This approach therefore covers the type of design an 'Anthropocene-aware(?)' designer would tackle, that which isn't necessarily populist, but honest.
TEDTalk:
Evan Fried
Creating 'cool' opportunities for teaching students about force and motion in ways that are engaging and challenging for students.
CREATING WITH NOT FOR PEOPLE
Designing with empathy, optimism, and an open mind.
Iterative. Thrive on incorporating feedback for everything involved to fit their needs. It's about experience and is inter-disciplinary. Provides a common language for us all to work together.
How do we approach problems? By telling the story behind a project he led to reform science education, Evan explains how the philosophy of human centered design can allow us to create solutions for mindful change.
Primary Research
An Example of human-centered design
On a visit to London I attended Pierre Huyghe's exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. This was a shocking example of the way highbrow institutions use animals as a method for depicting the inner psyche, and thus human orientated motives. The exhibition space was filled with hundreds of flies that even infiltrated the bathrooms and shop outside the space due to their nature of flying around through vents and doors.
The space has a horrible stench of death, as visitors, including myself, walked through the space interacting with the flies. Due to the magnitude of them, it was unavoidable to step on some accidentally as you walked around. For me, this sparked a realisation of the many ways humans mindlessly exploit animals in our practices. I asked the people working there where they got the flies from, only to find out they were ordered online, and as they do not get protein, they live their lives in the room, die, and they order more. She said this in a way that seemed she believed it was a nice thing for them, being trapped in a room for the general public to come and step on / swat / squish, in order to spark arousment over a certain artist and his concept of the our own neural networks.
Exhibition Statement:
Pierre Huyghe is one of the world’s leading artists. He creates porous and contingent environments, complex systems in which living and non-living, real and symbolic agents evolve.
‘I don’t want to exhibit something to someone, but rather the reverse: to exhibit someone to something.’ Pierre Huyghe
Although Huyghe intentionally alters the sites in which he works, events and growth are often encouraged to occur without his control. The exhibition is therefore changed irrevocably and unpredictably over the course of the time in which it exists.
For his exhibition at the Serpentine, Huyghe began by selecting a set of images and descriptions and gave them to an individual. As this person recreated these images in their mind, their brain activity was captured by an fMRI scanner, and the data produced was given to a deep neural network, which attempted to reconstruct them, collaging together elements from its own bank of images.
The thousands of attempts of the deep neural network to construct visual representations of a human thought are presented here on large LED screens distributed throughout the gallery. The rhythms and pauses within the succession of images are endlessly modified by conditions in the gallery; sensors detecting light, temperature and humidity levels, the presence of insects, and the gaze of visitors produce a feedback loop.
The conditions of the space are constantly changing and inflecting each other. A community of flies living in the central gallery creates unrepeatable patterns on the domed ceiling as they emerge, grow and learn to fly; areas of the gallery walls have been sanded down, and the dust from the paint of previous exhibitions is tracked across the floor as visitors enter and depart.
Together, these elements make up an ecosystem that loops together human, animal and technological players. Each of these players may be indifferent to the others, but cannot help but affect what becomes visible on the screens as they enter, and after they leave.
‘When what is made is not necessarily due to the artist as the only operator, the only one generating intentions and that instead it’s an ensemble of intelligences, of entities biotic or abiotic, beyond human reach, and that the present situation has no duration, is not addressed to anyone, is indifferent, at that moment perhaps the ritual of the exhibition can self-present.’ Pierre Huyghe in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2018
‘[Huyghe] is not interested in creating fictions, but new realities; the realities he has created have proved unsettlingly visionary.’ ArtReview
Secondary Research
An Example of human-decentred design
'Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is providing exciting new ways to quantify tree and forest structure, particularly above-ground biomass (AGB). We show how TLS can address some of the key uncertainties and limitations of current approaches to estimating AGB based on empirical allometric scaling equations (ASEs) that underpin all large-scale estimates of AGB. TLS provides extremely detailed non-destructive measurements of tree form independent of tree size and shape. We show examples of three-dimensional (3D) TLS measurements from various tropical and temperate forests and describe how the resulting TLS point clouds can be used to produce quantitative 3D models of branch and trunk size, shape and distribution. These models can drastically improve estimates of AGB, provide new, improved large-scale ASEs, and deliver insights into a range of fundamental tree properties related to structure. Large quantities of detailed measurements of individual 3D tree structure also have the potential to open new and exciting avenues of research in areas where difficulties of measurement have until now prevented statistical approaches to detecting and understanding underlying patterns of scaling, form and function. We discuss these opportunities and some of the challenges that remain to be overcome to enable wider adoption of TLS methods.'
The Pussy Hat
Although Huyghe intentionally alters the sites in which he works, events and growth are often encouraged to occur without his control. The exhibition is therefore changed irrevocably and unpredictably over the course of the time in which it exists.
For his exhibition at the Serpentine, Huyghe began by selecting a set of images and descriptions and gave them to an individual. As this person recreated these images in their mind, their brain activity was captured by an fMRI scanner, and the data produced was given to a deep neural network, which attempted to reconstruct them, collaging together elements from its own bank of images.
The thousands of attempts of the deep neural network to construct visual representations of a human thought are presented here on large LED screens distributed throughout the gallery. The rhythms and pauses within the succession of images are endlessly modified by conditions in the gallery; sensors detecting light, temperature and humidity levels, the presence of insects, and the gaze of visitors produce a feedback loop.
The conditions of the space are constantly changing and inflecting each other. A community of flies living in the central gallery creates unrepeatable patterns on the domed ceiling as they emerge, grow and learn to fly; areas of the gallery walls have been sanded down, and the dust from the paint of previous exhibitions is tracked across the floor as visitors enter and depart.
Together, these elements make up an ecosystem that loops together human, animal and technological players. Each of these players may be indifferent to the others, but cannot help but affect what becomes visible on the screens as they enter, and after they leave.
‘When what is made is not necessarily due to the artist as the only operator, the only one generating intentions and that instead it’s an ensemble of intelligences, of entities biotic or abiotic, beyond human reach, and that the present situation has no duration, is not addressed to anyone, is indifferent, at that moment perhaps the ritual of the exhibition can self-present.’ Pierre Huyghe in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2018
‘[Huyghe] is not interested in creating fictions, but new realities; the realities he has created have proved unsettlingly visionary.’ ArtReview
Secondary Research
An Example of human-decentred design
Designer and Goldcrest
Publication Design - Erik Sandelin - Sweden
Publication Design - Erik Sandelin - Sweden
Further non-anthropocentric publication design that challenges
conventional ways-of-thinking is exemplified in Erik Sandelin’s “What about the
birds?” book. Under the notion of human-decentered design, questioning human
exploitation of animals, a ‘silly-yet-profound’ narrative is formed that introduces
more-than-human perspectives on design such as codesign, posthuman theory,
biotechnology and critical animal studies. The plot sees Designer tasked by
Client to build Birdhouse, a visitor centre about bird migration. Designer, who
is trained to “listen to all voices, no matter how tiny”, wants to involve the
birds in the design process. Consisting of two parts: ‘The Story’, an
illustrated tale, and ‘The Notes’, a section offering behind-the-scenes
reflections and pointers for those who seek to further explore
post-anthropocentric creative practices (www.konstfack.se),
the graphic novel offers an alternative insight into human-decentered design.
This is a great practical example furthering the Chthulucene thesis and ideal, whereby all 'critters' and complex assemblages are recognised. It also touches on Christina Desser's inter-migratory projects, whereby the interconnectedness of global migratory systems are highlighted as necessary for housing rich species diversity.
The illustration further aids the design qualities of the book, mimicking children's tales but with juxtaposing content. Such a design decision keeps the book light, but with serif typographic choices that give it a more authoritative feel.
The illustration further aids the design qualities of the book, mimicking children's tales but with juxtaposing content. Such a design decision keeps the book light, but with serif typographic choices that give it a more authoritative feel.
Non-Anthropocentric Design
Terrestrial Laser Scanning
Dr Mathias Disney
UCL, 2017
Laser scanners to measure the precise size of trees, these images produce information that is then gathered and employed to improve the accuracy of evaluation of the amount of carbon biomass stored in forests, data that could potentially be used to halt deforestation.
'Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is providing exciting new ways to quantify tree and forest structure, particularly above-ground biomass (AGB). We show how TLS can address some of the key uncertainties and limitations of current approaches to estimating AGB based on empirical allometric scaling equations (ASEs) that underpin all large-scale estimates of AGB. TLS provides extremely detailed non-destructive measurements of tree form independent of tree size and shape. We show examples of three-dimensional (3D) TLS measurements from various tropical and temperate forests and describe how the resulting TLS point clouds can be used to produce quantitative 3D models of branch and trunk size, shape and distribution. These models can drastically improve estimates of AGB, provide new, improved large-scale ASEs, and deliver insights into a range of fundamental tree properties related to structure. Large quantities of detailed measurements of individual 3D tree structure also have the potential to open new and exciting avenues of research in areas where difficulties of measurement have until now prevented statistical approaches to detecting and understanding underlying patterns of scaling, form and function. We discuss these opportunities and some of the challenges that remain to be overcome to enable wider adoption of TLS methods.'
A great example of minimum effort and maximum output design is the 'pussy hat' designed and created for The Woman’s March on Washington, a civil protest against the Trump administration in 2017 where 500,000 people took part. Responding to Donald Trump’s claim of grabbing women ‘by the pussy’, the simple knitting design was shared online for an all-inclusive audience. The hat has since become an internationally recognised symbol of female solidarity, unitedly challenging the male-centric capitalist political environment of current through a sustainable mode of mass distribution.
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