Changing the change

This post has been written by Ezio Manzini and Jorge Frascara

Changing the Change ended two weeks ago. Concluding it, we felt enthusiastic: our emotional impression was the one of having participated in a very meaningful event. Now we are two weeks later. We have had the time to recover, rethink and digest the many stimuli … And we are still enthusiastic and convinced that Changing the Change has been a very meaningful event.

Given this enthusiasm a question arises immediately (one that has been asked by may friends): what will the next steps be? Frankly speaking, we don’t know yet: we need some other weeks of rethinking, recovering and discussing. Nevertheless, something, some “next steps”, already appear clearly:

1. A conference is a conference. Paraphrasing Magritte, with this statement we intend to say that we don’t have to ask to a conference more than what a conference can do. And a conference is a mainly a place of exchanges: we say something to others, we listen to others’ thoughts and experiences, and, if it is a good conference, we bring back home something useful in terms of new relationships and ideas. Given that, the only next steps that a conference has to generate are the ones that every participant will take on the basis of the new ideas and relationships that he/she will have brought home.
   In the Changing the Change case, will this happen? Of course we hope so. But it is not up to the organizer to take these steps. It is up to you. The blog in the conference site will remain active (at least for some months): let us know if some of these steps have been taken.
2. A conference is also a book: a collection of papers that permits to those who had not had the opportunity to participate, to have an idea of what had been said at the conference, and get the address of who said it. And so, again, through its proceedings, a good conference may generate ideas and relationships.
   In our case, the conference proceedings have already been published and you can find them on line in the Changing the Change site. Everybody interested can read them and, if very interested, download all the papers.
3. In principle, what has be said in the two previous points could be true for every conference, both the virtual and traditional ones. But traditional conferences have a different potential in terms of community building. In fact, they are places where you bring not only your ideas, but also your body. And this is what, in a successful conference, can make the difference. As everybody knows, physical interactions help the creation of a sense of community.
   Changing the Change was a conference specifically dedicated to designer-researchers who think that sustainability should be the meta-objective of every design research. This large group of researchers has been until now rather weak and invisible. A very positive Changing the Change next step could be the empirical observation that this group has evolved towards a community. If this will be true or not, if this next step will be taken, it is now too early to be said. In this case too, we hope to see something on the Changing the Change Blog.
4. A conference may generate a final document: a text that captures the “conference spirit”. Changing the Change did it too. It produced a document where themes that appeared to the conference participants to be relevant (in the perspective of sustainability) and demanding (in terms design knowledge) are indicated. This document, the Design Research Agenda – Draft 1, clearly could be considered as another “next step” of the conference: the possibility to use the emerging issues that the conference has produced as “attractors,” capable of orienting a multiplicity of on-going and brand new design research programs.
   
   Maybe this document could be seen as the most evident next step of Changing the Change. But its meaning has to be attentively considered and its possible practical implications discussed.

   The Design Research Agenda has been presented in its first version, the Draft 1, as an open and collaborative research program. An open program, because it can be continuously integrated with other ideas and themes. And a collaborative program, because it is based on a p2p approach: each research team can bring its “contents” and consolidate a research line. That is, if it accepts some general visions and simple rules, each research team can bring its programs and its results into the system, contributing to consolidating and, possibly, reorienting some larger streams of research. The aim is moving from a multiplicity of researches in different directions (and incapable of interacting and of creating a clear image of what, as a whole, they are doing) to the possibility of mutually interacting and generating the design knowledge needed to produce larger and stronger visions and proposals.

   As a matter of fact, this same document (the Design Research Agenda - Draft 1) has been generated in a p2p spirit: a series of formalized and informal discussions that, during the three days of the conference, progressively defined the proposed “emerging issues”. In conclusion, we could say that the first next step has been taken during the same conference , and it has produced this draft. Now, the next step is to see if this idea could work. Please, read the Design Research Agenda for Sustainablity text and let us know what you think.

   Thank you!

I think that the Conference should produce, as final document, a design research agenda for sustainability: a short text where emerging themes are focalised and promising directions of research are indicated.

I know that saying this involves some risks: conference final documents are quite common and often they are nothing more than rhetorical declarations of good intentions. This is true. But I think that we have to take this risk: the meeting of a worldwide community of design researchers is, in my view, both a cultural and a political event. And an event like this should leave a trace (in the community’s culture) and give directions (about future steps to be taken). Not only: in a previous design conference (the Cumulus Design Conference in Kyoto of March 28, a declaration was signed – see Yrio Sotamaa in the Newsletter 5). I think that this Declaration, having been signed by a large number of design schools, is not only highly symbolic (having being signed in Kyoto) but also potentially relevant. Now, of course, something has to happen to implement it. The design research agenda for sustainability that I am proposing, in my view, should be considered as one of Kyoto Declaration possible implementations: a document that will have to give research directions in order to develop the necessary design knowledge to make it real. That is, for us, to Change the Change.

In this perspective, some organisational choices involving the Conference and its preparation have been taken to facilitate a process that, in a bottom-up and peer-to-peer spirit, should be able to generate shared ideas. In practical terms, during the first two and half days of the conference, listening to the presented papers, participating to the initial Round Table, talking in the bar or whatever else conference-related conversations take place, the participants will progressively focalise on the themes that, in the Changing the Change perspective, will appear as the most relevant and demanding in terms of design knowledge. In the Conference last session these themes will be discussed in different meetings and, finally, in the general assembly.

In conclusion, in parallel to the selected paper presentations, that is, the “academic stream” (that of course will be the core of the Conference), there will be also a “political stream”: an open space aimed at giving participants more possibilities to interact, to bring their own ideas and to collaborate on the preparation of a final document. This political stream will be a bottom-up process of theme definition oriented to build, in a participatory way, the design research agenda for sustainability” that will be the Conference final output and (hopefully) the first step of some post-conference actions.

In order to concretely move in this direction, this discussion should start now and should regard both the anticipation of some emerging themes and the proposal on how to facilitate, during the Conference, their definition process. These Newsletters and the blog on the CtC Website are places where this discussion could easily happen.

Changing the Change is a moment of intensity in a continuum of action, or this is the way I think it should be, and is the spirit that I see in Ezio’s “Design Research Agenda for Sustainability.” Conferences are very charming occasions: they include nice friends, exciting people, interesting papers, new faces, and enjoyable social events in unfamiliar friendly places. But if they do not become arrival and departure points for a continuing action, and if, in this case, a change in the current changes is not generated, the effort would not make sense.

Will a group be generated as a consequence of the conference, a group that will take the issue of sustainability and design to the capillary circulation of culture internationally? Will a constant flow of communication be generated or intensified, so that like-minded designers, engaged in changing the change could work more in concert? Will the conference provide the necessary drive and the indispensable tools that are needed to develop design research internationally toward a sustainable society?

As a bottom-up event, the organizers can only aim at creating favorable conditions for things to happen. It will be up to the participants to transform the event into a departing point. I agree with Ezio wholeheartedly about the emptyness of manifestos that are not supported by programs of action. It is easy to write nice things; but it is difficult to integrate new challenges into everyone’s agenda, challenges that are certainly worth while, but that need imaginative work and sustained effort. We believe it is possible, and we hope that the conference will make that possibility even stronger, through the exchange of ideas, experiences, visions and tools.

Changing the change is a very “Chinese” theme as China is experiencing such sweeping changes, covering almost all aspects of society, which can hardly be seen in most other countries.

Chinese people are optimistic, most of them believe that the future will be better than today. Local designers also think that they are experiencing a historical era marked by a leap from “Manufacturing China” to “Creative China”. The whole society is being driven by a huge engine called “development”. As a result, people don’t always have enough time to think and rethink in-depth, but such introspection is so necessary when seeking a sustainable future.

This Changing the change conference offers an opportunity for Chinese designers: to rethink and re-evaluate the changes that are happening or have happened in our life-world, no matter whether huge or tiny; to rethink and compare the present physical spaces, social-culture and life styles with what they used to be; to rethink the position, values, trends and possible social responsibilities of design education, design practice and design research.

In this era of globalization, eastern designers are duty-bound to put forward their views on these questions as critical regionalists. Today, sustainable development may be the only universal ethic. To realize this ideal, not only are science and technology needed at product level, but also at the system and the ethical level. We Chinese have to admit in shame that our ancestors lived a far more sustainable life style than we do today. This fact is constantly reminding us that many aspects and changes in our life-world should be re-evaluated and re-designed.

In Chinese, the word “she ji” stands for “design”, and its original meaning was “establish a strategy”. It originated from military affairs. The Chinese “she ji” design system has already been running successfully for thousands of years, long before Le Corbusiers began to teach us what design is and how to design. The most interesting thing is that the softer Chinese “she ji” concept exactly coincides with certain tendencies in today’s design, such as “vision”, “system” or “strategic” design, etc.

In traditional Chinese ideology, human and nature have always been regarded as a whole, the human body and the outside world are both complicated systems sharing many common characteristics. This kind of understanding together with respect and love of nature leads to a world of balance and harmony (the Chinese meaning of “sustainable”). Actually, the traditional philosophy, ways of thinking and life styles which were once rashly abandoned, may exactly meet the needs of sustainable development. Chinese designers should think about this and let the other part of this planet know what and how they are thinking and doing. On this level, “design research” is not only a tool for designers to think, explore and solve problems, not only a tool to criticize and introspect, but also more of a language to communicate with other worldwide designers.

China is experiencing the most rapid change in the world, and at the same time, China may also be the ideal place to realize any strategies for change. All we have to do now is to find and to “she (set up )” a right and good “ji” “vision and strategy”, not only for the design discipline itself but also for the whole human world?