Ind-E-Focus

Thanks to Callum Nash for this article that illustrates the flaws in modern technology and design and calls for a time when life was more wild, savage and simple;

In the time scale of our time on this planet, we’ve only just thought
of the idea of shoes half an hour ago. In fact, our body is so unadapted for our modern life that it is about
as ‘fit for purpose’ as the home office as we sit in front of a
monitor bashing our fingers into a complex plastic keyboard,
merely to check our emails.

Our colossal fall out with nature can be illustrated in the jungle
we have built for ourselves;
the abstract drum beat of
mice clicks,
clattering keyboards
and beeping printers
have become our new bird song.

So where does the designer enter this scene?

He may not be visible in the flesh, but the marks of his presence
are ever visible in this story. Designers have painted the
canvas of our lives in natures absence, and this new
LED and plastic landscape is rarely to our taste.

Should I blame designers squarely in the face for ruining both
the planet and my posture with their rigidly ergonomic chairs?

No, of course not, after all, they are just regular guys,
fighting a losing battle between a dumb computer and an even dumber client,
they are merely trying to get the job done,
fulfill the brief,
and put food on the table.

But herein lies the problem; our homogeneous glass and concrete cities,
with their fallible and inflexible traffic systems, filled with their
expensive and obsoleting cars and all the products that fill them
are all the net result, of designers just “getting by”
avoiding making an impact, not putting their foot down,
not putting their effort in.

But herein lies the solution! choosing to bother or not to bother
is still only a choice, and a simple one at that, closing the door on
indifference is necessary, for a designers capacity for good
is only equal to his capacity for wasteful and useless consumption of
our precious resources.
Just make the choice! design for the benefit of society, or not at all.
because if your not designing for the benefit of society,

then what are you doing?

... ?

So bring on the ice age I say,
bring on the end of our pleasant interglacial period,
for at the very least, it will test our metal,
and at best, forge our greatest creations as citizen designers,
after all, we have faced much worse from mother nature,
and yet I am here now to type this.