This lecture “Design (Research) as Radical Social Practice” by Oliver Vodeb was given at the Counter-Framing Design project seminar looking at the intersections between critical design practices and social movements hosted by the at the Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University London. The lecture was written as part of the research for the book Radical Intimacies: Designing Non-Extractive Relationalities. https://www.intellectbooks.com/radical-intimacies
We are publishing now the full recording as the start of a series of lectures, presentations and conversations related the our amazing book, which will happen in the coming months.
Abstract
The realization of the importance to connect theory, research and philosophy with social movements has manifested in the streets of Paris in the 1960’ with the slogan “Mao, Marx, Marcuse” and it was clear that Situationist theory would not make much sense without its communization. But how to communize knowledge and design practice today? How can we think about what we can call “radical design” if a) design is predominantly professionalized knowledge production, if b) the academization of design faces a constant threat of the destruction of the “academic” within the neoliberal university and c) if the community, the communal seems to have the potential to generate a radical intimacy, as a particular non–extractive relationality between people AND at the same time a special quality of closeness/proximity to the subject of designing and investigating (researching), crucial for facing key existential problems today. These potentials will be explored through the lens of Memefest’s extradisciplinary methodology. The lecture is based on a chapter from the book Radical Intimacies, edited, written, and curated by Oliver Vodeb, published by Intellect Books and Memefest in 2023.
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