Designerly Reproduction

1Production

For thousands of years humans have visually expressed their perception of the world and their imagination of possible worlds. Already prehistoric cave paintings from the Paleolithic age show the human perception of familial organization and hunting scenes, as well as their imagination of possible shelter decorations for ritual and religious contexts. Since then, humans have visually re-perceived and re-imagined their familial organization, hunting scenes and shelters again and again. Today we live in an age of globalized familial organization, industrialized hunting scenes and smart shelters. As well as of mobile communication, automated mobility and so forth. Whether prehistoric or modern, what all these human activities have in common, is the usage of the same methodology to shape their environment and self. The perception and analysis of the existing and the imagination and communication of the possible is what we call design. In its most general meaning, design is therefore the planned, conscious and aim-oriented visualization of human perceptions and imaginations.

Whether it is a cave painting of shelter decorations, an organizational chart of a large cooperation, a system map of food distribution, the architectural drawing of a building or the construction plan of a nuclear bomb, design is the mental and visual search for how something could be. An exploration of the space of imaginable possibilities. Such exploration is an activity, to design, that produces an outcome, a design. The activity, to design, is a mental and social process in which humans try to make sense of the existing, the historically developed, and on that basis imagine and visualize the possible. Through visualization, imagination can be communicated and therefore becomes discussable in diverse social contexts such as between interest groups, stakeholders, citizens or family members. As closer as the visualization comes to the existing reality, imagination comes closer to perception, and humans can perceive how it would be like to live in the imagined reality. The outcome of design, a design, is the visualization of the imagined such as a building construction plan or prototype, and the reality that emerges out of a design such as the actual building. Therefore most humans, prehistoric and modern, are born into a humanly designed reality, and due to their imagination have the ability to design.

Though, what humans imagine during the activity of designing does not yet exist in the present and rather in their imagination of possible futures. It is part of the experience of freedom that the future is perceived as open, as futures, and shapeable through present actions and decisions. But such kind of experience is only possible due to the ability of imagination. Without it, humans could not design their environment and self, and their life would be much more structurally determined by instincts. Designing, can therefore be seen as the activity which made and still makes primates into humans, it is the essence of being human. So it is not only the ability of imagination that differentiates humans from other animals, it is the ability that humans started to design their environment according to their needs. Humans designed their way out of biological subjection through the creation of industrialized hunting scenes and smart shelters. Due to no or less developed ability of imagination many other animals do not design or at least to a lesser extent. As far as we know only humans are able to consciously imagine and produce possible realities. Though, certain birds such as parrots are able to socially interact and through these interactions produce novel melodies. These unique creations are produced realities that did not exist before, and could therefore be considered as a form of animalistic design.

The activity of imagining and visualizing possible futures can only be observed in human design activities. It is the act of bringing something imagined to the present reality, by giving it a perceivable and discussable form before its development, what distinguishes humans from other animals. Such ability makes human development possible. The outcomes of such design are the designed realities that humans inhabit, the realities in which communication is mobile and housing smart. Though, depending on the system the design addresses, its influenceable world differs in scale. Whether design addresses planetary scales, human societies, political or economic systems, organizations or individuals, its outcomes have widely different effects on the production of future realities. Though most complex systems are not designable as such and their formation is based on many small designed interventions. But whatever system design addresses, humans and other living systems have to live with humanly designed realities and their causal effects. Thus, all humans are embedded in the product of their own species space of imagination. Humans are not passive actors, instead everyone designs its influenceable world according to individual and collective beliefs and out of the perspective of prior designs. As a result, design projects and subjects possibilities. It projects possibilities into the future and subjects the further projection of possibilities through the designed conditions that a human experiences. That is what makes the ability to design so powerful for the human existence and similarly problematic and dangerous. It enables humans to intentionally intervene in the structural determination of living systems, the instinctive forms of behavior. Though, such interventions also unintentionally determine the imaginable possibilities of following interventions. This has large scale effects on the human self and its environment, because the long term and complex causal effects of designed interventions often remain unforeseeable.

2Reproduction

From hunting scenes to industrialized hunting scenes, from shelters to smart shelter, from communication to mobile communication. How did humans and their environment cumulatively evolve from prehistoric conditions to modern conditions? What happened in the evolution of human development such as from horse drawn vehicles, over combustion engine vehicles, electric vehicles to self-driving vehicles? The human imagination of possible futures is not free of influences and rather conditioned by the environment a human inhabits. Unsurprisingly humans with future imaginations of electric vehicles or self-driving vehicles are very likely embedded in an environment in which combustion engine vehicles exist, as well as electrical technology, economic drivers, artificial intelligence or ecological problems. Even the most "radical visionaries" are subjected in their imagination through the embedding into an environment. But what exactly subjects humans in their ability of imagination?

From their day of birth humans are embedded in a social environment, from parents over friends, school teachers to sport club members. Humans only exist in a structurally coupled network with other humans. Through such a social environment a human learns how to navigate in the world. The social environment tries to protect the human from the world and the world from the human. That means that all humans that surround a human from its day of birth define the experiences the human makes in the world and the perception that emerges from these experiences. A human learns how to humanly hunt, move, shelter or communicate through its social environment. Out of such learnings emerges a human's perception of reality, out of which the imagination of possible realities emerges. A human learns that the earth is spherical, though could imagine that it could also be quadratic. But that is only possible due to the imagination that emerges out of learning about quadratic and spherical shapes and what differentiates them. So what a human is able to imagine emerges out of the process of socialization. Without being socialized a human would not have any meaningful experiences out of which imaginations could emerge. Hence, humans would live in a meaningless world trying to survive through instinctive behavior. The learned meaning is what makes visions possible, what makes them radical or boring. So the human imagination of possible futures is disciplined by historic social interactions in familial, cultural, educational or institutional contexts. For that reason an engineer would propose a different solution to the same problem than a social scientist, an architect or a forester. Because the imagination of each individual human is constrained by its disciplined socialization. This means that the ability to imagine possible futures, builds on and is defined by prior generations and their perceptions, imaginations and designs.

The experiences a human makes throughout life form a space of what is imaginable. The experiences with existing norms, beliefs, assumptions and knowledges define the preconfiguration of that space. A human that has experienced diverse realities such as of norms and assumptions has therefore a more expanded space of imagination. Though, as long as a human is cognitively and physically not able to perceive and process all worldly experienceable at once, the individual imagination is constrained by the constraints of the experienceable. Where one human tells another human how things are and were. So the process of socialization preconfigures the space of what a human is able to imagine and what not. Within such preconfiguration a human designs its environment and self. And such designs become part of the world. Humans live in decorated shelters, eat industrially produced food, or move in automated vehicles. These designs define how humans behave, how they live, eat and move, and are therefore part of social interactions. Such as in the discussion of buying the red or green couch, or in attending a university class about automation technologies. Through such and other social interactions the designed obtains a meaning that defines its role in a human environment. It therefore does not just become an existing part of human reality, it also becomes a meaningful part of reality, and thereby characterizes a human's perception. A child that grows up in a religious environment does not just perceive the physical architecture of religious symbols such as churches, it is also able to perceive its meanings and related beliefs, assumptions and norms. But only because someone already communicated these meanings to them. In that context, churches do not differ from cars, palaces, government buildings or caves. The design of these material objects and environments, and their meaning, shapes a human's perception of the world and preconfigures the space of the imaginable. For that reason, the imagination of engineers is often more subjected by the meaning of norms than of the technically developable or of economists by the meaning of growth than of the economically possible. That means that a design shapes the human preconfiguration of imaginable futures by becoming a part of social environments.

So when designing, the imagination of possible futures is always shaped by designed and randomly developed environments a human has experienced. The brain processes these past experiences, combines them with another and projects them into possible futures. Due to the influences of the past design reproduces existing preconfigurations and is therefore evolutionary. Under continuously changing conditions humans redesign the existing into the "new". Like that shelters become smart and hunting scenes industrialized. But also structures of power or ecological destructive behaviors get repetitively reproduced. That is why the human imagination produces green growth sustainability policies, by drawing from experiences in an existing economic system that is confronted with emerging ecological challenges.

3Acceleration

From paleolithic to modern humans, from electrical engineers, preschool teachers, medical doctors to ice cream vendors. Is every human a designer? Due to the reason that all humans are designerly active to a certain degree, design could be categorized into disciplined design and non-disciplined design. A human that practices non-disciplined design would then be every human that has the ability to imagine possible futures and give the imagined a visual form. Moving pieces of furniture in a living room to find the most practical and beautiful layout could therefore be considered as non-disciplined design. Because a human has an imagination, how the living room could look like, and visualizes the imagination by moving available pieces of furniture. It is an activity that intervenes in the existing to produce an imagined outcome – a designed future reality. In the same way did paleolithic humans intervene in existing food supply, as electrical engineers intervene in existing technology usage, preschool teachers in existing children activities, medical doctors in human health or ice cream vendors in existing consumption behaviors. All these are design activities, but the humans who practice them usually are not disciplined as designers, and rather in their discipline such electrical engineering or ice making. The disciplined designer complements such human design activities by professionally enabling and visualizing the imagination of possible futures at the interface between humans and the world. Disciplined design thereby enables the communication and collaboration between humans with diverse perceptions of reality. A disciplined product designer might work with an electrical engineer to design possible interventions how people use technology or a disciplined game designer might work with preschool teachers to design possible interventions in children's activities. Equally do disciplined designers design the possible interfaces between ice cream vendors and ice cream consumers, medical doctors and patients or politicians and citizens. So the disciplined designer needs to be disciplined in exploring, constructing, visualizing and producing imaginations of possible futures at the interface between humans and their environment. Both, undisciplined and disciplined design is what produces humanly designed futures. A design is therefore everything human-made, everything that is considered as artificial rather than natural. That means that every human designs, but not every human is a designer.

But what both types of design have in common is that their activity of designing reproduces existing assumptions and circumstances. When designing, humans produce mostly imaginable futures, because they design out of their perceivable reality. This leads to the missing out of many possibilities. Because the perceivable reality is only a small excerpt of the entirety of reality. Everything beyond that excerpt remains unimaginable until a human makes experiences that expand this excerpt. But since such experiences are made on the basis of actions that are driven by already existing imaginations, humans repetitively expand their imagination towards the same directions. Though, that does not mean that what is unimaginable for one person is unimaginable for another. It only means that the individual has limits of what is perceivable and therefore imaginable. If we individually consider how much unperceived reality remains out there it becomes obvious how limited we are in our designerly activities. Humans simply do not have the tools to systematically engage with these limits. Thus, many possibilities remain unimaginable and therefore undesignable and undevelopable.

Increasingly, humans do not just reproduce the existing through design, they also accelerate such reproduction, where the designed and its reproductive effects grow exponentially in volume. When a human "climbs up" the hierarchical ladder of an organization as part of its career design, such design reproduces hierarchical structures of power what ensures the economic functioning of the organization and thereby also of the economic system the human and the organization is embedded in. Such human design has two effects. On one hand it reproduces the assumption of the desirability of climbing up hierachical ladders, on the other hand it reproduces the economic functioning of the organization and thereby also the distribution of its products and services. If the work activities of the human have dynamically expanding effects on the economic functioning of the organization as well as unforeseeable effects on the surrounding system, the human's career design reinforces reproduction. A single product optimization can have large scale and dynamic effects on the amount of distributed products and therefore the profitability and resource consumption of the organization. Design is therefore not just reproductive, it often also reinforces the reproduction of existing assumptions and circumstances.

Considering that on a global economic scale such reinforcement also accelerates the consumption, usage and exploitation of the earth's "resources" human life depends on, design that accelerates is in many cases not a reasonable option anymore. If there are planetary boundaries, the design driven acceleration cannot infinitely evolve without destroying humanity's safe space that guarantees the thriving of generations to come. But due to the reason that on a humanity scale such accelerating reproduction is not an overarching designed process and rather consists of many small interfacing and constrained design activities, humanity is confronted with its own undesignable and complex development. Like that shelters, hunting scenes, consumption behaviors or assumptions remain a subject of accelerating. And as long as so many humans perceive only acceleration, it will remain the only imaginable and therefore productive path. Approaching this problematic and supporting humans to fundamentally change their development directions might be the task for professional designers in the 21st century.

Acknowledgment

This text was written with strong support by the design theorist Wolfgang Jonas and is very much influenced by the ideas of people like Hannah Arendt, Peter Bieri, Catherine Belsey, Hartmut Esser, Michel Foucault, Kenneth J. Gergen, Humberto R. Maturana, Francisco J. Varela, Jan Michl, Herbert A. Simon, Cameron Tonkinwise and Michel-Rolph Trouillot.