On June 9th, 2019, so-called “design ethicist” and former Google employee Tristan Harris, tweeted: “We need a new field of ‘Society & Technology Interaction’ (or STX).” The tweet caused a maelstrom of reactions from STS scholars and others, who used it as a classic example of the willful ignorance of industrial actors towards decades-old scholarship about their field. Harris eventually deleted the tweet and apologized for “a poor choice of words”: “We want to see a world where the field of design…[is] equipped with an applied view of the fields you mention.” This panel explores how this work is already being done and how it might continue.
Arguably, Design Studies has been an STS field for over 35 years: in 1984, Hillier, Musgrove, and O’Sullivan argue that architecture should be taught alongside scientific philosophers such as Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos; five years later, design theorist Victor Margolin uses Dickson, Feyerabend, and Aronowitz to argue that “we cannot conceive of any theory of design…independent of a theory of society” (1989); and in 2015, Cameron Tonkinwise argues that Actor-Network Theory is inherently designerly.
Design educators teach students to design artifacts which are necessarily embedded within sociotechnical and technoscientific systems. What, then, can STS offer the design academy? How can students connect their studio work with its broader implications? We aim to assemble a panel of teacher-scholars who will directly address pedagogical approaches.
Works Cited:
Real Life. “The Perfect User.” Accessed January 5, 2021. https://reallifemag.com/the-perfect-user/.
Hillier, Bill, John Musgrove, and Pat O’Sullivan. “Knowledge in Design.” In Develps in Design Methodology, edited by Nigel Cross, 245–64. Chichester ; New York: Wiley, 1984.
Margolin, Victor. “Introduction.” In Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism, edited by Victor Margolin, 3–28. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Tonkinwise, Cameron. “Design Studies—What Is It Good For?” Design and Culture 6, no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 5–43. https://doi.org/10.2752/175470814X13823675225036.