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2.3 The politicisation of slow design
Perhaps slow design can restore what fast
industrial design has eroded. Slow
design is the spiritual, emotional and mental ‘art’ of living,
emphasising creativity and experiences, whereas fast industrial design is the
physical ‘form and function’ of living. Slow design should
not be the sole preserve of professional designers, rather it should emerge
as a more democratic process that involves cognition and emotion, information
and observation, the proven and the intuitive. It should encourage a
re-kindling of individual and socio-cultural imagination that has atrophied
with ready-made materialism. It should not recognise any boundary between
theory and practice or as Bonsieppe (1997) puts it, ‘Theory
renders that explicit which is already implicity in practice as theory’.and
goes on to note, ‘Design theory as pensiero discorrente – as
thinking against the grain, as critical thinking – is rooted in the domain
of social discourse and thus, in the final instance, in that of politics, where
the question is: In what sort of a society do members of that society wish
to live?’ By this Bonsieppe means the broad political domain of
society rather than the narrower confines of professional politics or party
politics. Slow design is undoubtedly political and requires politicisation
of those members of the design profession and society who wish to engage in
the theory and practice of slow design. Thinking must shift from the commodification
of time, ‘time is money’, approach to a socio-cultural re-valorisation
of time, where slowness is seen as a positive rather than negative value. Can
the default speed induced by the technological and economic imperatives of
modernism and post-modernism be replaced by a more eco-pluralistic array of
speed choices? If so, this could lead to a greater diversity of
human experiences and more sustainable patterns of living and working. Slow
design can encourage slower metabolisms and help deliver equable choices to
future generations. |