"Cycles" and "waves". These two different words are used to describe a wide variety of phenomena and processes affecting the environment, society, economy, technology, and innovation. Today more than ever, it is important to understand how these mechanisms work, how they are connected to each other and what impact they generate, but also to think about the kind of relationship they have— or may have— with design and production. A cycle is a series of natural and non-natural events, which repeat in a similar manner, following the same order, during a given period of time. Throughout their evolution, humans have learned to know, reproduce, modify, design and build in an artificial way, both natural and biological cycles. Perhaps this is why we tend to attribute a productive and proactive connotation to cycles, such as agriculture or industrial production. In contrast, a wave is often the sudden or underestimated flow of one or more climatic, social and economic phenomena with an adverse nature which spills over into a social or territorial context, with a potentially catastrophic impact. In relation to climate change, we hear about heat waves more and more often. The term “wave” is also commonly used to refer to uncontrolled migration flows and the spread of epidemics. Waves stress communities because they modify their economic and productive cycles, making them vulnerable, but also because they require costly investments in preparation to defend or protect themselves, or else they catch them unprepared. Finally, the waves both have a global dimension and a territorial distribution, with local effects and specificities. Starting from a simple definition, the first step is trying to understand if waves are "objects of change" that influence the birth, the development, and the distribution of innovation cycles. Rising parts of the international scientific community are increasingly reminding us that in the Anthropocene, natural cycles, cycles of human activity, and "wave phenomena" are now definitively interpolated, generating cause-effect dynamics which scale and acceleration can get out of human control and intervention. Researchers such as Timothy Morton define these phenomena as “hyper-objects”, i.e. objects whose main characteristic is to exist on space-time dimensions that are too large to be seen or perceived in a direct way (Morton, 2013; 2016). If we assume that it is possible to act on these “hyper-objects” as a starting point, it is also possible to tackle the most interesting elements compatible with the current potential of distributed design and production processes.

Designing in the Post-Covid Era

M. Bianchini;P. Bolzan;S. Maffei
2020-01-01

Abstract

"Cycles" and "waves". These two different words are used to describe a wide variety of phenomena and processes affecting the environment, society, economy, technology, and innovation. Today more than ever, it is important to understand how these mechanisms work, how they are connected to each other and what impact they generate, but also to think about the kind of relationship they have— or may have— with design and production. A cycle is a series of natural and non-natural events, which repeat in a similar manner, following the same order, during a given period of time. Throughout their evolution, humans have learned to know, reproduce, modify, design and build in an artificial way, both natural and biological cycles. Perhaps this is why we tend to attribute a productive and proactive connotation to cycles, such as agriculture or industrial production. In contrast, a wave is often the sudden or underestimated flow of one or more climatic, social and economic phenomena with an adverse nature which spills over into a social or territorial context, with a potentially catastrophic impact. In relation to climate change, we hear about heat waves more and more often. The term “wave” is also commonly used to refer to uncontrolled migration flows and the spread of epidemics. Waves stress communities because they modify their economic and productive cycles, making them vulnerable, but also because they require costly investments in preparation to defend or protect themselves, or else they catch them unprepared. Finally, the waves both have a global dimension and a territorial distribution, with local effects and specificities. Starting from a simple definition, the first step is trying to understand if waves are "objects of change" that influence the birth, the development, and the distribution of innovation cycles. Rising parts of the international scientific community are increasingly reminding us that in the Anthropocene, natural cycles, cycles of human activity, and "wave phenomena" are now definitively interpolated, generating cause-effect dynamics which scale and acceleration can get out of human control and intervention. Researchers such as Timothy Morton define these phenomena as “hyper-objects”, i.e. objects whose main characteristic is to exist on space-time dimensions that are too large to be seen or perceived in a direct way (Morton, 2013; 2016). If we assume that it is possible to act on these “hyper-objects” as a starting point, it is also possible to tackle the most interesting elements compatible with the current potential of distributed design and production processes.
2020
Viral Design. The Covid-19 Crisis as a Global Test Bed for Distributed Design
978-84-120886-0-1
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1150249
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