a case for accountability-oriented design - keynote 2016 design and the city
TRANSCRIPT
A Case for Accountability-oriented Design
Dietmar Offenhuber, PhD Art+Design / Public Policy and Urban Affairs Northeastern University @dietoff
Ezra Stoller, TWA Flight Center, Eero Saarinen, New York, NY, 1962
1. Design is governance, governance is design
Dodge, Martin, and Rob Kitchin. 2004. “Flying through Code/space: The Real Virtuality of Air Travel.” Environment and Planning A 36 (2): 195–212.
Categorizations and design
Morville, Peter. 2014. Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything. Semantic Studios.
“An organization is its language.
Narrowing language increases efficiency.
Narrowing language also increases ignorance.
[…]
To regenerate, an organization creates a new language.”
Dubberly, Hugh, and Paul Pangaro. 2002. Notes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations. Sun Microsystems.
(new forms of measurement)
via Katja Schechtner
Manila Improstructure, 2015 Dietmar Offenhuber (NU), Katja Schechtner (ADB), Julia Nebrija (Manila)
Informality is inside, not outside the system
Co-production with residents - Arleen G. Braga, Chairman bgy. 822, Manila
Manila Improstructure, 2015 Dietmar Offenhuber (NU), Katja Schechtner (ADB), Julia Nebrija (Manila)
Main streetlight switch, Bgy. hall 821, Paco Manila
Manila Improstructure, 2015 Dietmar Offenhuber (NU), Katja Schechtner (ADB), Julia Nebrija (Manila)
Improstructure - governance as call & response
Ad-hoc repairs, lighting hybrids (K. Jagsch)
Manila Improstructure, 2015 Dietmar Offenhuber (NU), Katja Schechtner (ADB), Julia Nebrija (Manila)
Infrastructures of Transactionalization
The “Bitcoin End Game”
Barski, Conrad, and Chris Wilmer. 2014. Bitcoin for the Befuddled. San Francisco: No Starch Press.
“Just as robots have helped the world reduce menial physical labor, so cryptocurrency technology now gives us the tools to automate the menial labor of bureaucracy. Optimistically, the entirety of humanity will benefit as a result.”
Barski, Conrad, and Chris Wilmer. 2014. Bitcoin for the Befuddled. San Francisco: No Starch Press.
Bitcoin and Public Infrastructure
“In this future scenario, the roads on which Jen is driving will have also become autonomous actors, doing trades with the
car … They can submit bids to the car about how much they're going to charge to use them. If she's in a hurry, Jen
can choose a road that's a bit more expensive but which will allow her to get into the city faster.
Awesome, right?”
Mike Hearn. The Future of Money - Turing Festival 2013. Edinburgh.
Public good from an economic perspective
ExcludableNon-
excludable
Rivalrous Private goodsCommon
goods
Non-rivalrous Club goods Public goods
Measurement turns a public good into a private good
Bitcoin as a paradoxical commons*
ExcludableNon-
excludable
Rivalrous Private goodsCommon
goods
Non-rivalrous Club goods Public goods
*outside: private good inside: common good
The Commons
deals with limited resources involves conflict requires monitoring and enforcement has to be constantly re-negotiated shared instead of individual perspective
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge university press.
4. The aesthetics of transactionalization
–Erik Voorhes, Twitter, Oct 1. 2012
Bitcoin “is regulated, only by mathematics instead of politicians.”
A governance conflict typical for common goods https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3adkxc
Karl Gottlieb von Windisch. 1783. Briefe über den Schachspieler des Hrn. von Kempelen, nebst drei Kupferstichen die diese berühmte Maschine vorstellen.
Human agency disguised as algorithms
Gregor Aisch, 2011
Clean outside
Accountability Technologies
collecting data
coordinating volunteers
spreading the message
Guttenplag activity, visualization: User8, reproduced in:
Offenhuber, Dietmar, and Katja Schechtner, eds. 2013. Accountability Technologies - Tools for Asking Hard Questions. Vienna: Ambra V.
Messy inside
Accountability-oriented design
http://www.soofa.co/
“Jack Kutner hoped to re-position Bigbelly's solar-powered trash compacting stations beyond trash and
recycling and use them also to provide public space Wi-Fi, advertising, and urban intelligence sensors.”
http://bigbelly.com/is-that-just-a-trash-can-or-might-it-also-be-a-wi-fi-hotspot
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50059
Accountability-oriented design calls attention to issues of governance
Accountability-oriented design makes systems legible
Chinese bitcoin mine
Ambient Accountability - Dieter Zinnbauer Know Your Rights mural by Dasic Fernández
Memory Matrix - Azra Aksamija Cryptographic Heritage - Dietmar Offenhuber
Accountability-oriented design shapes public discourse by managing visibility
Opacitythrough
transparency
Urban Entropy (2015), Dietmar Offenhuber, Ars Electronica Center
Accountability-oriented design does not explain, it shows
Adrian Pratt Router
Accountability-oriented design acknowledges its own limitations
Workshop Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos, Professor, University of São Paulo Anne Scheinberg, Noë Waste Measurement Consultants (NWMC), the Hague Dietmar Offenhuber, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University, Boston
Full-day workshop, April 22nd from 9am - 3pm
Join our workshop tomorrow (please)
