Pelle Ehn, Professor of Interaction Design at Malmo University in Sweden, gave our second LDoc Keynote Lecture on the evening of Wednesday 4 March at Kingston University: Collective design, utopias lost and futures made.
Watch this space – video of his talk coming soon.
‘Collaborative or participatory design, a child of sixty-eight and the contested terrain of workplace, technology and democracy, has over the years developed into a key actor in user driven innovation – a development where high ranking within the creative class has replaced a dedication to class struggle at work. This may look like a successful move from the margins of society to the centre of power where the future is made. This field report over utopias lost and futures made instead suggests small democratic design experiments, futures that are more marginal, less spectacular, and with other promises than progress. The reportage from the field is done from a specific localized and partial position in academia and in Scandinavia, but also from the privileged condition of genuine participation and engagement, of being there. The return to utopias lost and futures made might have a melancholic undertone, but it is not a story without hope. The report covers five decades each with specific political and theoretical challenges:
– democracy at work (mid 70’s) – “a not quite revolutionary beginning”
– work oriented design (mid 80’s) – “an accidental designer”
– a digital bauhaus (mid 90’s) – “ a creative class misfit”
– design things (mid 00’s) – “becoming a thing democrat”
– democratic design and innovation (mid 10’s) – “a fellow traveller to futures”’