
13. Politecnico di torino, corso in design e comunicazione visiva, Presentation, https://didattica. polito.it/laurea/ design/en/ presentation, Torino, consulted on 25/01/2018
emissions due to disorganised transportation. Brought by this ‘’sustainable flow’’, I started to redefine not only my design practice, but also my lifestyle according to model more responsible behaviour in respect of our planet. When, after graduation, I started working as a product designer, 29
I had to design for clients and commercial purposes, and consequently I became confused about my strong ‘eco-beliefs’. I was facing a world in which economic reasons were playing the decision-making role and sustainability was just a mirage to be part of a trend. Instead of reinforcing my beliefs, though, I enjoyed being free from the heavy moral obligation. Designing without environmental constraints made me step back from my daily sustainable practice and gave me the opportunity to reconsider some aspects of it. During my residency in Fabrica, Arabeschi di Latte, an Italian food design studio, gave me and my team an assignment to reflect on the topic of exoticism and food. Somehow, my bachelor thesis already gave a position on the topic: towards a reconciliation, producers and consumers should encourage local biodiversity instead of turning to far-away producers; however,t the Exotic often comes from afar, and my curiosity prevailed over my ethical thoughts. That is how I started my reflection, by thinking that the exotic is something that changes with time; nothing is exotic forever. We completed the project in a playful way, creating a Macchina exotica 3000, which would make ice cream from the most exotic fruits. Driven by user input, the machine was able to create a different flavour each day according to the most unknown fruit. By looking retrospectively at my bachelor’s work, compared to the later ones, It seems that I was missing a certain capacity of 30
abstraction, specifically that I was too focused on the attempt of up neglecting fantasy and also limited my making in favour of a less impactful solution, especially in the choice of a material. To better define this change of
G. Gasco, Exotic Venice, 2016
solving problems that I ended
perspective, in the following chapters I explain my detachment from the role of designers as problem solvers through a critical analysis of the notion of ecologism, the surplus of ecological awareness, and the relation between designers and scientists.
33
Notion of ecologism Limiting shower time in order to reduce water consumption, opting for a bike instead of a car to avoid increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, or banning plastic bags to reduce waste are certainly not reprehensible acts. But at the same time, those behaviours are not an efficient way to face the Anthropocene. This approach takes the name of Ecologism:
14. T.Savelyeva, J,Park. Ecologism and Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse. In W. Leal (Ed.), 2012, pp 183-192.
Ecologism suggests, demands, and
emphasizes the need for a paradigm
shift in humanity’s relationship with
nature, which should bring about
fundamental changes in societal and
political lives. Ecologism calls for major
changes in very assertive or provocative
terms, and often assigns priority the
survival of nature over man.14
Often, problem solvers refer to sustainability as Ecologism, which brings designers towards dematerialisation or limits production but also limits experimentation and therefore innovation. “Design can no longer serve as an instrument of progress and growth, but must adopt a critical
34
stance and appeal for urgent change�.15 Shocked by this assumption, I started to look into alternative ways of looking at sustainability.
15. A.Van Kesteren et al, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p17
William McDonough and Michael Braungart, respectively
an
American
architect
and
a
German chemist, in the book Upcycle, turned to entrepreneurs with a new business model that discouraged Ecologism in favour of a circular system in which design is not oriented towards minimizing
human
impact,
but
embracing
ecological studies in order to sustainably design for abundance. The book explains how trying to reduce the human footprint is just an attempt to be less bad. “Based on the logic Blame and shame, Ecologism is less damaging but is not changing the system, instead it drain pleasure from life�.16 We try to consume less and produce less, minimizing our waste production, when this is inefficient for both our creativity and the environment.
16. W. McDonough and M.Braungart , The upcycle: beyond sustainability, designing for abundance, North Point Press, 2013, p 32.
With respect of what has been said, what is the intent of Sea Chair from Studio Swine? The stool is removing plastic from the marine environment, but it is not solving the problem of pollution in the ocean. 35
If so, why does this project need to be justified by an ecologistic purpose? Ironically, it makes me think that the more plastic I throw in the sea, the more stools I can produce. Without any doubt, this project was able to raise awareness and denounce the problematic, but is design for awareness the right approach towards the Anthropocene? The surplus of ecological awareness The Anthropocene is not only a period of geological changes, but a moment of selfawareness in which humanity becomes conscious of itself as a planetary force. ‘We’re not only driving global warming and 17. A.Blasdel, A reckoning for our species: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, June 2017, www. theguardian.com/ world/2017/jun/15/ timothy-mortonanthropocenephilosopher.
ecological destruction; we know that we are’.17 For this reason, many social campaigns and data visualisations illustrate the consequences of the Anthropocene, showing us how ‘bad’ we are with imaginary destruction and catastrophes, causes of death, crises, and terror. The recent program ‘good design for a bad world’ initiated by Dezeen, together with the Change Makers exhibition at Boijmans museum, Rotterdam, testifies perfectly how deeply design is concerned about these big issues.
36
I recently had the chance to visit this exhibition. There, more than 50 projects were selected to represent the engagement of designers regarding: ‘scarcity of raw materials, growing social inequality and increasing migration due to conflicts’.18 The incredible Shrinking Man differed from the others because of the absence of a physical
18. A.Van Kesteren et al, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p13,14
product apart from some postcard containing the research. Instead, Arne Hendriks, the artist, was physically present and discussing the project with visitors. His utopian project consists theoretically in exploring the possibility of downsizing people in order to diminish our ecological footprint. Practically, he is creating a dialogue with a specific target of expertise in order to face with them those problematics. ‘I want to change our desires. The first step towards this is the creation of awareness’.19 He believes that his role is to create a dialogue between economists and cancer researchers in order to ‘develop greater knowledge about the area in which healthy growth ends and malign growth begins, and correct this knowledge to the basic unit of life, the cell’.20
19. A.Hendriks, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p31,32 20. A.Hendriks, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p31,32
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Arne Hendriks, just like Donna Haraway argued, critiques
our
current
economic
model
by
comparing it, in this case, to a cancerous growth. Now, this is certainly a project oriented to create
Arne Hendriks, The incredible Shrinking Man, changemakers exhibition, 2018
dialogue and awareness, but is this design? How this project different from the theoretical considerations made by a philosopher or an economist? Hendriks defines himself as an artist, but there are aspects of his methodology that are useful to answer this second question and which are also valid in a design context. His project shows the mutual dependence that science or humanistic studies have with design by creating new challenges for them and at the same time reporting the knowledge acquired to the public. The flexibility of jumping from one discipline to another one in order to create a clear understanding of a situation is unique and typical for the designer. As outlined by the Italian philosopher Franco Berardi in his idea of the present organisation of life, the designer is probably the only figure able to create a ‘conjunctive connection’ between the 38
engineer, the artist, and the economist.21 What I missed in the Shrinking Man project, though, is a conclusion, a good visualization of the knowledge exchanged. When can a design project, designed to generate awareness, be considered successful?
21. F.Berardi, Futurability: Franco “Bifo” Berardi on the Verso Podcast. SoundCloud, 2017, min 22, soundcloud. com/versobooks/ futurability-aconversation-withfranco-bifo-berardi.
The answer goes to the award-winning product designer Christien Meindertsma:
The success of my projects resides in
human connections. One the first times
that the Flax Project was exhibited, At a
certain moment I saw the spinner talking
with the rope-maker; they had recognised
each other from the documentary.(…)
now that these people know each other,
they have rather chance of keeping their
business going.22
Although the described approach offers an
22. C.Meindertsma, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p72
interesting consideration of the role of the designer as a conversationalist able to create successful dialogues between different disciplines, I believe that the Anthropocene is the result of an achieved ecological awareness. Encouraged by this consciousness, the design 43
process should start from the acceptance of our environment towards the creation of a new culture that embeds the changes we have reached. For instance, if in 1850, with the beginning of the industrial revolution, we were unconsciously modifying
the
planet
with
dangerous
consequences for us, what can we do today with full control of this ‘new power’?
23. A.Blasdel, A reckoning for our species: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 June 2017, www. theguardian.com/ world/2017/jun/15/ timothy-mortonanthropocenephilosopher.
Timothy Morton argues that this
reached awareness is the knowledge of
our interdependence with other beings
held assumptions about the separation
between humanity and nature. For him,
this is the defining characteristic of our
times, and it is compelling us to change
our “core ideas of what it means to exist,
what Earth is, what society is”.23
It is starting from this consideration that design should orient itself towards the creation of a visual culture that can satisfy those questions. Design and science Today, a considerable quantity of projects are
44
located in the boundaries between science and design, particularly those that address ecological issues. aFor
material-based
research,
fungi
and
algae seem to be part of the most successful experiments. For example, in the projects of the Dutch studio Klarenbeek & Dros: “In our research, we are concerned with binding carbon to biomass and converting algae into biopolymer�.
24
I cannot hide my fascination for this scientific research but at the same time I have doubts in recognising the honour of the scientific discovery
24. Eric Klarenbeek & Maartje Dros, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017, p50
to the designer but rather the capacity in shifting the use of a certain material in a different context. However, there is certainly space for designers to counteract climate change if they work hand-inhand with specialists. Geoengineering is a new discipline born with the deliberate purpose of creating large-scale interventions in order to neutralise the current carbon emissions. This studies differ from the Upcycle idea of creating a new system with no emissions. Geoengineering
interventions
are
integrated 45
with our current lifestyle and can coexist with our productions. Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change. But let’s have a look at one of the works: the Climeworks,Co2 capture, Zurich, Switzerland
CO2
capture
system created by the Swiss c o m p a n y climeworks is
certainly
doing a great job in ‘cleaning’ the air of excess CO2, but does it really improve the environment? What about the image that it creates in the surroundings- is really this the landscape of the future that we are aiming for? It is in this situation that I observe a possible design intervention to create a new dialogue between environmentalists, geoengineers, and landscape architects in order to improve the original idea of geoengineering.
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Towards the definition of a personal design practice, I analysed 3 case studies that exemplify successful designers that managed, within their designs, to escape from the ecological context without losing environmental engagement. The three different personalities offer adopted methodologies from the context in which they operate. In a more mathematical equation, we can see those 3 designers as part of a set in which the making has more or equal relevance to the environmental engagement, whereas in the ecological problem-solving method, the importance of enjoyment in the making is considered less relevant. I believe, in fact, that the following examples do not have to be seen like a disregard towards environmental issues, but, on the contrary, they constitute a valid alternative to problem solving.
48
Max Lamb (1980) CONTEXT Born in 1980, Max Lamb is a British furniture designer. I have always been jealous of the ability to specialize in a specific sector. Max Lamb’s strength is, in fact, the capacity to transform any idea into a furniture piece. ENVIRONMENTAL ENGAGEMENT VS MAKING Max Lamb does not seem to be participating in the current climate change design debate, although his works aree fully representative of our era and the contemporary design movement. Even if I couldn’t find any explicit comment about sustainability in the choice of material, his clear vision made me reflect on the topic: ‘I like to work with simple, honest materials that last. Things need to be durable’’.25 In a period in which the idea of diminishing the ecological footprint is currently in force, he reacted by creating impactful designs that are able to investigate, interpret, and represent our world. For example, we can often observe in his works the non-finished status of the material that, together with the rawness of the
25. M.Lamb “The Furniture Designer Max Lamb Is at Home with Honest Materials.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes. com/2016/03/16/tmagazine/ design
surfaces, fully takes part of the discourse of the previouslymentioned human versus nature discussion. The transition from undefined into functional well represents this 49
dichotomy. Somehow, he is able to bring industrial materials into a more organic shape and vice versa, giving a geometry to a raw block of stone. This research for a constant equilibrium in the material reaches satisfaction once the product is finished and this leads to a final
Max Lamb, Man, rock, drill, 2015
purity or minimalism. On the one hand, his method of work is dictated by serendipity, a
concept
that
entrusts
the
success of a new discovery to the unexpected and intuitive act of making. On the other hand, the final product returns to be part of something detached from the hand that created it; they are returned to the environment with a different form but almost uncontaminated.
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Dominic Wilcox (1974) CONTEXT Dominic Wilcox was born in Sunderland, UK. He is certainly a multidisciplinary worker; in fact, he defined himself as an inventor, artist, designer, and craftsman. We can, however, restrain his range of action towards the domestic sphere and daily objects. ‘I’ve convinced myself that within everything that surrounds us, there are hundreds of ideas and connections waiting to be found. We just need to look hard enough. Some of my ideas develop from observations on human behaviour and I express them through the objects I create’.26 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGAGEMENT VS MAKING
26 D.Wilcox. Biography, Http:// Dominicwilcox.com.
Just a few weeks ago, I had the chance to listen to one of his lectures in the Design Academy of Eindhoven.27 On this occasion, I realised that Dominic is certainly an inventor but also a problem solver. The scale in which he is willing to solve problems, however, is not
27. 3th of 4 talks within The Body Lecture Series, coordinated by first-year Social Design master students, 2017/2018
compatible with worldwide issues. But thanks to his humour, playfulness, and need for surprise, the extravagant designer is able to offer alternatives to normality. ‘Let’s do the ridiculous. By doing the ridiculous, something else might come of it’.28 His methodology makes him capable of adapting himself to the
28. D.Wilcox. Biography, Http:// Dominicwilcox.com.
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constant changes of the world. Variations on normal is a project that perfectly shows the fantasies of the author and brings the reader into his imaginary world. This made me reflect on the target he refers to; often, his projects are addressed to satisfy his personal curiosity or other’s fantasies, but still with an individualistic perspective, like the ‘inventors project’
D.Wilcox, composition of a chair and a camera bag becoming a sheep.
that aimed primarily to make children’s sketches come true.
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Thomas Thwaites (1980) CONTEXT Thomas
Thwaites
is
an
English
multidisciplinary
designer
fascinated by the complex relationships that people have with their surroundings. In his projects, often, the performance become the protagonist more than the final outcome. The Mise-en-scène created brings the role of design to the border between reality and fiction. ENVIRONMENTAL ENGAGEMENT VS MAKING Thomas Thwaites is definitely not a problem solver; rather, we should define him as a problem maker. His projects perfectly constitute the case in which design is perceived as a tool to represent the relationship between humans and the environment, without any ambitions of problem solving but instead to express a desire for understanding and coexistence. was
accomplished,
for
example, in one of his last projects, the goat man. Thwaites
offers
an
original
solution to escape from the stress of modern life: ‘A holiday from being a human’.
Thomas Thwaites, the goat man, 2017
This
By bringing the environmental issues to a human scale, this project gives voice to unveiled questions that are at the base of humanity’s 53
biggest problems. The honesty that characterizes his concepts is evident also in his thesis, The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance. In this case, we see another distinctive attribute of his style, once again bringing design far from a rational problem-solving approach towards the acceptance of the failure, ‘his concept is so 29 G.Gasco, 3 reasons to believe that thomas thwaites is a legend: The reinterpretation of an extra-ordinary author’s work, 2017 Page 1.
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strong that he fail without defeat’.29 The toaster made from scratch lasted, in fact, for only a few seconds.
(4.0) CONCLUSIONS
With this thesis I had the chance to encounter Chemists, Anthropologists, Philosophers, and many other professions that are able to approach the complexity of the world. All of these disciplines investigate human behaviour, but each of them distinguished themselves by the scale and methodology that they intended to explore with. Design is also one of these disciplines; it is, in fact, an intellectual and physical observation of life and nature and is the discovery of the surroundings through the creation of an artefact. However, it is also capable of creating an interdisciplinary network and supporting innovation through the visual representation of discoveries and ideologies. Once one identifies the context in which the designer can best operate, this thesis suggests a methodology that can find the right balance between environmental engagement and freedom of making. I came to the conclusion that serendipity, irony, and abstraction are the right tools to use towards the acceptance of the climate change that hopefully will not need problem solvers anymore. My fear of being nihilistic has finally vanished.
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Bibliography
P.J.Crutzen, Geology of mankind, Nature, vol 415, 3 January 2002 C. Germak, et al. Uomo al centro del progetto: design per un nuovo umanesimo, Man at the centre of the project: design for a new humanism. Umberto Allemandi & C., 2008. E. Lรถvbrand, et al. Who speaks for the future of Earth? How critical social science can extend the conversation on the Anthropocene. Global Environmental Change, vol. 32, 201 W. McDonough, and Michael Braungart. The upcycle: beyond sustainability, designing for abundance. North Point Press, 2013. T. Michael Charles., and Jane Gray. Morrison. Anthrozoology: Embracing Co-Existence in the Anthropocene. Springer International Publishing, 2017 W. Moore. Jason Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. PM Press/Kairos, 2016 M. Timothy. DARK ECOLOGY: for a logic of future coexistence. Columbia University Press, 2018. A.Van Kesteren et al, changemakers, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2017
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Internet References
S. Baranzoni, Antonio Lucci e Paolo Vignola , L’Antropocene. Fine, medium o sintomo dell’uomo? Lo Sguardo, Rivista di Filosofia., www.losguardo.net/it/antropocene/ 2018 M.Lamb, The Furniture Designer Max Lamb Is at Home with Honest Materials. The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/ t-magazine/design D.Wilcox. Biography, Http://Dominicwilcox.com. 2018
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the freedom of making.
engagement and