[Open Design] Open design and it's political dimension
Massimo Menichinelli
massimo.menichinelli at aalto.fi
Wed Apr 10 11:11:01 UTC 2013
Hi all,
many thanks Aitor for the elaborated input and Kat for the great
addition! Also many thanks Aitor for commenting on an existing issue on
GitHub! :)
The issue can be found at the following link:
https://github.com/OpenDesign-WorkingGroup/Open-Design-Definition/issues/6
I've added a comment to the issue as well, I will repost it here:
Many thanks @aitormendez for the long and elaborated suggestion! :)
From it, I would add this text to the Definition (to make it shorter):
"In Open Design projects transparency, collaboration and reusability are
strategies for the emancipation of the individual from the various
powers that try to impose their conditions of existence. This aim could
also be defined as the attempt to balance the forces between large power
structures and individuals, giving back to them the chance to intervene
and participate effectively in the organisation of their own existence."
And I would add a short addition about the impact of design on the
social, economic and environmental dimension (which are linked to all
the definitions and issues in the maker movement about repairing /
recycling and all the activism in the design field about sustainability):
"Open Design should always be considered in its political dimension,
because transparency, collaboration and release of resources are
strategies that do not fully guarantee the balance and social justice by
themselves. Furthermore, by making open design project we will unconver
their political dimension by making everybody aware of the impact on the
social, economic, and environmental dimension of everybody's life."
Maybe this is a bit different and far from what you were writing, but it
is a mix of different issues in the design world.. let me know what you
think!
About the difference Open Design - Free Design (a complex theme): I
don't think it should be part of this definition, if anybody feel the
needs of a Free Design Definition that would probably be another project
(since this is about Open Design)
Br,
Massimo
On 3/19/13 1:42 PM, Kat Braybrooke wrote:
> Hello Aitor,
>
> Thanks for this - quite interesting. Having a background in both
> political science and design, so this is especially fascinating for me -
> do you have more of the speech recorded than the introduction?
>
> This quote I found especially compelling: "Open design should always be
> considered in its political dimension, because transparency,
> collaboration and release of resources are strategies that do not fully
> guarantee the balance and social justice by themselves."
>
> In my own (young!) experience with fields related to transparency and
> collaborative peer-production, I wouldn't say the concept of Open Design
> has often easily fit within such politicised paradigms - but I agree
> that it should.
>
> Extrapolating a passage from Yochai Benkler's famous 'Cos's Penguin, or
> Linux and the Nature of the Firm', one could start to make some
> interesting connections between the two dichotomies you identify -
> namely, the increasing politicisation of such commons-based production
> versus the more functional method: "The advantages of peer production
> are, then, improved identification and allocation of human creativity.
> These advantages appear to have become salient, because human creativity
> itself has become salient. In the domain of information and culture,
> production generally comprises the combination of preexisting
> information/cultural inputs, human creativity, and the physical capital
> necessary to (1) fix ideas and human utterances in media capable of
> storing and communicating them and (2) transmit them. "
>
> Would be interesting to have a further discussion about this!
>
> Kat
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> @kat_braybrooke <http://twitter.com/kat_braybrooke> | kaibray.com
> <http://kaibray.com> | london <http://i48.tinypic.com/wrnux2.jpg>
> local groups <http://okfn.org/local> | open design
> <http://design.okfn.org> | the open book <http://theopenbook.org.uk>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 9:31 AM, Aitor Méndez <aitor at e451.net
> <mailto:aitor at e451.net>> wrote:
>
> Hello everybody. I'm Aitor Méndez, graphic designer from Madrid, Spain.
>
> The following is an introduction of the speech I wrote past year for
> the Open Design and Shared creativity Congress. In this moment I'm
> not totally sure of the role of Open Design in the social structure
> as seems in this introduction, but I think this can be a good
> starting point to talk about political dimension of Open Design:
>
> The politics of language in graphic design.
> Interventon at Open Design and Shared Creativity congress. Madrid
> June 2012.
>
> Introduction:
>
> This presentation aims to be an approach to open design through an
> unusual perspective, language. Open design is, to a large extent,
> the extrapolation of free software’s methods and goals to the field
> of design. Thus it is understandable that its proposals arise from
> tools that enable collaboration and how the results of design work
> can be shared. Language is a fundamental and unavoidable tool in
> design work, and it is surprising that no one, to my knowledge, has
> ever broached the issue of language from the perspective of open design.
>
> But, what is the question that we have to approach? What are free
> software and culture about? Are transparency, collaboration and
> reusability aims by themselves? Most of the approaches and debates
> regarding open design seem to implicitly answer yes, losing sight of
> the fact that transparency, collaboration and reusability are mere
> strategies for a single purpose: the emancipation of the individual
> from the various powers that try to impose their conditions of
> existence. This objective could also be defined as the attempt to
> balance the forces between large power structures and individuals,
> giving back to them the chance to intervene and participate
> effectively in the organisation of their own existence. This
> question, and no other, is the spirit that should guide open design.
> This claim may seem obvious but it is increasingly necessary to pose
> due to the multitude of cases of misappropriation, or rather
> expropriation that the market executes regarding free and open
> strategies. We can see how the market uses free strategies to pursue
> its own ends, very far from equilibrium and social equality claimed
> in the premises of a free cultural movement.
>
> In other words, open design should always be considered in its
> political dimension, because transparency, collaboration and release
> of resources are strategies that do not fully guarantee the balance
> and social justice by themselves.
>
> The dichotomy between these two meanings of open design- the one
> that identifies a political dimension as its purpose and its raison
> d'être, and the one that is merely to implement a range of
> strategies that could also be used to promote the emancipation of
> the individual and, instead, supports their subordination- is, in
> fact, the same as it is given in the field of free software between
> these two meanings "open source" and "free software". It would be
> appropriate, therefore, to address these two areas as open and free
> design layout.
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Massimo Menichinelli
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http://it.linkedin.com/in/massimomenichinelli
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