This Contextual Review chapter explores the context of my PhD project, by presenting an overview of the ideas of the political thinkers that the project is based on. I also introduce the project’s underlying design perspectives: discursive design and adversarial design. The former focuses on facilitating discussion and reflection and generating public debate (Tharp and Tharp 2018, 7), while the latter distinguishes between political design and design for politics (DiSalvo 2012, 8). In this chapter, I will challenge the duality of adversarial design and advocate a more nuanced concept. I present a new, additional category for DiSalvo’s theory: political, political design.
Between the first and second half of the chapter, I share my personal perspective on the design work of Nelly Ben Hayoun.
The chapter then introduces several designers with a political agenda who are currently active. I examine their distinct approaches to artistic research: there is the ‘design-as-experience’ approach (Ben-Hayoun); an approach that explores the relationship between state institutions and citizens (Ericson, Ben-Hayoun, and Herregraven); and an approach that investigates the potential of participatory design and collectively created narratives (DeVet). The chapter catalogues ideas and concepts that have influenced the study from a political and designerly perspective. In this chapter these ideas are presented through sketches, drawings, notes and through images of the wall described in Chapter 2. All these materials stem from practical work I did in my studio and/or workshops I conducted in public.
To gain a better understanding of the ideas and beliefs that underly today’s political system(s), I took a course in Political Ideologies at the University of Bergen. The course introduced me to the five overarching Western political ideologies: liberalism, conservatism, communism, socialism, and fascism. I got to know twenty political thinkers: from Socrates (°460 BC) to key historical figures like Marx, Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler, and finally philosopher and business professor Jason Brennan (°1979.) To make sense of my new knowledge (fig. 3.1), I drew portraits of these men, connected their texts and most important contributions to these portraits, and strung up the result in my studio (fig. 3.2-21, and 3.22).
One thing stood out to me during the course in Political Ideologies: I came to understand that, throughout history, some men tried to make political elections harder for others. In The Right to a Competent Electorate, Jason Brennan (fig. 3.21) argues that democracies should adopt “a modest epistocratic position” (2011, 701)—‘epistocracy’ meaning “rule by the knowledgeable” (Brennan 2017, 14). Brennan suggests all voters should have to pass a test to get permission to vote, because ignorance, according to Brennan, is problematic in voters:
Voters, regardless of whether they have selfish or altruistic motives, have little incentive to be well informed about politics, or even to form their political beliefs in a rational way. Voters are rationally ignorant, and perhaps even rationally irrational (2011, 710).
Personally, I find the idea that people would have to pass a test to get permission to vote highly problematic: it is both non-democratic and elitist. Who would develop such a test? Who would benefit from it, and who would lose? Brennan’s arguments hark back to Plato (fig. 3.3), who argued that the State should be governed by wise men, preferably philosophers (Cappelen and Cappelen 2020, 186).
The course also gave me insight into the foundational concepts that our collective political consciousness rests on it, the origins of ideologies and their conceptual frameworks, the cyclical recurrence of political ideas, and the fact that ideas verbalised 2,500 years ago (can) still influence us to this day.
In the runup to Norway’s parliamentary elections in 2021, Bergen’s daily newspaper Bergens Tidende published an Op-Ed by David Vogt, postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at the University of Bergen. His article “Not Sure How to Vote in the Upcoming Election? Ask Your Inner Vote Compass”6 (Vogt 2021) introduced readers to three languages of politics: the language of liberty (spoken by libertarians), the language of civilization (spoken by conservatives), and the language of the oppressed (spoken by progressives). It was Arnold Kling who first listed these languages in The Three Languages of Politics (2019). In his book, which was written in an American context, Kling talks about a “three-axis model of political communication” (2019, 5). Libertarians want to protect individual choice, conservatives align themselves with civilising institutions like the Church, progressives align themselves with the oppressed (2019, 93). Kling encourages people to be mindful of their language, the words they use, and the conclusions they draw when contemplating and discussing events in the world. The three-axis model is a method to organise and structure one’s thoughts, to become conscious of one’s beliefs, and to learn how to communicate with others who speak a different political language.
The idea that there might be different languages to speak about politics intrigues me. Language is a gateway to our inner world, so we should be conscious of how we use it as a key to our political inner life. There’s something inherently sympathetic about trying to listen to and understand oneself and, by extension, others. French philosopher Julia Kristeva endorses the notion of turning inward. In an interview with the Norwegian weekly newspaper Morgenbladet (which is politically un-affiliated) (Lillebø 2014), Kristeva describes ‘turning towards the self’ as a revolutionary act:
To rebel today is to care about one’s inner life. To read a book, go into psychoanalysis, see a theatre performance or an exhibition of contemporary art.
Looking inside oneself can apparently be a way to rebel (Kristeva) or a way to gain understanding of one’s own and others’ political positions (Kling). These statements do not necessarily contradict each other. The link between these ideas and my project is the belief that the inner realm can serve as a path to political discussion, dialogue, and curiosity.
My PhD project is situated in a discursive design context. The discursive perspective focuses on design’s potential to generate discussion, raise questions, and create awareness. Tharp and Tharp see communication as the main purpose of design and the discursive practitioner:
Discursive design can either perform the way a looking glass does—better magnifying, reflecting, and revealing aspects of. Culture for its audience—or it can act like a fun-house mirror—intentionally distorting in order to emphasize, propose, speculate, instigate, or criticize (Tharp and Tharp 2018, 13).
The term ‘discursive design’ also serves as an umbrella for design theories and practices like critical design, design fiction, speculative design, anti-design and adversarial design, which all fall outside of traditional, market-oriented, mainstream ideas on how to use design (Tharp and Tharp 2018, 84). As the idea of adversarial design is central to my research, I will now discuss its main concepts in greater detail.
In Adversarial Design (2012), Carl DiSalvo distinguishes between ‘design for politics’ and ‘political design’. DiSalvo’ theory is based on the work of Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe, who makes a clear distinction between ‘the political’ and ‘politics’:
DESIGN FOR POLITICS
Design for politics often works to improve access to information (such as public health information regarding organizations and candidates) or to improve the access to various forms of ordered expression and action (such as petitions, balloting, and voting). As used in projects that apply design to politics.
To sum things up, “political design evokes and engages political issues” (2012, 2), whereas design for politics is design that is applied to politics (municipalities, healthcare, government) and that facilitates actions like voting.
As mentioned earlier, my project’s design intention was to challenge the prevailing ideas in society on how citizens (should) connect with their inner political life. When my project was still in its early stages, my experiments encompassed elements of both political design and design for politics.
Initially, I perceived my project as positioned between two paradigms: one that draws from design for politics, and another that has a political design agenda. I tried to determine whether the two represented a strict dichotomy, that is: whether content always exclusively fell into one or the other group. If my project did not fall into either of the two, where should it be placed instead (fig. 3.24)?
My attempts to understand the division between political design and design for politics led me to yet another model, fig. 3.25, first introduced in the study in 2021. The sketch illustrates the division between political design and design for politics with examples of design as well as the connections to political theory—to Mouffe, Schmidt, Rawls and Habermas (upper right corner).
Political, political design is closely related to both design for politics and political design, and borrows characteristics from both. Think of it as the rabbit hole that Alice in Wonderland tumbles down: things are partly recognisable, but also partly suggest a new way of looking at the political world. Political, political design views politics in a conventional way: there is a left-right spectrum, there are recognisable parliamentary elements, democratic elections, and debate. At the same time, political, political design is ambiguous. While design for politics (left-hand side) often operates within the sphere of universal design, political, political design uses exaggerations and understatements, often even simultaneously. It is similarly to political design (right-hand side) in the sense that it too operates within a hermeneutic tradition—in contrast to design for politics, which operates within the positivist and measurable realm. There are certainly many similarities between political, political design and DiSalvo's category of political design. But very few projects engage in dialogue with political systems or with citizens’ inner political world—which is precisely what political, political design is here to do.
In Chapter 4, I will describe and discuss the practical experiments I conducted as part of my study. Political, political design emerged from this practical work, and from various iterations and refinement of models. To highlight my project’s contribution to the field of design, however, I decided to introduce the concept already now.
Nelly Ben Hayoun is a multi-disciplinary designer, thinker, and writer who ‘designs experiences’, as she puts it. Often, these experiences explore the role of institutions (Sacchetti 2018, 77), as in the educational project ‘The University of the Underground’. Ben Hayoun transcends different fields and different media—her work is ‘pluri-disciplinary’ (Ben Hayoun 2017, 17).
I spend a lot of time thinking about Nelly Ben Hayoun. My connection to her sprouted out of pure intuition. I saw a picture (fig. 3.27) of her seated on a sofa on a small stage. Three other women sit next to her, one of them holding a microphone. They’re conversing with an older man, also on stage but in another sofa. The four are surrounded by various objects: a red plastic telephone, plaster busts, plants, a blackboard with a drawing on it of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Apricot-coloured draperies hang in the background. Several rugs in earthy shades cover the floor of the stage. The picture is taken from the perspective of the audience.
The scene looks very pleasant: theatrical, scientific, intimate. You can't help but wish that you were there. The picture was taken at one of the lectures that made up Hayoun’s ‘Homo Sapiens, I Hear You’ project. For these lectures, Hayoun invited experts to discuss what it means to be human and to have basic human needs.
‘Homo Sapiens, I Hear You’ seeks to unravel new perspectives on what motivates us and explore whether the modern practice of design addresses our essential needs—from the most basic functions (eating, sleeping, etc.) to the more fulfilling (self-improvement, practicing sports) (Ben Hayoun 2018).
Topics discussed include sleep, disasters, the ultimate friendship, curiosity, bureaucracy, violence and the meal. I find myself wanting to attend the lectures, but also wanting to be Nelly Ben Hayoun: energetic, (seemingly) eccentric, uncompromising, smart. She makes it seem so easy to turn her ideas into reality: making a film, calling Noam Chomsky or some high-ranking figure at NASA to ask how everything is connected, staging an opera, founding a university, … None of it fazes Nelly Ben Hayoun! I envy her. Everything is so fast-paced in Ben Hayoun’s world, while mine is so slow. Everything is so big in Ben Hayoun’s world, as she grapples with outer space, the world's largest wind tunnel, magic, large institutions. Despite major differences in the scope, scale, and reach of what I do, I feel connected to her. Or maybe attracted to her? The way she plays around with doppelgangers and alter egos of herself. Maybe what I see in her projects aren’t alter egos, but rather enhanced versions of her? Ben Hayoun in a spacesuit, with red lipstick. Ben Hayoun as a cowboy in a pair of pink leather boots. In one photograph, she’s lying on her side, cigarette in hand, embodying her go-to philosopher Hanna Arendt. There’s always a playfulness in her work. I envy her, I’m amazed by her, and I recognise myself in her.
In her films, Ben Hayoun gives herself a political mission: to translate policies to an audience. One example is the film ‘Disaster Playground’, in which she examines what the chain of command and power structures would be like if our planet would be about to collide with an asteroid (2017, 124). Ben Hayoun does so by applying strategies from Greek tragedy, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, and re-enactment (2017, 134). Her visual language is direct, bold, exaggerated, and humorous. In Ben Hayoun’s three-dimensional worlds, she herself is the centre of everything.
Not only Nelly Ben Hayoun played an important role in my work: other designers too informed and inspired me, made me marvel at what the field of design has to offer. I will discuss two of them here: Eric Ericson and Femke Herregraven. (In Chapter 4, I will present additional designers connected to this study, such as Annelys DeVet, Masha Somik and Thomas Thwaites.) Ericson and Herregraven are relatively different from each other, but both have a distinct link with this study and my design practice, as their work too comments on/is involved in a societal or political debate.
Swedish graphic designer and artist Eric Ericson has used letter-sending (one of the most basic functions in society) as a method in several experiments. He far extends the ‘normal’ use of letters, though. In the preface to his book Korrespondens, Ericson writes that “the entire postal system reflects, in different ways, our society and the form of government we live under” (Ericson 2010). He suggests, for example, that the size of letter-box slots symbolises, or perhaps tells us something about, the level of a country's unease. In To Mr Cheng (2008) (fig. 3.28), Ericson examined how the Swedish and German postal services worked, sending various items to a fictional address in Berlin. Since the address did not actually exist, the objects were stored in cabinets at the receiving post office.
By combining simple methods (sending letters) with imagination, ambiguity, and exaggeration, Ericson tells stories about society and being a citizen, and about the relationship between the two.
I was also inspired by Dutch designer Femke Herregraven. She too explores societal themes like citizenship, economic and financial structures, and tax systems. Herregraven works with multiple media and her work often contains digital components. There is something intriguing about her approach: it acknowledges that design can be used as a microscope to reveal secrets. Herregraven’s curiosity and the genuine (and necessary!) questions she asks are very important. For her project ‘Taxodus’ (2015), she looked into the companies that had headquarters in Zuidas, the financial district of Amsterdam (Slegers 2014, 06:28). Herregraven discovered that there were more companies in the district than could possibly fit into the buildings, and that many companies had the word ‘oil’ in their names. From this starting point, she created the online game Taxodus (fig. 3.29), which focuses on tax evasion—mirroring what is happening in real life. Herregraven’s project began with a simple question, but resulted in intense public debate that even received media attention (Slegers 2014, 07:25).
All three designers mentioned above pursue practices with highly personal methods of investigation. Ericson sends letters, Herregraven explores who or what is registered at certain addresses, and Ben-Hayoun employs herself or doppelgängers/enhanced versions of herself in her work. All three are interested in societal issues and pose more questions than they answer, leaving ample room for the viewer to interpret things themselves. By closely examining others’ practices, my own design practice became clearer. It became easier for me to identify differences and similarities. Just like the walls in my studios did, these designers’ practices served as a kind of filter through which to process my own project.
Ben Hayoun calls herself a designer ‘of extreme experiences’ (Porsche 2023). Her fascination with the extreme is not only evident in her visual language, but also in her approach to design. In the film ‘Disaster Playground’, Ben Hayoun deliberately challenges the people she interviews by using the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ technique to uncover the essence of the answers she seeks (Ben Hayoun 2017, 114-115). I don’t object to such methods, but did not personally feel inclined to put any pressure on those who contributed to my project. I prefer to cultivate trust instead, to allow participants to respond to my questions with sincerity and openness. Still, participatory methods were as integral to my practice as they are to Ben Hayoun's work. In Ericson’s practice, there are no visible participatory elements. Instead, dry and surprising humour seems to be the core of his work—which often results in rather absurd projects. As for Herregraven’s practice, it is her choice of abstract and political themes that interests me. A simple question can lead to a rich and discursive answer. Ben Hayoun has a political mission too: her practice “[aims] to generate fruitful conflicts and animated discussions that disrupt existing power structures and hierarchies” (Ben Hayoun 2017, 134).
Please note that the above section only summarily presented these three designers' practices, with just a few examples from an otherwise broad and rich practice.
This chapter presented the context of my project. Its design (sketches, photographs of my studio, images of different objects) reflected my actual process: my dialogue the walls in my studio, the practical work I did, and the texts I read.
I presented Plato’s concept of epistocracy, which Brennan has reintroduced into contemporary society. Epistocracy and the worldview behind it provoke me and raise many questions. When can we say a voter is sufficiently informed before political elections? Who decides this? And how do designers address, react, and respond to ideas like epistocracy? With Ericson, Herregraven, and Ben Hayoun in mind, as well as with the possibilities that inward journeys offer (see Kling and Kristeva), I managed to disentangle abstract concepts like epistocracy and explore them through visual communication and participatory methods. Visual communication has genuine potential to create debate and to contribute to a healthy societal dialogue and democracy.
This chapter also established a theoretical framework for my project, from a design perspective. Tharp and Tharp’s ideas about discursive design were highly relevant. DiSalvo's theory of adversarial design further informed my theoretical framework. His system splits design into two groups: political design and design for politics. This categorisation was fundamental to my study, but my work did not fully fit into either group. That is why I introduced a new sub-category to DiSalvo's two, with my project placed down the rabbit hole of DiSalvo’s original framework. I call this category political, political design. It is important to note that the above concepts are just a handful of concepts that exist on the axis between design and democracy, and that there are many other concepts I could have explored. This chapter simply presented the ones I discovered during and within the limitations of my project.
The chapter ended by mentioning three design practitioners connected to my project. Their design work and artistic research explores the relationship between citizens and institutions in extraordinary ways.
In Chapter 4, I will describe the process behind the practical experiments I conducted for my study. We will explore their findings and conclusions, reencounter Alice in Wonderland, and watch a new department take shape.