Art of Survival - Debunking Third World Myths

This entry was inspired by this video of Hans Rosling, talking about world economics but specifically in Africa. He uses data visualization software to really show what he is trying to get across to the audience – without the software I think his talks would not be nearly as informative. The point he is trying to make it that far from being an area of little to no development (which is what a shockingly large amount of people believe it to be) Africa, as a continent has come a long way from the ‘pre-medieval’ state it was in at before the 1900’s. He goes on to criticize lumping the whole continent together as one homogenous unit, but using the software shows that there is massive economic diversity in Africa, with countries in both the upper and lower percentiles of healthcare standards and GDP. He goes on to ‘prove’ that conditions across the continent will keep improving until they are at the place most of Europe/North America is at now. (This trend has already been observed in parts of South America).

So across Africa there is such diversity in conditions that for us to try and design for a whole continent is impossible, and ‘us’ designing for an individual community is inefficient. What the individual areas need is a self-instigated, self-governed system of some kind on behalf of the populace. This is what has already been observed, bringing some countries into the upper levels of ‘development’. With these sorts of systems in place the individual states within Africa are more than capable, and some have been able to, pull themselves out of economic strife.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YpKbO6O3O3M

cosume your ethics

packaging and so_

I agree with 'jo', that designers in the food and other consumption industries could do better. Plastic bags are indeed a huge unnecessary waist in our regular shopping ceremony but compared to the avoidable packaging only a small part of the whole. Why are we still using so many plastic bottles when eco-friendly Tetra Pack could be used instead or why are disposable
batteries still in production when rechargeable ones are nearly as expensive. Why do we find vegetables like coconuts in a plastic packaging. Why do cables or earphones in Currys need a packaging that is more then ten times their size? This are Questions the consumers should ask the big superstores as they ask to avoid plastic bags in order to wash there faces green.

As Yuki affirms, it's not all about introducing paranoia and making costumers face global warming and the end of the world. Jamie Oliver for instance is shaping society showing gracefully how much fun and how quick it is to prepare food. A lot of ready made meals and their packaging would become useless if making your own food would become more popular.; . For the sake of quality we should be aware that pre-made meals, graded products and alimentary that is not in season has to deal with chemicals to make them last longer. For instance: I love Italian Pesto sauce, that contains graded parmigiana cheese, basil, olive oil and nuts; but dislike the ready made ones in the market as they contain chemicals to make the cheese and the nuts last. I would love to buy pre copped basil in olive oil (as most chefs store it in there kitchen) and chop the cheese and nuts my self, but it's impossible to find this simple mixture in the mall.

Designers instead of working on an other microwaveable dish could show the unessential need, the overload of preservatives and especially the over packaging of some products and introduce attractive alternatives as with the upcoming environmental awareness it's been realised that greener products are not necessarily bad for the market.

Futures

The Long Now_

In 01996 a small group of scientists, engineers, designers, and philosophers such as Danny Hillis and Alexander Rose founded the non profit Long Now Foundation.
The Name comes from an essay by Brian Eno where he describes the difficulty to solve long time problems such as global warming because human realities are based on a short now thinking that doesn't go ahead of generations or even only decades.
The Long Now Foundation tries to deal with the kind of problem that no other agency or institution has time and money to deal with as those problems go ahead of the time range they can make profit out of.


The 10 000 Year Clock is one of their projects.This clock is meant do work over next 10 000 years and it measures years instead of seconds and centuries instead of hours.
Their long time goal with this clock is to create a symbol of long time thinking, that can be visited by the coming generations like the Egyptian pyramids or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The first prototype of the 10 000 Year Clock can be seen in the Science Museum in London. The foundation has just purchased land in Nevada where the 8 foot high final Clock, that ticks every year, bells every century and where thecuckoo comes out every millennium, will be placed.

The Rosetta Project is an other project and it's inspired by the 'rosetta stone' an Ancient Egypt artifact which helbed modern understanding in hieroglyphic writing.

One main issue for the Rosetta project is the rapid loss of languages in the world. The Projects aim is to collect as many languages and documentation on them as possible and store them in as many formats possible. They have already reached 2500 languages and their documentation and worked on side projects such as language labels for Google Earth, and in cooperation with the E.S.A. (European Space Agency), the launch of a the Rosetta disc into space to reach comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko in the year 2014. Alexander Rose underlines in an interview by Plan*B, the importance of Rosetta because of the fact that we are living in a 'Digital Dark Age', where the formant of files are constantly evolving and past formats aren't readable with new devices. He describes this with the quote: ‘If Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today, his notebooks would not be preserved for the future’.

Referance: Eternaly Yours, Time in Design, Ed van Hinte

On the hedonic treadmill

At a time of global warming and a depletion of the earth's resources, it is only natural to ask why how and why we, the developed world, have contributed to this 'mess'. Our current modes of consumption are not only damaging the planet, they are also not making us any happier. Research is demonstrating that most citizens of the developed world are not more satisfied with life today than they were a few decades ago. During the last two generations, the rate of clinical depression in the United States has more than trippled (Lane 2000). The economist Richard Layard claims that the key factors in determining our satisfaction with life are the circumstances of our childhood, relationships and our outlook on life. Age, looks and intelligence make no difference on our level of happiness (Layard 2005). The key question remains: How is it possible that all the technological advancements and higher living standarts of the last decades have not brought further happiness? According to Oliver James, we are all infected with the 'Affluenza Virus' – we want things we don't need (James 2007). It is also argued that in our economy there is no such thing as 'enough', which leads to the assertion that our society is caught on a so-called 'hedonic treadmill' (Simms & Smith 2008). Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, explained the notion of the 'hedonic treadmill': The consumer society keeps „everyone in perpetual infancy because, if they ever became satisfied with their material lives, they would cease to place the game of expanding desires that keeps the perpetual economy going." (Simms & Smith 2008). Clearly, this culture of disposability is failing to make us any happier.


James, O. (2007) Affluenza. London: Vermilion.

Lane, R.E. (2000) The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Layard, R. (2005) Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. London: Penguin.

Simms, A. & Smith, J. (2008) Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? London: Constable.

photo: getty images

China - Renewable Energy

China is doing its bit to appear sustainable, they are currently operating 100,000 small Hydro Electrical Power (H.E.P) stations on rivers all over the country. Their greatest sustainable plant, the Three Gorges Dam, the largest Dam in the world and Chinas’ second largest construction, second to the great wall of china is due completion in 2009. It is estimated to generate 40% of Shanghais electricity using H.E.P from a one and a half mile damming system. The fundamental principal of sustainability and the use of renewable energy resources is that they “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations”. Therefore Chinas dam appears a failure.



Dai Qing is a leading Chinese journalist and has investigated in depth the potential for the dam. This potential though, he does not deem positive. He describes the dam as a “political project that exhibits the folly of socialist economics.” Dai believes that because of the nature of the government there is no platform on which one can express objection or protest. Although the Dam has generated 20,000 jobs it will cost $5Billion and for 1million people to move from their homes and water source as their villages will soon be flooded and polluted. Protesters and those who have been known to voice complaints has received jail sentences from 3-7 years. They were convicted of disturbing the ‘Three Gorges Resettlement’ and many of such arrests have been reported to have infringed on The Human Rights Act (2004).

Although China has acknowledged the benefits of using renewable energy their decisions have been made for economic benefits and positive political perception. In 2000 it was estimated that 23.4 billion tons of sewage and industrial waste were strewn into the Yangtze. A large majority of this is a result of the construction of the supposedly environmentally ‘friendly’ dam. It is impossible to compare the benefits of clean energy production against the land, lives, areas of cultural importance, river pollution and wildlife that are being sacrificed for this ‘sustainable energy’ dam. Sustainability should not have to make compromises though, especially, when they are at the expense of social and ecological factors, the factors that are intended to be the priority.

Design for an Environment with Future

But what does this sentence mean? Let’s have a look at ecology and design, the words, and look at their meaning. Ecology means the “The study of the relations of living organisms to their environment” (Ernst Haeckel, 1866), in other words it means how everything is connected with each other. The ecology, the natural science, became the focus of different interests because of known environmental problems. It therefore helps to make political and economical decisions in our society and is no longer a natural science and/or world neutral. How everything is connected with each other… that means everything in this world, every act, every communication, every interaction in the world has a result on the whole system. Nothing exist separate from each other. Ecological design means firstly the realization of results of our own communication and our design performances in this world, and secondly expects you to play an active part in creating our environment, our living space. And do so by making sure to keep it (the environment) working for future generations to come. The task of communication designers is to explore different ways of dealing with the environment and social problems. Advertisings concepts such as from the German cosmetic company “Dove” show new ways of communication. It has to be discussed, which psychological and social effects a draft have. These are made visible on slogans like …, which have dramatic effects on the British economy. The provocation strategy of the 90s tried to be changed with a more human communication, in which also the advertising industry takes a social responsibility. The biggest challenge for designers in the 21st century is the development of products, which have no or only minimal effects on the environment. We should have this in mind design in this way.

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