Critical Transfeminist Design¶
What is fiction? Can be a critical tool but can also have hyper real consequences. We need to be aware of that when referring to fictions.
Boundaries are fictions but with hyper real consequences: political / physical / geopolitical. People get killed every day because of those.
Nick Bostrom when referring to trans humanism says “a cultural, intellectual and scientific movement that affirms that the moral duty to improve the physical and cognitive capacities of the human species and to apply new technologies to man, so that the undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition can be eliminated: suffering disease, ageing and even the mortal condition”. This vision is close to Eugenics.
Let’s check history:
Thomas Huxley was a biologist born in 1825 who wrote some interpretation of Darwin’s evolution theory focused on struggles. Struggles is in Darwin theory but seems that mutual hate is much more important for evolution rather than struggle (used to legitimate how the status quo functions).
Julian Huxley also was a biologist in the British eUgenics Society focused on the perfection of the race though genetics. He used the word trans humanism in order to remark the enhancement, promoting the use of genetics (eugenics) for enhancement.
There are two dimensions of power that are always fluctuating since we are all inscribed in power relations.
POTESTAS: power as negative, restrictive, controlled, oppressive (politics as usual).
POTENTIA: power as positive, affermative, empowering (the political).
Being aware about my own privileges and other people’s like Daniela Ortiz‘s “TENGO PRIVILEGIOS POR SER BLANCA Y EUROPEA”. https://www.daniela-ortiz.com being aware of our privileges and how inequalities are still present on our structure. There are way to decolonize to work on future narratives.
Epistemic violence: for instance having a class about decolonisation from a euro white (sorry Laura don’t take it personally it’s just the example!)
”… it’s a failure of an audience to communicatively, reciprocate, either intentionally or unintentionally, in linguistic exchanges. owning to pernicious ignorance. Pernicious ignorance is a reliable ignorance or. a counterfactual incompetence that, in a given context, is harmful.”
Being aware that performing epistemic violence shouldn’t be a limit of no operation / no possibility to operate but also being aware of contradictions and deal with them in order to open some critic.
There are no universal rules methods methodologies Not focused on what is known but on how it is known - situated knower: complex interdependent socio nature culture systems - situated knowledge: critical cultural analysis - epistemic conditions: communities / place based knowledge
case study: - Mary Maggic https://maggic.ooo - Becoming_plant - Transfeminism_resistance - the movement understands gender as a system of power that produces, controls and limits bodies in order to adapt them to the established social order, aiming to modify, expand and alters the code who governs social constructions. - Power makes us sick - experimental research on autonomous health, different approaches to open health. - Bio Paranoya - Aqua_forensic, general open conception of citizen who inhabit a territory beyond their legal status.
When we are collaborating, doing research we have to ask ourselves who is missing in this space? - we tend to forget the importance of the ones who are not there, giving importance to the absences because it gives informations to accessibilities, privileges and so on… What is toxic? / What is pure? / Illusion of pureness that affects specific conception that we may have as societies on pureness and purity used in scientific institutions. Purity comes from Catholicism colonialism and was pushed to nature as uncontaminated and not touched by human because the settlers were taking control of the human being living in nature - corruption because of power. For whom did you research today? Very good question when we are working in a collaborative experimental space.
Symbiotic interdependence¶
What’s utopian or distopian? How relative and subjective is the concept? To watch: Utopia tv serie.
Design Justice¶
It rethinks design processes, focuses on people who are normally marginalised by design and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face. Principles - Design to sustain, health and empower our communities (situated perspective practices avoiding universalism). As well as to seek liberation from exploitative and oppressive system. - Center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process, avoiding solutionistic perspective of an aggressive and superior design intervention. - Prioritise design’s impact on the community over the intentions of the designers. - Change as emergent from an accountable, accessible and collaborative process rather than as a point at the end of a process. - Role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert - Everyone is an expert based on their own experience, and that we all have unique and brilliant contributions to bring to a design process. No one does research alone. No one. While you do it you have an active dialogue with a multiplicity of actors. - We share design knowledge and tools with our community. - Work towards sustainable community-led and controlled outcomes. - Work towards non-exploitative solutions that reconnect us to the earth and to each other - Before seeking new design solutions we look for what is already working at the community level. We honour and uplift traditional, indigenous and local knowledge and practices.