[Open Design] Open design and it's political dimension

Aitor Méndez aitor at e451.net
Wed Apr 10 11:48:40 UTC 2013


Thanks a lot, Massimo and Kat. These days I will be at Libre Graphics Meeting 2013, here in Madrid and, presumably, without time. I will try to respond the next week. I think this could be a good and interesting debate!

In advance to Kat request, the introduction you mention is a part of an unfinished text. Here you have a schematic briefing of my goals. The unfinished article is by now in spanish. Sorry about my low level of english.

Best,
aitor


-------------------------------------------

1. Introduction. Why this text? with two ideas:
	1.1. Differences between open source and free software applied to open design and free design.
	1.2. What happens with design discussions. Are designers out of the actual debate? Here I try to explain the abandonment of the traditional discussions in design (are this design good or bad and why?) and its substitution by debates about organizational and relationship types.

2. How can we recover the traditional debate about design from free and open design? Here I try to explain:
	2.1. how the traditional debate in design field was about graphic language.
	2.2. How the language operates as a social control tool and, finally,
	2.3. What features should have a graphic language understood from the free culture scope.

3. Strategies and casuistry. Here we look at some aspects that have gone through the discipline of graphic design in recent years and mainly reflected in my work as a graphic designer. The script is structured framing the case studies on specific strategies that are:
	3.1. The production of meaning, with the follow casuistry:
		3.1.1. Campo de relámpagos identity.
		3.1.2.  Nolens Volens magazine.
		3.1.3.  Deluxe art catalog.
		3.1.4. Metanarrative and subtext poster.
	3.2. The pejorative sense and self-criticism, with the follow casuistry:
		3.2.1. Off Limits identity.
		3.2.2. Madrid Abierto identity.
	3.3. Fiction and concealment strategy in graphic language.
		3.3.1. Structuralism and poststructuralism debate in graphic language.
		3.3.2 Madrid Abierto Catalog.
		3.3.3 Nolens Volens magazine.
		3.3.4 Metanarrative and subtext poster.
	3.4. Speak with the language of the others.
		3.4.1. Mantazine
	3.4. Collective construction of identity and graphic language.
		3.4.1. Gracias por la música, book.
		3.4.1. Temporary file.
		3.4.1. Testmadrid identity.
		3.4.1. Lugares de Tránsito identity.

-------------------------------------------




El 10/04/2013, a las 13:11, Massimo Menichinelli escribió:

> 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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>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Massimo Menichinelli
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