UnSee

The post-event frenzy

UnSee Update #9 // April 2024

Words by: Riccardo Torta

A few weeks have passed since our recent event, Between Transitions. While we’re still processing everything that we learned during that day, I will try to sum up my perspective with a few reflections that emerged and are still stuck in my head to this day. 

The event encompassed a first initial presentation showcasing the first results from the research – the development of three paradigmatic changes that can guide the evolution of service design. Using a transition-oriented perspective (Slide 11 – UnSee), we conceptualised emergent practices as seeds for systems change. As such, each of the case studies presented in the research embedded small elements of a future trajectory; our aim was then to grasp them and learn from them. 

Figure 1: Beatrice Villari and Riccardo Torta introducing the research to the audience.
The presentation concluded with the launch of the second part of the event – the Unconference Circles. With this format, we created three groups that were prompted to discuss three emerging topics from the research; these topics were also connected to the expertise of each of our guests, who participated each in one of the circles. These were the topics we explored:
  • [Circle 1 // multi-disciplinarity: as service designers increasingly deal with multiple fields and capabilities – how can we make space for new experiments to emerge and explore how to manage a multi-disciplinary project? ];
  • [Circle 2 // exogenous changes for system-level transformation: the pressing need to understand what are the changes that the current system needs to accomodate in order for these new ways of working to become mainstream? ];
  • [Circle 3 // accompany long-term transitions: how can designers benefit from the tensions between contingent actions and long-term planning without prescribing visions of futures in their projects? ].
In particular I was lucky enough to guide the discussion for Circle 2. Here what emerged is the need for designers to establish new relationships with those practices that already deal with systems – practices like sociology, psicology or biology embedd a systemic knowledge that can help the design discipline departing from its mechanicistic and technical roots that shaped it in its early years. Together with this reflection came also the awareness that normative concepts of “project” or “funds” need to change, from siloed and short-term framings towards more relational and long-term paradigms.
Figure 2: Discussion during Unconference Circle 2.

After the Unconference Circles, we hosted three amazing presentations from our guests Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer, Zeynep Falay von Flittner and Rocco Scolozzi. With varied perspectives ranging from academic research to transition design work to anticipatory consulting, our guests inspired us with new possible ways of reframing our design activity.  

We saw how a complex and relational view on systems, coupled with a long-term directionality, can bring about positive social change. But also how design and activism can coexist within speculative and transition-oriented projects. Particularly interesting was the recognition of how services, seen in their temporal dimention, can actively close or open possible futures. 

Figure 3: Zeynep presenting the work of Falay Transition Design Collective.

The event ended with a panel discussion where our three guests were joined on stage by professors Daniela Sangiorgi and Manuela Celi, part of the UnSee research team. Together they concluded an evening full of inspiration and hope that got us reflecting on both the meaning of our research work, but also on the overall rationale guiding the service design discipline. 

Figure 4: Panel discussion between our guests with Manuela Celi and Daniela Sangiorgi.

So, what do we bring back home with us?

Besides infinite gratitude to everyone who joined the event, I was amazed by the huge interest that our topics generated. Complex and systemic issues are increasingly becoming more pressing in our daily lives, putting our work in perspective and making me wonder:

<< Why should I care for the development of this app feature while the world is burning, systemic oppression is at an all time high and there’s a genocide streamed on our phones every day?>>

In a way, researching about transition-oriented service design, despite the frustrations, makes me feel like design might still have a say in these spaces. That maybe design can match my political persona and still bring about the change that was promised to deliver.

Besides design disillusionment, I’m starting to see how services can be the connectors between present and future actions. How ontologies of the future are embedded and at the same time are shaped within the temporal unfolding of services. This relationship between ontological design and services’ mediation of our ideas of the future and understanding of systems is the topic I am currently inquiring into for the next written research piece. I hope you will be able to read about it in the near future ꩜.

Figure 5: UnSee Research team and our guests, thank you all <3

As I just spoiled, UnSee is now in the midst of crafting conference paper and journal publications, but also more informal dissemination activities. You can read more about them in the next blog post. 

For those still curious about the Between Transitions event, down here you will be able to check our initial presentation introducing the research and insights.