What does the notion of 'making to think' encapsulate? How can design serve as a means of comprehending our world? In which ways can we articulate or reimagine our environments with design interventions? The Good Interventions Exhibition’23, building upon the foundations of the inaugural competition and exhibition in 2022 amalgamates the strengths of design and social sciences to tackle questions of power.
Social sciences employ conceptual thinking. Concepts are intangible, descriptive, and relational. Regardless of the methodological, ontological, and epistemological predispositions, social scientists observe, describe, occasionally visualize, and proceed. Could social sciences incorporate design competencies into their study frameworks? How can we think through objects?
Emerging from a pool of 62 design projects, crafted by over 100 designers from 22 design schools and universities across 9 countries, the exhibition's 15 showcased 'Good Interventions' all share a common characteristic: the application of design, arts, and social sciences in concert to address the pressing issues of our era. Â
Story-telling has always been a political act, whether intentional or not. For decades main-stream narratives about people of African heritage living in Australia have perpetuated tropes of nefarious ‘gang members’ or exceptional heroes. What is most dangerous about the status-qou is it’s distortion of our self-perception. The Black Diasporas geolocated-storytelling platform is a more nuanced representation of the 50,000+ of us living in Naarm-Melbourne: our voices telling our stories.
Rising energy prices due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict are posing a serious existential threat to some bakeries in Europe. "Bread Manifesto" highlights the vulnerable livelihoods that have been affected and neglected in the geopolitical conflict by linking the operation of bread processing machines to energy data. The project provides insight into the complexities of raw material production, energy supply and international political relations that underpin bread production.
Caketopia is a gamified way of learning and exploring the impact of platforms in the modern economy. Players create personalized infrastructures (cake recipes) within a platform (the board), experiencing the unpredictable nature of this environment due to changing regulations and economic unrest. Players understand the interdependence of the platform economy, acting as both buyers and sellers and realizing their actions affect the entire dynamics of the game.Â
This project is a master’s thesis exploring how ‘central bank digital currencies’ could enable new policies to achieve the sustainable development goals in Norway. The delivery is an alternative strategic vision consisting of design examples exploring technological possibilities and sustainable economics, and alternative strategic principles for how the Norwegian Central Bank could facilitate for a sustainable transition. The examples are carbon rations, long term contracts, local currencies, and volunteer currency.
If global warming continues at the current rate of 0.18 °C per decade, it will lead to irreversible natural catastrophes that disproportionately affect climate-vulnerable ecosystems by 2050. According to the IPCCC, to limit global temperature rise to under 1.5°C, global greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions must be reduced by 43% by 2030[1]. Studies prove that two-thirds of the global GHG emissions are linked to household consumption
People share millions of pieces of content on social media platforms daily. However, not all this content reaches the end user. The content is analyzed, filtered, deleted, or archived by imperceptible policies of social media platforms set up by people whose agendas, motivations, and actions are usually intentionally obscured. This project spreads awareness of the invisible underpaid human labor behind content moderation in the gig economy.
MicroSentry is an innovative solution to help detect microplastics in our water bodies. Our device is a low-cost and field-deployable in-situ sensor that can be attached to existing infrastructures such as data buoys, research vessels, and piers. It is designed to be used for continuous data collection, providing real-time, representative data that is relevant to scientific research and contamination monitoring for water companies.
Our project enhances healthcare outcomes in Africa through at-home technology. We develop innovative solutions for unique challenges, improving access to quality healthcare. Through user-centered design research and collaboration with local stakeholders, we designed Neomita - a 4-in-1 vital monitoring wearable device called Mita Band, and Neo Software for inventory management. Our holistic approach bridges the healthcare gap, making a positive impact on lives in Africa.
RFID tags are instrumental for supply chain and inventory management. They contain metal antennas and microchips making them costly and resource intensive to make. Due to their short lifespan they contribute to e-waste and CO2 emissions. PulpaTronics develops sustainable alternatives by minimising the amount of resources required and simplifying the manufacturing process. The tags are paper-based, making them compatible with current recycling practices while significantly reducing their price as well.
Redefined-coms explores the possibility of radically redefining personal telecommunication devices to resonate with alternative notions of identity. Mobile telecommunications systems use the unchanging ‘international mobile subscriber identity,’ that bakes in an individualistic notion of identity within this fundamental identifier. Utilizing redefinition design within a counterfactual 1970’s timeline, the project presents three alternative 1970s mobile phones that resonate with social theory, place theory and bundle theory notions of identity.
See Rise is a virtual reality and analog site-specific interactive project that shows the change in environment and effect of sea-level rise in high-density locations in Boston at risk of flooding. This project covers the themes of climate change with specific attention to sea-level rise and analog-digital continuity in placemaking. Engagement occurred in two parts: physical markers at the site delineating the future shoreline, and a VR visualization of the site with the goal of catalyzing the collective memory of the individual to take action on climate change.
The Environmental Citizen’s Playbook: A Catalogue of Ideas for Finding Play and Joy in Everyday Environmental Action.
The climate is changing, but whilst the environmental movement grows, so does concern for wellbeing. To enable lasting engagement we must find new, more sensitive ways to address these critical topics. The Environmental Citizen’s Playbook explores the potential of playfulness and joy within environmentalism, for building resilience and healing within conscious communities. Through imagination, escapism, roleplay and more, the project co-creates speculative ideas to find playfulness in everyday environmental action.
"The Me in Me" is a VR meditation experience that delves into diverse bodily sensations. It encourages self-reflection, as the mind navigates various body parts, reimagining internal feelings. Choreographed dances and five distinct abstract environments create immersive metaphors, conveying intricate body rhythms. Body and mind unity is essential for presence. Through motion and internal awareness, this VR meditation aims to boost body consciousness, aiding beginners in meditation and psychotherapy. It offers a creative avenue for self-exploration.
Weathering Weather is an explorative study that looks at unveiling what is obscured when using numeric weather data. It does this by breaking down our understanding of weather, while simultaneously bringing attention to how we’re all weathering - enduring, living, and changing with weather. It unpacks the many relationships we have with weather, climate, and climate change and proposes alternative ways in which we may understand weather in our everyday lives.
The problem she challenges with this project is that unpaid care work is taken for granted as a woman’s role — easy, unskilled and a product of emotional abstraction. She made an exhibition to name it, describe it, enhance its complexity, and show its strength using data. With this exhibition her goals are to make unpaid care work a topic of debate and define it as an essential work in our society.
Committed to amplifying diverse voices, The New School offers more than a thousand public programs and events each year, providing fresh perspectives and unique learning opportunities. These lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and performances feature prominent and emerging artists, activists, and thought leaders.
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