1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,600 I would say like design and Technology was in some ways like 2 00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:05,900 hip-hop for me. It introduced me to all of these 3 00:00:05,900 --> 00:00:08,400 things Science and Technology studies, at introduce me the 4 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,400 history of political economy and understanding the relationships 5 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,500 between something like cybernetics, which I talked 6 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:17,400 about a great deal in the book and neoliberal capitalism and 7 00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:20,600 the histories of those things, as they run in parallel, because 8 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:24,300 that's all underneath. This Iceberg of the apps that we 9 00:00:24,300 --> 00:00:31,200 design and build. Hello, and welcome to design, 10 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:35,200 adjacent the podcast that talks about the Nexus of design both 11 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:38,800 today. And tomorrow, I'm your host fin 12 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:42,600 EF Johnson. And today, our guest is Zach 13 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:45,600 Kaiser. Zack is associate professor of 14 00:00:45,608 --> 00:00:49,200 graphic design and experience architecture at Michigan State 15 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:53,300 University, his research and creative practice, examine the 16 00:00:53,300 --> 00:00:57,100 politics of technology, and the role of design in shaping, the 17 00:00:57,100 --> 00:01:00,300 parameters of the individual social, and political Medical 18 00:01:00,300 --> 00:01:03,900 possibility, his work has been featured in National and 19 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:07,300 international exhibitions, both writings on topics ranging from 20 00:01:07,300 --> 00:01:10,800 the future of Arts in higher education, to dream reading 21 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:15,600 Technologies appear in both academic and popular 22 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:19,800 Publications. So today I'm excited to welcome. 23 00:01:20,100 --> 00:01:22,900 Zach to our podcast. Thanks for any thanks for having 24 00:01:22,900 --> 00:01:24,600 me. I'm super excited to be here and 25 00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:28,300 to talk about the book and possibly lots of other things. 26 00:01:29,100 --> 00:01:31,000 I'm excited. I was looking for this 27 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:35,100 conversation that we get to explore a lot of topics but I 28 00:01:35,100 --> 00:01:37,800 think we'll start off with talking about the future and 29 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:40,900 it's a fun topic that we like to explore and look Beyond the 30 00:01:40,908 --> 00:01:43,300 Horizon. But I think we don't often get 31 00:01:43,300 --> 00:01:47,400 to have a longer conversation about the future of design and 32 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:50,800 Technology to talk a bit. What's drawing you to this 33 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:53,000 intersection of design and Technology? 34 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:58,100 Whoo, that's a great question. I guess I grew up as like a old 35 00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:00,100 school. Fake designer, you know, an 36 00:02:00,100 --> 00:02:02,100 undergrad. I learned how to make like 37 00:02:02,100 --> 00:02:04,400 posters and books. Right? 38 00:02:04,500 --> 00:02:10,699 You know, and so when I went to graduate school at Mass are in 39 00:02:10,699 --> 00:02:14,200 Boston, that was the very beginning of me starting to be 40 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,600 aware of not only the relationship between design and 41 00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:21,200 Technology. But like, the way that design 42 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:26,700 and technology and how one uses the other or vice versa creates 43 00:02:26,700 --> 00:02:30,100 certain ideas about people that then Then get sort of embedded 44 00:02:30,100 --> 00:02:34,700 into society and that only really started to like congeal 45 00:02:34,700 --> 00:02:38,300 as a thought. For me, as I was working, both 46 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:41,500 in the tech world. My friends from grad school and 47 00:02:41,500 --> 00:02:45,900 I started a design studio and we often would get subcontracted 48 00:02:45,900 --> 00:02:50,400 out to ad agencies to help with their like digital quote-unquote 49 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:52,600 capabilities. And it was always interesting 50 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:56,500 doing that work and seeing starting to see, like the impact 51 00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,100 that was in the early 2010's and so it was like around The time 52 00:02:59,100 --> 00:03:01,100 when everyone's like, oh, there's an app for that, you 53 00:03:01,100 --> 00:03:05,400 know, and I started to wonder like, do is, they're like, hmm, 54 00:03:05,900 --> 00:03:08,200 you know, like I started to get skeptical of that assertion 55 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,400 particularly because I was like, helping build the backend of 56 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,500 these things. And I remember doing that time 57 00:03:12,500 --> 00:03:14,400 period. Everyone wanted to create an 58 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:17,900 app, even if there was no reason for a nap, you had to have an 59 00:03:17,900 --> 00:03:21,400 app and you'd have apps that actually would just reference 60 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:25,300 the site that you could go to any way. 100% 100%. 61 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,300 Yeah for sure for sure. And I think the other thing That 62 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:33,400 spurred some of that interest for me to was I interned at 63 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:37,100 Sapient Nitro and which is now whatever razorfish recipient 64 00:03:37,100 --> 00:03:39,800 something or other you know. They got eaten up by somebody 65 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:42,400 and when I was interning there, you know, one of the things we 66 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:44,700 were talking about all the time is algorithms that were able to 67 00:03:44,700 --> 00:03:47,800 anticipate and sort of predict certain things. 68 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:50,400 And, like, At first, I had this sense that was like really 69 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:54,400 great. And then I started to think 70 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,100 about encountered and I have to say, I got to give a shout out 71 00:03:57,100 --> 00:04:00,200 to John Cheney lip old He's a scholar here at the University 72 00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:02,700 of Michigan and friend of mine because I reached out to me 73 00:04:02,700 --> 00:04:04,700 because I was like I was really inspired by your work and he 74 00:04:04,700 --> 00:04:08,300 wrote an article that came out. I think in like 2011 he's a 75 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:13,400 really long time ago and that article totally changed the 76 00:04:13,408 --> 00:04:15,800 direction of my career. I think talk a little bit about 77 00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:19,600 the article but what really? So it's called it's called a new 78 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:23,500 algorithmic identity, soft biopolitics, and the modulation 79 00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:28,100 of control, quite the title. That's basically lovely bedtime 80 00:04:28,100 --> 00:04:30,400 reading, right? Right, exactly. 81 00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:36,900 But it really it describes the way that basically, we acquire 82 00:04:37,500 --> 00:04:41,800 algorithmic identities, in the databases of the companies, with 83 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:44,600 which we do Commerce or do business, it could think about, 84 00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:48,000 like my database entry and Amazon's database, for example, 85 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,300 Amazon has some sort of spreadsheet for lack of a better 86 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:53,800 term, right? I talk to students about 87 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:55,600 databases, you know, the first thing I say is like, okay, well, 88 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:58,600 let's look at a spreadsheet. And so Amazon's got this data. 89 00:04:58,700 --> 00:05:02,000 Listen, I have an entry in it and it has certain properties of 90 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:05,100 data that are related to me. You know, knows that it probably 91 00:05:05,100 --> 00:05:08,900 knows I'm a guy probably knows her identify as like a cishet 92 00:05:08,900 --> 00:05:11,000 white dude, probably not in those terms. 93 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,800 I don't think their database uses those terms given their 94 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,500 right relatively reactionary politics. 95 00:05:15,500 --> 00:05:19,800 I think, like, the identity that we acquire. 96 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:23,200 So, what Cheney liberals article argues to some degree? 97 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,900 Is that the identity we acquire in those databases has material 98 00:05:26,900 --> 00:05:29,200 implications for our everyday? Lives. 99 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:31,300 Okay. And the inferences and 100 00:05:31,300 --> 00:05:35,000 recommendations at those algorithms make about us then 101 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,200 shape and Taylor. He calls. 102 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,700 He says they tailor our conditions of possibility. 103 00:05:39,700 --> 00:05:43,000 So, like when we rely on systems of algorithmic, inference and 104 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,700 recommendation, all the time, whether it's Google Maps, taking 105 00:05:45,700 --> 00:05:50,000 you the fastest, or perhaps quote-unquote, safest route to 106 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:52,500 get somewhere. We rely on these Technologies 107 00:05:52,500 --> 00:05:56,400 but then they shape what parts of life like we experienced and 108 00:05:56,400 --> 00:05:59,700 what we don't and there's like a, an element of Troll in that 109 00:05:59,700 --> 00:06:01,800 as well. And I remember reading that 110 00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:03,900 article and thinking about some of the projects that we were 111 00:06:03,900 --> 00:06:08,200 working on at our studio at the time and it was really a 112 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:10,200 revelation. And that was I think sort of 113 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:13,200 where a lot of this got started. So shout out to John. 114 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:17,900 Yeah, it's interesting in just to speak a little bit more about 115 00:06:17,900 --> 00:06:20,400 the article. Did it speak about that? 116 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:25,100 Dissonance that happens when the algorithm is in conflict with 117 00:06:25,100 --> 00:06:27,900 what's happening in your life where we kind of have a control 118 00:06:27,900 --> 00:06:31,800 set where My Amazon shopping perch is really just a 119 00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:35,300 combination of identities or in the moment, as a dad, I'm 120 00:06:35,300 --> 00:06:38,400 purchasing for other people, as well, but my experience is a 121 00:06:38,408 --> 00:06:40,700 little different outside of it and it talked about those 122 00:06:40,700 --> 00:06:43,400 moments as well. So, yeah, one of the things that 123 00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:47,600 his book. So he may be six or seven years 124 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:51,100 after that article came out. I was already at MSU, so I'm 125 00:06:51,100 --> 00:06:54,600 thinking it was maybe, like, 2017, his book, we Are data, 126 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:59,300 came out, and with NYU press, and that book is sort of I would 127 00:06:59,300 --> 00:07:03,000 say like an expansion of his article and so he talks about 128 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,600 how he might be seen in the databases of these companies and 129 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,400 like you know, because you do things like purchase stuff for 130 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:16,000 your kids or like maybe you your browsing Behavior correlates to 131 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:20,500 that of a 60 year old woman instead of 40 year old dude, 132 00:07:20,500 --> 00:07:23,200 you're advertise to in particular ways as well. 133 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,000 I think it has a lot to do with. Also the relationship between 134 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,900 data capture and advertising. So yeah, he addresses Is that a 135 00:07:28,908 --> 00:07:30,000 little bit? Probably more. 136 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:32,800 So in his book than in the article itself? 137 00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:36,500 Well, you know it speak about publishing and kind of pushing 138 00:07:36,500 --> 00:07:39,200 through in writing. I'm going to skip ahead to what 139 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,500 encouraged you to come up with your latest book, which has a 140 00:07:42,508 --> 00:07:45,600 slightly different more. Digestible title, I believe 141 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,600 interfaces in as user experience, design, and the 142 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:51,700 making of computable subject, no less important. 143 00:07:51,700 --> 00:07:54,800 But you know, more palatable of the of the top. 144 00:07:54,900 --> 00:07:58,400 Thanks honey. You know, writing. 145 00:07:58,700 --> 00:08:04,000 Has such a good question. I was talking to dear friend and 146 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:05,900 colleague. Rebecca take Meyer. 147 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,700 Yeah, it's this very thing. Rebecca's friend of your pod. 148 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:12,800 Rebecca's a friend of our pod, her and Marty are going to be on 149 00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:15,400 an upcoming episode with their book as well. 150 00:08:15,500 --> 00:08:18,600 We love Rebecca. Yes, great, it's a great book. 151 00:08:18,700 --> 00:08:20,800 Everybody should go buy it. Collaboration and design 152 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,000 education, shout out, Rebecca Tech Meyer. 153 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:26,700 Yeah, so Rebecca and I were talking about this and the 154 00:08:26,700 --> 00:08:31,300 designers Hurley, those of us who come from, especially like 155 00:08:31,400 --> 00:08:35,900 who grew up in the sort of early who grew up under the modernists 156 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:37,799 in design? I would say right under the 157 00:08:37,799 --> 00:08:40,299 modernist era under the shadow of modernism. 158 00:08:40,299 --> 00:08:43,600 You know those of us who learned from modernists I think a lot of 159 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:48,400 us are seeing primarily as practitioners and the reflective 160 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:50,400 nature of what we do to some degree. 161 00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:53,100 Has often been foisted on us by the academy. 162 00:08:53,300 --> 00:08:55,700 You have to, you know, like go and give a presentation about 163 00:08:55,700 --> 00:08:58,200 your work or whatever because you need a line on your CV 164 00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:00,300 because you To like, get tenure or whatever it is, right? 165 00:09:00,300 --> 00:09:07,400 And so, to have something like for me, I always knew that 166 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:14,100 making was not the only part of my work but I didn't really know 167 00:09:14,100 --> 00:09:17,900 how to explore whatever the other part of that would be like 168 00:09:17,900 --> 00:09:20,400 I wasn't really a writer. I didn't identify as a writer 169 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,600 necessarily even until graduate school. 170 00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:28,000 And then, once I started grad school, I really embraced. 171 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:33,100 The explanation part of the work I was doing like I was making 172 00:09:33,100 --> 00:09:36,800 projects and I was doing sort of experimental design practices. 173 00:09:36,800 --> 00:09:38,900 You do in grad school, but I was also at the same time be 174 00:09:38,900 --> 00:09:42,000 encouraged and often forced to write about those things and so 175 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,800 that was the beginning of it. And I found that I really liked 176 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:49,100 writing. And I wrote a journal article in 177 00:09:49,100 --> 00:09:54,000 2014, I wrote a journal article that was published in design and 178 00:09:54,008 --> 00:09:57,200 culture about copyright law and design. 179 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:00,600 Oh, nice and I wrote That was my mom who's a professor of Law. 180 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:04,200 And so that changed that again, like another seminal moment, 181 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:06,700 totally changed the game for me, I was like, all right, I love 182 00:10:06,700 --> 00:10:08,300 writing. Like, how do I, how do I do more 183 00:10:08,300 --> 00:10:11,300 of this? And so the book, I think, like, 184 00:10:11,300 --> 00:10:15,600 and writing the book kind of came out of my enjoyment and my 185 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:19,300 relationship with I've no Karma Gorman another like, amazing 186 00:10:19,300 --> 00:10:22,400 design scholar, huge fan, of Karma's word and Karma. 187 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:25,100 Once told me she's exact, your kind of, a Manifesto writer, and 188 00:10:25,100 --> 00:10:28,800 I think that's sort of true. I think I write as a part of Of 189 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:32,000 putting my work out there and saying, this is what I'm trying 190 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:33,400 to do. I was going to ask you that 191 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:34,600 question, it's a great way to describe it. 192 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:38,100 I can ask you that question of, how did you see writing as a 193 00:10:38,100 --> 00:10:41,100 part of or service of your creative practice? 194 00:10:41,700 --> 00:10:45,600 Yeah, that for sure, it, orient's me, I would say, like, 195 00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:47,300 I think I always write about the projects. 196 00:10:47,300 --> 00:10:50,700 I do sometimes in retrospect and sometimes in advance of the 197 00:10:50,700 --> 00:10:53,800 projects. And so the structure of the book 198 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:55,100 actually. And this was one of the hard 199 00:10:55,100 --> 00:10:57,600 things about actually, pitching this book and thank God for 200 00:10:58,300 --> 00:11:00,900 Louie. Is over a Bloomsbury for taking 201 00:11:00,900 --> 00:11:05,000 a chance on this because it was really hard to get across what I 202 00:11:05,008 --> 00:11:08,800 was trying to do with the book which is like the book has a 203 00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:13,800 series each chapter, basically begins with a project like a 204 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:15,600 reflection and explanation of a project. 205 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:17,900 I've worked on whether it's like an artistic project or a 206 00:11:17,900 --> 00:11:21,900 designer Leaf project and then it uses those as like an entry 207 00:11:21,900 --> 00:11:26,500 point to the historical, social technological and sort of 208 00:11:26,500 --> 00:11:28,500 philosophical discussions that follow. 209 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:32,200 Whoa, and all of it, of course, centering around this idea of 210 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:35,800 the computable subject. I think it was hard to pitch the 211 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:38,500 book in part because it wasn't a history book, right? 212 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:41,200 It wasn't in the realm of Science and Technology studies, 213 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:43,600 which is like, the sort of body of literature that I probably 214 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:46,700 engage with most but it also wasn't like a design but right. 215 00:11:46,700 --> 00:11:51,000 But it also isn't an artist monograph but it's also not a 216 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:52,800 pedagogue book. Even though I talk about 217 00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:56,200 education in the last two chapters, I think it was hard to 218 00:11:56,500 --> 00:12:01,900 sell it to a publisher and That going back to like designers who 219 00:12:01,900 --> 00:12:03,400 right? I think that's a pitfall and 220 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:06,200 that was like, really hard for me because I don't have the more 221 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,200 I become a scholar. The more I've gotten into this, 222 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:14,800 like, Middle Ground of Academia, and also, like, of the design 223 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:17,200 world, right? It's really interesting and it 224 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:21,300 just part of the conversation, your exploration really speaks 225 00:12:21,300 --> 00:12:25,900 to this notion of design, adjacency of all these spaces in 226 00:12:25,900 --> 00:12:28,200 which you're touching and looking at design. 227 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,000 I love Of these story. I didn't realize that you're 228 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:32,700 doing riding with your mom. Wait, not everyone's moms a 229 00:12:32,700 --> 00:12:36,000 professor of law, got it but you know but let's just have this 230 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,700 conversation of a son riding with his mom. 231 00:12:38,700 --> 00:12:42,200 What was the most revealing part of engaging with your mom? 232 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:44,500 As a professional professional to professional? 233 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:50,700 I mean she's she's part of the reason I would say that I have 234 00:12:50,700 --> 00:12:53,800 engaged the wide range of interests that I have. 235 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:56,300 And the reason I've been really committed to doing that. 236 00:12:56,300 --> 00:13:02,300 She is my mom's a super Rounded well-read person and she doesn't 237 00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:06,000 confine her intellectual interests to just like her 238 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,000 field. And so, when we were working on 239 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,800 the article together, it was so it was so nice because there was 240 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:15,900 no, I mean, there's no it's like territorialism. 241 00:13:15,900 --> 00:13:17,300 I was like, oh Mom, I found this article. 242 00:13:17,300 --> 00:13:19,800 What do you think about this like in a law review journal? 243 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:20,800 But I don't know about that stuff. 244 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:22,000 And so she was like, oh, that's cool. 245 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:24,000 You know what about this? And we've continued that 246 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:27,400 dialogue over the years. Like I'm hoping, you know, we'll 247 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:30,000 see but I'm hoping To continue to collaborate with her in the 248 00:13:30,008 --> 00:13:34,100 future on work around data, brokerage firms, okay? 249 00:13:34,100 --> 00:13:38,600 And looking at the really socially detrimental effects 250 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:43,100 that data brokerages have and also blockchain and 251 00:13:43,100 --> 00:13:46,800 cryptocurrency stuff as well. I'm definitely I'm in the show, 252 00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:49,700 he's a crypto, Skeptics Camp. Shouldn't be a surprise to you. 253 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:53,100 It's and so on, but I'm making notes, we definitely going to 254 00:13:53,108 --> 00:13:55,900 have you back for our next conversations around that topic 255 00:13:55,900 --> 00:13:58,000 as well. So yeah, you for sure. 256 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:02,400 So, I like the one I think the intersection of law design 257 00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:05,200 technology and political economy is like a really interesting 258 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:07,600 space. So this is really interesting 259 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:12,200 for me as well in a past life. I worked a lot with privacy and 260 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,800 privacy by Design, in my work with the Better Business Bureau. 261 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:19,500 We looked at privacy and love to hear your thoughts about that. 262 00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:24,200 The topic area of data privacy and how that plays into 263 00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:26,700 contemporary design? It's so interesting. 264 00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:30,500 One of the things that I would say, let's see. 265 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,400 So there's a few things. It's sort of like this is a 266 00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:36,300 perhaps a multi-layered conversation. 267 00:14:36,700 --> 00:14:40,000 When we ask ourselves questions about the data we give up quote 268 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,300 unquote, right? There's a few probably important 269 00:14:43,300 --> 00:14:47,500 dimensions of that question. So one is the kinds of things 270 00:14:47,500 --> 00:14:50,600 that get captured about us. How they get captured and how 271 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,700 they relate to us as people, and that's to some degree, some of 272 00:14:53,700 --> 00:14:57,200 what my book takes on, they have a kind of in-depth pretty in 273 00:14:57,200 --> 00:14:58,400 depth and possibly pretty boring. 274 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:00,500 Some people, but I really geeked out about it. 275 00:15:00,500 --> 00:15:02,600 So it's in the book. Exploration of all of the 276 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:07,000 sensors that were inside early models of the Fitbit and the 277 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:11,700 kinds of things required. To actually have those like log 278 00:15:11,700 --> 00:15:15,200 data about steps and the number of translations that occur in 279 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,700 order to actually count something as like a step. 280 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:20,600 Even this question of like, is that data? 281 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:23,900 What does it mean to for something to be data about you? 282 00:15:24,100 --> 00:15:28,000 And to what degree is that actually not only is Johanna 283 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,300 Drucker. Is it capita as opposed to data 284 00:15:30,300 --> 00:15:32,400 but also, to what degree does that? 285 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:35,500 Actually reflect anything? About the material world around 286 00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:36,900 us? So that's like one part of it 287 00:15:36,900 --> 00:15:38,300 that we can get back to you later. 288 00:15:38,700 --> 00:15:41,700 The other part is that when you take all this data and you have 289 00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:44,600 all these things, there's a really, really good article by a 290 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:48,300 legal scholar speaking for why I named Daniel solve a not try to 291 00:15:48,300 --> 00:15:50,900 pronounce his last name. Sol o ve. 292 00:15:50,900 --> 00:15:52,600 Anyway. Super cool article. 293 00:15:52,700 --> 00:15:54,800 And he says, his article is called. 294 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,300 I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstandings of 295 00:15:57,300 --> 00:16:01,500 privacy and He basically argues that we live lesson world, that 296 00:16:01,500 --> 00:16:04,800 is like 1984 which is like the reference lot of people talk 297 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:06,800 about a CIA. We like we hear in the news, Big 298 00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:09,700 Brother all the time and he says it's less like that. 299 00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:11,800 And it's more Kafka ask in the Kafka story. 300 00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:15,400 He's referring to is the trial where the main character Joseph 301 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,400 K gets arrested. He doesn't know what, he's being 302 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:23,300 charged with or what his crime is and basically solid phase 303 00:16:23,300 --> 00:16:26,400 point is that we have all of these algorithmic systems that 304 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:30,000 are not only capturing all This data, but then correlating it 305 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,700 with other kinds of data correlating with data, not just 306 00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:36,000 about you and about other people who are supposedly, like you 307 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:39,400 again like users. Like you bought this and he says 308 00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:42,900 that we have no idea at some point, how that stuff is being 309 00:16:42,900 --> 00:16:45,900 used. And so it almost when you say I 310 00:16:45,900 --> 00:16:48,000 have nothing to hide, it's like you actually don't. 311 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,700 It doesn't matter. You don't know what's happening 312 00:16:50,700 --> 00:16:53,300 when all this stuff sort of disappears in these inferences 313 00:16:53,300 --> 00:16:56,000 are being made about you. And again, I would say to that 314 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:00,400 has an effect Beyond Individual that there is a pump that a goal 315 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:02,700 in like social dimension of that. 316 00:17:02,700 --> 00:17:07,599 It's really, really important to think about the other the more 317 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:10,800 sophisticated quote unquote, again like I use these terms 318 00:17:11,099 --> 00:17:14,300 with some some care. I suppose the you know, when 319 00:17:14,300 --> 00:17:17,099 machine Learning Systems get like more and more sophisticated 320 00:17:17,099 --> 00:17:20,400 and especially when we're looking at like the work that's 321 00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:22,800 being done within their own networks, there are computer 322 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,900 scientists that admit that, once something enters the neural 323 00:17:26,900 --> 00:17:28,700 network architecture. They've designed They're not 324 00:17:28,700 --> 00:17:32,100 entirely sure how the system they've built makes the 325 00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:35,500 inferences that it does or does some of the things that it does. 326 00:17:36,100 --> 00:17:39,500 There's like these layers of the relationship between the capture 327 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:42,800 of data about people. What it means to have like data 328 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:46,400 about you and then what happens to it when you have 329 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:49,500 conversations and these are kind of deep experiences that we 330 00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:52,200 have. But they're also I think framed 331 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,700 by Our Generation or approaches. Well, how have you seen, you 332 00:17:56,700 --> 00:18:00,200 know, the way your students? Back to these trade-offs that we 333 00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:05,300 have with design technology and privacy with say our generation 334 00:18:05,300 --> 00:18:07,300 or say Your mother. If he will. 335 00:18:07,300 --> 00:18:10,100 Ya, these mean it the reaction saying because I can see if we 336 00:18:10,100 --> 00:18:13,600 have this conversation going completely being understood by a 337 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:17,200 portion of our population in going over and under the heads 338 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:18,700 of the other parts of our conversation. 339 00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:23,800 So maybe before maybe, okay, I'm going to back up first before I 340 00:18:23,808 --> 00:18:26,600 before I do that. The one other thing I wanted to 341 00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:30,900 say about like the The relationship, we have to the 342 00:18:30,900 --> 00:18:36,900 giving up or not giving up of data about ourselves, is the way 343 00:18:36,900 --> 00:18:41,400 that that is often used and often weaponize that 344 00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:46,000 conversation to obscure like a much bigger conversation, which 345 00:18:46,100 --> 00:18:49,600 is what my book tries to address which is what does it mean for 346 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:52,200 someone to be understood as a Computing machine? 347 00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:54,900 Or what does it mean for someone to be understood as nothing but 348 00:18:54,900 --> 00:18:58,100 an agglomeration of data that can be understood exclusively by 349 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:00,600 Right? Because that itself. 350 00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:01,700 And we can talk about this later. 351 00:19:01,700 --> 00:19:04,100 That has a political Dimension, as well. 352 00:19:04,100 --> 00:19:07,000 But more my students and we talked about the kinds of tools, 353 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:08,200 they use and the things they use. 354 00:19:08,300 --> 00:19:10,800 One of the things that, I mean, I talk to them a little bit 355 00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:13,400 about that comparison between 1984 and kafka's. 356 00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:18,700 The trial, and I think it's a really wide range, right? 357 00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:22,000 And they're under to varying degrees, a lot of pressure, I 358 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,200 would say pressure, maybe that I didn't experience in any way in 359 00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,900 undergrad between the Massive amount of debt that they're 360 00:19:29,900 --> 00:19:34,400 incurring and the increasingly competitive job market. 361 00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,300 Particularly as we watch the tech sector kind of implode. 362 00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:46,000 I think like they They have concerns that either allow them 363 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:48,200 to bracket certain parts of their life. 364 00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:50,500 You know. I also like weirdly think 365 00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:53,300 Tick-Tock kind of change their calculus a little bit with that 366 00:19:53,300 --> 00:19:56,900 I have students who are in the sort of social justice 367 00:19:56,900 --> 00:19:59,400 Tick-Tock, okay, world. And they're just constantly 368 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:03,200 coming to me with like I had a student yesterday who was 369 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,700 talking to me, like we ended up talking about the assassination 370 00:20:06,700 --> 00:20:09,800 of Patrice lumumba because of the tick tock that she was 371 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:12,600 watching. About Belgian colonialism and I 372 00:20:12,608 --> 00:20:16,400 was like, okay, this is amazing. What let's do this, this is 373 00:20:16,408 --> 00:20:18,700 great. So I think that that like, to 374 00:20:18,700 --> 00:20:20,800 some degree, I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm giving Tech 375 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:22,900 talk too much credit, but I think that to some extent 376 00:20:22,900 --> 00:20:26,400 Tick-Tock change their calculus with some of the ways that they 377 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:28,400 give up or don't give up data, right? 378 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:32,100 Interesting. If as we talked about data and 379 00:20:32,100 --> 00:20:34,900 privacy and design, and all these intersections of 380 00:20:34,900 --> 00:20:38,800 Technology, you visualize, all of these points coming together. 381 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:42,300 And it allows me to Think about your work, something we were 382 00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:46,500 talking about before your love of music and experiences a DJ 383 00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:48,500 and cooling these pieces together. 384 00:20:48,500 --> 00:20:50,600 So I'm going to take a little spin off of where we were before 385 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:56,000 and just ask as you think about writing Design, Technology, the 386 00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:58,100 future. You've got all these streams 387 00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:01,000 coming together. How do you manage that as a DJ, 388 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:02,700 how does your mind work in that moment? 389 00:21:02,900 --> 00:21:05,500 The DJ thing has always been there with me. 390 00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:08,200 And I think so much about sampling. 391 00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,300 I think about like the way that this Even this book is 392 00:21:11,300 --> 00:21:15,100 constructed because I don't identify really anymore with a 393 00:21:15,100 --> 00:21:18,600 specific discipline. Like I teach graphic design and 394 00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:20,400 I teach ux because I know how to do it. 395 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:22,500 It's not necessarily that that's the field. 396 00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:26,300 I personally identify with but I'm not a trained Science and 397 00:21:26,300 --> 00:21:29,800 Technology studies scholar. I don't have my PhD in SDS so 398 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:31,600 like I'm not in that field either. 399 00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:36,300 I'm kind of in no man's land a little bit and emotionally as a 400 00:21:36,308 --> 00:21:40,300 faculty member who has as we all do extraordinary imposter. 401 00:21:40,500 --> 00:21:45,000 And Rome, that's really hard. But I will say that being a DJ 402 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,800 and a producer and someone who cultivated from a very young 403 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,100 age, you know, I got my bought my first sample or when I was 404 00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:57,000 15, the love of hip-hop music. The love of the art of sampling, 405 00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:01,800 yard of juxtaposition, the art of resuscitating old things and 406 00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:03,700 changing them and manipulating them. 407 00:22:03,700 --> 00:22:06,700 Hip-hop is the reason that I love all the music I love. 408 00:22:06,700 --> 00:22:09,600 Now hip-hop is the reason that I love, I don't know. 409 00:22:09,700 --> 00:22:10,800 Hard bop. Jazz. 410 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,700 If you think about the reason that I got into, I mean, it's 411 00:22:13,700 --> 00:22:15,400 cliche. But like why do I love? 412 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:17,300 John Coltrane? It's not because my dad was 413 00:22:17,300 --> 00:22:19,400 playing John Coltrane albums and my dad is a jazz man. 414 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:22,300 For sure, my dad is a lawyer also but he plays the trombone 415 00:22:22,300 --> 00:22:26,000 tuba baritone, flugelhorn piano. And so there was always jazz 416 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,400 music on in my house when I was a kid and I was like, man, dad 417 00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:32,400 that's whack. But once I started making beats, 418 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:36,900 I was like oh this is amazing. This music is amazing. 419 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:39,300 Same with like Funk and Soul music, you know, right? 420 00:22:39,300 --> 00:22:43,500 I knew It was there and I enjoyed it but I didn't have the 421 00:22:43,500 --> 00:22:48,100 appreciation for any of the things, whether it's like Stax 422 00:22:48,100 --> 00:22:51,400 Records or even thinking about, you know, like Roy Ayers and 423 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,800 just realizing how much everyone sampled Roy Ayers and I didn't 424 00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,500 know any of this and Hip-Hop introduce me all these things. 425 00:22:57,500 --> 00:23:01,100 I would say like design and Technology was in some ways like 426 00:23:01,100 --> 00:23:03,300 hip-hop for me. It introduced me to all of these 427 00:23:03,300 --> 00:23:05,800 things Science and Technology. Studies, at introduce me the 428 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,800 history of political economy and understanding the relationships 429 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,500 between something like Six, which I talked about a great 430 00:23:11,500 --> 00:23:15,600 deal on the book and neoliberal capitalism and the histories of 431 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,700 those things as they run in parallel, because that's all 432 00:23:18,700 --> 00:23:23,100 underneath this Iceberg of the apps that we design and build. 433 00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:28,300 And so I think the approach of sampling, the approach of the 434 00:23:28,300 --> 00:23:30,600 kind of juxtaposition like we were talking about earlier that 435 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:32,600 Prince Paul was doing on those early De La Soul. 436 00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:38,400 Albums is just that approach is just baked into like how I live 437 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:41,800 my life and sometimes it With folks and sometimes it totally 438 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,900 doesn't again. That's why I think this book was 439 00:23:43,900 --> 00:23:47,100 I hard to sell hard to pitch to people because it did take, it 440 00:23:47,100 --> 00:23:50,800 takes that, sampling that producer oriented approach to 441 00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:52,500 everything. It's one of the things that 442 00:23:52,500 --> 00:23:55,200 we're excited about having you as a guest on this podcast 443 00:23:55,300 --> 00:23:58,300 because what you just described was the energy and the 444 00:23:58,308 --> 00:24:02,900 motivation for us creating this adjacent space where we're 445 00:24:02,900 --> 00:24:05,600 bringing things together. That may not seem like they work 446 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:07,600 on the surface but are just right. 447 00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,800 We're going as fast face and time, I think About that all the 448 00:24:10,808 --> 00:24:14,100 time with music. How we enter in in songs and 449 00:24:14,100 --> 00:24:18,100 watching my newly minted, teenager fall in love with John 450 00:24:18,100 --> 00:24:21,100 Coltrane, because he's overhearing the samples that I'm 451 00:24:21,100 --> 00:24:25,600 playing that's happening or him telling me about British Rock 452 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:30,000 and funk in the 60s. And clearly my born after 2000, 453 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,600 son was not a part of the experience, but having the 454 00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,900 conversations about how that music is transported, it really 455 00:24:35,900 --> 00:24:39,600 does speak to this area of the adjacency and the kind of 456 00:24:39,608 --> 00:24:42,300 creative tension. In Opportunities and Revelations 457 00:24:42,300 --> 00:24:43,800 that come from all of these spaces. 458 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,100 I love the fact that we're talking about creating new 459 00:24:46,100 --> 00:24:49,800 public policy, creating understanding consumer Behavior 460 00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,900 talking about user experience. And then the power of design to 461 00:24:52,900 --> 00:24:57,200 continually reinvent morph and extend itself in all these 462 00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,200 Realms to think is really great. I also think that question of 463 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,400 adjacency is really important when we talk about what is 464 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,500 really important in design, education. 465 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:11,500 Today, there's not that much information about how design 466 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:15,000 arrived at especially graphic design and user experience 467 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,600 design arrived at defining themselves. 468 00:25:17,900 --> 00:25:20,700 In the ways that they do along the lines that they do. 469 00:25:20,700 --> 00:25:23,600 And what they've chosen to sort of include an extra food, not 470 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,000 only in their Cannon but also in just like literally what 471 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,600 students should learn about. And Paul Dewar ish rights 472 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:32,700 eloquently about this and what he calls a legitimate the 473 00:25:32,700 --> 00:25:37,100 legitimacy trap and basically what he says in order to be a 474 00:25:37,100 --> 00:25:40,200 legitimate field, you have to make certain exclusions. 475 00:25:40,700 --> 00:25:44,200 But then to continue to assert that legitimacy, you make these 476 00:25:44,300 --> 00:25:48,200 s epistemological or like conceptual boundaries this kind 477 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,900 of myopia. And then you continue to do 478 00:25:50,900 --> 00:25:55,100 that. Even as the conditions around 479 00:25:55,100 --> 00:26:00,200 you change, for me, it's really important to peel off those 480 00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,900 epistemological. Blinders from graphic design and 481 00:26:02,900 --> 00:26:05,800 user experience design. And talk about things like the 482 00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,800 history of Science and Technology, the history of 483 00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,600 political economy, the history of philosophy thinking Like what 484 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:14,500 shaped our understanding of people. 485 00:26:14,500 --> 00:26:18,300 Because when we say, like, even just the terms, we use to talk 486 00:26:18,300 --> 00:26:20,800 about people, like we talked about consumers, it's a really 487 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,500 indicative term of how we think about political participation 488 00:26:24,500 --> 00:26:27,300 under capitalism, right? We say, oh, well, you can vote 489 00:26:27,300 --> 00:26:28,900 with your wallet. Well, really can I, when 490 00:26:28,900 --> 00:26:30,900 there's, like, 300 different kinds of toothpaste, I can 491 00:26:30,900 --> 00:26:33,300 choose from, but nobody can afford dental insurance, right? 492 00:26:33,300 --> 00:26:36,200 Kind of choices that right now, but that mode of political 493 00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:40,300 participation, and the idea that the Horizon of one's political, 494 00:26:40,500 --> 00:26:43,800 Participation is like voting every couple of years and buying 495 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,100 stuff. The idea of making a more 496 00:26:46,100 --> 00:26:49,200 sustainable, world comes to fruition, through the purchase 497 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,400 of Seventh Generation, toilet paper, or something like that. 498 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:56,800 That's done by Design and that caters, to the status quo and it 499 00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:00,400 allows neoliberalism to continue to perpetuate itself and like, 500 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,300 to some degree because we're mired in some of the sort of 501 00:27:04,300 --> 00:27:07,600 more nitty-gritty. Shall we say? 502 00:27:07,900 --> 00:27:11,500 Facets of our discipline. We don't, A chance to back out 503 00:27:11,500 --> 00:27:14,700 and be like wait, hold on, I'm not so sure that this is the 504 00:27:14,708 --> 00:27:17,700 direction we should be headed in and so I try to give students 505 00:27:17,700 --> 00:27:21,000 that opportunity. What surprised you the most with 506 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,800 your engaging with students. Now, I think about how our 507 00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,300 landscape has changed over the last decade last five years and 508 00:27:27,300 --> 00:27:30,600 definitely over the last three years of our pandemic, what has 509 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:34,800 surprised you in the way students are looking at their 510 00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:39,000 role, their agency and their craft. 511 00:27:39,100 --> 00:27:42,900 It's an interesting question. My like to think about my 512 00:27:42,900 --> 00:27:44,900 students. So I will say, first of all, the 513 00:27:44,900 --> 00:27:48,100 students in my course, has come from the really wide range, both 514 00:27:48,100 --> 00:27:50,300 of backgrounds, but also of skills. 515 00:27:50,300 --> 00:27:54,800 That's the requirements for the programs that I teach in because 516 00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:56,800 I teach in a couple different programs and some of my classes 517 00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,200 are required for students from multiple programs. 518 00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,800 They come to my classes with a really different ideas about 519 00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:04,900 what design and Technology really are. 520 00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:07,700 And so, I think one distinction that I've noticed over the 521 00:28:07,700 --> 00:28:12,000 years, it's not inherently. Again, I hate to generalize 522 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,000 about my students because they're all individual and great 523 00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,400 and wonderful. For the most part is there are 524 00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:23,200 students who are in like our ux degree program, who I think have 525 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:29,400 a really strong sense of social justice, particularly within the 526 00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,800 Realms of accessibility. And institutional language, will 527 00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,100 call it DUI, right? They're interested in 528 00:28:36,100 --> 00:28:39,900 diversifying the field of ux practice. 529 00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:43,200 They're, I think more comfortable, talking about 530 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,700 Computing and technology, and then I have a most, some of my 531 00:28:45,700 --> 00:28:51,000 like more formally, straight-up graphic design, students who 532 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,000 come to interaction design classes or ux classes, and 533 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,200 they're more comfortable with a formal properties of graphic 534 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,100 design there. You know, some of them are like, 535 00:29:01,100 --> 00:29:05,900 really gifted for makers, but they're not comfortable thinking 536 00:29:05,900 --> 00:29:08,500 about how their computer works. Like, if I say, okay, we're 537 00:29:08,500 --> 00:29:11,700 going to open up terminal and We're going to push things to 538 00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:14,800 GitHub through terminal. They're like, wait, what am I 539 00:29:14,808 --> 00:29:17,400 going to break my computer? If I like accidentally type, 540 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,300 something wrong in terminal, probably not, you're going to be 541 00:29:19,300 --> 00:29:21,600 fine, but like it's interesting to like see these different 542 00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,800 levels of Engagement depending on what they're taught to. 543 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,300 I mean, it's a something of a pitfall to that. 544 00:29:27,300 --> 00:29:30,500 I've most of the classes, I teach I get students later on in 545 00:29:30,500 --> 00:29:33,900 their careers. And so that's actually tricky to 546 00:29:33,900 --> 00:29:36,500 when I teach graphic design, one we live in a totally different 547 00:29:36,500 --> 00:29:39,000 world than Joseph Miller Brockman. 548 00:29:39,300 --> 00:29:43,800 We can't do A fake design one in the way that maybe we used to 549 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,500 and so what is graphic design one? 550 00:29:45,500 --> 00:29:47,700 Even meet, what should it be? What should they be learning 551 00:29:47,700 --> 00:29:49,400 about? It's really, I mean, I don't 552 00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:50,700 know. It's great, that's great. 553 00:29:50,700 --> 00:29:53,800 That's a great question. I, you know, I'd love to hear 554 00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,900 your thoughts. If you could, if you could remix 555 00:29:57,300 --> 00:30:00,500 graphic design one, what would be the three foundational 556 00:30:00,500 --> 00:30:01,500 things? You would add? 557 00:30:02,100 --> 00:30:06,300 If you could remix like the three, I like the limitation 30k 558 00:30:06,700 --> 00:30:10,300 to me. I think one of the first things 559 00:30:10,500 --> 00:30:16,800 Is that we have to do is contextualize the practice of 560 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,500 design a little bit with in like the history of technology in the 561 00:30:19,500 --> 00:30:22,900 history of political economy. So like how does graphic design 562 00:30:22,900 --> 00:30:26,600 serve particular interests in the world that we live in like 563 00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,100 in let's call it the quote unquote West, or quote unquote 564 00:30:29,100 --> 00:30:33,400 Global North and what's its relationship to the will call it 565 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,300 like the hegemonic ideology. Right? 566 00:30:35,300 --> 00:30:39,400 Like what is its relationship to supporting the status quo and 567 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:43,000 you know, how do you Do that as a graphic designer, in everyday 568 00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,300 life and in practice and then the other thing I would say is 569 00:30:46,300 --> 00:30:49,800 systems and mapping. So not from necessarily 570 00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,200 exclusively, a formal perspective, but really thinking 571 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,600 about again, just emphasizing the relationality of things to 572 00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,000 one another. So whether it would be a 573 00:30:59,008 --> 00:31:04,700 diagramming the Investments, perhaps the MSU makes in its 574 00:31:04,700 --> 00:31:09,400 portfolio of a stock And Trades. What happens if we look at the 575 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,300 public disclosure, Ms. Use finances. 576 00:31:12,300 --> 00:31:15,600 What can we learn from that and how can you map those against 577 00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,800 looking at the detrimental effects of some of those 578 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,500 companies have on our environment and then visualize 579 00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:23,100 that in some way? I think about the work of 580 00:31:23,100 --> 00:31:26,900 somebody like, Mark Lombardi or a project like they rule from 581 00:31:26,900 --> 00:31:29,700 Josh on and Future Farmers. Those things were about mapping 582 00:31:29,700 --> 00:31:33,300 diagramming power and thinking about how power exerts itself 583 00:31:33,300 --> 00:31:36,300 through multiple channels. And I think that that idea of 584 00:31:36,300 --> 00:31:39,100 connectivity and mapping and systems is, like, really, really 585 00:31:39,100 --> 00:31:43,200 Central to To not only design practice but also being able to 586 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,500 look at the world and analyze it through a lens that is not 587 00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:53,000 myopic and doesn't try to put graphic design in this little 588 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:54,600 box, you know. And it's like something we 589 00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,000 encounter all the time. Like if I remember like working 590 00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:00,500 at this big company in Boston and we felt like we were the 591 00:32:00,500 --> 00:32:02,800 make it pretty department and everybody came to us to just 592 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,700 make things pretty. And I think that oftentimes 593 00:32:05,700 --> 00:32:08,300 graphic design education unintentionally of feeds into 594 00:32:08,300 --> 00:32:11,900 that and again it calls into question To a little bit of like 595 00:32:12,100 --> 00:32:16,000 graphic, designs ongoing existence as a singular 596 00:32:16,100 --> 00:32:18,300 discipline. It's so integrated with so many 597 00:32:18,300 --> 00:32:21,200 other things and I wonder what something like canva. 598 00:32:21,300 --> 00:32:24,800 The third thing I would talk about is platforms and templates 599 00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,900 and systems for other people to do design. 600 00:32:26,900 --> 00:32:28,200 Then I would talk to students about that. 601 00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,900 It's really important to know about and honestly, like some of 602 00:32:30,900 --> 00:32:33,300 those things, some of the automated systems and do some of 603 00:32:33,300 --> 00:32:34,900 our work for us. Let him do it. 604 00:32:34,900 --> 00:32:37,600 I suppose right? They do but they lack the heart. 605 00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,800 Yeah yeah I mean I think again. Like my question would be. 606 00:32:42,100 --> 00:32:44,800 Where's the heart necessary to me? 607 00:32:45,100 --> 00:32:49,500 It seems as though the kind of design early activity that we 608 00:32:49,500 --> 00:32:53,600 have associated with graphic design for so long, may not be 609 00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,600 where we really need to put our energy in society right now. 610 00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,900 Can we push beyond that in order to have the kind of impact that 611 00:33:00,900 --> 00:33:04,700 we really need to have especially in the face of 1.5 612 00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:08,300 degrees Celsius global warming? We're there and like the urgency 613 00:33:08,300 --> 00:33:12,900 of change needs to Be reflected and how we talk about what we do 614 00:33:12,900 --> 00:33:14,800 as designers. There's this great article by 615 00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,100 Cameron Tonkin. Why is called I prefer not to 616 00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:19,500 anti-progressive designing it to some degree. 617 00:33:19,500 --> 00:33:23,400 It asks, what would an active refusal by designers look like, 618 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,500 do we need to continue to do the things that we're doing? 619 00:33:26,700 --> 00:33:30,500 And I think the answer really If we're honest about it is no. 620 00:33:31,300 --> 00:33:35,000 And that opens up a whole possibility for really 621 00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,900 transformative change and so if you ask me like this graphic 622 00:33:37,900 --> 00:33:41,400 design, one look like, maybe it doesn't look like What we have 623 00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:45,800 come to understand is graphic design under the historical 624 00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,600 weight of European modernism. And as our world continues to 625 00:33:49,608 --> 00:33:54,700 change for, every reason, our design studies and design 101 626 00:33:54,700 --> 00:33:57,400 needs to change and need to adjust with her. 627 00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,800 I absolutely. I think we see that. 628 00:33:59,900 --> 00:34:03,200 I love your approach to thinking about this, and I definitely 629 00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,400 going to invite you back. I can't believe we're we've run 630 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,500 through our time for this episode of design adjacent, but 631 00:34:09,500 --> 00:34:11,800 you are coming. My friend because we're going to 632 00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,500 talk about solutely, we're going to next time spin a little more 633 00:34:14,500 --> 00:34:19,199 music and we're going to talk a bit more about the way in which 634 00:34:19,300 --> 00:34:23,699 the work that you're exploring layers and refines and 635 00:34:23,699 --> 00:34:27,699 challenges the work we're doing. I mean I think about this Nexus 636 00:34:27,699 --> 00:34:31,300 that continues to expand and maybe you know, we have 637 00:34:31,300 --> 00:34:35,199 conversations about professions and the fact that years ago 638 00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:39,800 you'd have a guild and there was a series of tools and sets and 639 00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:41,400 approach. Churches that someone will learn 640 00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,199 and that created a guild that provided support and covering 641 00:34:45,199 --> 00:34:48,199 for the work in the family as that expands. 642 00:34:48,199 --> 00:34:50,600 And as we think about contemporary professions and 643 00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:53,400 design is definitely one. I often think about it was 644 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,300 helpful for me to think about the more like our universe 645 00:34:56,300 --> 00:34:59,900 something that's constantly expanding and explodes into a, 646 00:34:59,900 --> 00:35:03,200 we look at design, 20 years ago, we wouldn't recognize. 647 00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,300 We won't recognize what design is 20 years from. 648 00:35:05,300 --> 00:35:08,800 Now, if we try to think about it the way, in which we've 649 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,100 expanded, so I love to bring you Back and talk some more about 650 00:35:12,100 --> 00:35:16,600 this Nexus of technology and policy and our political 651 00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:21,500 economy, along with design and how we shape the future above 652 00:35:21,500 --> 00:35:25,500 to, for sure that it's been a delight and I know that our 653 00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:29,600 audience is, has enjoyed this conversation to have someone to 654 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,100 design, educator a design leader, and I'm giving you 655 00:35:32,100 --> 00:35:35,000 titles, I know you said you fall in no area, which means that 656 00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,400 you're perfectly adjacent where you fall in this space. 657 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,500 Yeah, but I thank you for joining Ting us and I thank all 658 00:35:41,500 --> 00:35:45,300 of you for listening to this episode of design adjacent, the 659 00:35:45,300 --> 00:35:50,000 podcast that truly finds the Nexus of both design today and 660 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,300 Zack tomorrow. Thank you, man. 661 00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,600 Thanks so much Benny. Show notes for this episode will 662 00:35:55,600 --> 00:36:00,100 be available on AIG a.org. Please subscribe to our show on 663 00:36:00,100 --> 00:36:04,500 anchor Apple, podcasts Google play Spotify or wherever you get 664 00:36:04,500 --> 00:36:07,800 your podcast. Aiga is designed adjacent 665 00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,200 podcasts. And its contents are the copy. 666 00:36:10,300 --> 00:36:14,900 Right of aiga the professional association for design All 667 00:36:14,900 --> 00:36:18,500 Rights Reserved, any redistribution or reproduction 668 00:36:18,500 --> 00:36:21,900 of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited 669 00:36:21,900 --> 00:36:24,500 without aig's Express written permission. 670 00:36:25,300 --> 00:36:27,700 My name is Li Xian zhuang until next time.