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A PROJECT EXPLORING MODES OF PRODUCTION AND RE-FORM TACTICS
hack
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hack
Organized, edited and formed by Otto von Busch
>self_passage< 2006 | www.selfpassage.org
first edition printed in Turkey in 500 copies
ISBN-10: 91-976431-0-6 // ISBN-13: 978-91-976431-0-8
1. Fashion 2. Design 3. Hacking I. Title
copyleft by the authors
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©
to the participants; generously ingenious
and to Dale; a creative epicenter
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the
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hack
A project on shoe hacking by
Arne Nerjordet, Carlos Zachrison, Siv Støldal,
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Siri Johansen, Ulla Chauton, T-Michael.
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Hands-on shoe hacking techniques by
Stein Peterson and Dale Sko.
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Good photos by Bent Rene Synnevåg.
Bad and Ugly photos by Otto.
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Shoe Hacking is a method exploring the
forces at play between the global fashion system and small-scale local production using collaborative design practices. This method is an open approach
to fashion design rethinking roles and
linear assembly in industrial production. As a modus operandi it was
prototyped and tested during a three
day workshop in April 2006 in a small
shoe factory, Dale Sko, and the Nordic
Artist Centre in Dale, Norway.
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This booklet is a short summary of thoughts and ideas forming
this event as well as the following discussions. It is made for
challenging others to experiment and facilitate similar events
in fashion or other design fields. Its informal format is made to
act more as inspiration than instruction.
Inviting a number of prominent Norwegian fashion actors to a
small shoe factory north of Bergen the project was experimenting on how new interfaces and publics can be negotiated and
developed. The aim was to create other approaches to post-industrial production trying to probe nonlinear means of action
and co-design, open for spontaneity and crafty interventions
during the production process. Nonlinear in this sense means
to escape the linear and predictable workflows in production
but also to blend physical production of shoes with the mythical production of fashion into synergetic amalgam. Merging the borders of these roles the participants were creating
unique designs using the full skill of all actors involved and not
creating designs on the terms of top down Fordist production
lines.
Using the metaphor of hacking the workshop was aspiring to
widen the understanding on how to change the way systems
work, not submitting to the fixed machine configuration of
production but instead bending and modulating it into a better fitting form. That is to creatively tinker and manipulate
the flows and collection of functions between the design and
materialization processes and open them for collaborative
interventions, but also to reclaim authorship and breaking
the pre-programmed intentions of a system. In the analogue
practice of shoe hacking this technique conducted experiments
with the software of production instead of altered the machine
hardware in the factory, instead challenged technical innovation through operational misuse.
The design process investigated a collection of publics and
hands-on dialogues which constituted the design space. It
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transformed design into nonlinear intersections between creative and conductive intentions. Aspiring to materialize the
energy discharged between the wills, forming an alloy of these
expressions into new products, the process in the end incarnated the full spirit and shimmering desire of true fashion items.
Dale Sko might create high quality hand made shoes, but they
have no connections to the fashion system, and Dale is a place
far away from the capitals of fashion. Thus the hacking also
became an experiment in energizing the local shoe production
with the high current of fashion, synthsize material and mythical production. A fashion photographer, creating the iconography of the shoe hack, documented the nonlinear alliances but
of which only a fragment is represented in this booklet, mainly
as colour pictures.
The first results of the Dale Sko hack will appear on the catwalks of London Fashion Week in autumn of 2006, but as a
modus operandi shoe hacking is still at dawn.
The texts in this booklet act to frame the workshop both from a
practical and theoretical side. The first half is a project description and report introducing the intentions of the workshop
as well as documenting the practical flow of work. Second half
of the texts are the expanded notes of a lecture on “Modes of
Production” held by Otto von Busch and Karl Palmås at Istanbul Technical University shortly after the workshop, positioning the workshop into a wider context. Hopefully these texts
can form a foundation on how to work further on shoe hacking
as a practice for rethinking the ties between the global scene
of fashion and local quality production.
The project was organised by Otto von Busch while he was an
artist in residence at Nordisk Kunstnarsenter in Dale. Together
with PhD. Karl Palmås, researcher at London School of Economics and Göteborg University, he is co-producing a series
of seminars with the title “Modes of Production - Exploring
design economies”.
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the
hack
EXPLORING MODES OF PRODUCTION
AND RE-FORM TACTICS
Project desciption and report
by Otto von Busch
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Within the logics of industrial capitalism it seems natural to move all production to low cost countries, outsourcing
fabrication, service, even research and
development. A parallel movement is
the rising of urban areas as nodes and
epicentres of innovation as well as connection points of a networked economy.
Reading these tendencies it also falls
natural to let the rural countryside only
evolve as a recreation area and subsidy
fed agricultural back yard of production.
But what can be the response to
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these tendencies from the low-level, off-market and non-metropolis economies? How can we find a method to use the
skill of the often highly educated workers and could we thus
introduce a wider flexibility in the production process on a micro-scale, and here find specific advantages in post-industrial
production? Locating the production cycle at this micro-level
and forging it together with an expanded and nonlinear new
designer role could outline the foundation for a social change
in production. It could be the basis for forming specific strategies and hands-on practices that would offer a complementary
mode of production for fashion. This would suit the needs for
today’s fashion designers as well as their global markets and at
the same time still use the craft skills of our local production.
SHOE-HACK SETTINGS - PROPOSITION
The Dale Sko hack workshop and design project is trying to
probe the possibilities of local production and appropriational
myth-building in an ever increasing global fashion market.
Hacking in this sense is the approach of reclaiming the modes
of production, taking back initiative and control of an alienated
production process and re-forming the process as well as an
already existing product. It is a tactic for cultural counterintelligence transforming pre-existing elements to evoke meanings
not originally intended in the raw material of the hack. As
such it is animated and anti-authoritarian, seizing back imagination subjugated by technocrats. Decentralizing control and
empowering will at a low level. Or in software guru Richard
Stallman’s words “exploring the limits of what is possible, in a
spirit of playful cleverness.”
For a factory this would mean breaking up, reverse engineering, and tuning of the fordist-style mass production machine
where the workers are just parts. Mass production requires
conformity, both among the workers to run the machines in
production and the consumers that purchase the product. Instead of working at mass level hacking can work closer to its
Becker K. (2002) Tactical Reality Dictionary. Vienna: Edition Selene
Stallman, R. (2002) “On Hacking” at: http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html
Heath J. & Potter A. (2005) Rebel Sell. Chichester : Capstone
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users and audience, complementing diversity to narrowcast
message and method. For shoe hacking this could mean reconsidering disbanded models and re-making them. Also to misuse
and adjust machines into the new needs. Artistically tuning
them like in circuit bending - the creative art of audio shortcircuiting.
In shoe production this would mean a design practice
of altering models without changing the infrastructure, hardware and machinery of the factory. It would be a re-reading
of industrial production, transgressing the modern dichotomy
between designer and producer to instead allow co-design and
co-location as essential parts of an intermediate grey zone in
the production process. As such hacking could be a principal
tool for practical exploration of how production at micro level
can survive in the welfare state.
But how would actually an approach of shoe-hacking
look like? Can an appropriational practice be established merging an expanded role of design with a flexible and dynamic production process where a metaphor of “hacking” would come
to full bloom? To partly answer this we need to investigate
the services a local production unit might offer that the global
market cannot supply, such as close support as well as local
myth production. A shoe hacking practice will need to find the
advantages of the local to cultivate its strengths and carefully
connect it into the energy flows of a global network, in this
case the fashion system. An important step would also be to experiment in how a “limited-edition” economy is established and
marketed and to map its connection points to the surrounding
culture of mass production.
MICRO-LEVEL RECIRCUITING
The basis for the workshop is the production facility and collections of Dale Sko in Dale i Sunnfjord about 150 kilometers
north of Bergen. A century old factory with a significant history
of production but today reduced to a small unit working on a
line of handmade (but machine supported) shoes with only a
Ghazala, R. (2005) Circuit Bending Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing
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dozen employees. Because of low budget the factory cannot
keep up to the shifts of fashion but survives today mainly on
folk dress shoes and steady orders from governmental units
like the military or the police.
But what will happen if a hand full of established
fashion designers come to this facility and try to explore how
its modes of production can be hacked? How can these designers gain some specific advantages by acting directly by the
physical production and machines, hacking the models but also
provide greater dynamics to expose what this local factory can
produce which might not come out from a similar or larger
facility in Asia. By bringing their own distribution networks the
hacked designs will automatically reach a wider fashion audience and the possibility of being exposed to the global market.
Very much like using a back door to a networked system, bypassing gatekeepers and introducing the ideas from an unexpected position. Connecting to these flows will bring in fresh
energy from outside into the local working environment.
In Sweden there have been many long-term experiments on
re-vitalization of old traditional industries with collaborations
with designers for limited edition production. Usually joint
projects with industry, regional government, development
funds and designers together with universities. But most of
these projects apply a traditional cycle of product development; introducing new models or sketches to mass-produce. Instead the hacking works with enabling processes, widening the
connectors and improving the flows through design publics in
the co-designed production process that also empowers work
at the floor. Not unlike the tinkering post-producer described
by Nicolas Bourriaud as surfing on flows in a network of signs,
inserting new forms on existing lines. In this case the high
currency power cables of fashion that can be circuited to reach
Dale Sko with the help of some designers engaged in hacking.
Stalder F. (2005) Open cultures and the nature of networks. Novi Sad: Futura
Bourriaud, N. (2002) Postproduction. Culture as screenplay: How art reprograms the
world. New York, NY.: Lukas & Sternberg.
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DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM
The shoe-hack project is also a collaborative research platform
where different actors in design and manufacturing meet to
discuss and share views on new modes of production in fashion. This process of research will be furthered by bringing in
also the myth producers of fashion to the shoe-hack, such as an
established fashion photographer as well as a stylist. There will
also be produced a theoretical reflection of the process, ending
up in a publication on the experiences and a discussion on how
the modes of production at this level can be re-organized and
re-designed taking support in the course of the workshop.
The aim is to gather and overview different forces of
impetus and interest that has surfaced during the project but
also with the help of the designers offer fresh approaches to
local production. It is important that the endeavour does not
stay within the lab-settings of the workshop but also gets global distribution; through the designer’s own networks to start
with. This is also the settings of a factory in post-industrial
times; not defined as much by its site but instead by how it is
networked. The workshop should be a launch pad for setting
off the method on its own momentum, first with some collections prototyped in this session but hopefully into larger future
ventures.
COLLABORATIVE DESIGN
A question for practical discussion concerns the interface
situation between designer and producer. How will a process
of worker co-design look like, and how can this situation offer
services that can compete with production in Asia? As customization gets more involved in production how will a post-fordist
process of collaborative design look like at this low level? And
how will we take best advantage of our highly trained and experienced work force in a post-industrial production situation?
By creating a transparency in the full production cycle
but also an insight in the mechanical means of production
Cox G. & Krysa J. (2005) “Introduction to ‘The Author as (digital) Producer’”. Engineering Culture. New York, NY: Autonomedia.
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the Dale shoe factory can become a design lab for grounded
hands-on hacking as well as a theoretical base for discussion
on the evolvement of new roles in design and industrial production. An advantage of this process is that it takes immediate material shape. In the end of the day there will not only be
shared experiences but new prototypes of shoes and also fresh
images, much needed for understanding how fashion can be
operated. By inviting acclaimed designers to hack processes
together with experienced workers the Dale shoe hack offers
a unique possibility to probe into new modes of production
where the producer is not a passive part in a line of silent functions but instead having a more active role. This role, interconnected to the designer, can be correlated to the transformation
from actant to actor. In actor-network theory the actant is an
unspecified function while actor is endowed with a character
and specific competence. This difference can be stressed for
revealing a more engaged role for classic assembly work positioning itself in a symbiotic relation to the production. Instead
of being a passive function in a line every step can be a source
of action, not a dumb role but embodying a will beyond the surface content, in this case linear production.
In this sense hacking seems very similar to the utopian experiments of William Morris and the Arts and Craft movement in
the end of the 19th century. Trying to meet the falling quality
of mass produced goods as well as the alienating work for the
people in the factories Morris suggested a more thorough design process and a return to work organization in guilds. He
even promoted a specific style of clothing called “the aesthetic
dress” in a very medieval looking style. But even in the Arts
and Craft the designer was still the Artist, the sole author of
the work, and as such the hacking at Dale Sko is not about
replacing the operating system of the factory with pure craft.
Instead it is about breaking into the processes of the line of
assembly to expand a larger space for co-design and co-author Hawkes T. (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics Berkeley: University of California Press.
Latour B. (1992) “The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts” in Bijker, Wiebe; Law,
John (eds.) Shaping Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
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ship. Not only in the general process or control of the facility
itself, but into the design of every unique product. This can
only be done in small quantities, but that is the scale of manufacture for Dale Sko. The hacking is neither only a question of
customization since the action space for these processes usually is limited beforehand and controlled to follow certain intentions. Instead the hacking is open negotiation, which might
end in any form. To use another computer metaphor the hack
is to turn the work from RO, Read Only, to R/W, Read/Write.
This means not to only read the ready instructions from the
designer but to also be the co-author to every copy.
DALE SKO HACK – PROCESS
The Dale Sko Hack was a three-day design workshop at the local shoe factory in Dale, Norway, exploring new approaches on
the modes of production involved in creating fashion in open
collaboration with off-centre production. Six established Norwegian fashion designers were invited to the factory together
with an experienced model-maker and a recognized fashion
photographer assisted by a stylist documented the project.
Point of departure for the project was using the existing “hardware” of the factory, lasts, machines and production equipment but instead hacking the “software” of the production line
- choice of designs, materials, processes and methods. Instead
of keeping a linear and traditional industrial way of production - how can we produce other flows, channels and interfaces
between global fashion and small, peripheral, local production
facilities?
The workshop started with a presentation of the factory and a
machine park walk-through followed by an inventory of the existing materials used in the production. As the factory’s inherent production processes unfolded the designers also collected
material samples, assemblages and details from the existing
shoe models. During the observations the processes were
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discussed in detail both with the workers and the model-maker
together with the designers for understanding the convergence
of skills used in the various steps of production.
After the factory walk-through the workshop continued
in a studio of the Nordisk Kunstnarsenter (Nordic Artist Centre) with a detailed session of model making, from sketching,
taping and drawing on the last to hands-on cutting of stencils
and patterns for production. Bringing in various materials the
workshop also discussed choice of leather, soles and stitching
styles as the session continued until late in the evening.
The following day started with cutting of material for the modified shoes as well as re-mixing the existing models with new
materials and processes. The inventory of tools as well as exploration of techniques continued during the day as the designers proceeded with their new designs in cooperation with the
factory workers. It became apparent that as both parts were
developing ways for co-design and meeting the traditional
models subtly transformed with new inspiration. As the workers left for the day the designers kept present as excess current in the industrial machine, waiting to discharge into new
forms of matter orchestrated by the model-maker. Thus some
prototypes finished already after one day of intense work.
Later in the evening an open discussion was held at
the artist centre bridging designers and interested participants
from the local community. Issues of concern was how fashion
can be produced in off-centre locations without disappearing into anonymous silence but also how specific processes of
co-design and value production could be amplified through the
vectors of the fashion system. It is not enough for a facility to
be good at material production and distribution but it also has
to have channels into the fashion system for the production of
myth. But how can the excess fashion value be led back into
the local community and the production facility itself? What
could be the credit system for production that could trigger
further developments and that might even make a place like
Dale appear on the global fashion map.
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During the third and final day the production at the factory
continued with great intensity as the last prototypes materialized in the hands of designers and workers. Most designers
worked on two parallel models with varying complexity and
correlation with the original models from the factory. Small
changes in the patterns were introduced as well as random
elements, materials and processes using various punches and
stamps to widen the operation and variety of the models and
bringing unique values to the originally linear production at
Dale Sko.
Not only the outer design was changed but also inner soles and lining. Some pairs got a special finish inside the
shoes for a luxurious feeling, a lift for a surface that previously
was traditionally mute.
During the day the new prototypes were documented
by the fashion photographer and stylist for creating the important image of fashion, a step usually neglected by producers who take a lot of pride in their superior craftsmanship but
forget that most of their consumers will encounter the products as images before they actually step into the shoes. Outside the physical matter of the fashion object is a thin shimmer
of mythical image, a readiness created by our visual culture,
but specifically in fashion, by the image creators and photographers. We have usually been told this shimmer or myth is
“false”, a fetish value, and could thus be neglected in favour
for some “true” quality, but this shimmer is the exquisite product of fashion. To include a distinctive photographer into the
project was as important as the designers, since theses actors
are cooperating as the myth producers of fashion.
All designers got photographed in their shoes draped
in sheets to only expose the feet. Various scenographies in the
factory and surrounding Dale were used as backdrops.
At the end of the day there was held a common discussion and feedback session gathering the administrators of the
factory and the artist centre together with the designers to
evaluate the project and take out the course for further development. The meeting summed up as very positive where
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the workshop indeed had accomplished more than the limited
initial hope from the participants and factory to bloom into a
prosperous experience of collaborative work. It had evolved
new understandings of shoe production and co-creation for the
designers and Dale Sko to find common ground for hacking
and “software” tools for co-design.
At this point it seems like hacked shoes from Dale Sko
will be part of new collections from Norwegian designers working worldwide, showing at the fashion weeks in London as well
as in Paris – something beyond the previous scope and scale of
the shoe factory in Dale that now appeared in national media
as a progressive force with global connections and in shimmering hype.
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POST SCRIPTUM
It is apparent that a new role for the designer evolved during
the project, not breaking radical new terrain in terms of shoe
style innovation but working with impulses, modest proposals, small beginnings with emergent potential. Much like the
“small change” proposed by development practitioner Nabeel
Hamdi.10 The linear, industrial structure of production at the
factory was broken up into more intense cells of creation and
taking instead taking a meandering path. It was a more ambiguous collaboration to create a wider interface between
designers and factory. Instead of creating “divine” sketches in
the beginning of the process the designers worked very close
to the production process and methods changed form ad hoc
during the process. Not only in the total control of the “genius” designer but in collaboration and coexistence with the old
models from Dale Sko. As a dialogue the workshop materialized new designs from inside the processes of the factory, with
the old models and their infrastructure as a creative platform
for emulating further creative play in interchange with the
precursory forms.
Intersecting the shoe hack with the thoughts of Dutch
philosopher Henk Oosterling the designs can be said to be
taking shape in-between the actors, as an inter-esse; a field
in-between (inter) the unstable and non-discursive qualities of
the being (esse).11 An essence bridging what was before seen
as a divide between professions and will. As interstitial forms
the designs became material centres of attention in the publics
balancing the collaboration. A play between, not auto-nomous
in-dividuals, but instead, clusters of co-authors in dialogue.
Shoes as merged assemblages of palpable will.
The works of Siv Støldal could be seen as a quintessential modus operandi of hacking as she used the already existing
models only changing materials and introducing random punch
decorations to the designs. Every pair thus becomes unique
10 Hamdi N. (2004) Small Change. London, Earthscan.
11 Oosterling, H. (2003) “Sens(a)ble Intermediality and Interesse: Towards an Ontology
of the In-Between” Intermédialités, no 1, printemps 2003/Spring 2003, CRI Montreal, pp.
29-46.
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but still preserves the integrity of the traditional models from
Dale Sko. Arne and Carlos strategy of “pimpifying” a traditional model also changed the expression by slightly altering the
cut and adding new materials, turning the shoe into a daring
style. As T-Michael redrew the form and changed the material
into exclusively treated sealskin and reworking the sole he introduced a Victorian dandy style to the model but also revealed
how the shape of the foot and forms of the existing lasts can
communicate to produce new visual expressions.
Not only was the material production changed but also
the process for creating image and myth. By connecting channels directly to Dale Sko from actors within the fashion system
the current of fashion myth was injected into the local facility,
far away from the main vectors of myth flows (like fashion capitals, shows, markets and magazines). Underlining the potential
of the local the current from the established fashion designers
not only created positive media attention to the factory but
also improving the myth narrative for the designers to include
into their lifestyle concept. As such local Norwegian shoe production could move from a picturesque, local and ethical value
into something hyped, cool and truly fashionable avant-garde.
Proposing the role of the designer changed not only
means that the “genius” designer as been dethroned into a
collaborative change agent but instead expanded the aesthetic
field of manipulation within reach. By orchestrating open interfaces of design self-organization and stressing the potential of
interstitial forms the involved designers transgressed their previous borders of action. The design interfaces became spaces
of action, framing attempts to connect separated wills into new
merged flows. They also injected energy at a new frequency to
the local facility, thus having an even more interesting partner
in dialogue.
Design self-organization could be seen as a practice
of creating small open cells of negotiation as a conscious tool
for bringing the design process into a new field of action.
These cells are small publics or interfaces where designers
and participating actors meet on equal ground in a process
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of small change or hacking, using their own tools and understandings to dive deeper into practical dialogue and hands-on
exploration. Not to change the whole process or hardware
but to modulate the flows and functions. As the negotiation in
this specific small public progress (the settings are of many
small publics, small changes, small hacks) it is also important
to support this intermutual change by connecting it into other
publics to enhance and amplify the possible impacts into other
local publics.
As the process showed during the workshop it is very
important that these negotiation and publics are done in humble and respectful ways. To deal with a proud local actor in
decline is a sensitive balancing act where the designers have
to proceed with caution not to hurt any feelings during the
process. Big ego designers are not usually the best negotiators
and could seriously harm both the collaborative design process
as well as draining the energy invested into the project. But as
it showed during the workshop it is very possible to create very
intense and positive changes by open negotiations and positive
small change.
Bringing in the eyes of media as well as putting the
spotlight at the collaborative working process formulated new
viewpoints in addition to renewed handcraft pride. For the
shoe factory to be recognized and respected not only for its old
merits but also for its concern to go further and keep on being
a progressive local player with global fashion connections the
media attention became a recognition for its hard work.
In this case the positive feedback from the workers and
apparent furthering and re-energization of the work process
in the factory showed that it was indeed very possible to bring
traditional industrial production into becoming a progressive
force in the local community. Thus the project also became a
tool for enablement and powering up hyphenated functions in
the production, energizing modulation and spontaneous working processes exposing deeper layers of knowledge and putting
them into better use as their value can be an exposed part of
the final fashionable result.
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A possible next step for the project would be to support
the new connections and collaborations between the designers and the factory, both the design publics and contacts that
came out of the workshop but mainly as points of departure for
further commercial transactions. It is not enough that the fashion designers produce their rather small collections of shoes
in Dale but it is also needs to support the attention the factory
might get from this collaboration. If the channels of fashion
start energizing the brand of Dale Sko it is also important that
the shoe factory is ready to respond to that by further developing their models, but maybe not in a too radical way. The
changes they will need to do to keep up with fashion could be
quite small and simple, just as the workshop proved, but these
small changes needs still to be done with careful sensitivity.
It would also be preferred if this would be done in a similar
way of respect and sensibility that was shown by the workshop
participants.
The Dale Sko hack was an experiment in analogue hacking in
industrial settings, probing new forms of collaborative design
in fashion production. The factory, once the main employer and
gem of the town, can once again claim to be innovative and
continue to be a local pride into the future. A meeting place between the global fashion system and local quality production.
The actors can meet here for practical dialogue in collaborative design and a cluster of publics for negotiation. These are
small publics where specific values are created – material, economic and mythical – which they all can call their own.
This would mean that Dale, a small town on the Norwegian
countryside with 1500 inhabitants, no longer is a place where
the signals of fashion can be read in magazines distributed
from far away. Instead it is a place where fashion is also written. Not only enacted but also co-produced.
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the
hack
DESIGN MANAGEMENT: A
REINTERPRETATION
Lecture at Istanbul Technical University, 4 May 2006
on the theme of Modes of Production and Design Hacking
by Otto von Busch and Karl Palmås
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What is ’design management’? To some,
it is a field of study that assists designers in following the recent tenets of
‘management theory’. To others, it is a
scientific discipline that instructs managers how to add new value to – to, as
it were, sparkle some design lustre over
– their existing business practices.
However, design management can also
be the study of heterodox practices
emerging among design practitioners.
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Framed in this way, design management is a field of study that
explores new economic forms emerging within design economies. As such, as these studies highlight the existence of a
multitude of off-the-norm models of economic life, the field of
design management may help us imagine a market economy
that hosts a plethora of different, yet co-existing, logics.
In this lecture, we will follow this latter interpretation of design management. Drawing upon design processes that we
have participated in, we will point to the weird and wonderful
ways in which contemporary objects are designed.
OPENING UP THE DESIGN PROCESS
One object that is undergoing a change in design practices is
– believe it or not – the automobile. In recent years, Volvo Car
Corporation has become known as the home of the all-womendesigned Your Concept Car. Nevertheless, beyond this example, the company is also exploring how to stage a design process that is more socially robust, drawing upon competencies
that do not necessarily reside inside the corporation. Instead,
Volvo has found ways to open the company to external knowledge producers.
For instance, one of the recent innovations in Volvo products
is the design of car compartments and interiors that cater to
users with contact allergies and asthma. Thus, the car is are
stripped of allergens and asthma-inducing chemicals. Moreover, the some of the physical design features also cater to these
same users – for instance, designers have studied issues such
as how easy it is to keep the interiors clean. Throughout this
process – the elimination of chemicals, the redesign of the interiors etc. – Volvo engineers and designers have collaborated
closely with the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association.
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This case is interesting in the ways that it disrupts traditional
roles of corporations and civil society organisations. Traditionally, corporations are to be seen to be sealed vessels that host
certain capabilities – for instance to design, manufacture and
sell cars. The expertise to do so is expected to reside inside
the company, in the hands of designers, engineers and marketers. Indeed, it is the ownership of these very resources that
sustains the firm, securing its competitive advantage. The task
of the corporation is to translate its resources into products
and services, thus creating ‘utility’ for consumers, in a rational
manner.
In order to be rational, production also needs to be non-subjective and non-political – corporations are simply to supply
consumers with products, put into this world by engineers that
‘just design things’. Politics, then, only comes into the picture
in the form of the state, which regulates the company through
legislation, thus setting the boundaries for production.
The civil society organisation, on the other hand, is ordinarily
seen to be kept out of the productive process. Instead, its purpose is to mobilise citizens around issues of shared concern,
be they cultural, political or otherwise. Thus, according to the
modern view of the economy, the only way for the Astma and
Allergy Association to be related to Volvo’s productive process
is through the state – for instance, it may lobby the government to regulate the automotive industry on issues of allergens
in car interiors.
However, in the case of Volvo and the Asthma and Allergy Association, this separation of ‘objective business’ and ‘subjective
Penrose, E. (1959) The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
See for example “The good society is delivered by a robust tension between politically
defined constraints and the self-interest and animal spirits of business and entrepreneurs,
and it is not always wise to muddy those roles. […] Capitalism flourishes within a clearly
understood role for the state as the definer and implementer of wider social objectives.”
Pp. 376-77, in Turner, JA. (2001) Just Capital. The Liberal Economy. London: Macmillan.
/ 53
civil society’ has collapsed: Political activists have invaded the
sphere of engineering and production; designers and engineers
have taken sides in the politics of asthma and allergies. Thus,
we are left with a ‘hybrid’ process that fuses innovation and
politics into becoming one and the same thing.
This implosion implies that civil society groups can develop
new ways of enacting politics – instead of having to lobby for
government action, they can move to assist in design processes. For corporations, these forms of collaborations require
new modes of organisation. How do engineers communicate
and collaborate with civil society activists? Under what terms
are these collaborations to be staged? These are issues currently discussed at Volvo Car Corporation and elsewhere in the
corporate world.
There are, chiefly, two reasons for why corporations are making efforts to construct these forms engineering processes.
First, corporations have increasingly come to understand
the benefits of being close to their consumers in the development of new products. Thus, ‘user innovation’ has become a
key term within the field of innovation studies. Taking the
cue from the example from the development of the computer
operating system Linux, these scholars are pointing to how
users are often skilled enough to participate in the (re-)design
of products – making them into so-called ‘prosumers’. Moreover, these scholars argue that ‘user innovation’ is not merely
a novelty, reflected in open source software development, but
a phenomenon that has existed for a long time, for instance in
the context of design of sports equipment.
Latour, B (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Von Hippel, E. (2005) Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.
This term was originally coined by futurist Alvin Toffler. Toffler, A. (1980) The Third
Wave. Random House.
Shah, S. (2005) ‘Open Beyond Software’, in D. Cooper, C. DiBona & M. Stone (eds.)
Open Sources 2. O’Reilly Media: Sebastopol, CA.
/ 54
Secondly, this trend is also following an acknowledgment of
the fact that knowledge production has increasingly moved out
from the confines of universities and corporate research labs.
Instead, knowledge is produced in distributed networks that
draw together heterogeneous actors – lay individuals, NGOs,
think tanks, journalists etc. Moreover, this ‘new mode of knowledge production’ implies that knowledge is developed in relation to applications, in trans-disciplinary settings, with a focus
on social durability (i.e. there must be a ‘buy-in’ from a number
of social stakeholders). In short, the university scientist or the
corporate engineer can no longer enjoy the same privileged position that he – because it was usually a he – had throughout
the 20th century.
For corporations, this means that their version of the truth
– for instance, the truth about the properties of their products – is increasingly facing competition from other truths.
The most well-known example is that of the Shell Brent Spar
debacle, when the knowledge claims provided by Shell, the
British government and environmental experts was rejected,
marginalised by the conflicting knowledge claims provided by
Greenpeace and other civil society actors. Since then, many
large corporations have found themselves in situations when
the public rejected the knowledge claims of its engineers and
designers, instead opting for the version of the truth provided
by consumers, lay people, NGOs and journalists. Hence, the
imperative to build design processes that build socially robust
products – design processes that incorporate knowledges from
external stakeholders – has grown increasingly important.
Gibbons, M. et al. (1994) The New Production of Knowledge: The dynamics of science
and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage Publications.
Potter, E. (2001) Gender and Boyle’s Law of Gases. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press. Also, see discussion in (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.Female_
Man©_Meets_Oncomouse™: Feminism and Technoscience. London: Routledge.
/ 55
CATHEDRALS AND BAZAARS,
MARKETS AND ANTIMARKETS
As already mentioned, the new ideas on innovation and distributed knowledge production are heavily inspired by developments in open source software production, notably the
design process that gave rise to Linux. One early discussion
on this process was provided by Eric Raymond’s web essay
The Cathedral and the Bazaar, published as a book in 1999.
Raymond argues that the design of Microsoft’s Windows operating system is akin to a cathedral – a top-down-structured
bureaucracy, held together by a command system, drawing
upon heavy investments funnelled trough the financial mechanisms of modern capitalism. In contrast, Linux emerged in a
bazaar-like mode of organisation, based upon a self-organising,
decentralised network of computer hackers, whose affiliation
to the project was on voluntary and ad-hoc basis. Thus, the
Linux project could achieve great success without the financial
muscle of a corporate structure.
One of the main points of this comparison is to show that the
traditional way of structuring formal organisations (be they
corporations or not) does not necessarily yield the best results.
Instead, the anarchic bazaar mode of (self-) organisation may
prove more effective, even if the product under construction
is highly complex (such as an operating system). This realisation has spawned a number of parallel discussions, not least
regarding whether Raymond’s socioeconomic insights can be
generalised beyond the organisation of software design.
Another such discussion has concerned the interrelations between ‘cathedrals’ and ‘bazaars’, notably whether they have a
symbiotic relation to each other. For instance, to what extent
does the existence of cheap open source software propagate
the use of the Internet, helping Microsoft sell more Windows
Raymond, E.S. (1999) The Cathedral & the Bazaar. Musings on Linux and Open Source
by an Accidental Revolutionary. Sebastopol, CA.: O’Reilly & Associates.
/ 56
licences? Moreover, to what extent does the success of Linux
depend upon Microsoft’s heavy investment in getting consumers to use computers in the first place?
A similar discussion on the symbiotic relationship between cathedrals and bazaars is to be found in Manuel DeLanda’s work
on the economy, as inspired by economic historian Fernand
Braudel.10 For DeLanda, the economy is to be seen as a composite of both market forms of organisation and antimarket
forms of organisation. Here, ‘markets’ are to be seen as the
equivalent of Raymond’s decentralised, self-organising bazaar,
whereas antimarkets are akin to the bureaucratic command
structures of Raymond’s cathedral. This causes conceptual
confusion, because “if capitalism has always relied on noncompetitive practices, if the prices for its commodities have
never been objectively set by demand/supply dynamics, but
imposed from above by powerful economic decision-makers,
then capitalism and the market have always been different entities.”11
Beyond the point that market economies consist of both markets and anti-markets – a fact often ignored by orthodox economists – DeLanda also argues that the two modes of organisation constantly generate each other. Decentralised markets can
over time mutate into bureaucratic hierarchies of power, and
such hierarchies may sooner or later dissolve into markets.
Thus, “once a market grows beyond a certain size, it spontaneously generates a hierarchy of exchange, with prestige goods
at the top and elementary goods, like food, at the bottom.
Command structures, in turn, generate meshworks, as when
hierarchical organizations created the automobile and then a
meshwork of services (repair shops, gas stations, motels and
so on), grew around it.”
10 DeLanda, M. (1997) A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York, NY.: Zone
Books.
11 DeLanda, M. ’Markets and anti-markets in the world economy’, online paper available
at http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/de_landa/antiMarkets.html.
/ 57
While DeLanda is critical towards the oppressive properties
of antimarkets, he also acknowledges the fact that completely
‘destratified’ economies – consisting only of local, decentralised, self-organising markets – are largely untenable. Nevertheless, in this lecture, we focus design economies that are
constituted as markets, rather than antimarkets.
LOCAL EXCHANGES OF KNOWLEDGE AND COMMODITIES
IN URBAN SETTINGS
To attach these thoughts more firmly to design management
we have focused on examples within fashion where cathedrals
and bazaars as well as markets and antimarkets easily can
be identified. Fashion is also an intriguing field of application
since, as fashion theorist Elisabeth Wilson claims, “fashion
speaks capitalism”12.
If we look at the classical top-down hierarchy of fashion, in
traditions like Paris as fashion capital, Chanel as high-level
fashion and Karl Lagerfeld as genius incarnation of fashion artist all these structures appear to be organized as cathedrals.
These are closed internal structures with high gravity of artistic influence and aesthetic power organized not so different
from how we can imagine the power structures of the church,
with the pope in the top, connected to a higher power which in
fashion could be the beauty ideal.13
Opposite of this, but just as strong in influence, we could
identify the Tokyo street fashion scene with hundreds of small
players and designers and very ephemeral in their influences
and networked in their structure. One brand appears one day,
transforms until the next and disappears or is merged not
much later. Behaviour related to the networked scene is very
12 Wilson, E (1985) Adorned in Dreams London: Virago
13 This metaphor should not be seen as a blaspheming but instead put a focus on how
channels and institutions of belief work. Fashion is a phenomenon with many parallels
in expression and manifestation to the practices and institutions of religion. Fashion is a
belief system and its religious artifacts are the fashion garments.
/ 58
revealing, especially in the case of the “fruit kids”, performing spectacular costumes and constant re-invention of their
dressed identity, often in bright combinations and smashing
appearances in total re-mix fashion.
This could be seen as a total opposite of how the approach to
cathedral fashion is; often as investments in the institution of
the brand, not very experimental or consciously eclectic but
more a safe play within the structures provided by the fashion
magazines as the key answers to style equations. Following
the styles provided by the printed visual fashion channels we
are closely following the creation process of fashion since, as
Roland Barthes claims in his book The Fashion System; “the
magazine is a machine that makes fashion”14. (we will come
back to the machine metaphor later.)
But fashion as bazaar can not only be seen in the street struggles of Tokyo but also in the do-it-yourself punk heritage approach to fashion that has been seen flourish the last years
also within the established top brands. Many different projects
have run on how to transform clothes or update old crafts into
more contemporary expressions.15 Most of these actor, often
combing activism and craft, are re-inventing the fashion scene
in a truly punk way, but often lack the influence and acceptance of the fashion system which often makes these expressions very marginal phenomena, not often reaching the established channels of the belief system; the top magazines.16
Instead these small networks of craftists can be regarded as
part of the rising class of so-called “Pro-Ams”, or professional
14 Barthes, R. (1967) The Fashion System London: Verso 1996 p.51.
15 Some examples can be found at www.craftivism.com, www.microrevolt.org, www.
churchofcraft.com, www.subversivecrossstitch.com or www.swaporamarama.org
16 We are here using the definition of Kawamura, differing clothes (as material) from
fashion (as system of signs) - “clothing and dress are the raw material from which fashion
is formed. Fashion as a belief is manifested through clothing.” p.1. Kawamura, Y. (2005)
Fashion-ology Oxford: Berg
/ 59
amateurs. This term is coined by the British think tank Demos,
which stipulates that the economy of the 21st century will incorporate a blurring of the delineations between work and
leisure, professionalism and amateurism, enterprise and activism.17 This constitutes a radical break with the 20th century
ideals of modern professional: Within this framework, production was to be provided by apolitical experts who worked “nine
to five” in large institutions, and then spent their idle time at
home, engaging in non-productive leisure activities. Today, we
see that many amateurs are becoming as skilled as the professionals in the traditional institutions, and that many contemporary products are produced by networked enthusiasts during
their leisure time.
Thus, the craftists mentioned above are furthering their interests into a higher level of serious hobbyism and prosumer
knowledge production. They are not players in the high ground
of the system but instead work networked on lower plateaus,
intermixing expressions and styles, producing independent
collections in limited editions, but also using punk-style fashion magazines as their channels or reaching out on alternative
fashion events or alternative shows (as parallel parasites to
fashion weeks or other open events such as the independent
shows at Designmai or Bread and Butter in Berlin).
What characterizes this approach to design is the low level
organizational works focusing on the creation of small cells
of communication and collaboration. As these cells form and
remain open in their shape they make patterns similar to selforganized networks in synergetic alloys often in non-linear
format and in dynamic consonance. Examples of this could
be everything from the creation of independent zines to small
scale fashion events like the Tee Shirt Construction Nights of
Matrushka18 in Los Angeles or the release events of the Berlin
17 Leadbeater, C. & Miller P. (2004) The Pro-Am Revolution at: http://www.demos.co.uk/
files/proamrevolutionfinal.pdf
18 www.matrushka.com
/ 60
label Florinda Schnitzel where local artist and DJ form together with designers to create other than visual status values
in their designs. These kind of events are common in “creative
industries” but still struggle to get due recognition as productive elements in society of which new values can reach the
public. The critical world still has a tendency of regarding material culture as only material and as such a closed form hard
to manipulate.
HACKING AS A PRODUCTIVE
AND POLITICAL PRACTICE
If we understand society as a structure and system consisting
of small entities engaged in interaction at small levels but supporting the foundation of civil society act of micro politics can
also be described as hacking the system since even the smallest change might influence the system at large. The hacker is
in this sense a co-producer and co-author of a system.
One interesting example of this kind of hacking is the slash
fiction, a culture conducted by popular culture fans that took
off in the 70s with the stories of Kirk/Spock where the two
main characters from the TV series Star Trek engaged in a
homoerotic relation totally created by the fans.19 These stories
that most popular engage male characters are estimated to be
to 90% written by women sometimes create controversies both
by upset fans that doesn’t comply with the erotic hijacking of
their stars but mainly form copyright owners and legal institutions.20 Many slash authors mean that they reveal the true
intentions of the original creators that were suppressed by
publishing companies and distribution lobby or simply hidden
by the creator to be released by their most devoted fans.
19 Penley, C. (1994) “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture” in
Visual Culture (ed. Bryson N. et al) New England: Wesleyan
20 There is also a culture of femmeslash focusing on homosexual and bisexual stories of
female characters, but not at all as popular or productive as the male slash. There are also
controversies about stories of underage characters which by most fans who usually does
not oppose the erotic content but in this case is regarded to be taking the stories too far.
/ 61
What is most fascinating with slash culture from a hacking
point of view is the format and tactics it is using to find loopholes in the stories and insert their own authorship into these
gaps of the stories. Instead of accepting the cuts and closure of
the producer and original creator they use these to enrich the
stories and multiply layers of complexity to the narratives by
re-reading the plots and lines of the stories, retying them into
new knots and mechworks along the lines the story flows thus
taking back initiative from the media itself, changing the flow
from author to audience in a very hands-on way.
But hacking is also practices engaged in very technical fields
to like in circuit bending, the creative art of short circuiting
electronic instruments and toys into unimagined noise producing tools for exploring disharmonies and enrich music production. By opening electronic toys and by simple means, without
any previous electronic skills, explore how the sounds change
by just touch different parts of the interior circuit board and
re-circuiting various parts of the connectors.
A similar approach can be found in tactical media practices of
taking back media or in how the Italian telestreet movement
is using low power pirate TV to hack the power structures and
media control on a low level, neighbourhood scale as independent community media on a proxy-scale – talking back on community level. Their programs span a large range of topics, everything from activist media, union statements and discussions,
and human rights forums as well as re-broadcasting football
send by restricted satellite-channels for which the viewer
originally has to pay. The channel Disco Volante is for example
formed of physically handicapped focusing on agendas such as
accessibility and participation in their community proxy broadcasts.
An organized analogue fashion hacking event was organized
in Dale north of Bergen in April 2006 inviting established Nor/ 62
wegian fashion designers to hack the software and assembly
methods of the small local factory. The size and budget of the
factory made it impossible to introduce new models or to follow the constant changes of fashion so the task of the designers was to find new ways to use the existing hardware but also
to reform the interface between designer and production facility. Instead of acting as an “aesthetic god” sending sketches
to be mass produced the designers were instead consciously
working with the existing knowledge and models and instead
trying to find other paths for channelling the knowledge and
energy at the factory. Re-configuring the connectors and modulating the inner processes at the factory, but not on an organizational level but more in the hands-on assembly line as well as
the cells and publics on the floor.
The designers were changing the models by introducing new
materials to the old models as well as introducing simple randomized decoration patterns to make every pair unique as well
as pushing the borders on how the assemblage of styles could
work. The design process was then a combination of skills
– reintroducing attention and hope into a stagnated process,
creating a set of respectful publics and interfaces for developing the designs and methods together with the producers but
just as important creating the “touch” of fashion myth to it. It
is not enough for a fashion production facility to be of excellent material quality but also the mythical level has to be taken
seriously as it is a just as essential part of the finished product.
For this part the designers brought their own channels out into
the fashion system, something the small off-center factory had
big problems doing by itself.
What is apparent with the Dale example is how the process
of software hacking can energize a system, especially in the
sense of fashion. Not only became the old shoe factory head
line news in the local media that for once had some positive
news from the old industries that usually appear on the pages
/ 63
when they fire another set of workers but the process also
showed that the skills of old crafts were still paying of and
could be applied in new ways to co-create new values reaching outside of the channels provided by the factory. The roles
of the designer was multiplied as well as networked but also
non-linear as it broke the usual top-elitism of the designer as
genius and artistic author of myth and instead became a facilitator of multiple publics and design relations – connecting
low level processes of unique software production changes but
also introducing social values to the design process as well as
producing energized myth connected to the fashion system. In
traditional terms this role seems complicated; author, organizer, facilitator, economist as well as designer but it might also
sum up under another term related to the change of metaphor
– the hacker.
For instance, Manuel DeLanda has stated that activists need to
adopt a “hacker attitude towards all forms of knowledge: not
only to learn UNIX or Windows NT to hack this or that computer system, but to learn economics, sociology, physics, biology
to hack reality itself. It is precisely the ‘can do’ mentality of the
hacker, naive as it may sometimes be, that we need to nurture
everywhere.”21
DeLanda thus argues that hacking as a productive and political
practice can be generalized. But in order to approach this idea,
we can use Eric Raymond’s writings to learn more about what
he terms “the hacker attitude”. According to Raymond, this
attitude implies that one believes that the world is full of interesting problems waiting to be solved. Hence, the hacker attitude is less concerned with airy-fairy theories of some impending utopia, but more interested in the hard-nosed practices of
constant hacking, in order to produce tangible differences in
the world.
21 From an interview by DJ Spooky: http://www.djspooky.com/articles/essayonmanuel.
html
/ 64
This implies that “attitude is no substitute for knowledge” – in
order to hack a system, one has to have deep knowledge of
how it works. This problem is however assuaged by the collectivist ethos of the hacker community: The hacker attitude
is also based upon the conviction that sharing knowledge and
ideas is a virtue that makes hacking a more productive enterprise. Through sharing knowledge, the hacker community
becomes more skilful, or – in computer speak – “given enough
eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”.
THE PROLIFERATION OF COMPUTER METAPHORS
So far, this lecture has encompassed a number of ideas imported from the world of computer networks. This is however
not unique to “our” thinking – computer metaphors proliferating across a number of social spheres. They are to be found in
arts, activism, business theory, natural science, international
development discourse etc. For instance, art critic Nicolas
Bourriaud has written about the hacking as a key strategy for
contemporary artists22, and ideas of “open source” are getting
increasingly prominent in publications such as AdBusters23.
Similarly, “open innovation” is all the rage in Harvard Business
Review24, and natural scientists are now writing about cosmos
as a computer25.
While these ideas can be dismissed as simple metaphors that
may or may not capture the underlying reality of contemporary
society – many social scientists are still skeptical towards the
notion of a new, computerized knowledge economy – we can
also accept these metaphors as essential elements in the as22 Bourriaud, N. (2002) Postproduction. Culture as screenplay: How art reprograms the
world. New York, NY.: Lukas & Sternberg.
23 See AdBusters Magazine, issue 63, “The big ideas of 2006”.
24 See for instance “Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble’s New Model for
Innovation” in the March issue of Harvard Business Review.
25 Lloyd, S. (2006) Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On
the Cosmos. New York, NY.: Knopf.
/ 65
sembly of society. Metaphors are not “just” metaphors; they
influence our ways of seeing – and constructing – our worlds.
The philosopher of science Michel Serres has even argued
that metaphors derived from the world of technological artifacts have always governed our ways of seeing the world. For
instance, early scientific theories about the world – notably
astronomy – were heavily influenced by the clockwork technology. From the understanding of the clockwork, the dominant
technology of the time, scientists construed the world as a vast
construction of rotating wheels, set in motion by some transcendent being.
Nevertheless, after the advent of the steam engine, the motor became the dominant technology in society. This inspired
modern scientists and artists to conceptualize the world in new
terms. Hence, the simple clockwork metaphors were replaced
with motor metaphors. God was removed from the equation,
and motion – i.e. the march of history – came from “reservoirs”
of fuel that propelled society forward. Hence, in Marx, class
interests propelled the dialectical march of time, and in Freud,
repressed sexuality propelled humans to act in peculiar ways.
Serres has also traced the motor metaphor to artists such as
Turner and Zola.
Interestingly, the spread of the motor metaphor – from technical contraption (the steam engine) to theoretical models of the
world (whether Marxist or Freudian) – was contingent upon
the formulation of the general logic of steam engine. Thus,
the technical contraption had to be formulated as an “abstract
machine”, in order to spread to the minds of modern scientists
and artists. This process took half a century, with Carnot’s abstract description of the steam engine being instrumental in
transforming the physical contraption into ideas.
/ 66
One example of how the engine/motor metaphor is established
in society can be seen in the education system described by
Vilem Flusser where he identifies the common school system
as a feeding of the machine: the first years in school the subjects are forced into a system to be disciplined to come in time
and learn to read the basics, such as the manual of the machine. The second step (such as high school) is for those intelligent enough to service the machine and the final and highest
step is the university (or technical high school) where the construction of machines is taught. 26 The various tests and exams
during the process are measurements to give every component
in the system a number for easy management of the system
and replacement of broken parts (like retired workers or engineers).
Given the rise of computer and network technologies (which
have been used for half a century), it seems reasonable to expect that we are now entering an era when these metaphors
will provide us with new views of the world. For instance,
Manual DeLanda has explored the nature of warfare “in the
age of intelligent machines”.27 However, the formulation of
computer networks as abstract machines seems likely to influence a number of fields. However, in this lecture, we will limit
ourselves to design practices.
THE ROLE OF THE DESIGNER
In a world increasingly governed by metaphors from the world
of computerized networks, what is the role of the designer? As
we know from the “critical” sentiments expressed by scholars
towards the latter third of the 20th century, designers cannot
detach themselves from the political aspects of their work.
Science and Technology Studies (STS) has shown that scientists and engineers are not “just doing science” or “just doing
engineering” – they are intensely political actors, shaping our
26 Flusser, V. (1999) The Shape of Things London: Reaktion
27 DeLanda, M. (1991) War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York, NY.: Zone
Books.
/ 67
worlds. Similarly, there is no such thing as “just doing design”.
Here, we are greatly indebted to the baby boom generation. In
the late 1960s, they – as radical youths – spearheaded a thorough critique of the technocratic society. As Theodore Roszak
wrote in 1968, a technocracy is “that society in which those
who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts
who, in turn, justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms
of knowledge”.28 As such, the technocracy is the social form in
which industrial society reaches the peak of its organizational
integration.
The main theoretical basis for this view of society was provided
by Herbert Marcuse’s blend of Marx and Freud, depicting
industrial society as a machine of exploitation and repression. Crucially, Marcuse’s ideas highlighted the ways in which
culture – mass media, advertising and contemporary modes
of thought – usurped any potential for critique of capitalism.
Mass culture thus served to turn industrial capitalism into a
motor-like, closed system.
For the countercultural youth, the only way out of this total
system was to throw gravel into the machinery, jamming its
modes of operation, thus baring the monstrosity of the machine for all of the world to see. Public demonstrations, sit-ins,
subversive art and various ways of “dropping out” mainstream
culture were all different approaches to achieve this effect.
Thus, critique became synonymous with deconstruction, debunking, defacing and detournement.
However, in a world no longer construed as a motor (following
a fixed set of motions), and instead construed as a computer
network (loosely assembled and constantly subject to recon28 Roszak, T. (1971) The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic
Society and Its Youthful Opposition. London: Faber.
/ 68
figuration), new forms of critique are emerging. The radical
opposition to the machine was to sabotage it, by throwing a
clog, sabot, into the machine and break it for reconstructing a
new one. In a similar manner the way to change society was by
a revolution, crashing the existing one and building a new better society from scratch. But today, rather than to deconstruct
their object of critique, artists and activists are striving to reconstruct it – just like the hacker is reconstructing computer
systems.
Nicolas Bourriaud writes about this phenomenon in the context
of contemporary art: “While the detournement of preexisting artworks is a currently employed tool, artists use it not to
‘devalorize’ the work of art but to utilize it”29. Thus, the aim is
not to jam or drop out of the system – as was the case for the
countercultural youth – but to make it operate in new and unexpected ways.
On a similar note, Manuel DeLanda ends his A Thousand Years
of Non-linear History with a quote from Deleuze and Guattari: “Staying stratified – organized, signified, subjected – is
not the worst that can happen; the worst that can happen is if
you throw the strata into demented or suicidal collapse, which
brings them back down on us heavier than ever. This is how it
should be done: lodge yourself on a stratum, experiment with
the opportunities it offers, find an advantageous place on it,
find potential movements of deterritorialization, possible lines
of flight, experience them, produce flow conjunctions here and
there, try out continuums of intensities segment by segment,
have a small plot of new land at all times.”
Bruno Latour has tied this form of ‘constructive’ notion of
critique to democratic theory: “The critic is not the one who
debunks, but the one who assembles. The critic is not the one
who lifts the rugs from under the feet of the naïve believers,
29 Postproduction, p. 37.
/ 69
but the one who offers the participants arenas in which to
gather. The critic is […] the one for whom, if something is constructed, then it means it is fragile and thus in great need of
care and caution.”30
Here, Latour draws upon the pragmatist philosopher John
Dewey, who argued that the measure of a functioning democracy is its ability to assemble publics around issues of concern.
The assembly of publics is particularly important in technologically complex situations: in cases where there are conflicting
scientific evidence and high technological risks, the publics
must be brought in to settle the case.
Thus, the designer ideal should no longer be the “apolitical”
designer of the mid 20th century, nor the “critical” designer
of the late 20th century. Instead the role of the designer is to
facilitate the proliferation of publics around issues of concern,
assisting them in their hacking efforts and enrich the toolbox
with which we can change the situated problems. The designer
is in this case not only a constructive critical actor but also a
builder of applied scenarios and an explorer of possibilities
where every design case with its publics and interfaces is a
small effort to change and an example of “practical idealism”
(to use a term by Mahatma Gadhi).
CONCLUSIONS
What we have tried to propose is a series of examples and
ideas on how to broaden the concept of design management
into practices outside the traditional models of how business is
done, but also revealing some of the activist and political aspects of design also from the eyes of economy. In these examples these fields are merging into a role similar to the one of
the hacker. It is a series of practices for reforming our cultural
practices and the world thus incorporating a large portion of
30 Latour, B. (2004) ‘Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters
of concern’, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 30, No. 2.
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political will and vision rather than narrow economic incentives.
But in this set of practices it is also important to stress the collaborative settings of how this field evolves. It is not the work
of lonesome geniuses in their chambers or of elitist cells of
innovation but rather on the large wide scale connecting various publics. The forming of these publics could be said to be
the focus of how this new role of design management works.
It is thus not so much management in a traditional sense, and
neither design in a surface sculpturing way, but instead the
conscious trespassing and interface making process combining these fields into a political and activist form. It is thus a
merger of many fields and the designer role in this new field is
to navigate and process the forces at play. By modulating these
flows of people, profit and planet into new forms of activist
design business the hacker is the post-producer of our world,
assembling it into a shape for the future.
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Color photos from the final day of the
workshop in the following order:
Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison
T-Michael
Siv Støldal and Siri Johansen
Ulla Chauton
Photos by Rene Bent Synnevåg
Styling by Karen Gjelsvik
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Participants in the project was:
Arne Nerjordet and Carlos Zachrison
(www.arne-carlos.com)
Siv Støldal and Siri Johansen
(www.odd.at/sivsworld)
Ulla Chauton
(www.katulla.com)
T-Michael
(www.t-michael.com)
Bent Rene Synnevåg
(www.notbent.com)
Karen Gjelsvik
(www.agentk.no)
Stein Peterson
(www.plus-skolen.no)
Dale Sko
(www.dalesko.no)
Nordisk Kunstnarsenter Dalsåsen
(www.nkdale.no)
Fjaler Næringsutvikling
Nordisk Kunstnarsenter Dalsåsen
Dale Sko hack took place in Dale i Sunnfjord
26th-28th of April 2006 and was organized by
Otto von Busch in collaboration with Dale Sko
and Nordisk Kunstnarsenter Dalsåsen.
The project got publicity in various media during
the workshop time: NRK Vestlandsrevyen (TV),
NRK Sogn og Fjordane (Radio), Bergens Tidene
and Firda (national and local papers).
The project was generously supported by:
Innovasjon Norge (www.innovasjonnorge.no)
Fjaler Næringsutvikling (www.fnu.no)
Norsk Kulturråd (www.kulturrad.no)
IASPIS (www.iaspis.com)
but could never have been done without the
fantastic and enthusiastic support from Nordisk
Kunstnarsenter Dalsåsen (www.nkdale.no).
The shoe hackers also wants to thank the amazing people at Dale Sko for their positive ideas
during the process.
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A project on shoe hacking by Arne Nerjordet, Carlos Zachrison, Siv Støldal, Siri Johansen, Ulla
Chauton, T-Michael, Bent Rene Synnevåg, Karen Gjelsvik, Stein Peterson and Dale Sko.
Organized by Otto von Busch. Text by Otto and Karl Palmås.
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