Eventual Design for an Emergent World

Abstract

Are we at a punctuation point in the evolution of design practices? The ascendance of modern design practices, over the last 100 years, to popular and pervasive application, is fraught with questions about benefits and limits. In light of persistent social injustice, political strife and looming ecological danger, a more extensive accounting of the work of designers is needed, if only to craft a proper manifesto for proceeding with our work.

By extrapolating recent trends in the evolution of design practices, a meta-practice of “eventual” design is envisioned, to call attention, beyond form of artifacts, process of service, and quality of experience, to the entailments, actions and etiquette of events, and their eventual consequences. The “event” is identified as a fruitful entry point for forensic reconnaissance into causes, effects and consequences in this terra incognita. An event lab and instrument are sketched, with intentions to 1. identify aesthetic causes, social effects and systemic consequences of design; 2. formulate a common etiquette between and amongst people and with technology; and 3. model and monitor interdependence and sensitivity within the logistics of our human project and ecology of living systems and avoid detrimental or disastrous consequences.