lectures 2011



This is the model that we are working with, where sustainable practice, ie. that which is best practice, resides in the middle:

This means that responsible, harmonious design, lies at the centre of three large forces, Environmental, Social and Economic. Where these overlap, in optimum form, gives rise to the next generation of responsible design.


It follows then, that a growing business model blossoming in the West, at present, is the Social Enterprise:





 Responsible Design - 
 Harmony Through Design

This page is your learning aid to help bolster ideas, references and links that come up in our meetings and discussions.

The subject is widespread and you are expected to home into the areas that are of interest to you and research these independently.

The classes together are designed to introduce underlying themes and concepts that can help you think about responsible design and irresponsible design and that which is sustainable design, sustainable thinking and sustainable action and that which is not.

Here is our framework and objective:

 We are conceptualizing responsibility and irresponsibility; 

 We are conceptualizing that which is sustainable and that which is unsustainable; 

 We are conceptualizing that which is sustaining and that which is unsustaining; 

 We are conceptualizing what has come before in the West and what is now arising in the overlap between the social, the economic and the environmental: Responsible Design. 


A synopsis of each lecture plus relevant reading and ideas for independent Review, Reflection and Research:

 Harmony Through Design? A Story of the West  

 Day 1 - February 4th 2011 - Lecture 1 

The Introductory Session 

This class introduces you to your tutor and the theme of "Responsible Design" and invites a more accessible title "Harmony through Design? A Story of the West."


It is a diverse and complex subject that covers design, society, culture, psychology, environmentalism, ethics, consumerism, social behavioural patterns, economics, politics, philosophy and sustainability.

It holds European design, culture and thinking at its centre and aims to elucidate contemporary thinking in Responsible Design.

The tutor is a practitioner, trained in Product Design and then Textiles Design (PhD) at the Royal College of Art in London. She is founder of Slow Textiles, a non-profit organisation that develops the health and cultural benefits of craft practice and is Creative Director of the Slow Textiles Group. She a research consultant at Textiles Environment Design (London) and an academic supervisor at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion (London). She has been lecturing for many years.

This opening seminar introduces students to British  terms and definitions that relate to contemporary design, politics, history, sustainability and international affairs so that vocabulary and meaning are clear from the outset. A copy of the lecture can be found on Blackboard.

For independent REVIEW, REFLECTION AND RESEARCH:    


The Unmanageable Consumer by Y Gabriel and T Lang (2006; pages 1 - 24).

Postmodernity by D Lyon (1994; pages 69 - 89).

The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy by N Hertz (2002).

Capitalism as if the World Mattered by J Porritt (2005, pages 65-87).



 Day 2 - 11th February 2011 - Lecture 2 

What Makes People Buy Things?
An Analysis of the Motivations for Buying More Commodities

This lecture is centred around a book called Status Anxiety by British contemporary philosopher, Alain de Botton.

It introduces the unspoken subject of anxiety generated by personal status in relation to visual cultural signs.

Together, we analyse some of de Botton's key points and practice analysing adverts from an emotive viewpoint.

A knowledge of semiotics is presumed, as this lecture aims to build upon semiotics and generate insight into personal responses to cultural signs. 

The aim of this experiential method is to engage the student in an analysis of an object as an "expression of status" and observe the feelings that are evoked when being a witness and or observer to the display of cultural signs and status symbols.

Having watched the Status Anxiety on DVD (or Parts 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5 as found on uTube), students become more aware of the drivers that motivate consumers to buy more goods - frequently, unconsciously. These do not represent the early drivers to acquire stuff when an individual has nothing, but reflect the wants of individuals enmeshed in an established socio-cultural cycle of "keeping up with the Joneses" or status anxiety.

In the documentary, de Botton introduces us to some historical figures in the analysis of the context of this cultural trend. He cites Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) and William James. More coming! 

Please read the book, Status Anxiety, to inform yourself of the entire subject and the 'solutions' to status anxiety. It's an easy, informative and enjoyable read.


 Day 3 - February 18th 2011 - A Film Showing 

  The Corporation (DVD) - An Introduction to the Capitalist Corporation Conceived as Individual and What This Legal Status Expresses and Gives Rise To  

The showing of this DVD is to introduce students to the commercial activity of "externalizing" whilst corporations focus on maximizing profit. 

'Externalities' include the 'invisible' environmental, social and cultural impacts of a corporation's activity that traditionally lie outside of their concern. 

Frequently these are negative, ranging from pollution to the proliferation of hormone disrupters in water.



This map shows the continuous loop of 'externalities', both positive and negative.

As consumers are made more aware of the effects of negative externalizing, a new overarching meaning comes into focus: the corporation as representative of a "doom machine in our search for wealth and prosperity," (see DVD).

With horrific impacts on the natural and human environment - see British Petroleum's recent oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, as example - new meaning and focus is given to the role of accountability, transparency and responsibility in corporate affairs.

The human cost of externalities when a toxic chemical is used on agricultural crops near to human communities.

In terms of our interest in psychology and human behaviours, the documentary employs an interesting tool for measuring the characteristics of the corporation, The Personality Diagnostic Checklist. More coming soon!

Further philosophical and economic reading comes from Tim Jackson's illuminating and informative book, 

Prosperity Without Growth, Economics For A Finite Planet:


Tim Jackson goes on to discuss a design concept called 'Bounded Capabilities':

"This is the most important lesson that a consideration of limits brings to any attempt to conceptualize prosperity. Capabilities for flourishing are a good starting point from which to define what it means to prosper. But this vision needs to be interpreted carefully: not as a set of disembodied freedoms, but as a range of 'bounded capabilities' to live well - within certain clearly defined limits.

"These limits are established in relation to two critical factors. The first is the finite nature of the ecological resources within which life on earth is possible. These resources include the obvious material ones: fossil fuels, minerals, timber, water, land and so on. They also include the regenerative capacity of ecosystems, the diversity of species and the integrity of the atmosphere, the soils and the oceans.

"None of these resources is infinite. Each stands in a complex relationship to the web of life on earth. We may not yet know exactly where all the limits lie. But we know enough to be absolutely sure that, in most cases, even the current level of economic activity is destroying  ecological integrity  and threatening ecosystem functioning, perhaps irreversibly. To ignore these natural bounds to flourishing is to condemn our descendants - and our fellow creatures - to an impoverished planet.

"The second limiting factor on our capability to live well is the scale of the global population. This is simple arithmetic. With a finite pie and any given  level of technology, there is only so much in the way of resources and environmental space to go around.  The bigger the global population the faster we hit the ecological buffers, the smaller the population the lower the pressure on ecological resources. The basic tenet of systems ecology is the reality of life for every other species on the planet. And for those in the poorest nations."







 Day 4 - February 25th 2011 - Lecture 4 

Fashion, Fibre and Sustainability - The Ultimate Guide:

Sustainable Fashion: Your Guide to the Impact of the Fashion and Textile Industry on Our World (a publication by Julia Roebuck, 2011).







For independent REVIEW, REFLECTION AND 

RESEARCH: 





 Day 5 - Independent Study Day and "5 short questions" 

The Independent Study Day is designed to get you thinking about your own areas of interest and future research for Responsible Design.

Two questions are given for you to think about and reflect upon in your notebooks:

What aspect or subject of Responsible Design interests you most, resonates most or have you thought about before (these can be unrelated to what we have covered in class so far)?

If there is one area or case study that you would like to research further, what would this be?

Another set of questions is also given, "5 short questions," for you to demonstrate to the tutor where you're at with your interpretation, insight and fluency with the topic and an opportunity for formal, written feedback.



 Day 6 - Reflect and Review Day Together in Class 












This class is designed to get everybody thinking, talking and listening to their peers. It offers important insights into additional learning such as how you come across, what others understand of you and how they interpret you. This becomes a valuable exercise that is useful to practice throughout your professional life.

We heard an exciting array of sustainability through design projects and interests that the group is engaged in and learnt of the richness and diversity that the group embodies and represents.

The tutor introduced two important new words for you to look at in relation to fast and slow human rhythms and behaviours: hedonic and eudemonic.


On the importance of listening, hearing, learning and intuiting and its relationship with effective design research:




 Day 7 - March 18th 2011 - Review, Reflect and Research   Pointers  

A quick review of "Tutor's Suggestions", the document for group feedback in response to the "5 short questions" assignment, started today's class. Very important material:
















Building Upon the '5 Short Question' for Greater Sophistication of Thought

This document aims to point you towards the next level of sophistication in your thinking and encourage a greater depth of analysis in your Responsible Design studies.

Each of the 5 short questions is addressed with suggestions of references, potential for greater complexity and insights for future research questions.


1      What do you understand by “status anxiety”?

This question aims to gauge reflection on the status anxiety lecture,

“What Makes People Buy Things?
An Analysis of the Motivations for Buying More Commodities.”

It aims to
open out and highlight
areas for future research and the nurturing of future research questions.

So, sophisticated future answers might consider and expand upon the following:

“Status anxiety” is Alain de Botton’s term. He coined in it 2004 and deconstructed it in his book, Status Anxiety.

He gives status anxiety 5 key causes (see Slide 13 of the lecture). These are:

Lovelessness, Snobbery, Expectation, Meritocracy, Dependence.

Lovelessness – this generates anguish, psychological difficulty and possibly, greater dependency on objects and status symbols. Anxious, unsustainable human behaviour.

Snobbery – this generates ‘judging a book by its cover’ attitudes. This means that what appears on the exterior is most important. The inner workings are not important – they are ignored, unacknowledged or denied. This renders snobs more susceptible to status symbols and acquiring them. Anxious, unsustainable human behaviour.

Expectation – what is your relationship with expectations? 

"What do you expect of yourself," Alain de Botton asks?

What are all the factors that contribute to such expectations? 


Do you rely more on external signs of respect when your expectations are high?

If people’s expectations are high are they more likely to buy status symbols to protect them from failure? 


Do these symbols offer real protection? 

What kind of protection do they offer? And what do they offer protection from?

If they protect one from other people’s judgements, do status symbols represent an ongoing cycle of instilling others with shame?

Does this lead to imitation products? 



How do you feel if yours is an imitation product? Are you likely to buy two instead of one? Will you throw them away soon if they break as their quality is likely to be poor?

Will you feel shame and envy when you sit beside someone who has the real version?

What silent dialogue is being exchanged as you sit next to this person?

Will you throw your imitation symbol in the bin later that week because your symbol of status became a symbol of shame?

How does this relate to the growing landfill problems of the 1990s in the West?

How does the symbol relate to your expectations of yourself?




Meritocracy – this means a society where everybody is on an “equal” footing and everyone is expected to ‘succeed’ – like in the concept of the “American Dream”.

When you don’t succeed, does this make you compare your position to your friends and peers more (because you all started as “equal”)?

On a societal level, would this “equal footing” generate more envious feelings and anxiety? And would this stimulate the acquisition of more stuff by everyone in order to keep up appearances?

What affect would this desire for more stuff have on energy consumption and waste volumes?


Dependence – Alain be Botton writes, “workers remain tools in a process in which their own happiness or economic well-being is necessarily incidental. They are the means to profit and never as they might unshakeably long for, at an emotional level, ends in themselves.”



























Reconnecting Work With The Art Of Living article

 from the New Economics Foundation.


What does this mean for you as a future employee? What does it mean for you as a future manager? How might this impact the future of business and future business models? Why is social enterprise a growth business model in the West?






























Having thought about all these aspects of the causes of status anxiety:

If meritocracy, expectation, dependence, snobbery and lovelessness increase in our societies then where does that leave feelings and future behaviours?

What happens when every person in the world comes to follow the same consumerist behaviour?

Do we as designers and design managers encourage the same psycho-economic patterns? 
 Is this a sustainable option? 

How do we think about designing new offerings and systems of behaviour?


2      How might the commercial and ideological promotion of feelings such as envy and guilt relate to sustainability and sustainable design?

This question also relates to lecture 2,

What Makes People Buy Things?
An Analysis of the Motivations for Buying More Commodities.

What is the feeling generated by the luxury car or status symbol?

In class, we identified feelings of “awe”, “desire”, “envy”, “speed”, “challenging”, “annoyance”, “curiosity”, “anger”, “aggressiveness”, “exclusion”, “comparison”, “like an animal”, “prejudice” and “coldness”.

How do these feelings fit with a famous sustainable design quote such as,

“The transition to sustainability is no longer about messages, it’s about activity...
Emitting messages, however clever or evocative they may be, is not the same as helping real people, in real places, change and aspect of their everyday reality” 

by John Thakara in 2009?


Do societies that promote negative attitudes through their mass media,

(a) help their citizens?

(b) help real relating skills and reduce objectifying attitudes as common practice?

(c) slow people down in the acquisition of more goods?

(d) slow people down inside with their need to keep up with the latest product or look?

(e) help reduce energy consumption in the production of goods?

(f) help reduce the mass-production of copy-cat goods?

(g) help reduce carbon emissions?

(h) help reduce material throughputs and waste?


This question originates from Slides 8 and 27 of Lecture 2:

          


Envy what exactly, Gucci?             Guilty of what, Gucci?


In Group Psychology there is an entity called “the anti-group” where a group generates destructive elements as an expression of their own internal status, anguish and regressive core values.

On Friday 18th March, we will look more closely at the anti-group and see if there are parallels we can make with ‘irresponsible’ commercial group behaviour and messaging. 



3    Longterm, what qualities, characteristics and core values does the corporation come to represent when externalities are ignored?

This question relates to Lecture 3 on February 18th,

The Corporation - An Introduction to the Capitalist Corporation conceived as Individual and What this Legal Status Expresses and Gives Rise to


Remember, we are unpacking the question and laying the foundations for future research questions.

Externalities are the effects of pollution, health problems, social problems and environmental problems that arise from industrial activity.

In the film, the narrator renames the corporation an “Externalizing Machine” and a “Doom Machine in our Search for Wealth and Prosperity.”

In the documentary, Dr Robert Hare, a consultant to the FBI on psychopaths, introduces the World Health Organization’s (WHO) official Personality Diagnostic Checklist
(from the WHO’s ICD-10 Document on Mental Disorders,1992).


The characteristics of the ‘corporation as individual’ fit the official list of dysfunctional personality traits, such as,

 “callous unconcern for the feelings of others”,

“incapacity to maintain enduring relationships”,

“deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit” and,

“incapacity to experience guilt.”

It gives many examples of these from Terminator Technology that creates a “suicide seed” so that crops cannot propagate (Monsanto’s “war against evolution” in India) to international companies charging poor people in Bolivia, one of the poorest countries of South America, for water.

How do these personality traits relate to harmonious design and responsibility?

If we take for an example the recent British Petroleum (BP) Gulf of Mexico oil leak disaster that killed human life, killed animal life and caused longterm damaging residual effects for all – are these wise, relational traits that take into account respect for human and environmental life?

How much environmental risk does the “corporation as person” feel happy to take?

If every business in the world operated with these attitudes to human and natural resources where would we be in 50 years’ time? Picture this.

Are there correlations with bully-like personality traits here?

If yes, what motivates a bully?

On www.bullyonline.org it states,

“Bullying...
is a form of abuse, and bullies - and unenlightened employers - often go to great lengths to keep their targets quiet, using threats of disciplinary action, dismissal, and gagging clauses.
What bullies fear most is exposure of their inadequacy and being called publicly to account for their behavior and its consequences. This makes sense when you remember that the purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy, and people who bully to hide their inadequacy are often incompetent.
A bully is a person who,
    has never learnt to accept responsibility for their behaviour;

    wants to enjoy the benefits of living in the adult world, but who is unable and unwilling to accept the responsibilities that are a prerequisite for being part of the adult world;

    abdicates and denies responsibility for their behaviour and its consequences (abdication and denial are common features of bullying);

    is unable and unwilling to recognise the effect of their behaviour on others;

    does not want to know of any other way of behaving;

    is unwilling to recognise that there could be better ways of behaving.

Bullying is obsessive and compulsive.”



4    Give an example (from any source, news story or personal observation) of a company or a government’s action that expresses “callous unconcern for the feelings of others.”


This question also relates to Lecture 3,

The Corporation - An Introduction to the Capitalist Corporation conceived as Individual and What this Legal Status Expresses and Gives Rise to.


The question is aimed to get you thinking about a corporation who may inflict bullying or plundering antics on others – people and or the environment.

The question is aimed at you identifying your own event or incident and beginning to think about the relevance and need and application of ethics, good practice, corporate social responsibility, ethical trade, trade union representation and or sustainable design thinking.


One student gave an example that reported on the Gulf of Mexico disaster and its relationship with Dr Robert Hare’s Personality Diagnostic Checklist.


This is good practice: to create links and freely introduce examples and evidence of what you are writing in any work that you do for the Responsible Design module.


Text Box:  Text Box:



5    If you were standing in the Comme des Garcons store in New York and  were to choose one of their iconic shirts in cotton or polyester, what elements would come to mind in terms of the environmental  impact of your decision?


Comme des Garcons was the first high end fashion company to use polyester for its unique textile design properties in the 1990s and today. Rei Kawakubo, their designer, uses polyester fibre for its unique properties to create an anti-fashion, anti-fast aesthetic.

This question is to get you thinking about the new meanings of materials. Once polyester was considered cheap and nasty and environmentally poor. Today, it has a much lower launder impact than cotton and is recyclable. It is also a micro fibre which makes it very soft; one top fashion designer, Alber Elbaz recently said that his clients thought is was washed silk.

Each of you gave very different answers which conveys how personal each person’s relationship is with interpretations of sustainability and responsible design and how these affect one’s shopping decisions.

One student used a visual layout to describe her thoughts which is an interesting way to describe circular thinking and diverse questions.




For independent REVIEW, REFLECTION AND RESEARCH:    


Springboard Innovation

The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations 

 





An Introduction to the Anti Group - 
Time to Deconstruct the Image























"The essence of man is social, not individual, unconsciously as well as consciously."
(Foulkes) 


What insights can the image give us?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, offers European culture new insights and inroads into the reading of dreams and their meanings for the dawn of the twentieth century:


Please read the book, The Interpretation of Dreams, for the full insights.

The transition of dream to image leads us to consider the image as a form of self-portraiture. This enables us to glean more insights into the artist/designer/originator:

Pandemonium by John Martin, 1825.



What does the image inform us about the corporate 'persona'? 
What 'dream' are they showing us?

DG, S/S 2007.

Is there a relationship between the dark image of a painting and the dark undertones of a corporation's image?

What is being shown?

What is being acted out in the story and its persecutory symbolism?

Is there a psychological structure present of an 'internal persecutor'? 

If yes, can this be related to the bully antics we saw in The Corporation, the unconscious and 'callous unconcern for the feelings of others'?

Could this relate to a punishing psychological structure?



















































































































































The End of the World,1851-3, 
oil painting on canvas by the English painter John Martin.

According to Frances Carey, Deputy Keeper in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, the painting shows "the destruction of Babylon and the material world by natural cataclysm."





























































Victor Schermer, psychologist, introduces the feelings of the 'anti-group':

 "disorganistion, chaos, death, aggression and unknowing 
 are important and hitherto neglected aspects of groups." 

How might 'anti-group' psychology be used to sell product and what is the societal effect?

Call of Duty game advert, Euston Station, 2011.

What are the feelings aroused by this image?

How does the passer-by feel on seeing this image?

Does he have any choice in being exposed to it? How does he feel when he sees it and many others like it every day?

More on attunement, lack of attunement, displacement, denial and adolescent projecive behaviours in the public realm coming after the holidays. 

Here's a taster from the author of The Anti-Group, Morris Nitsun:

"The cultural tragedy is reflected in the personal 
tragedy of the infant with failed maternal support: the tragedy of the infant is reflected in a cultural wasteland of devastation and despair...

In this way, the deepest internal and widest external forms of disintegration interpenetrate at the point of environmental failure. At the dark heart of the anti-group is the dread of insufficiency and, beyond that, extinction."

Are there innate psychological structures that lead to the terror of environmental collapse?

Do the mass media purposefully need to express this collapse? Do they need to keep us in a state of shock?


How do we feel when we are in a state of shock?

Please read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine for full insights.



Day 8 - March 24th 2011 -  A History of the Self in the West 




For a full account of these trends in the 1950s read The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard.





In the documentary we saw such concepts as:


"Keeping the Masses Docile"

"One Dimensional Man"

"Being Somebody Else's Tool"

"The New Expressive Selves"

"The Expressive Self"

"Anything That You Wanted to Be"

"To Challenge the Oppression of the State"

"Unlimited, Everchanging Needs"

"The Triumph of the Self"

"By 1980, 80% of the US population was preoccupied with
the Liberation of the Self"

"Personal Satisfaction"

"Self-indulgence"

"Only the Individual Matters"

"People dependent on business for their identity"

"There is just a bunch of individual people, making individual choices to promote individual well-being"


 How do these relate to sustainable design and the production of goods in a finite ecological world? 



The Personal is the Social:


Medical research on this area:



"The essence of man is social, not individual, unconsciously as well as consciously." 






Emotionally Durable Design -
What Is It and How To Design It



































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In the middle is Sustainable Design. 





Sustainable Design is also Sustainable Thinking.


So far, we have been focussing on the social and economic areas of the trinity.

To recap:

Autocrat - power relations.   Social and Economic. 

Lovelessness - consequences of neglect.   Social and Economic. 

Personality Diagnostic Checklist - the corporation as psychopath.  Social and Economic. 

The anti-group - in group psychology this is an universal entity that embodies "disorganisation, chaos, death and aggression and unknowing".   Social and Economic. 
The anti-group embodies unknowing, disorganisation, chaos, death and aggression. 
The image as portrait of the artist therefore, the advert as portrait of the corporation.  Social and Economic. 

"The Triumph of the Self" - "only the individual matters."  Social and Economic. 




We started to look at the environmental impacts of some of this socio-economic activity.

The Plastic Island:


















The effects of plastic debris on birds:

An albatross filled with plastic. 

It is now an endangered species.
  


An even greater problem we mentioned is the mass of microscopic plastic that whales think is plankton:





And we touched briefly on the little girl with deformed fingers from Endosulfan insecticide spray on agricultural crops:


I didn't mention her classmates:



And so, in the externalities, in the "callous unconcern for the feeling for others", "deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit" and the Personality Diagnostic Checklist, we find the 

Social and Economic + Environmental.


Here are the consequences of all the blind behaviours, the selling, the buying, the shopping, the longing, the anxiety, the aspiration, the envy, the projection and the dream:

Ever-warming waters filled with minute plastic fragments.



 So, if we return to the business of design, when the brand  sells us the product do they tell us that some humans will be born deformed and die from the offer on this little black dress? 




Like this little girl who died at 3 months old of cotton insecticide poisoning:




 Or when we are sold a plastic sofa does the advert mention that some fish and other aquatic creatures will change sex? 


Hormone disrupted fish from plastic manufacturing chemicals in waterways worldwide.



 When a retailer promotes the new lightweight wool collection for spring do they mention a new form of frog comes with it? 




With no legs or maybe six?















Endocrine affected frog from wool sheep farming effluents in European waterways.



 When you're sold a new car does the company mention that a direct result of carbon emissions is the acidification of the ocean? 

Which means no more coral reef and marine biodiversity:






"Landfills around the globe are swollen full of dishwashers, televisions, hairdryers, computers, mobile phones, answer machines, bicycles, food processors and much more."

 Jonathan Chapman, 2005:








 And so, designers responsible for the future, here is a tool that you must engage with, apply and promote: 


Mashall McLuhan's Tetrad Model


Apply this to your thinking and your future projects.






 Dr Emma Neuberg's 
 Top 20 Sustainable Design Methodologies: 


Design For Disassembly

Design Without Waste

Design With Waste

Design For Long-life

Design for Slow (localisation, community, quality, uniqueness)

Design For The Imagination

Design For Subjective Stories

Design For the Integral Shape of a Person

Design For the Colouring of a Person

Design Communication That Makes Myths Visible

Imagine A More Sustainable System and Design That System

Consider the Underlying Stories (politics, power, status, motivation, your politics, your assumptions, your social status)

Design For The Cultural Obsession With The New

Challenge The Status Quo And Their Assumptions

Rethink Materials Especially If They Last Or Don't

With Mindfulness, Pioneer Your Own Techniques

Instil The Human Touch

Address The Non-Relational

Design Systems That Bring People Together In Analogue Form

Design With Biomimetic Structures

Design With Industrial Ecology


One MA Design student at London College of Fashion used biomimetic structures to conceive of a cloth that did not need laundering:



For further, related links:
















After the holidays:



Greed and it health effects

Keeping the Masses Docile

Death by Amusement

And more design resolutions.













Mass Consumerism and Its Health Effects











Dalian, northeast China, 2011.



A hand dipped into the oil-filled sea at Dalian, northeast China, 2011.


So far, we have concentrated on the psychological impact of conspicuous consumption that goes hand in hand with
the mass consumerism machine, as exemplified by
Status Anxiety and adverts like Diesel's global 'Live Fast' campaign:

The narcissism promoted by Live Fast culture where focus is given to surface appearances.



But what about the physical effects on humans?



























After all, we have seen the hormone disrupted fish 
with both testes and ovaries arising
from plastic manufacturing chemicals in waterways worldwide.





Associate Professor of Political Science 
at Rutgers University, 
Cynthia Daniels,
writes,


"There has been scientific evidence that sperm

 counts have been dropping worldwide over 

the past 50 years."








(Taken from her book







Director of the Centre for Reproductive Epidemiology 
at the University of Rochester School of Medecine, 
Shanna Swan, states:


"I think the evidence is growing that chemicals

in the environment do affect a man's sperm 

count. It's probably not universal, but it is 

pretty good evidence for a decline in Western 

countries."


















Shanna Swan's work has shown that certain

 chemicals in the environment - such as those 

associated with plastics and pesticides - seem

to be linked to a lower sperm count in men

 who have been exposed to those chemicals.



We already touched on some of the horrific physical implications arising from pregnancies conceived near cotton fields.

But I haven't shown you the worst human cases.

This boy is born with no arms or legs:



New scientific evidence suggests that a significant part of male hormonal disruption 
takes place in humans while still in the womb, 
absorbing what the mother is taking in: 

through food, water and air.


This includes red meat and, 
in America, 












especially 


















beef:



















"Mothers' beefy diet linked to sons' low sperm count"

reads a New Scientist article:


"Men born between 1949 and 1983 

to women in the US who ate a lot of beef 
while pregnant have significantly lower

sperm counts, a new study shows.

Growth promoters, including sex hormones, 
used in cattle during this period to increase 
yield may have damaged prenatal human 
sperm development, the researchers 
suggest."


"Given the widespread use of hormones to 
stimulate animal growth in the US, the 
findings of this study [are] plausible," 

says toxicologist Alastair Hay 

at the University of Leeds, UK.



Do you remember the Growth Hormones we saw injected into cows in The Corporation?

Monsanto created a hormone product called a 
Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) and injected it into cows to grow bigger and generate more milk.



A 1991 report by Rural Vermont, a non-profit farm advocacy group, revealed serious health problems with the BGH-injected cows that were part of a Monsanto-financed study at the University of Vermont. 

Problems included an alarming rise in the number of deformed calves and dramatic increases in mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of the udder which causes inflammation, swelling and pus and blood secretions into milk. 







On Obesogens (EDCs)













Four hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to a range of health

 effects including sperm damage, thyroid disruption and 

cancer. Halle by Halle Berry, Quicksilver and Jennifer Lopez J.

 Lo Glow each contained seven different chemicals with the 

potential to disrupt the hormone system.








 Shiva Dindyal, a researcher at Imperial College School of Medecine in London, writes 
The Internet Journal of Urology, 2004 Volume 2 Number 1:

There have been a number of studies over the past 15-20 years (listed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10), which suggest that sperm counts in man are on the decline. Since these changes are recent and appear to have occurred internationally, it has been presumed that they reflect adverse effects of environmental or lifestyle factors on the male rather than, for example, genetic changes in susceptibility. If the decrease in sperm counts were to continue at the rate that it is then in a few years we will witness widespread male infertility.

He concludes, shockingly,
"because of human ignorance it seems that for the luxuries of modern life we will have to accept increased outbreaks of cancers and the possible extinction of the human race due to the decrease in fertility of our male species."











We looked at 
expressions of greed 
in terms of 
the plundering of the earth's finite resources 
when we watched The Corporation.

Copper mining in South America.


Today, we will look at 
greed as insatiable appetite 
as expressed through obesity.

In parts of the western world,


Today, we address why (and how it relates to design and design futures).





Literally, it is when you body mass index of fat is over 30%.

But what else is it? What does it represent?





GROUP 1

How does obesity relate to the consumer society?



  air pollution, road safety, societal influences, activity environment, activity behaviour, the media, education, peer pressure, culture, individual psychology, consumption patterns..





GROUP 2

If we look at the graph, we see that America is most obese country in the world; 
why is this?









expectation, meritocracy, dependence, "only the individual matters", "personal satisfaction" prioritised, "people dependent on business for their identity"..


 Alexis de Tocqueville's 
"energized democracy with increased anxiety"












GROUP 3

Why are some areas more obese than others?


Here is their geographic positioning:












GROUP 4







How does hunger relate to expectation, control and celebrity culture (a non-relational culture)?











Woman as Design by Stephen Bayley.










What is obesity an expression of?






vulnerability, autism, despair, education, stasis, insecurity, compulsion, instant gratification, stress, relief, absence, lack, comfort...





Group Psychologist, Morris Nitsun describes the relationship between an emotional hunger and apparent greed:










How do these elements relate to Responsible Design?

How do they relate to Sustainable Design?


Do we design for the symptom or the cause?





The affects of planned obsolescence, perceived obsolescence and conspicuous consumption:






Attunement Game!




The relational.






Things to consider,


Why has obesity shot up in the last 20 years?

What is celebrity?

Why has celebrity shot up in the last 20 years?






Future scenarios and opportunities.


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