Anxious Bodies: Design and Uncertainty in the Global Present
British Council Funded Workshop:
Royal College of Art/Ambedkar University
May 27-30, 2014
Design is involved in many human transactions, including the management of
uncertainty. Uncertainty may be variously defined, but is commonly understood as a
form of apprehensiveness or anxiety that may be provoked by unexpected or
unexplained changes in the environment as well as from internal psychological
uncertainties and threats. Many design practices and products respond to the desire to
manage, avoid, or alter the bodily conditions that cause uncertainty, but these may have
the unintended consequence of arousing further concerns. Doorways are designed for
ease of access, yet we close and lock the doors. Watches and clocks help to us to keep
time, but they also make us apprehensive about being on time.
Uncertainty and anxiety can also be positive conditions that provoke creative thinking
and pleasurable anticipation, without which life would be boringly predictable. The
mystery novel, one of the most successful genres today, would be unimaginable without
the frisson of the unforeseen. Similarly, many games would not be enjoyable without
the elements of risk and chance. Productive speculation is critical to most design
practice. So too is managing probabilities to ensure positive outcomes. Yet how much
uncertainty we are prepared to live with is highly subjective, perhaps even culturally
determined, and has implications for all kinds of personal and professional decisions in
a global present.
What kinds of agency does uncertainty have? What does it mean to be certain? In what
ways is design implicated in producing certainty or uncertainty? This workshop aims to
provoke open-ended exploration of and critical reflection on the productive
relationship between design and uncertainty in a global present in a non-hierarchical
and non-linear way, taking into account the ways it may be informed by local social and
cultural conditions. In so doing it understands design not as a product of modernity or
one that takes as its point of reference Europe or America, but rather as a network of
intentions, practices, and products common to cultures of all times and places.
PARTICIPANTS
Co-organizers:
Tutors:
Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan (Ambedkar University)
Christine Guth (RCA/V&A)
Abeer Gupta and Venugopal Maddipeti (Ambedkar University)
Livia Rezende and Shehnaz Suterwalla (RCA)
and 12 students from all RCA/V&A HoD specialisms
VENUE
Seminar Room 1, Stevens Building, RCA
PREPARATORY READINGS FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS
Inge Daniels, “Scooping, Raking, Beckoning Luck: Agency and the Interdependence of
Things in Japan,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute 9/4 ( 2003).
Charles Jencks & Nathan Silver, Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation, Part 1 chapter 1
“The spirit of adhocism” pp. 15-27.
David Pye, The Nature and art of Workmanship, chapter 2 “The workmanship of risk and
the workmanship of certainty” pp. 20-24
Sundar Sarukkai, “Swirls of Yearning,” Outlook India. January 13, 2014
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, prologue
pp. xxi-xxxiii.
WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
May 27 Tuesday afternoon 2:00-4:30
INTRODUCTION
Objective
To introduce and open up discussion on the theme of anxious bodies,
design and uncertainty in the global present
2:00-2:20
Introduction by organisers
2:20-2:30
Participants introduce themselves
2:30-3:30
Provocations on workshop theme: Three 20-minute “provocations” by
staff members
3:30-4:30
Group discussion moderated by a staff member not presenting
provocation
Session will conclude with assignment for following day
Assignment for May 28 Wednesday
Based on the introductory discussion, each student will bring an object or 5-minute
powerpoint presentation on the workshop theme.
May 28 Wednesday 10:15-4:30
TOWARDS A TAXONOMY OF UNCERTAINTY
Objective
Exploration of subjective/collective variations of the understanding
and tolerance of uncertainty
10:15-11:30 Provocations on workshop theme: Three 20-minute “provocations” by
staff members followed by discussion moderated by a staff member
not presenting provocation
11:30-13:00 5-minute student provocations (through objects and/or powerpoint
presentations followed by discussion moderated by Shehnaz and Livia
Session will conclude with assignment related to the afternoon field
visit to Shoreditch.
Assignment for May 29 Thursday
The participants including tutors will be divided into 4 groups of four each (a tutor in
each group), for the visit to Shoreditch. Each individual to take images, with group
selecting one to present the next day.
In the Tuesday assignment the emphasis was on individual viewpoints and scenarios on
diverse objects leading to a taxonomy of uncertainty. The Wednesday group assignment
offers a single site for scrutiny to see how individual subjectivities and cultural
backgrounds might throw up differing views on uncertainty and design and the nature
of the ‘global’ encapsulated by Shoreditch. Further, can these differing views be brought
together in small-group responses?
13:00
Leave in groups for Boxpark Shoreditch for lunch and wander. Groups
to sit together at the end to discuss and chose images and content for
Thursday morning discussion of anxious bodies/uncertainty in
relation to Shoreditch and what it says about these issues in relation
to the global present.
See www.boxpark.co.uk and
http://thenudge.com/london-lifestyle/boxpark
May 29 Thursday 10:15-4:30
GLOCAL UNCERTAINTIES
Objective
To explore the role of geopolitics in generating and informing
perceptions of uncertainty both physically and virtually, reconfiguring
and conflating time and space.
10:30-12:30 Group presentations of Shoreditch visit
(15 minutes each for 6 groups) followed by discussion moderated by
Christine/Suchitra
2:00-4:30
Viewing of film Harud
Introduction to film and post screening discussion moderated by
Abeer and Venu
Session will conclude with assignment for concluding session on the
following day
Assignment for May 30 Friday
Workshop will conclude with each student preparing a 5-minute response to one of the
following briefs:
 A reflection on how critical thinking about uncertainty can expand and deepen
understanding of the design process
 A proposal for a design artefact (object or system) that responds to uncertainty
May 30 Friday 10:15-12:30
CONCLUSION
Objective
To reflect on anxious bodies, design and uncertainty in the
global present
10:15-12:15 Each participant to present response (5 minutes each)* followed by a
roundtable discussion and reflection on the workshop experience
* to be written up (1000 words maximum) by Monday June 2, 2014
12:15-12:30 Thanks and goodbyes
FURTHER READINGS AND RESOURCES
Albano, Caterina. Fear and Art in the Contemporary World. Reaktion Books 2012
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Times: Living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity 2007
(e-book)
Cantor, Mircea. Mircea Cantor: the need for uncertainty. Modern Art Museum, Oxford,
2008
Dunne, Anthony& Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything: design, fiction, and social
dreaming. Cambridge: MIT Press 2013
Evans, C. Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness. Yale, 2003.
Franzato, Carlo. “Design as Speculation,” in Design Philosophy Papers 1/2011 : no pp.
Latour, Bruno. “A Cautious Promethea? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design
(with special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk)” Keynote lecture for the Networks of Design
meeting of the Design History Society Falmouth, Cornwall, 3rd September 2008.
Moneo, R. Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary
Architects. MIT Press 2005.
Papanek, Victor. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1984).
London: Thames & Hudson 2011
Spiegelhalter, David and Michael Blastland. The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers
about Danger. London: Profile Books 2013 (Not in library)
Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Penguin 2006 IN
Toffler, Alvin. Future shock. London: Bodley Head, 1970
Vidler, Anthony. Warped Space: art, architecture & anxiety in modern culture.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000
Virilio, Paul. Art & Fear. New York: London Continuum, 2003. IN
_____________. Unknown Quantity. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. IN
http://understandinguncertainty.org
Links to David Spiegelhalter, “Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk”
Akira Kurasawa, Rashomon