Abstract
In Politics of the Everyday, Ezio Manzini, refers to our increasingly common condition of “connected solitude” in which we live in loose social networks and collections of people organized around individualistic ideas and neoliberal economies. Although many past community structures reinforced colonial and inequitable societies, simply transcending these with individuals empowered with technologies for having a voice and networks seems not to provide us with substantial formative agency for community. The paradox of “connected solitude” centers on the critical issue of the interstitials among the individuals, institutions, environments, and occupations of daily living. Here we find dysfunctional connections between everyday activities and the whole of society leaving us with little knowing of how to act beyond the consumer pathways defined by designed products and services. There is a dearth of method, energy, and space to participate in a community of reciprocal living. Our economic, governance, and social structures and processes resist alternatives and leave room for design initiative to either reinforce them or simply provide critique of our living in gathering crisis. Inspired by perspectives of ontological design theory this paper offers a framework of interrelated functions, processes, and flows to serve as a point of departure in constructing alternative practices of designing as a praxis of community flow. The paper illustrates the application of this framework with imagined scenarios based upon existing organizational and social innovation initiatives. This consideration of design is summarized into a set of formative principles of how design practice can activate the interstitials among us.
Presenters
Peter MartinAssistant Professor, Graphic Design, Virginia Commonwealth University Arts Qatar, Qatar
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Design for Community Praxis, Social Innovation, Ontological Design
