This comment was written by Ellizabeth Hunter on 22 Oct 2015.
Week 4
Week 4 Readings
It is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism. Yet alternatives are exactly what we need. -Fredrick Jameson
Chapter One of Speculative Everything points out two key factors. First, we are living in a system that does not work and second, that by using speculative/critical design to imagine alternative futures, we can inspire critical and in depth conversations which may lead to alternative systems.
Chapter Three examines more closely the role that speculative design might play. It gives specific pointers to the “how” of creating such designs. It tells us that we must imagine alternatives to the way things are and create designs which, however likely or unlikely, are viewed as possible so that they might encourage real conversations. Further, the chapter discusses how creating designs which are just outside of present reality can be highly effective because they are more disturbing to the consciousness which must consider why the object does not fit.
While there were many useful tips in this chapter, I was frustrated by the notion of “critical shopping”. for several reasons. First, critical shopping is still shopping. It still feeds a capitalist world view. Second, critical shopping is only an option for one portion of the population. Many people, especially those most marginalized by the current system have little to no options when it comes to the goods they must purchase/consume. Places like Whole Foods and CSAs are an example of this issue. While fresh, local, organic foods may offer reformation to certain elements of the current food system, they completely fail to acknowledge others (such as those mentioned in the Times of Crisis article (discussed below) and they are elitist in nature. Most people in the world lack the access and the resources to make such choices. They are forced to shop in grocery stores, shop in corner stores, live out of food banks, go without, or come up with completely revolutionary approaches such as those used in community gardens. Dunne and Raby tell us that, “all good critical design offers an alternative to how things are” but in the case of critical shopping one must consider how realistics or actually “alternative” such an approach truly is.
In Futuristic Gizmos, Conservative Ideals: On Anachronistic Design by Luiza Prado de o. Martins and Pedro j.s. Vieria de Oliveira, we are confronted with further failures of speculative design as it has manifest thus far. Speculative design has, for the most part, failed to consider the needs/lifestyles/challenges and even existence of people outside of heterosexual, white, cisgendered, first-world, middle class consumers. The problems here are multiple. We cannot heal a world when we only consider the needs of part of that world, but also (and possibly best presented by Gloria Anzaldua in Borderlands) marginalized people from all walks of life have experiences and knowledge which may be much more beneficial to creating real solutions and creating truly revolutionary changes in current systems which are, in actually, damaging the entire planet. For those fully marinated in a capitalist/colonial system, it may be impossible to effectively imagine any real alternative. As Luiza Prado de o. Martins and Pedro j.s. Vieria de Oliveira puts it,
The question is then whether it is possible to expand from these superficial concerns and provide more thoughtful perceptions and analyses of the world. For this to happen, however, it needs to be tested, spread out, modified, re-appropriated, bastardized. scd’s hesitation in acknowledging its problematic stances on issues such as sexism, classism or colonialism, to name a few, need to be called out. Projects promoting and perpetuating oppression should not be tolerated, and those not willing to second-guess their own decisions need to be held accountable for their political decisions. Assuming that the (white, cisgendered, male, European, etc.) gaze is ‘neutral’ or ‘universal’ is not only narrow minded, but also profoundly reactionary. In its ambition for envisioning how technology reflects social change, it assumes a very shallow perspective towards what these social shifts mean; it avoids going deeper into how even our core moral, cultural, even religious values might—or should—change.
Design in a Time of Crisis focuses on the experience of those in developing countries to, “explore the relationships between political, economic or social turmoil and technological developments through a perspective often neglected within the speculative design community” while challenging contemporary speculative design practices and politics. It also points out four characteristics which create increasingly alarming and destructive forces for all humans, animals, and the planet.
All Technology is Proprietary
You Are what You Consume
Surveillance is Desired
Cities as Corporations as Cities
Speculative Design projects such as this:
Are simply not equal to those such as this:
because they fail to consider the majority of the population as well as any critical analysis of the catastrophic issues which our planet, and all of its residents face.
For silence to transform into speech,
sounds and words,
it must first traverse
through our female bodies.
-Gloria Anzaldúa
The chapter from Borderlands, our discussion of it in class, and the article “Constructing Mestiza Consciousness: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Literary Techniques in Borderlands/La Frontera—The New Mestiza” brought about several unexpected events. The first was a significant argument with a more conservative member of my family. Normally he raises his voice and I back down. But if this is the place where I might have power (although it is difficult to see myself as an insider to his world - or a world that is not even really his, but which he has chosen to identify) then it becomes that much more important that I learn to say out loud over and again what I know to be true. So, this time, I did not back down. We fought. It was scary. But I told the truth even though he did not want to hear it.
It was disheartening to realize just how pervasive and racist the language, language which is almost directly quoted from Fox news truly is. There is no room for human stories in this language, no room for complex problems, certainly no room for acknowledging the tremendous devastation that the US has done to Mexico and other countries throughout the world, no room to see where he and I have benefited, become complicit and ignored the struggles of humans who we certainly have more in common with than any any corporate CEO or politician. He kept saying, well, they are here illegally as if breaking the law (in some form or another) was not a daily practice by ourselves and by the vast amount of people we know. But that one line, stated over and over worked like a hypnosis on him and prevented him from seeing that it served not only to allow for an entire network of not so well hidden racist ideologies but that it made him the mouthpiece for a capitalist system he claims to abhor.
Along with this, Borderlands and the reading and discussion surrounding it helped me to see how incredibly valuable the human experience is. I came to school because I felt powerless to create any real change, because I felt like my voice did not matter, and that if I stuck around long enough to put the right letters in front of my name, that I might be able to accomplish something good in my life. Oftentimes, being in college feels very much like it is about ignoring my own history, hiding it away, disowning it. It is encouraging to be introduced to a woman who shows us that it is actually all of that history that makes us experts in our own lives. I am still grateful to be in school and to have been lucky to be born in a time and place and body where that is a possibility for me but I hope that I can also learn to always bring myself along into whatever journeys lie ahead.