from the DeepMind of Josh Plough

Bring me back to the Collective DeepMind

30.

So far this essay has skidded a little clumsily over its subjects, critiquing without really offering an alternative. This chapter is where some of those ideas will be fleshed out. But firstly I want to introduce an interesting historical case. An example of when the world (and consequently design) was faced with catastrophe, and instead of a case of project mentality, there was a solid coherent structural reaction.

You were entitled to buy it if you could prove you needed it.

From 1941-1951 a peculiar thing happened in a capitalist and industrial country at the centre of a global colonial empire. With the declaration of war, somehow came the implementation of war socialism. And with it came the deep collaboration between designers, industry and government to make sure that people got what they needed. A committee was set up to oversee the production of goods for the home and clothes for the body (all available at controlled prices or using tokens). This mixture of entities, both people and structures, guaranteed rational decision making when producing the goods, as well the quality of workmanship and materials. Design became about re-action, and not about the designer.

For ten years design and its research had direct effect as it was wielded by the state apparatus to improve living standards. It researched what bombed out people needed and produced items to solve those problems. And it might seem twee that we just talk about furniture, or think that it wasn’t radical, because what can this do, right? But they didn’t just replicate, they researched, designed and built anew. Responding to contemporary needs which then improved the living conditions of people who had previously been denied such a standard of living. This paradox of material scarcity and then increased living quality flies in the face of our current: choice is liberty, more is freedom, authorship is identity state of being.