Öffentliche Kunst ist ein Mittel um Gemeinschaften zusammenzubringen und Menschen direkt mit dem physischen Raum um sie herum zu verbinden. In der Regel wird Kunst im öffentlichen Raum in Form von Wandgemälden, Skulpturen und Architektur präsentiert. Öffentliche Kunstwerke können als Identitätsmarker für bestimmte Orte, oder auch als Mittel zur Anregung persönlicher und sozialer Veränderungen dienen.
Durch neue Technologien und Werkzeuge bekommen visuelle Kunstformen neue Möglichkeiten sich darzustellen. Die weiterentwicklung von AR (Augmented reality) lässt diese Technologie immer weiter in den Konsumerbereich vordringen. Social Media Plattformen wie Snapchat und Instagram zeigten bereits in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Anwendungsbeispiele in Form von Filtern. Mithilfe deren können virtuelle Elemente in die reale Welt projiziert werden.
Es finden sich aber auch Beispiele bei denen reale Objekte, virtuelle Elemente mithlife von AR generiert werden können. Die Multimedia Agentur Heavy gestaltete eine Wandmalerei die mithilfe von AR, Animationen durch Interaktion auf einem Smartphone zulässt. Der Benutzer kann mithilfe einer App die Flächen des Gemäldes auswählen und diese im physischen Raum transformieren und skalieren.
The current social and political debates are reflected in design and art. Design activism is a movement that takes it upon itself to use its responsibility as a designer to create a better world. It is not about inciting isolated events, but rather using design in all its forms to create a sustainable platform for change – the fundamental problem must be understood and interpreted in order to explore the path to a common solution and publicly call for change. One does not rely on the mechanisms of politics, but uses one’s professional, creative skills for the commitment to a better world. As a designer, you have the responsibility to intervene in current social and socio-political processes in order to actively and globally shape the future society and to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. It is about taking a visionary and provocative position in order to help shape or even initiate social developments. Design activism has a healthy potential for dealing with contemporary societal issues.
“Design Activism” or “Design” and “Activism”
Both, “design” and “activism”, are connected to our mind. They express our diverse ways of thinking. For design there isn’t only one definition, because it’s not that easy to limit the meaning of something that expresses our inner thoughts, which become to action and art. Design always have to be seen in a cultural context because it is tied to cultural perceptions that are contemporary and yet very personal. Design is about communication, where cultural, political and societal are put into a form of perception, and it seems to be everywhere.
Design crosses a diverse range of subject fields and disciplinary borders giving design a unique reach among the creative disciplines, while simultaneously adding more complexity and blurring the discursive space. Design is something that is important in all facets of contemporary life.
As in the discipline of design as well as in the discipline of activism there is a dualism. There are professional and trained designers, who offer expertise, yet design is executed by unknown, anonymous and non-intentional designers, who gain their expertise from outside the design professionals’ world. This also can be applied to the field of activism. The different origins of the designers and activists, whether professional or anonymous, leads to design and activism that makes an important contribution to contemporary issues, social developments and environmental stability.
Responsibility
“We have the opportunity to decide whether we will simply do good design or we will do good with design.” -David Berman
There are many actors, agents and stakeholders in this activist landscape that intentionally or unintentionally usedesign, design thinking and other design processes to deliver their activism. So not only famous and well-known designers have the possibility and the responsibility to use their creative knowledge to draw attention to important societal and political topics that may not be given enough importance.
I will ask what media design can do to create an effect for a better world and analyze illustrative media concepts for this purpose.
The question that arises for me is how such design-activist concepts are received and what influence they have on the recipients. What success does design activism have in this? And how can this success be measured? What are the economic and commercial aspects of design activism?
How can joyful design change human behavior and well being?
What is joy?
Joy is much more than feeling happy – it is the intense feeling of great happiness and feeling good in the moment. [1] Joy is that emotion which makes us laugh and/or jump in the air.
The “wheel of emotions” developed by Robert Plutchik, suggests eight primary emotions grouped on a positive or negative basis – one of them is joy.
Wheel of Emotions by Robert Plutchik
joy versus sadness; anger versus fear, trust versus disgust, surprise versus anticipation
Considering his theory, basic emotions can be paired/modified to create complex emotions. The complex emotions could arise from cultural conditions or associations combined with the basic emotions – similar to the way primary colors can be combined, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience. [2]
Joy and Design Influence on human behavior and well-being
Ingrid Fetell Lee dedicates her work to the studies of joy in our life – Where does joy come from? What brings joy? She wrote the book “Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness” [3] and gave a TED talk on the subject, titled “Where joy hides and how to find it.” [4] Through her studies she found out that there is a relationship between the physical world and the feeling of joy and that there are universal matters that spark joy in almost everyone – such as rainbows, fireworks and bubbles. Those elements remind us of shared humanity in a common experience of our physical world.
Ingrid Fetell Lee particularly analyzed the “aesthetics of joy” and came to the conclusion that those are especially round things, pops of bright color, symmetrical shapes/arrangements, multiplicity, a sense of abundance and a feeling of lightness.
Case Study – Project Backboard
Project Backboard was founded in 2014 by Dan Peterson. Dan’s mission: using public basketball courts as a canvas for creative expression to strengthen communities and inspire multi-generational play. To Dan, basketball is much more than only sport – it represents joy and community. In the last years Project Backboard renovated over two dozen basketball courts from Memphis to Puerto Rico. [5]
“I am trying to explore how color can reengineer the space to make it feel more inviting.” – Dan Peterson
ARTIST: Carlos Rolón – Toa Baja, Puerto Rico
“I see art as a real utility that changes the way people engage with space. I feel they feel safer. When walking into our space, I believe people feel a physical vibration of the color. You feel the color in your body.” – Dan Peterson
ARTIST: Jim Drain – Fargnoli Park, Providence, RI
Project Backboard is only one of many examples how our environment and society can benefit by sparking joy through art and design.
Sources
[1] Oxford Dictionaries. Joy. Url: https://www.lexico.com/definition/joy (last retrieved November 08, 2020) [2] Lupton, Ellen: Design is Storytelling. (p. 61) New York: Cooper Hewitt 2017 [3] Fetell, Lee: Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness. Little, Brown Spark 2018 [4] TED. Fetell Lee, Ingrid: Where joy hides and where to find it. URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/ingrid_fetell_lee_where_joy_hides_and_how_to_find_it (last retrieved November 08, 2020) [5] Project Backboard. URL: https://projectbackboard.org (last retrieved November 08, 2020)
