The Promise and Problem of Provocation

Tharp, Stephanie and Tharp, Bruce M. (2024) The Promise and Problem of Provocation. In: P/References of Design. Cumulus conference proceedings series, 1 . Cumulus Association, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, Budapest, pp. 1265-1266. ISBN 978-952-7549-02-5

Text e049d59f-916f-4194-afdc-f44ebeef5ec8 - Published Version Download (2MB)

Abstract

The goal of this Format X session is to unpack, problematize, and assert the ethical, emotional, and instrumental implications and principles involved when provocation is leveraged within discursive design practice. The session involves individual, group, and guided engagements with a few foundational and practical frameworks, as well as some provocative object examples to prompt participants' re-designs that are intentionally below, above, and right on the ethical line. These re-designs operate as talk-tools to generate fundamental questions and considerations for design practitioners a forum where what-if, how-to, WTF, and LMAO duke it out. Provocation/the strangely familiar/dissonance has been identified as a common element across forms of discursive design (e.g., critical design, speculative design, design fiction). These practices leverage ambiguity and edginess in order to get audiences to reflect on substantive, consequential topics that may run counter to entrenched perceptions and beliefs. In challenging the status quo, designers employ more radical approaches and even justify tricking their audiences for their own intellectual good. As discursive designs are often presented as merely speculative, as not fully functioning, and as visualized thought experiments, they can be seen as "safe" and unburdened from the common mechanisms and attitudes toward ethical oversight. "How harmful could a well-intentioned design idea actually be?" "The potential rewards certainly outweigh any risks regarding such an important issue, no?"

Actions (login required)

Edit Item