OLD NEWS

Notes on the Summer Institute

Earlier this summer I was invited as a mentor, along with Carl DiSalvo, Tad Hirsh, and Stewart Long from Public Lab for a four day workshop to inaugurate the new Collaborative Design MFA program at PNCA. Loosely centered around a site visit to SW Trails with Don Baack, an urban trails activist, it was a hectic and inspirational four days organised by Zack Denfeld, covering four themes as interpreted by the mentors.

DAY ONE:
Carl DiSalvo kicked off the workshop by presenting his work with community groups. Driven by the question: 'What can design contribute to democracy?', he devises new design research strategies while bringing together people around an issue and enabling action through participation.

In the afternoon we took the bus over to SW Portland where Don lead us on a hike through the southwest trails, talking us through the success stories and difficulties faced by the SW Trails group. With a strong desire to take his dog for a walk and nowhere to go, Don is a retiree pet owner turned activist that rallies his local community to build pedestrian trails all around the neighborhood. Although he has gained a lot of support, Don also spoke of NIMBY tendencies from certain trail neighbors. Orchestrated as an experience of field research, the hike was vigorously documented by everyone, and Don obliged by answering incessant questions.



DAY TWO:
The second morning Carl gave a brief introduction to the HCI space, Bruno Latour and how to take nonhuman actors into consideration. He then lead the participants through an Actor Network Mapping exercise. Referring to the previous day's site visit notes and images, each group had to:
1-List factors
2-Create Categories
3-Identify and issue
4-Map that issue
ending up with something a little like this:



Having never seriously used this strategy before, I found it a really compelling model for mapping out complex problems and allowing new connections to be made, simply from spatial relations of the various post-it notes on the wall.

Right before lunch it was my turn, and I started with a presentation of my work and a discussion about how exhibition design can be used as a method of dissemination of complex ideas. After lunch, I zoomed out from the trails to focus on the issue of infrastructure. My talk titled Design Fiction: Prototyping the future discussed architecture fiction and the power of the cultural imaginary. What came true. What was prototyped. And what remains headaches of mindchildren. All the usual suspects were paraded: From Le Coubousier's The Radient City and GM's Futurama to Buckminster Fuller and Superstudio.






However, our obsession with 'progress' and future gazing leaves little room for reflection. Sometimes our dreams come true, but have unexpected consequences.


"A Bennett buggy was a term used in Canada during the Great Depression to describe a car which had its engine and windows taken out and was pulled by a horse." [wikipedia: Bennett buggy ]

Perhaps the way forward is atemporal creative practice. A field of history and futurism merged, cherry-picking from the best examples of humans existing with grace and social justice.

After my talk I turned the participants attention to a tried and true military strategy for future-casting: scenario planning. I asked everyone to use the four quadrants to express their deepest fears and darkest desires as they relate to the future of infrastructure, considering peak oil, climate change, demographic changes and political geography.



The outcomes of these discussion had to be prototyped into props that supported their chosen scenario, resulting in everything from baby production kits to tools that prepare you for an alien landing. Although quick and dirty, this exercise creates tangible artifacts that help to instantiate intangible ideas.



DAY THREE:
Stewart Long from Public Lab came to guide the group through a grassroots mapping exercise. In the morning he presented his experiences with mapping and we discussed what sites would be interesting to map. One of the most compelling features of DIY mapping is the time-based element, demonstrated in the Bucket Brigade's use of the technology to map the beaches of Louisiana after the BP oil spill. This resulted in a community driven effort to monitor the effects of the oil spill, and proved an effective tool for people to be proactive in an overwhelming scenario.

With slightly more humble ambitions four our half-day excursion, we decide to map three locations in the downtown Portland area to get familiar with balloon mapping. The last location was Jameson Square Park, notorious for its the water feature and excitable kids who went crazy at the sight of a massive balloon.





See the resulting maps.

DAY FOUR:
Tad Hirsh presented gaming as a strategy for design thinking and activism. Focusing on three tropes of gaming: learning, deliberation and direct action games, he talked us through a number of examples including his own work at Intel called Waterwars that aims to create better insights into water rights issues in New Mexico as well building empathy amongst various stakeholders. Players can take on a variety of roles, from government officials to farmers. The game also allows players to communicate directly with local government officials via email in response to issues that arise in the game.

He then went on to talk about spatial narratives and mixed reality games, before introducing the participants to GPS Mission. This website allows you to mock up a quick GPS based game, producing a scavenger hunt that others can download onto their smart phone. In groups, the participants created short routes and went out to test the benefits and limitations of spatial games.




Although it was a packed four days, it was great to see the other mentors in action, learn a few new tricks, and meet the incoming students in the MFA Collaborative Design program. I look forward to seeing what kind of work they take on, how their work progresses and how the program develops.

13|09|2011