Futures

‘Perhaps the greatest utopia would be if we could all realize that no utopia is possible; no place to run, no place to hide, just take care of business here and now.’
Jack Carroll

Futures have always been idealised throughout history and it is a common way of thinking to look to the future for hope. Utopian visions are one way in which people have recorded their hope. The Modernists vision compared to that of the Post-Modernists can be simply viewed as two topics set in binary terms. However, Post-modernism forms a more discursive way of thinking rather than Post-modernism being viewed as the Anti-Modernism that is so frequently spoken about. Michel Serres says that we should no longer be ‘answering yes or no to questions of having sides’ and instead suggests that there is ‘an infinite amount of answers.’ The usual Utopia tries to restructure the world into an entirely successful space. However, it is this view of respecting the world as an arena for varying standards of success that relates to my thoughts on improving design practice.

‘Some men see things as they are and say, why?
I dream things that never were and say, why not?’
Robert F. Kennedy

Victor Papanek speaks of design as the ‘underlying matrix of life’ and speaks against the idea of seeing design as a ‘thing-by-itself.’ I can see why an argument like this formulates because designers are able to have a direct impact on the future. Objects that are created impact the environment that they are situated in. Due to this idea, it is as designers that we can break a future as well as make the future. My argument is that there needs to be an emphasis on minimising problems rather than eradicating problems entirely. However, it becomes easy to become transfixed on creating solutions rather than simply being ethically and socially aware of what is created and therefore, reducing problems. It comes back to Michael Serres’s idea to stop seeing the world in binary relationships. The world is not either broken nor is it fixed, it is continuously in a state of change. Grey areas exist and that is ok.
I find designers can become transfixed in the idea that design will be able to provide solutions to the worlds problems. Utopian visions are formed and through ideas the world’s problems seem to be able to be solved. It seems a beautiful idea as a designer to believe in this. However, I find it difficult to believe that designers alone are going to overcome problems such as third world debt as well as prevent pollution to the environment single handed. It is true that designers have a large role to play in the grand scheme of things because of the very nature of design. However, Utopian visions such as LeCorbusier’s Pruitt-Igoe prove that trying to create an ‘all knowing’ system often ends in failure. Maybe Utopian visions are a warning for us not to try and ‘fix things’ on a grand scale because this is unpractical, but rather improve upon the obtainable problems that already exist.