Sticks and Idiots – Dummy-Problem Metadesign Workshop
This project involves forming and executing several differently structured metadesign workshops to capture effective methods that could apply in standard creative scenarios. I approach these workshops through a participatory design lens by flattening the hierarchy between the participants and me, the designer. My role is to host and guide workshops while providing optional design tools or bridging ideas from one participant to another. Throughout several try-outs of a similar, somewhat vague, and open task, the participants and I must accumulate a framework that may be effective as a standard strategy for problem-solving situations.
The question that I propose is “how can we move a Stick?”. It is worth assuming that moving this stick by myself would be redundant and stranded from influence and criticism, therefore against the principles of the project.
I want to mention the origin of my motivation and the nature of my new design theory perspectives. First and foremost, the seed of the stick idea is none other than a personal crisis as a change agent. A crisis fed by anger and anxiety related to my lack of agency. The stick is a metaphor for any systematic oppression, that at a very local level, any effort against seems insignificant to many, so easy to take for granted. Having a short design background, as a still-learning student, I have more easily accustomed to this metaphor.
At first, I had no idea how to move a stick or motivate others to join and move it together. As I progressed, I was inspired by another piece from Tony Fry, his video titled Crisis of Crisis Crisis (2020). He explained thoroughly his opinion on how a lack of an immediate crisis brings us into a state of alienation from our agency. After a few workshops, I managed to determine in shaping a standardized framework applicable for many scenarios. Yet, anger, anxiety, and curiosity played a relevant role as research fuel in my early stages.
If problem + design = solution, we face two unknown elements of the equation: the problem and the solution. Let us replace the problem with a dummy-problem, namely the moving-a-stick metaphor. Now the equation looks like this: stick + design = solution. We will experiment with a fake issue to analyze and criticize de- signs. The dummy-problem has little potential to become a crisis.