Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age

Ann Light; Alison Powell; Irina Shklovski

doi:10.1145/3083671.3083688

Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age

Ann Light, Alison Powell, Irina Shklovski

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

Abstract

What should be our orientation to the socio-technical as climate predictions worsen; ecological crises and wars escalate mass migration and refugee numbers; right-wing populism sweeps through politics; automation threatens workers' jobs and austerity policies destabilize society? What is to be done when it is not "business as usual" and even broken concepts of progress seem no longer to be progressing? We ask how to design for the common good, focusing on human needs for meaning, fulfillment, dignity and decency, qualities which technology struggles to support but can easily undermine. We juxtapose the design of computing that offers hope with that which offers only distraction, propose four modes to design for (being attentive, critical, different and in it together) and conclude with a plea to avoid tools that encourage a blinkered existence at a time of great uncertainty and change.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	C&T '17 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Publication date	2017
Pages	270-279
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-4854-6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3083671.3083688
Publication status	Published - 2017

Keywords

design

Access to Document

10.1145/3083671.3083688

TnC2017FinalAccepted author manuscript, 318 KB

Cite this

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Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age. / Light, Ann; Powell, Alison; Shklovski, Irina.
C&T '17 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies. Association for Computing Machinery, 2017. p. 270-279.

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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Design for Existential Crisis in the Anthropocene Age

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