third day – final thoughts

Final day of the course, dynamic systems, group presentations and discussions... The course was short, but intense and, at least for me, very useful.
In this last post I want to talk about the results I got from the course and relate them to the group presentations and my future expectations concerning sustainability and social design (my focus area).

First of all, this contact with the theory about system thinking allowed me to get a wider view our actions in the world and also how complex systems are organized, what leads them to collapse and how does it goes after collapsing.

If I can say one specific way that it really helped me, is the following: When Sustainable development started to became more wide spread, they said “think global, act local”. What means that we can’t, alone, change the entire world, but that, if each of us make our part, we can. But then, during the last years people started to talk about the “wicked problems” and saying that they are very complex, that they can’t be solved through only one solution, that for that, we should have many initiatives from many different sides to tackle it and so on; Hence, that is almost impossible to solve them. But now, with the vision of systemic thinking, especially with the concepts of “complex systems” and “levels”, I can see that, no matter how “wicked” a problem is, we can “break” it into smaller pieces so that we can find a level which is within our part. What means that, step by step, we can make the change.

I’m not going into systems theory in this post, but I must say that I’ll continue researching about that, especially because my area of interest in design is “social design” concerning initiatives to bring equality and development to the underprivileged population; and, therefore, been able to understand the system where a given community is located, how it works, which relations it has, the levels, the incomes and outcomes and so on and do forth is crucial to this kind of work.

One think that I learned in this course is that there is much more things to learn about, so, citing Socrates, I would say that, the more I know “I know that I know nothing”; and this keeps me interested in continue learning...

Thank you Gary for the course!  

Complex systems, chaos, hierarchy and panarchy

After the lecture and the articles “Confronting Economic Profit with Hierarchy Theory” by Allen et al. and “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological and Social Systems” by C. S. Holling and the video “Beyond Markets and States” by Ostrom, Elinor; I want to talk a bit about what I learned about complex systems. I hope I’m on the right way to understand System Thinking and how to look at the “change” that our society has to go through to create a “Sustainable community”.

“Complexity is different from Chaos” Elinor Ostrom

As the quotation (extracted from the video) says, “complexity” and “chaos” are completely different things; because “complexity” is, actually, organized. What it means is that we can analyze complexity by dividing it in smaller pieces. But there is a huge difference between “analyzing” complexity and “organizing” it, this leads us to de ideas of Hierarchy. And the results presented either on the video and on the articles, shows that polycentric systems can cope with complexity, what it means is that, when we have many self-organizing, small, pieces in a system, they can became more efficient (faster levels), but for that, communication between the different pieces is really important, so that it can create relations and evolve accordingly.  This also reminded me the “Small is beautiful” book from Schumacher (1970), when he talks about the small scale, where communication and maintenance is easier because you can understand more easily the entire system.

They also talk about the different levels in an Up-Down Hierarchy, and they say that the higher the level, the slower it is (also, the lower the level, the faster it is); because for higher levels, they must spend their energy not only with the role of “experimenting new things within the level” but also with the role of “conserve and stabilize conditions for the lower levels”. (Holling, C. S. op. cit. Simon)

This brings us to the idea of sustaining a system, of growing rigidity until the day it can’t be supported and then collapse. Hollings defines sustainability as “the goal of fostering adaptive capabilities and creating opportunities”; I’m not going through the theory about adaptive systems and so on because I want to enjoy this space to rise some questions:

They say that the adaptive cycle and the future of a system is controlled by the three following characteristics: wealth, controllability and adaptive capacity. Take the economic system for example, by making a relation with all innovative ideas about post-economic era (supported by Domenico de Mase, Tucker Viemeister, and many others), we can see that it is not adaptive to new ideas, that it is just always struggling to keep the old model (getting rigid) going on. Therefore, how long can a system sustain rigidity before collapse?

Continuing in this direction, concerning people who are creating new ideas to change the present society and its systems to a sustainable model (one where we could rise social equality, environmental resilience, and still keep economic issue), how this group should be seen; as the “novel entrants” - who saw (remember) the lessons and models from nature and how it works (equality, interaction, panarchy) – who are entering the rigid system to bring it to the “collapse/change” or as the “potential” of the adaptive cycle been created?

Just to conclude, having in mind the idea of “elements of prescription for facilitating constructive changes “ from Holling’s article, we as designers, should create tools to foment social flexibility, to “teach how to change”, so that our society can have more acceptance to changes. 

System Thinking in design

Through this first contact with System Thinking (ST) theory, I could realize the relations and importance that it has to the design methodology, especially when dealing with sustainability issues.

                Well, let’s go by parts: First, what does ST has do with design? The design process’ outcome (product or service) that I’ll call “result” here, will interact with outside factors, for example, an user, a place, and so on, therefore, a system. It means that this result has to fit in that specific system, it must be acceptable by its different parts and interact with them as good as possible. Therefore, by using ST during the design process we can identify the System where the result will act and which relation it will have within the different parts of that specific system. And by taking this approach, we can improve the design process, making it more conscious about the effect that it will make in a certain system. This can also work to make designers act in a more responsible way in terms of the environmental and social outcomes of their works.

                System thinking is especially important when dealing with sustainability issues through design, because these issues often called “wicked problems”, are multifaceted, what demands a more holistic approach and therefore, also more complex solutions, that can tackle the problem through its most different “sides”.  In this case ST and, especially System Inquiry approach is very useful to understand the entire range and complexity of a specific problem which a designer want’s to tackle.  

               

                What I also understood from the 1^st and 2^nd cluster of articles is that, in most of the times, a “system” is not something pre-defined, but, on the other way, it is defined by the person who is approaching it. It means that, as every system is somehow related and connected with other systems and, as each one is made of subsystems, the “size” of it varies according to the level of “zoom” that you use and which of its external relations you are taking in account. This “view” of the system is defined by the type of result that you want to achieve: by the scope and the range of information and complexity that the working group can deal with.

Waste Land Movie - must see

I saw this movie some weeks ago and I was waiting for some free time to talk about it here. It is a “must see” movie.

It is about a work that the Brazilian plastic artist Vik Muniz made with workers from the biggest trash city in the world. The first half of the movie I think it is something that everybody should see; it is about the “life of the trash”, it shows where the stuff that we careless throw in our trash can ends, it presents a different point of view of our material culture, which, I think, it’s very useful for designers.

They show the life of people who get their livelihood from the trash, how the live, what they find, and so on.

The other half is also very interesting; it concerns Vik’s art work with those people. It is more related to the Art world and how Art can change other people’s life.

So, if you are interested or not in Art and Design, you must see this movie!

Here is the link for the movie’s website: http://www.wastelandmovie.com/

Aesthetic – rise and, death? Estética – ascensão e, morte?

     I’m not addicted to Television; actually, I almost never watch it. But, these days I was sitting in front it when a weird documentary called my attention. It was about the implant of silicone parts which make the person looks strong.

     And when it concerns design? Well, let’s take a brief look through the human history before, to get a start point to the discussion:

     In ancient times, the figure of a strong body was related to gods, heroes, warriors or athletes. (For example, you can see the Greek mythology)

     And that relation between the body’s shape and the status occurred because those people, who I mentioned above, needed to be strong to accomplish their tasks. And as those who had these aesthetic (a strong body) where very important people among the society, everybody else wanted to have a body like them.

     The same happened with the female beauty: a very beautiful woman instantaneously became a celebrity, as if she was a jewel, a very valuable thing; because, to be beautiful was as difficult as winning the lottery. 

The human intervention

     With the huge will to get fame and social status, the men managed his way to manipulate aesthetic. And so the fitness center, the beauty parlour and, of course, the plastic surgery where invented. And then, sports begin to be practiced only to achieve a “beautiful” aesthetic.

     Even further, with the society’s modernization, the industrial revolution and everything else; the “men to men” wars (as occurred in the medieval era, as between tribes and so on) ended; therefore, the muscular strength wasn’t needed anymore. And so, they the anabolic steroids where created and, as the sedentary way of life continues to grow, the silicone implant was invented.

     Well, we are living in the “era of the appearances”, in which everything is image, where aesthetic is more important then everything. But, everything that rise, must go down, therefore, some time, this “aesthetic addiction” has to end, right?

     Looks like this end is not so far; because we are leading to a moment when we will be able to completely manipulate aesthetic (and we are really close), and as it continues, it gets more popular. For example, in 2009, in Brazil (the second country with more plastic surgeries in the world), where made 645.464 plastic surgeries.(from SBCP - Brazilian Plastic Surgery Association)

Hence, soon, the aesthetic manipulation will be a common action, and so, as a “beautiful” appearance will be something that everybody can get, not a rare thing anymore, it will lose its meaning.

And then, what are we going to see as valuable? Maybe the intellectual capacity? Who knows...

Design X Aesthetic

     Nowadays it’s hard to talk about design without linking it to aesthetic, right?

     Design started as a tool to create solution to our daily activities, for example, to store water at home when the men leaved far away from rivers or lakes. But then, during de 50’s decade, in the USA, when they started to encourage consumerism, they invented a job called “styling”, which consisted in changing the appearance of a product without changing its functional issues, to make the product look new and so, to sell more. And after that the mistake began, and nowadays, design and styling are seen as the same thing.

     Will this tendency to the “death” of the aesthetic valorization be able to save design from its conceptual mistake? 

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     Não sou alguém muito ligado em televisão, muito raramente assisto. Porém, um dia desses, estava de frente a tal aparelinho quando vi uma notícia um tanto quando assustadora, que me fez pensar. Era sobre implantes de silicone para a pessoa parecer “malhada”, “sarada”, ou como preferirem.

  

     Bom, e o que isso tudo tem a ver com design? Bom, antes vamos fazer uma breve retrospectiva na história para ter uma base para comparar com design.

  

     Muito antigamente, o corpo “saradão” era inerente a um deus, um herói ou, um guerreiro um super atleta. (vide mitologia grega)

     E isso aconteceu porque um corpo musculoso é sinônimo de força e; quem ia querer um Deus magrelinho pra te proteger contra um dragão de 7 cabeças?

     Essas figuras e pessoas tinham o corpo torneado porque precisavam da força para sua tarefa. Como eram poucos os que tinham tal aparência e os que a tinham eram figuras importantíssimas da sociedade, a mesma se tornou sinal de status e todos queriam copiá-la.

  

     O mesmo aconteceu com a beleza feminina, onde uma mulher muito bonita rapidamente se torna famosa, vira uma “diva” uma “celebridade”, como se fosse algo precioso, um prêmio. Pois ser belo era como ganhar na loteria.

A mão humana

     Com a imensa vontade de perseguir a “fama” o “status” e tudo mais, o homem deu seu jeito de começar a manipular a estética. Inventaram as academias, salões de beleza e, claro, a cirurgia plástica. Agora, esportes eram praticados (como é o caso da musculação, principalmente) só com o intuito de adquirir um padrão estético (não mais para defender seu país em guerras ou jogos).

     Além disso, com a modernização da sociedade, revolução industrial e tudo mais; acabaram-se as guerras “homem-a-homem” (como na era medieval, guerras tribais e assim por diante), assim, a força muscular já quase não possuía importância.  Com isso, veio a invenção dos anabolizantes e, como o sedentarismo continua aumentando, surgiram as próteses de silicone que simulam músculos (muito mais fácil e rápido que passar horas durante anos na musculação, né?)

     Bom, vivemos hoje numa época de aparências, onde tudo é a imagem, onde a estética é mais importante do que qualquer coisa. Porém, como todo movimento é circular, uma hora este “vicio” na estética, teria que acabar, certo? Bom, parece que isto talvez não esteja tão longe.

     Porque estamos chegando num momento no qual a estética é totalmente manipulável, claro que seus meios ainda são caros e não acessíveis a todos, mas isso tende a se popularizar. Para ter uma ideia no Brasil (país em segundo lugar no hanking de cirurgias plásticas), só em 2009 foram realizadas 645.464 cirurgias. (fonte Sociedade Brasileira de cirurgia plástica)

     Bom, em breve chegaremos num ponto onde a estética se tornará algo completamente manipulável, passando então de algo raro para algo comum, que não precisará ser buscado, e só escolhido quando e como bem entendermos. Como será algo que todo mundo pode manipular do jeito que quiser, a tendência seria (seguindo o movimento circular) de entrarmos num momento de rejeição da estética, exatamente por não haver mais necessidade “a busca”, por não haver mais o sentido de “exclusividade” e “status” que ela possuía.

  

    Será que então começaremos a valorizar outros aspectos no ser humano? Como a capacidade intelectual? Seria interessante não?

O design X a estética

     É difícil falar em design e não suscitar um pensamento sobre estética certo? Acontece que o design começou como uma ferramenta para criar soluções aos problemas cotidianos, como levar o armazenamento de água, por exemplo. Mas, na década de 50, nos EUA, quando se iniciou o incentivo ao consumismo, criou-se a pratica do “styling” que consistia em re-desenhar a estética de um produto, sem mexer em seu conteúdo funcional, para que ele pareça mais novo e venda mais. A partir disso, começou a confusão entre design e styling. E hoje muitos lugares consideram o design uma forma de mera manipulação estética.

     Será que este movimento em direção à decadência da estética pode salvar o design de sua confusão conceitual?