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O P E N V A L U E

Mar

leen

Sti

kker

(O

pen

Des

ign

Now

, 20

11)

Design Thesis 2014

Research & documentation Raphael V. M. Volkmer

Free University of Bolzano, Italy

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Design Thesis

Research and documentation

Raphael Vincent Maria Volkmer

Exam Session 2014, 14.2

Free University of Bolzano, Italy

Faculty of Design and Art

Supervisor: Kris Krois

Second Supervisor: Sebastian Camerer

Open Value

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Thesis SS 2014 Abstract Bolzano, 17.03.2014

Thesis Research topic: Open–value

Der Gestalter als Mediator und Mehrwert–Schaffender im lokalen Kontext:

Ich werde mich im Kontext und in Zusammenarbeit mit der Sozial–Genossenschaft „AKRAT“ (Bozen, Piazza Matteotti 2) und deren Mitgliedern damit auseinandersetzen wie ich als Gestalter mit meinen Fähigkeiten einen geteilten Mehr–wert für die lokale Geselschaft erzeugen kann. „AKRAT will als Initiative ein authentisches und nachhaltiges Zusammenspiel zwischen Wirtschaft, Sozialem und Kultur im und durch den Arbeitsalltag in der Genossenschaft selbst und in der Gesellschaft fördern und leben. Dabei soll vorhandenen/alten Resourcen und Materialien, wie Holz und Textilien, durch kreatives Wiederverwerten einem unverwechselbaren Wert verliehen werden. Darüber hinaus wird versucht, Menschen mit einer sozialen Benachteiligung wieder in Arbeits– und Erwerbszusammenhänge zu integrieren und somit deren Position in der Gesellschaft zu stärken.“ Das für mich interessante an AKRAT ist die pluralistische Organisationsstruktur als Sozial– Genossenschaft und damit verbunden die Vielfalt an Persönlichkeiten die als Mitglieder in die Initiative involviert sind. Für die Ausarbeitung eines konkreten Projektes werde ich mich deshalb zunächst verstärkt mit den einzelnen Mitglieder beschäftigen, um deren Fähigkeiten und Werte besser zu verstehen. Meine Rolle und Ausgangssituation lässt sich nun am besten mit einer Reihe von Fragestellungen umreißen, die für den weiteren Verlauf des Projekts eine Rolle spielen werden:

Wie lässt sich Produkt– und Kommunikationsdesign im gemeinschaftlichen Kontext sinnschaffend nutzen?

#Design research, #Prozess design, #Kommunikationsdesign

Wie lassen sich bestimmte Werte durch Produkt– und Kommunikationsdesign vermitteln?

#Kommunikationsdesign, #Produktdesign, #Mehrwert, #Design literacy, #Branding

Welchen Wert hat geteiltes Wissen in lokalen Gemeinschaften und wie lässt sich dieses besser

vermitteln und teilen? #Open design, #Sharing, #Kuration

Welche Methodiken der partizipativen Gestaltung existieren und welche könnte man im konkreten

Fall anwenden/verbinden/weiterentwickeln? #Participatory design

Wie lässt sich bestehendes Wissen und neu entstehende (digitale) Werkzeuge sinnvoll

lokal implementieren? #Open design, #Open source, #Kollektives Lernen

Wie kann man das erlange Wissen wieder einer größeren Gemeinschaft zugänglich machen?

#Knowledge sharing, #Digital communities

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The way I approached this design thesis is a kind of curating and connecting of existing information to understand and make understandable the underlying pattern that emerges from these connections. I rather commented to the found pieces of information that are bound together by the higher context of the research topic adding my personal thoughts where appropriate to understand this context better.

In brief, I tried to interprete and put together the associated ideas of Open Design with my local situation in Bolzano by using my personal skills as a (conceptual) communication designer.

I will give an introduction to the topic of Open Design, try to carve out its moral implementations and connect it with a subject of my personal interest and immediate environment to have a better chance to not just comment passively on the topic, like critical design often does in my eyes, but to find an active implementation of my ideas.

B o l z a n o , 2 6 . J u n e 2 0 14

Approaching research

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Possibilitarians what if

everything…?

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Topic cloud research

framework

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Transformation Design possibility spaces and alternative storytelling to transform society

42

Intercultural learning the kiosk

50

Rolemodel Riace immigration as ultimate

solution

66

Venice Insights

interviews with street vendors from Venice

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Introduction from

OPEN DESIGN NOW

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Open Value how do new possibilities

change our value-systems

28

Speculative Design inventing alternative

futures

44 'Learn to unlearn'

from pragmatism and improvisation to

re-valuation

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Tourists & Vendors ambivalent

relationships

110

Informal & Open Knowledge Economy

learning from the streets of Naples

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Best open practices role models/

young initatives

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Wissen.Macht.Moral. knowledge.power.

morality.

40

Framing the context street vendors

and value systems

48 Open Value II

a village of cultural symbiosis

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Italy & Migration facts & Figures

116

Open Design & Street vending

how Open Design could change the scene

Content Directory

theoretical foundation

research

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118

From research to the final project

canalizing the research

134

Illegal² original — fake

156

Brand development communicating modesty and

a new approach to street vending

210

The Web as brand knot

a platform to connect and inform all involved players and the public

222

Colophon

124

Alt. System co–creation

by alternative players

144

Imposed Improvisation vs. Absurd Planning

scarcity and self-distruction

166

Conceptual Products developing a series of adequate,

alternative and exemplary products

216

Public Intervention & Feedback

testing and observing – changing the public realm

224

Index

132

Locals & Vendors from rejection to appreciation

148

Multiple Identities switching identity for

survival

186

Mobile Kiosks mobile commerce

and representation

218

Future perspectives how to continue?

228

Acknowledgements

final project theory

final project realisation

appendix

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?

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Well, it probably could be otherwise.”

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.”

“If you want to pass through open doors you have to respect the fact that they have a fixed frame: this principle is simply a prerequisite of reality. But if there is a sense of reality then there must also be something that you might call a sense of possibility. Someone who posses-ses this sense of possibility does not say: here this or that has happened, or it will happen or it must happen. Rather he invents: Here this could or should happen. And if anybody explains to him that it is as it is, then he thinks:

Robert Musil,

The Man Without Qualities

David Eagleman

Possibilitarians

"Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilitarianism I‘m hoping to define a new position – one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilitarianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.“ As Voltaire said:

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Possibilitarians think in new possibilities, and get all excited when things get messy and life becomes dis-orderly. In disruption, possibilitarians see new oppor-tunities, even if they do not know where they might lead. They believe, with Denis Gabor, that “the futu-re cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented”

Realitarians are operating within a given frame-work, according to the rules that are given, following to the powers there are. They accept the conditions and the institutions as given, and are fearful of disruption.

When it comes to open design, possibilitari-ans are enticed and enthused by the new opportuni-ties it could bring, even if they do not know exactly what open design will become, or where it might lead. Possibilitarians see the disruption that open design brings to the design world, and respond by embracing the potential that is inherent in that disruption.

Whether a person is a possibilitarian or a rea-litarian has nothing to do with their creativity. People representing these frames of reference can be found in all professions: entrepreneurs, politicians, artists. In fact, art and design are not avant-garde by definition, and it would be overstating the matter to claim that in-novation is an inherent quality in the arts – or science, for that matter.

It would equally be wrong to think that all re-alitarians are reactionary. There are many different kinds of realitarians. Some play with the given rules, finding better ways to use them, making them more efficient, increasing their moral justice and fairness. Others want to cover all eventualities, seeking to keep everything under control in neatly written scenarios that contain no surprises whatsoever.

Possibilitarians engage in open design as a process, trusting their own abilities to guide that process. And as possibilitarians, they pursue strate-gies to be inclusive, to involve others, to build bridges between opposite positions: North–South, old–young, traditional–experimental. Possibilitarians represent a sharing culture which is at the core of open design. As such, they trust others to make their own contributions and to build upon what has been shared. Trust, respon-sibility and reciprocity are important ingredients in an open, sharing culture. These factors have been discus-sed at length in relation to software development; the debate has been revived in the context of the ongoing informatization of society. As with open data, open de-sign will have to address these questions. And as with open data, open design will have to involve the actual end users, not organizations, panels or marketers. De-sign will have to identify the fundamental questions, which supersede the design assignments issued by mass-producers or governments. And design will have to develop a strategy of reciprocity, particularly when objects become ‘smart’ parts of an interconnected web of things, similar to the emergence of the internet.

Open design will have to develop its own langua-ge for trust. What are its design principles, its ethics, the responsibilities it entails? Although a clear answer to these questions is currently lacking, this absence does not prevent possibilitarians from engaging with open design. They know that this trend is not about a dream of the world as a better place, a dream which could too easily be stigmatized as naive and utopian. Possibilitarians also know that only by taking part in the process, by participating and by giving it a direc-tion can those answers be found.

Introduction Marleen Stikker about possibilitarians cc

OPEN DESIGN NOW, BIS Publishers, 2011

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His design studio Intrastructures focuses on pragmatic utopian ideas that generates models, tools and products for social and environmental restoration. He is best known for his project Openstructures which explores the possibilities of a modular construction model where everyone designs for everyone on the basis of one shared geometrical grid.

For thirty years John Thackara has traveled the world in the search of strories about the practical steps taken by communities to realize a sustainable future. He writes about these stories online, and in books; he uses them in talks for cities, and business; he also organizes festivals and events that bring the subject of these stories together. He is best known for his book In the Bubble: Designing in A Complex World (MIT Press)

John Thackara

Thomas Lommée

www.doorsofperception.com

www.intrastructures.net

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" Designing for the unexpected. "

" Don't judge an object for what it is, but

imagine what it can become."

" Openness is more than a commercial and cultural iussue.

It's a matter of survival."

" Building on top of existing infrastructures

– Creating intrastructures."

? !

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CargoCabs/

Can we synchronize distribution and recollection?

Brussels - 2005 / 2008

Super carry/

First prototype vehicle for a new logistical model.

Thomas Lommée, Brussels - 2012

Intra– Structures

www.intrastructures.net

Intrastructures is a pragmatic utopian design studio that generates models, tools and products for social and environmental restoration.

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Mobilotoop /

A visionon mobility.

Ghenk - 2013

Open– Structures

OS Arena

by Lukas Wegwerth

OS Scaffolding

by Lukas Wegwerth

Sand digger

by Ricardo Carneiro

and Tristan Kopp

OS Shoe soles

by Eugenia Morpurgo

and Juan Montero

OS Sled

by Artin Aharon

and Thomas Lommée

OS Toaster

by Jesse Howard

OS Vacuum

by Jesse Howard

www.openstructures.net

The OS (OpenStructures) project explores the pos-sibility of a modular construction model where ever-yone designs for everyone on the basis of one shared geometrical grid. It initiates a kind of collaborative Meccano to which everybody can contribute parts, components and structures.

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Open– Desk

www.opendesk.cc

“OpenDesk is a global platform for local making. You can use it to download, make and buy furniture for your work space.

OpenDesk has a global network of makers and a collection of furniture by a range of international de-signers. Because that furniture is designed for digital fabrication, it can be downloaded as a digital file and made locally — on demand, anywhere in the world.

We call this "Open Making":

Designers get a global distribution channel.Makers get profitable jobs and new customers.You get designer products without the designer price tag, a more social, eco-friendly alternative to mass-production and an affordable way to buy custom made products.We're focusing first on furniture — and particularly work space furniture — because it's the best fit for cur-rent digital fabrication technology. However, furnitu-re is just the tip of the iceberg. As new technologies develop and local making capacity increases, we want to see great design being made locally all around the world.

We'd love you to join us in making this a reality. If you know anyone who you think would be interested in OpenDesk, especially if they're a designer, maker or looking to fit out a work space, please do tell them about us.”

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Wiki– House

www.wikihouse.cc

WikiHouse is an Open Source construction system. It makes possible for anyone to design, download, adapt, share and ‘print’ high-performance, low-cost houses that they can assemble by hand.

18 IMMIGRATION

INTEGRATION

UNEMPLOYMENT

LEGALITY

VISIBILITYSTREET VENDORS

COLLABORATION

SOCIAL (IN-)JUSTICE

REFUGEES

RACISSM

TOPIC CLOUD

19TOPIC CLOUD

WORK POSSIBILIANISM

MORALS

ETHICS

VALUES

COPYRIGHT

UNEMPLOYMENT

DESIGN

COMMUNICATION

PRECARIAT

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OPEN

Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. Open design involves the making of both free and open-source software as well as open-source hardware. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation. The goals and philosophy are iden-tical to that of the open-source mo-vement, but are implemented for the development of physical pro-ducts rather than software. Open design is a form of co-creation, where the final product is designed by the users, rather than an exter-nal stakeholder such as a private company.4

Open source as a development mode, in production and develop-ment, promotes a) universal access via free license to a product‘s de-sign or blueprint, and b) univer-sal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone.1,2 Researchers view open source as a specific case of the greater pattern of Open Collaboration, "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants, who in-teract to create a product (or servi-ce) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and non-contributors alike“.3

In system theory, an open system is a system which continuously in-teracts with its environment or surroundings. The interaction can take the form of information, ener-gy, or material transfers into or out of the system boundary, depending on the discipline which defines the concept. An open system is contras-ted with the concept of an isolated system which exchanges neither energy, matter, nor information with its environment.open system is also known as constant volume system and flow system. 5

-

1 Lakhani, K. R., & von Hippel, E. (2003), How Open Source Software Works: Free User to User Assistance. Research Policy, 32, 923–943

2 Gerber, A; Molefo O, Van der Merwe, 2010. Documenting open-source migration processes for re-use. ACM Press, p. 75

3 Levine, S. S., & Prietula, M. J. (2013), Open Collaboration for Innovation: Principles and Performance. Organization Science.

4 Open collaborative design, AdCiv, 2010-07-29. Retrieved 2013-06-16.

5 Luhmann, Niklas. Social Systems, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995; pp. 6-7

6 Freedom as a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. Open Court Publishing. 1988. ISBN 978-0812690835.

–DESIGN –SOURCE –SYSTEM

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VALUE

Value theory encompasses a ran-ge of approaches to understanding how, why and to what degree people value things; whether the thing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in an-cient philosophy, where it is called axiology or ethics. Early philosophi-cal investigations sought to under-stand good and evil and the concept of „the good“. Today much of value theory is scientifically empirical, recording what people do value and attempting to understand why they value it in the context of psychology, sociology, and economics.6

Economic value is a measure of the benefit that an economic actor can gain from either a good or service. It is generally measured relative to units of currency, and the interpre-tation is therefore „what is the ma-ximum amount of money a specific actor is willing and able to pay for the good or service“?

In sociology, value theory is concer-ned with personal values which are popularly held by a community, and how those values might change un-der particular conditions. Different groups of people may hold or priori-tize different kinds of values influ-encing social behavior.

A value system is a set of consistent ethic values and measures used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity. A well defined value sys-tem is a moral code. It relates to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms. Norms provide rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil. While norms are stan-dards, patterns, rules and guides of expected behavior, values are ab-stract concepts of what is important and worthwhile. (Flying the natio-nal flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects the value of patriotism.)

–SYSTEMECONOMIC––THEORY

SOCIO-CULTURAL–

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Te c h n i c a l O p e n e s s

S o c i a l O p e n e s s

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?O P E N V A L U E

The hybrid and ambiguous term OPEN VALUE should

serve as a conceptual basement and point of depar-

ture to renegotiate the framework of our values to-

wards relationships, whether they are from institu-

tion to people, from person to person or from person

to object.

As roughly defined before, the term ‘Open‘ comes

with a wide veriety of attributes. Open-Source, Open

Design, Open Knowledge, Open access, Open society,

Open government etc. As diverse as these terms are,

they share a common idea: the idea of universal access

to information, knowledge, design and the universal

redistribution including subsequent improvements to

it by anyone (interested).

The Graduate students of Virginia Commonwealth

University’s MFA Program in Design + Visual Com-

munication illustrated in their 2014 ‘o-p-e-n.info‘ in-

itiative the following:

“When thinking of Open, think of

the Cabinet of Curiosities, with the doors unhin-

ged and its contents spilling outward.

Think of the computer, where anything and

everything can be found within this

device, all you have to do is ‘open’ a new page

- then another, and another.

When thinking of Open, think access in

the age of unlimited information.

Having this construct of (digital) openess in mind we

might further question ourself how our personal con-

struct of values changes in this context. How would

we perceive an ‘OPEN‘ world in which hypoteticaly

and technically everything could be possible? How

do we make use of our possibilities? How would our

personal relations change to things, individuals and

institutions? An ultimately what kind of systemic

changes do we need to introduce to create an envi-

ronment of openess?

We should keep in mind that this construct of open-

ess is not something we newly created. Knowledge

always had been passed from generation to ge-

neration. Sailors brought foreign ideas over sea,

conquerors mixed them with and adapted to diffe-

rent cultural, social and economical systems. Only

with the arrival of patents knowledge turned, broadly

speaking, from open to closed. Therefore the aspira-

tions of the Open–movement can be seen as an at-

tempt to break closed knowledge open again ma-

king it accessible for everybody, anywhere.

We are already beginning to understand and starting

to make use of digitally open knowledge, services and

products. Think about recipes we use for cooking that

might have been written by a person on the other side

of the planet. Think about the firefox browser decen-

trally coded and designed by many different indivi-

duals. Think about projects like wikihouse.cc or wiki-

desk.cc, where people are able to up- and download 3d

files to produce housing structures and furniture cut

by a CNC milling machine that you can construct by

yourself using online tutorials.

We start to understand that openess is not only a me-

aningfull model for economical and technological pro-

gress but also for social development that might lead

to a new and exciting diverse form of global prospe-

rity – materially and immaterially.

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Knowledge.

Power.

Morality.

25

Manouchehr Shamsrizi

Center for Political Beauty, Berlin Intrastructures, Brussels

Thomas Lommée

Manoucher Shamsrizi tries to render how our future can and must become more beautiful and just and how knowledge and possibilities obligates us to increasing our moral standards. Further he explains that knowled-ge undertakes different levels to become valuable:

Data > information > knowledge

Data: Every noticeable differanceInformation: Data in contextKnowledge: Capacity to act

He further claims that with the introduction of the Internet we saw an increasing spread of knowled-ge and consequently a widening of your 'capaci-ty to act‘. He adds that humans in the West have more 'capacity to act‘ because of the circumstances we live in compared to people living in countries ruled by authoritarian or repressive regimes. This fact obligates us in the West to make use of our newly received capacity to act. Another important role in Shamsrizi‘s explanation has the construct of 'con-sciousness‘. Reffering to Kleist, he says that there are two ways to reach universal beauty – one way is by reaching a state of total absence of consciousness (puppet) and the other by reaching an universal con-sciousness. He defines an universal consciousness as a preferably distinctive moral state of mind and there-fore suggests the introduction of a digital peacekeeping force under the supervision of the UN.

A manifesto published in 2012 by Intrasctures, a studio focusing on pragmatic utopian design to generates mo-dels, tools and products for social and environmental restoration.

Reffering to Shamsrizi and Intrastructures helps me to describe my in-terest in design that tries to emphazise, visualize and render understanda-ble topics like value perception, design processes and socio-cultural exchange and understanding. Reffering to Shamsrizi I will further ques-tion which role design can play and how we can make use of our capaci-ty to act. Refferning to Thomas Lommeé I will try to observe which new intra-structures we could think of to create more meaninful products and services.

transparancy

interest

knowledge

consciousness

change.

generates

generates

generates

generates

generates

Free information

transparancy

interest

knowledge

consciousness

open access

open process

natural curiosity

sharing culture

understanding.

through

through

through

through

through

Free information

transparancy

interest

knowledge

consciousness

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The crisis of western

future visions

Possibility spaces

Storytelling

Transformation Design

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Transformationsdesign als Weg eine andere bessere Zukunft zu erdenken und durch praktische Labor-versuche zu erproben: Die Stiftung FUTURZWEI von Harald Welzer versucht dies durch das erzählen von alternativen, nachhaltigen Projekgeschichten.

ZEIT: Der Wissenschaftler Welzer wird praktisch und setzt ein Projekt namens Futurzwei in die Welt. War-um so kompliziert, warum nicht einfach Futur wie Zukunft?

Harald Welzer: Weil diese grammatische Form das wunderbare Kunststück vollbringt, dass man sich aus einer imaginierten Zukunft als Vergangenes betrachtet und also heute sagen kann: Wir werden etwas getan haben. Unsere Stiftung hat die Ambi-tion, die Zukunft anders zu gestalten, weil wir die gegenwärtige Kultur der Verschwendung und der Produktion von Müll und Emissionen für nicht zu-kunftsfähig halten.

ZEIT: Was will die Stiftung Futurzwei dieser Kultur entgegensetzen?

Welzer: Aus der Sozialpsychologie weiss man, dass Wissen und Einsicht allein nicht reichen, um un-sere Lebenspraktiken und die Infrastrukturen des Alltags zu verändern. Man weiß, dass das stärkste Moment der Veränderung einer Praxis die Pra-xis selbst ist. In Gesellschaften wie unserer, die jede Menge Freiräume anbieten, gibt es auch jede Menge Labore einer anderen, nachhaltigeren Wirklichkeit. Da betreibt einer sein Unternehmen so, dass es nicht mehr wächst, zwei junge Berliner Modedesignerinnen schneidern aus alten Kleidern neue, oder eine Grup-pe von Nachbarn kultiviert Guerilla-Gärten. Bekannt sind solche Geschichten des Gelingens nur anekdo-tisch. Wir wollen sie stärker sichtbar machen und in unserem "Zukunftsarchiv" online erzählen. Uns geht es, neudeutsch gesagt, um Porträts der "first mover", oder auch einfach ganz altmodisch: um Vorbilder. Man kann’s ihnen nachmachen. ZEIT: Nach wel-chen Kriterien suchen Sie solche Geschichten aus?

» Wir schicken eine Flaschenpost in die

Gesellschaft. Unser Kriterium ist

die Notwendigkeit. «

Welzer: Die Akteure, von denen wir erzählen, tun et-was Unerwartbares. Dass wir zu viel Dreck, Mobilität, Emissionen, Ungerechtigkeit hervorbringen, finden wir ja alle bedenklich. Aber in der Regel erschöpft sich das Unzufriedensein darin, dass man mit anderen da-rüber spricht. Futurzwei interessiert sich für die Leute, die sagen: Ich mache das jetzt anders. Und das ist ja alles andere als leicht. Erwartbar ist, dass man tut, was alle tun, und nicht, davon abzuweichen, wie es etwa das Ehepaar Sladek aus Schönau gemacht hat. Da fin-gen ein Mediziner und eine Grundschullehrerin eines Tages damit an, ein grünesEnergieunternehmen auf-zubauen.

Wir wollen dem Universum des Objektivierten und Komplizierten, von dem keineswegs klar ist, ob es etwas verändert, etwas anderes hinzufügen: Wir erzählen Storys. Wir erzählen sie in der klassi-schen Struktur, mit Anfang, Mittelteil und Schluss, nach dem Muster: Früher dachte ich, dann passier-te etwas, heute weiss und handele ich. Solche Ge-schichten sind stark, Menschen verstehen sich in diesem Medium als Handelnde, nicht als Ohnmäch-tige. Aber letztlich funktioniert das Ganze nicht an-ders als ein Gourmetführer: Wo’s gut schmeckt, geht’s rein – was nicht schmeckt, das lassen wir weg.

Welzer: Mich macht eben dieser Konsum–Totalita-rismus wahnsinnig. Den halte ich für verhängnisvoll. Ich sehe das Defizit eher darin, diesen kulturellen Praktiken etwas entgegenzusetzen.

Was fehlt, ist ein Ausweg zum Transfer des Wis-sens. Das hat bisweilen groteske Züge. Ein Wissen-schaftsbetrieb, der Konferenzen veranstaltet, zu de-nen Hunderte von Wissenschaftlern fliegen, um sich Gedanken zu machen, wie man Menschen vom Fliegen abbringt, kommt mir kurios vor. Und natürlich gibt es Wissenschaftler, die wie einst Norbert Elias ein Leben lang stoisch an ihren Themen arbeiten, mit Ergebnis-sen, die Bestand haben. Auch das ist vorbildlich, ich kriege eine Gänsehaut, wenn ich daran denke. Aber es ist eben nicht meine Sache. Vielleicht bin ich narzis-stischer und brauche die Schnellschüsse.

Zeit Online Interview vom 20. Januar 2012 www.zeit.de/2012/04/Harald-Welzer

28

The crisis of western

value systems

Possibility spaces

Storytelling

Critical Design

29

One way to descibe critical design: It establishes a provocative starting point from which a design process emerges. The result is an evolution of fluctuating iteration and reflection using designed objects to provoke questions and stimulate discussion in academic and research settings. The best answers to what Critical Design exactly is and how it could be used comes from two of the most known practitioners, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

1. What is Critical Design?Critical Design uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens about the role products play in everyday life. It is more of an attitude than anything else, a position rather than a method. There are many people doing this who have never heard of the term critical design and who have their own way of describing what they do. Naming it Critical Design is simply a useful way of making this activity more visible and subject to discus-sion and debate.

Its opposite is affirmative design: design that rein-forces the status quo.

2. Where did it come from?Design as critique has existed before under several guises. Italian Radical Design of the 1970s was highly critical of prevailing social values and design ideolo-gies, critical design builds on this attitude and extends it into today's world.

During the 1990s there was a general move towards conceptual design which made it easier for noncom-mercial forms of design like critical design to exist, this happened mainly in the furniture world, product de-sign is still conservative and closely linked to the mass market.

The term Critical Design was first used in Anthony Dunne's book Hertzian Tales (1999) and later in De-sign Noir (2001). Since then many other people have developed their own variations.

Critical Design FAQ

3. Who does it?Dunne & Raby and their graduate students from the Royal College of Art (RCA) such as James Auger, Elio Caccavale and Noam Toran, are probably the most well known, but there are other designers working in a si-milar way who would not describe what they do as cri-tical design: Krzysztof Wodiczko, Natalie Jeremijenko, Jurgen Bey, Marti Guixe ...

4. What is it for?Mainly to make us think. But also raising awareness, exposing assumptions, provoking action, sparking de-bate, even entertaining in an intellectual sort of way, like literature or film.

5. Why is it happening now?The world we live in today is incredibly complex, our social relations, desires, fantasies, hopes and fears are very different from those at the beginning of the 20c. Yet many key ideas informing mainstream design stem form the early 20c.

Society has moved on but design has not, Critical De-sign is one of many mutations design is undergoing in an effort to remain relevant to the complex technologi-cal, political, economic and social changes we are ex-periencing at the beginning of the 21c.

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6. What role does humour play?Humour is important but often misused. Satire is the goal. But often only parody and pastiche are achieved. These reduce the effectiveness in a number of ways. They are lazy and borrow existing formats, and they signal too clearly that it is ironic and so relieve some burden from the viewer. The viewer should experience a dilemma, is it serious or not? Real or not? For Critical design to be successful they need to make up their own mind.Also, it would be very easy to preach, a skilful use of satire and irony can engage the audience in a more constructive away by appealing to its imagination as well as engaging the intellect. Good political comedi-ans achieve this well. Deadpan and black humour work best.

7. Is it a movement?No. It's not really a field that can be neatly defined. It's more about values and an attitude, a way of looking at design and imagining its possibilities beyond the nar-row definitions of what is presented through media and in the shops.

8. What are its main relatives?Activism / Cautionary Tales / Conceptual DesignContestable Futures / Design FictionInterrogative Design / Radical DesignSatire / Social Fiction / Speculative Design

9. What are the biggest misconceptions?That it is negative and anti-everything.That it is only commentary and cannot change anythingThat it is jokeyThat it is not concerned with aestheticsThat it is against mass-productionThat it is pessimisticThat it is not realThat it is art

10. But isn't it art?It is definitely not art. It might borrow heavily from art in terms of methods and approaches but that's it. We expect art to be shocking and extreme. Critical Design needs to be closer to the everyday, that's where its po-wer to disturb comes from. Too weird and it will be dismissed as art, too normal and it will be effortlessly assimilated. If it is regarded as art it is easier to deal with, but if it remains as design it is more disturbing, it suggests that the everyday as we know it could be different, that things could change.

11. Isn?t it a bit dark?Yes, but not for the sake of it. Dark, complex emotions are ignored in design, nearly every other area of cultu-re accepts people are complex, contradictory and even neurotic, but not design, we view people as obedient and predictable users and consumers.

One of critical Design's roles is to question the limited range of emotional and psychological experiences of-fered through designed products. Design is assumed to only make things nice, it's as though all designers have taken an unspoken Hippocratic oath, this limits and prevents us from fully engaging with and designing for the complexities of human nature which of course is not always nice. It is more about the positive use of negativity, not negativity for its own sake, but to draw attention to a scary possibility in the form of a cautio-nary tale.

12. And its future?A danger for critical design is that it ends up as a form of sophisticated design entertainment: 90% humour 10% critique. It needs to avoid this situation by iden-tifying and engaging with complex and challenging issues. Areas like Future Forecasting would benefit from its more gritty view of human nature and abili-ty to make abstract issues tangible. It could also play a role in public debates about the social, cultural and ethical impact on everyday life of emerging and future technologies.

Critical Design FAQ

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–

Abstract from: Speculative Everything: design, fiction and social dreaming; by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, MIT Press 2013

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

32Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

33Beyond Radical Design

34Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

35Beyond Radical Design

36Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

37Beyond Radical Design

38Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

39Beyond Radical Design

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Street vendors

Why are there so many African street vendors in Italy (and the mediteranian area)?

“For most african street vendors selling on the street is their original profession learned and performed in their home-countries. In most cases their is no illegal / criminal organisation in the background. Instead they start one a small level and try to make their business grow slowly until they eventually can affort a small kiosk or a shop.” – Mamadou Gaye (Coordinator of the Associazione porte aperte, Bolzano)

Framing the C o n t e x t

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Value systems

Understanding the world by different value systems

Observing this map of different value systems might help us to render visible the problematics that evolve when people with different 'mind sets' meet and are confronted with each other. In our case those people are Africans comming to Eu-rope as ecoomical or political refugges on the one side and Italians and Tourists (of the western world) on the other side. Looking at the profession of street vendors can give us already an idea of how different those value-systems are.

Framing the C o n t e x t

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Fountain of inspiration

Intercultural Learning

Adapting/ transforming to our needs

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1 Elisabeth Naumann, Kiosk. Vom Lustpavillon zum kleinen Konsumtempel, Marburg 2003

An example of intercultural learning and transformation

in architecture

Ursprünglich war ein Kiosk ein nach mehreren Seiten geöffneter, frei stehender Pavillon in Park- und Palastanlagen im islamischen Kulturraum. In der Fachsprache der Architektur und Landschaftsarchi-tektur hat der Begriff auch heute noch diese Bedeutung.

Kioskartige Gebäude gibt es seit dem 13. Jahrhun-dert in Persien, Indien und im Osmanischen Reich. Im Topkapı-Saray in Istanbul sind einige Beispiele erhal-ten (Çinili-Kiosk von 1466, Revan- und Bagdad-Kiosk von 1635, Kiosk des Kara Mustafa Pascha aus dem 18. Jahrhundert und Kiosk des Abd ül-Mejid von 1840). Die orientalischen Kioske waren wichtige Elemente der Gartenarchitektur und dienten den Wohlhabenden als Sommerhäuser in ihren Privatanlagen. Mit dem Ende des Osmanischen Reiches ging das Interesse an dieser Form der höfischen Architektur verloren.

Im Zuge der Vorliebe für den asiatisch-orienta-lischen Stil im 18. Jahrhundert gelangte die Bauform – meist frei auf Säulen stehend und seitlich mit Gitter-werk verschlossen – nach Europa als Teil der gestalte-ten Parkanlagen, die viele Herrscher anlegen ließen. Erwähnt werden sie zum ersten Mal in England.Beispiel für Kioskbauten gibt es auch in den Anlagen von Stanislaus I., Herzog von Lothringen und Bar in Lunéville, und des französischen Königs Ludwigs XV.. Markante Beispiele in Deutschland sind u. a. das 1755 begonnene Chinesische Haus in Potsdam wie auch die von Ludwig II. von Bayern bei Schloss Linderhof oder im Wintergarten der Münchner Residenz erbauten.

Im 19. Jahrhundert hielt der Kiosk Einzug als Ver-kaufspavillon in die großen öffentlichen Parks von Pa-ris, später auf die großen Boulevards. Zunächst wurden hier nur Zeitungen und Blumen. verkauft, später auch Erfrischungen. Auch die Wortneuschöpfung Boul-evardzeitung hat hier ihren Ursprung. Einige dieser be-rühmten Pariser Kiosques sind noch bis heute erhalten. In Griechenland leitet sich die Bezeichnung des Kiosks (Periptero) von der Tempel-Bauform Peripteros ab.1

Das Beispiel der europäischen Transformation und Adaption der Idee des Kiosks im Laufe der Zeit kann uns als gutes Beispiel dienen wie externe Impul-se und Ideen unsere eigenen Kultur verändern und be-reichern können. Daher werde ich mich in der weite-ren Recherche diesem Thema speziell mit Blick auf die (afrikanische) Immigration im mediterranen / italieni-schen Raum widmen. Ich werde mich auf die Suche machen, um dieses, von vielen als Problem angese-hene, Phänomen zunächst wertefrei zu betrachten und dann mögliche Chancen und neue Wege der Kollaboration zwischen Immigranten und Einhei-mischen zu erdenken und ein praktisches Projekt zu entwickeln.

The Kiosk

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Different Value systems

Different Attitudes

Intercultural Learning

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Pragmatism

>

Improvisation

>

Learn to Unlearn

Can we learn from the 'African Way'?

Improvisation is a state of being and creating action without pre-planning. This can be when an individual or group is acting, dancing, singing, problem solving,…, or reacting in the moment and in response to the sti-mulus of one‘s immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act.

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Pragmatism is a rejec-tion of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Instead, pragmatists develop their philosophy around the idea that the function of thought is as an instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics - such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science - are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy.

In order to think of a different 'other' future that is not embedded in the current projection of the present into the future we might re-consider and re-think our very 'core values'. By doing this we might need to learn to unlearn, meaning: to change our pattern of thinking and thus valuating. We can do so by trying to temporaly forget about our existing values or by purely reflexting them in the search for their origins. In this process we might encounter that our values are embedded into a system that most of us never really reflexted because the system it-self made life to most people just too comfortable / 'cosy' that we never had been very critical about the unvisible underlying processes that make our wealth possible. One possible way in the search for new values might be the re-implementation of strong moral ideals into our thinking which might lead us in consequence to a different kind of acting. So the question could simply be: What is right and what is wrong, what is just and what unjust? Looking at the production of goods and objects this thinking can lead us to a far more holistic questioning of the processes and the distribution including not only economical and aestetical factors but also valuating the embedded social aspects (production / distribution / social exchange).

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Lina-Marie Köppen,

Design Theis,

Eindhoven, 2013

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Copyrights for images by

Lina-Marie Köppen

Learn to Unlearn

“Man shapes his environment and the environ-ment shapes man.” I am fascinated by this mutually evolving relationship, and as a result of my thesis, I have sought a way for individuals to start afresh and redefine themselves by reshaping the things around them.

This response is critical of society for supplying and demanding objects designed to complement our human limitations. Could we instead make things that empower us through their in-built fallibility? By ridding objects of a predetermined “perfect”function, we can be free to discover them and rediscover oursel-ves in the process. “Learn to Unlearn” is a design ideo-logy expressed in a series of ambiguous objects that overthrow the unconscious learned behavior and ex-pectations governing our perception.

The family of objects that developed from my thesis is largely based on the redefinition of furnitu-re archetypes. Each object is an open invitation to the human to determine its use: The bottomless containers demand a new strategy to be filled, while the two-leg-ged stool encourages us to rethink the act of sitting. The lamp challenges us with its weight and unseen mechanism, the tall shelf can only be reached by in-teracting with the direct environment, and the broom lets us not only clean but also develop a personal bo-dily response. Some objects are even less defined and invite the user to imagine an entirely personal interac-tion. Only when objects become alive in this way are we stimulated to explore new possibilities.”

Lina-Marie Köppen's thesis project questions our relationship with objects. It shows us how de-sign can determine the relation and interaction with (functional) objects. The objects she created might exactly not be very functional in our usual percep-tion. She calls her approach designin with "in-built fallibility" and further explains: "By ridding objects of a predetermined “perfect”function, we can be free to discover them and rediscover ourselves in the process." In a way those objects invite their users to rethink their function and to start to improvise sear-ching for a more personal relationship and value em-bedded in their 'oddness'. This process might make us more aware of our possibility spaces we have in the creation and use of the things that surround us. In my further exploration I will hold her ideas in mind to translate them into my specific objectives.

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Pragmatism

Improvisation

Learn to Unlearn

Open Value

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Having gone through a conscious process where I tried to re-valuate the relation between my actions and the resulting feedback, I encountered a very simple but effective technique to counter my dissa-tisfaction of feeling powerless (in contrast to the overwhelming influence of factors we can not control or that seem to determine our lives.) Since the wes-tern system of consumerism grants us almost 24/7 availability of all kinds of goods and services it trans-formed us in large parts into passive actors unable to improvise in situations of material scarcity.

But I found that exactly in moments of impro-visation I experienced the biggest sensation of well-being and satisfaction. This sensation might stem from the fact that in those situation where money and material things are scarce the only resource left is our own imagination and creativity (the capacity of making use of once imagination). In these moments I am able to experience a special form of power that transcends reality and results in an immediate often very unexpected result. These actions of improvisati-on brings back to me (at least in these rare moments) the feeling of eventually not being totally determined and still having an impact on my live or at least be able to influence the environment that surrounds me.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

These moments of improvisation could also be de-scribed as a process of learning to unlearn.– Imagine a situation where you are sitting outside in the evening with friends having stimulating conver-sations. It's getting dark and people are tending to lea-ve. You have some candles but the wind blows them out again and again. Still you would like to continue the conversations with your friends. You search for a solution. You find an empty bottle and a can. In this situation you do not see the bottle and the can for what they are but for what they could become – you start to improvise and cut them in half to create some wind-safe candle holders. People stay, everybody enjoys the night.

In this sense the process of 'learning to unlearn' and 'improvisation' are very close related things. They make you think about alternatives and burst your usual thinking in a moment of mental instability in order to create new pattern of perceiving that are more useful in the particular situation.

This ability to see and observe alternative re-alities that influence our perception, behaviour and surrounding might be described as an attitude of seeing potentials and valuating openly.

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Rolemodel Riace

Collaboration as survival strategy

Von den Bergwänden blöken die Schafe, vom Strand her rauscht das Meer und irgendwo dazwi-schen ist Mimmos Utopie wahr geworden – von einem Ort, der für Gastfreundschaft steht statt für Grenzen. Mimmo heißt eigentlich Domenico Lucano, aber nie-mand nennt ihn so, obwohl er der Bürgermeister des Fischerdorfs Riace im kalabrischen Südzipfel Italiens ist. Drei Kirchen gibt es hier und knapp 1.500 Einwoh-ner, in den Straßen ein paar Dutzend Hühner und hin-kende Hunde. Ein Ort, so unscheinbar, dass sich kaum ein Tourist dorthin verirrt.

Lucano hat sein Heimatdorf zur Heimat der Flüchtlinge erklärt, während halb Europa versucht, sich mit immer höheren Zäunen und Mauern gegen il-legale Zuwanderer abzuschotten . "In unserem Dorf", sagt Lucano, "empfangen wir Flüchtlinge mit offenen Armen." Mehr als 500 Migranten leben heute in Riace. Fast jeder dritte Bewohner ist in den letzten Jahren zugewandert. Keiner hatte eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis oder gültige Arbeitspapiere. Es sind junge Männer aus Tunesien, dem Senegal und Eritrea, Frauen und Kin-der aus Syrien und Algerien, die aus ihren Heimatlän-dern vor Krieg und Armut flüchteten.

Adama Kone, 33, kam vor zwei Jahren aus Mali, wo er keine Arbeit mehr fand, um seine beiden Kinder zu ernähren. Heute bewohnt er in Riace ein eigenes Haus und betreibt in der zugehörigen Garage seine eigene kleine Autowerkstatt. In einem Textilgeschäft drei Gassen weiter arbeitet die 24-jährige Afghanin Fatma, 24. Sie ist vor den Taliban aus ihrer Heimat geflohen und ist nun Näherin und Teppichknüpferin in Riace. Rund 600 Euro bekommt sie dafür im Monat. Das Geld zahlt ihr die Gemeinde, die ihr auch eines der alten, leerstehenden Häuser kostenlos zur Verfügung stellt. Die Einheimischen haben Fatma geholfen, es zu renovieren und wieder bewohnbar zu machen. Zum Dank betreut sie mehrmals in der Woche deren Kinder oder pflegt die an Demenz erkrankten Angehörigen.

„Hilfe ist in Riace keine Einbahnstraße”, sagt Bürgermeister Lucano. „Wir versuchen, den Flücht-lingen hier ein Zuhause zu bieten, und im Gegenzug helfen sie uns, dieses Zuhause am Leben zu halten.” Flüchtlinge, die andernorts aufgrund fehlender Pa-piere abgeschoben werden, erhalten in Riace Arbeit, werden in den Dorfalltag integriert – und helfen dabei, einen Ort wiederaufzubauen, der vor gut 14 Jahren fast ausgestorben war.

Das Dorf liegt inmitten einer der struktur-schwächsten Regionen des Landes. In Beton gegossene Tristesse, schlecht bezahlte Jobs und zu viel Spielraum für die Mafia. Seit Jahrzehnten hatte es die Menschen weggezogen. Von einst 3.000 Einwohnern waren gera-de noch etwa 800 in Riace geblieben. Die letzten Pizze-rien und Eisdielen im Ort hatten dicht gemacht. „Unse-re geliebte Heimat”, sagt Lucano, „war wie ein Patient, der im Sterben liegt und nur noch den Tod erwartet.”

Da geschah das, was die Menschen in Riace noch heute als ein Wunder bezeichnen: In der Nacht des 1. Juli 1998 trieb ein Boot an die Küste, in dem 218 Kurden saßen. Sie wollten nach Griechenland fliehen, waren aber vom Kurs abgekommen. Un-terkühlt, erschöpft und halb verhungert hatten die meisten von ihnen die Hoffnung bereits aufgegeben. Lucano sorgte dafür, dass die Flüchtlinge versorgt und von den Einheimischen aufgenommen wurden. Als mit den Jahren immer mehr Flüchtlinge kamen, sah er, wie sie seine Heimat belebten. Lucano nahm für die Gemeinde ein Darlehen auf, um die herunterge-kommenen Häuser wieder herrichten und den Zuwan-derern Löhne zahlen zu können. Und er beantragte bei der kalabrischen Regierung eine Sondergenehmigung für die unbürokratische Aufnahme von Migranten.

Nach Angaben des italienischen Roten Kreuzes kostet die Unterbringung von Flüchtlingen in kalabri-schen Auffanglagern etwa 55 Euro pro Person und Tag. Riace dagegen benötigt für jeden Migranten nur halb so viel Geld. „Weil die Neuankömmlinge schnell Anschluss finden”, sagt Lucano.

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Claas Relotius, Zeit Online 13. November 2012

Seine neueste Erfindung: der Riace-Euro. Weil Migranten in Italien manchmal bis zu sieben Monate lang auf ihr Geld von der Regierung warten müssen, können sie mit speziellen Münzen in lokalen Geschäf-ten bezahlen, um das Nötigste einzukaufen. Sobald die Zahlungen der Regierung eintreffen, können La-denbesitzer die Münzen in Bargeld umtauschen. Die Flüchtlinge haben Riace in den letzten Jahren auch zu wirtschaftlichem Aufschwung verholfen. Werkstätten, Bäckereien und Friseur-Salons haben wieder ihren Betrieb aufgenommen. Die traditionelle Töpfer- und Textilkunst wurde neu belebt. Sogar eine Schule gibt es mittlerweile wieder. Kinder, die mit ihren Eltern nach Riace gekommen sind, lernen hier als Erstes Ita-lienisch.

„Die Jugendlichen brauchen am meisten Zeit, um hier anzukommen”, sagt Lehrerin Emilia, 51. Viele seien in ihrer Heimat mit politischer Verfolgung und Bürgerkrieg aufgewachsen, kannten nur das Leben auf der Flucht. Dass sie hier einen Ort gefunden hätten, an dem sie dauerhaft bleiben könnten, sagt Emilia, wür-den die meisten nur sehr langsam begreifen.

Dorfbewohner fürchteten erst, aus ihrer Heimat vertrieben zu werden

Auch die Einheimischen brauchten Zeit, um sich an die vielen neuen Gesichter in ihrem Dorf zu gewöh-nen. Es waren vor allem die älteren Dorfbewohner, die skeptisch waren. Einige fürchteten gar, die Barm-herzigkeit ihres Bürgermeisters könnte dazu führen, dass sie am Ende selbst aus ihrer Heimat vertrieben würden. Doch je mehr das Dorf wieder aufblühte, sagt Emilia, „desto leiser wurden die Zweifel.”

Heute schauen die alten Riacesi auf dem Markt-platz afrikanischen Buben beim Fußballspielen zu. Aus der Bäckerei, wo es nach frisch gebackener Cia-batta duftet, erklingt arabische Musik. Und in den Handwerksläden, wo Schmuck und Keramik herge-stellt werden, arbeiten Einheimische und Ausländer Hand in Hand.

Nur der gefürchteten 'Ndrangheta ist so viel Har-monie ein Dorn im Auge. Die kalabrische Mafia, die die Armut Riaces jahrzehntelang für ihre Zwecke zu nutzen wusste, versucht den Wiederaufbau des Dorfes bis heute zu sabotieren. Als Lucano 2009 kurz vor sei-ner Wiederwahl stand, vergifteten die Mafiosi zuerst seinen Hund und durchsiebten dann mit einem Dut-zend Kugeln die Wände der Trattoria Donna Rosa, in der Lucano sich gerade mit Freunden zum Abendessen traf. Doch ein paar Tage später ließ er Plakate anbrin-gen, auf denen bis heute in großen Buchstaben steht: 'Riace – Stadt der Gastfreundschaft.'

Vor zwei Jahren wurde Lucano aufgrund seines Engagements für den World Mayor Award nominiert. In Riace würden sie ihren Bürgermeister auch für den Friedensnobelpreis vorschlagen. Er sagt: „Viel wich-tiger ist, dass die Geschichte von Riace Menschen in aller Welt inspiriert.” Die Nachbardörfer Stignano und Caulonia haben sich schon ein Beispiel genommen und nehmen nun ebenfalls Flüchtlinge auf. Und auch in Hollywood ist der Name Riace mittlerweile ein Begriff: 2010 kam der Regisseur Wim Wenders nach Kalabri-en , um einen Dokumentarfilm über die Flüchtlings-problematik zu drehen. Doch als er von dem Dorf der Flüchtlinge hörte, beschloss er, mit dem Streifen Il Volo die Geschichte Riaces zu erzählen.

„Die wahre Utopie”, sagte Wenders noch im sel-ben Jahr anlässlich einer Jubiläumsfeier zur deutschen Wiedervereinigung, „ist nicht der Fall der Berliner Mauer, sondern das Zusammenleben der Menschen in Riace.” In diesem unscheinbaren Dorf zwischen kah-len Bergwänden und rauschendem Meer habe er eine bessere Welt gesehen.

Halb Europa schottet sich vor Einwanderern ab. Aber ein Fischerdorf

in Italien bietet Flüchtlingen ein Zuhause – und sichert damit sein Überleben.

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+

~

To observe how tourists perceive the presents of (african) street vendors in Italy, internet forums and the comment sections of online newspapers and blogs are a valuable source of information, as it allows people to write almost anonymously about their experience not mincing their words.

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Screenshots from an American forum for Italian culture and traveling: www.italiannotebook.com

Tourists and street vendors

53Tourists and street vendors

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–

A website for Italy lovers, called: 'ItalianNotebook' wrote a short article about street vendors in Italy's cities without taking position to the topic in general. The comments be-low the article give a resonable insight into the opinions of tourists and travellers that already experienced this particular phenomenon.

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–

Abstracts of: Migropolis, Venice / Atlas of Global Situation Vol. II; Wolfgang Scheppe & IUAV Class on Political Representation

Italy From emigration

to immigraion

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56From emigration

57to immigration

58From emigration

59to immigration

60From emigration

61to immigration

62From emigration

63to immigration

64From emigration

65to immigration

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InsightsReality–Check

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68Inside Venice

69Interview I

70Inside Venice

71Interview I

72Inside Venice

73Interview I

74Inside Venice

75Interview II

76Inside Venice

77Interview II

78Inside Venice

79Interview II

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81Interview II

82Inside Venice

83Interview II

84Inside Venice

85Interview II

86Inside Venice

87The streets

88Inside Venice

89The streets

90Inside Venice

91The streets

92Inside Venice

93The streets

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111Informal Economy

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Informal Knowledge Economy

”While discussing Europe’s economic difficulties at an EU Council of Minis-ters’ meeting in June of 2005, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi chastised Italians for their preoccupation with unemployment by suggesting that Italy was better off than its EU partners because 40 per cent of the country’s economy was in the economia sommersa – the underground economy – and, thus unaccounted for by statistics generated by Brussels, ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale Statistico) and official sources of economic measurement. Despite the peculiarity of such an impolitic remark from the head of state, Berlusconi’s offhand comment reflected a reality even if the proportion he cited exceeded the estimates of the size of the underground economy by Italy’s own ISTAT (15%) and the IMF (27%). This underground economy combines forms of irregular, illegal, and informal work with significant under-reporting of earnings and uncollected revenue.“

centralized de–centralized distributed

How Naples' informal economy forms a role model of a distributed network with a high level of knowledge ex- change between the different players.

– Abstracts of: Migrant Productivities: Street Vendors and the Informal Work in Naples, Nicholas DeMaria Harney;Anthropology/Sociology and History, The University of Western Australia International Journal of Economic Development Volume Six, Number 3, pp. 306-330; 2004

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A future role model ?

“I am particularly interested in migrant workers engaged as street vendors, com-merciante ambulante, and to a degree their whole-sale suppliers, as I will explain later, because of their visibility in the Neapolitan streetscape. As such, they represent in the popular imagination and the conjec-tures in the media an immediate and intimate exam-ple of those involved in the underground economy. At best, Neapolitans, and Italians in general, describe them as performing undeclared economic activity. At worst, they are presumed to be illegal, undocu-mented, or permit over-stayers and perceived to enga-ge in transnational criminal activity – either the end product of the ‘trafficking’ of co-ethnic subservient labour or the end of the supply chain for the impor-tation of counterfeit or inconceivably low-cost goods. If only briefly to stem the negative discourse that per-vades official and popular discussions of these street vendors as blights on the ur-ban landscape– despite the li-censing they can receive from city hall that permits their ‘mobile’ selling – it is temp-ting to argue that these migrants represent innova-tive entrepreneurs – individualistic, mobile, and capable of creating wealth out of limited resources.

Given the time-consuming, monotonous, and un-certain work each street vendor puts in everyday to sell inexpensive items for scant profit in the heat of sum-mer and the cold/rainy winter, the long circuits of tra-vel by buses and trains to beaches and festivals to ma-ximize sales in an intensive two or three days of work, an observer would presume that ‘the social’ among the street traders might be fraught with misinformation, speculation, and distrust. Ostensibly, such an entrepre-neur would have little time to share knowledge, consi-

It is tempting to argue that these migrants represent innovative entrepreneurs – individualistic, mobile, and capable of creating wealth out of limited resources.

der alternative forms of work organization and sociality other than the maximization of his (sic) personal and familial needs. In effect, to survive both these macro and micro realities of everyday life, the transna-tional migrant entrepreneurs would function as the perfect formalist, rationalist economic actors.

However, in my fieldwork, even if the basic pre-mise that knowledge was valuable and highly sought after among migrants in Naples because of the nume-rous ways their status might be precarious, a sociality that favoured competition, individualism, restric-ted the distribution of knowledge, and encoura-ged deception, seemed remarkably unfamiliar to the group of street traders I worked with for nine months. In my experience with mostly Bangladeshi

and Pakistani street traders as principle informants, such a representation flattens the productive knowledge work central to their sociality and glosses over alternative regi-mes of value which introduce

either non-monetized or monetized exchange that may not strictly adhere to market models (Williams, 2002). Instead, a more innovative social reality, full of al-ternative possibilities and forms of sociality might be viewed through the everyday practices of mig-rant street traders in Naples, Italy.”

Nicholas DeMaria Harney

Informal Economy

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Open Knowledge Economy

“[…] Topics ranged from possible futures in work – opening up a international call center, a fast food generic ‘eastern kebab’ restaurant in northern Italy, or buying an old car to make the circuit of all the key festivals – ways of tracking the renewal of documents, or exchanging views on the most profit-able upcoming festivals, the most inexpensive way of getting there and which local Neapolitan store-kee-per might help you fill out the necessary forms to get a temporary selling permit in the local municipality. Other street vendors would pass, of mixed origins – Senegalese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese – since this was one main route between Piazza Garibaldi, the wholesale stores and migrant housing areas near the train station and the main commercial street of Via Toledo that many street vendors chanced to take advantage of the passing consumers. Street vend-ors would typically exchange pleasantries, order an Italian coffee (espresso) but often drink on the street together to watch their stands in case of a sale, apples or more rarely, but more prized, South Asian sweets would be passed around from a care package sent by a wife or mother at home. They would exchange views on how to avoid the municipal police, and critique the Italian economy, or speculate about the problems street vendors faced on a particular stretch of street from the Camorra, the police or Neapolitan teenagers.

While this kind of knowledge exchange, com-munication and sociality about everyday issues was crucial for survival, it was part of a less remarked upon but equally important, if not more so, informal and embodied knowledge that smoothed one’s busi-ness and entrepreneurial activities.”

115

Intercultural Collaboration

“He [bangladesi street vendor] decided to invest his savings from street vending to open a distributi-on store of jewelry, belts, hair clips and South Asian fabric bags with a Chinese partner. He had tired of street vending and wanted to move on. His business was unusual because of its partnership and hence social networks with Chinese migrants and his Bangladeshi friends chided him, in a good-natured way, for trusting the quality of Chinese products as compared to the knownquality of products from In-dian, Bangladeshi or Thai supplychains they general-ly used. He was admired for the risk he had taken to establish a shop and for his access to China, which of-fered plenty of speculation in imaginative pathways for the future for his former fellow street vendors.

He benefited from multiple ethnic networks to establish his store, Neapolitans who helped him negotiate the licensing, renting and bureaucracy of setting up a shop, Bangladeshi knowledge of the wholesale business, and Chinese familial networks which would guide him in the supply chains from Shanghai, using his partner’s cousins on the ground and long-distance cellular phone calls, with imaging, to communicate and find help with translation on his trip to Shanghai while his Chinese partner stayed back in Naples.

"We are not following any business model out their, and because of that

failure is not a possibility."

It is precisely through their production and distribu-tion of informal knowledge and their social prac-tices of work, not completely bound by their marginal insertion into the Naples, that these migrants create alternative ways to imagine possible entrepreneu-rial futures. After months of patiently responding to my naïve, perhaps arcane questioning, my Bang-ladeshi friend who had moved from street vending to his own wholesale store with a Chinese partner turned to me and seemed to speak to this new sociali-ty when he talked not just about his new venture but the circle of friends who either owned similar stores or were street vendors, ‘Nick, we are not following any business model out their, and because of that failure is not a possibility.”

– Abstracts of: Migrant Productivities: Street Vendors and the Informal Work in Naples, Nicholas DeMaria Harney;Anthropology/Sociology and History, The University of Western Australia International Journal of Economic Development Volume Six, Number 3, pp. 306-330; 2004

Informal Economy

116

Grid system used by the openstructures project to have a

common base for the construction of modular parts

117

Open design and street trading

Open Design can be seen as an attempt to make closed knowledge (about the development process of physical products, machines and systems) open again and to make newly generated know- ledge more accessible, easier to find and to share – in short: to improve distribution, access and use of generated knowledge.

Therefore Open Design is a radical counter-mo-del to the existing Copyright system were knowled-ge is seen as something privately possessible. The existing copyright system allows only the holder of the knowledge to decide weather this knowledge is shared or not, often resulting in the delay or complete blocking of developments and inovations.

So how does this topic relate to the phenome-na of immigrant street vendors?

When looking at the bigger picture of the kind of street trading that is undertaken by the immigrants we can observe different patterns.

The traded products are mainly of three kinds: Counterfeits of high priced luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton or Gucci, cheap plastic items 'made in China' and small self-made items like the flour balls sold mainly by Bangladeshis.

That leads us to the question of why only those kind of products are sold. The answer is not totally clear, but probably (as interviews with different vend-ors showed) because these products are easy acces-sible, cheap and allow a reasonable profit margin when sold.

Another reason is that a lot of the immigrant street vendors have no permit of residence which makes it almost impossible for them to undertake legal collaborations with manufacturers or even start a kind of self managed production.

Having this in mind we might further question how Open Design could improve the situation. When Open Design makes the access to knowledge regar-ding the development processes of physical products, machines and systems easier, one could imagine how this would influence the situation of street trading. One would rather think about how to integrate these vendors into an open system. The vendors might be also able to find totally different kinf of prodcuts not made industrially but locally in smal-ler series.

This thinking finally led me also to my conclu-siong and idea to introduce a different kind of sys-temic approach to the phenomena of street trading. What if we can create a network or platform or how ever you want to call it that connects Open Design with street vendors, designers and local manufacturing places?

As descibed in the beginning of my thesis I think such a network would be beneficial for all invol-ved players:

The designer could create in collaboration with local manufacturers (or by him/her –self) objects in a small to middle sized series that could be tested quickly on 'the market' without having an unflexible and controlling company in between.

The vendor would probably benefit by getting better integrated in the local envirnoment (contact to manufacturers, designers) and eventually receive more positiv feedback from locals (inhabitans + poli-ticians) as he would support the local economy.

The local manufacturer would benefit from new orders and gets in contact with desigerns (which eventually leads to other collaborations). He could also provide the spacial environment linking designer and vendor to share experiences and knowledge.

The clients would find unpredictable new and local created products. Their feedback (to the vend-ors) could find response in the production and could change and improve the products or lead to totally different kinds of product ideas.

118

Where

to start

What

to do ?

119

Personal interests

Project idea

Hours of conversation

Persistence

Accidental happenings

Immaginated benefits

Technical possibilities

Shared (local) needs

Personal skills

120

In the very beginning of my research I already col-laborated with the social cooperative AKRAT which produces furniture and textile products made out of recycled materials. They employ around five persons that are more or less qualified to work with wood but have problems to find a job elsewhere. Another three women care for the activities of the tailoring works-hop. I designed the cooperative's website and helped them with their visual representation in general.

For weeks Peter Prossliner, the founder, and I were discussing how such a socially and culturally orientated company could navigate, making enough money to sustain its activities and at the same time still having enough resources to care about their cul-tural and social engagements. It was at the cooperative's headquarter that I came to know two young men from Kenia and Burkina Faso that Peter tried to integrate somehow in the initiati-ve's daily work. They were not really qualified to work with wood, but somehow had a good hand and talent. After having talked to them again and again in the course of several weeks we became friends and Peter told me about his idea to give these two men a more regularly work. He wanted to send them to markets that take place regularly to sell the cooperative's pro-ducts and to get more known in the area.

At this time we were also discussing a lot about the problematic increase of (illegal) immigra-tion from (West)Africa to Italy with the very visible result of a lot of African street vendors chancing their luck in Italy's cities selling cheap products that they buy mainly from Chinese megastors.

In the same period we also figured out that the financial health of the business wasn't going that well and that there was no real prospect for short term improvements. Besides some smaller other problems, the main issue was that the initiative was simply lacking of visibility and recognition in the city.

Having these two very different problems in mind I somehow put 1 and 1 together and the idea for my thesis project was born.

On the one hand the social cooperative was lacking of visibility and on the other hand the street vend-ors were very visible in the city center but mainly negatively connoted due to the bad quality of the products they were selling. So what I am trying with my project is to create a col-laboration between the two entities, the street vend-ors and the social cooperative, or in other words: the alternative producer and the alternative distributo-rs. This collaboration could also be described with the words of Thomas Lommée, the founder of the Belgian design studio Intrastructures:

"Building on top of existing infrastructures [the street vendors]

– creating intrastructures."

It was also a project, initiated by Lommée, called Openstructures, that takes the idea of open design to create a platform where people design and share parts for modular objects, that gave rise to another feature that could be implemented in the collaboration, or rather in the collaborations. The bigger scale vision is two create an Italian wide network of designers, small manufacturers and street vendors that share their knowledge, designs and experience along the network, meaning that everyone can produce and sell things locally that another one already thought about and designed before by using creative commons. The different players would not see each other as com-petitors but rather as collaborators all operating on their local market(s). To render visible my idea I am creating and intro-ducing a brand with all necessary means of visual communication that can be used as an ideological container for both the vendors and the social coope-rative to sell products that are united by specific set of principles.

From research to the final project idea

Collaboration

121

Those principles are:

— the use of locally produced or recycled materials— easy producibility (without expensive tools)— simplicity (modesty in material and form) — easy transportability (for the street vendors) But why exactly should the project become another brand?

Forming a brand gives the possibility to generate identity along all participants (designer, manufacturer and vendor), trust and recognition bet-ween the clients and the street vendors (as the brands 'front-end') and it makes it easier to precisely com-municate the brand's values and principles. Thinking about possible products that could illustrate my idea and could represent the brands values, two quotes I came across in the beginning of my research, found its way back into the actually implication of the my design approach:

"Designing for the unexpected." (John Thackara)

"Don't judge an object for what it is, but imagine what it can become."

(Thomas Lommée

How these statements are exactly implemented later can be seen in the section where all products are pre-sented in the end of the documentation.

Regarding the street vendor's appearance (primarily the stand) I was facing one important question: To what extent needs the stand to be mobile? This question can not be fully answered as it depends much on the administrative decision of how normadic a street vendor needs to be in order to get his per-mission to sell. For this reason I tried to find a middle way, thinking about a stand that is both, mobile and ready to get moved but also steady enough to stay longer at one place allowing an appropriate way to present the different products. Here again the final result will be shown in the later part of the documentation.

Another crucial question is how the vendors are communicating and interacting with potential clients on the streets. One way of improving their communication skills would be to provide them with free training courses within the space of local social initiatives, like AKRAT in Bolzano. There they could learn how to explain the products they are selling better to clients, or even becoming kind of agents who are able to take orders for more personalised products to deliver them later on or even linking the client directly to the manufacturer getting a percentage for every mediated client.

All these question can not be answered previously but need to be tested within a local pi-lot project which became my final goal to achieve in this project. Therefore I was searching for weeks in contact with different street vendors that would like to collaborate with me to organise a first public inter-vention to test my idea and improve it. The main obstacle in the talks with street vendors was that they could not imagine that anybody would like to collaborate with them. They were so blunted by their daily tough life, a life without any prospectives for improvement, that it was hard to convince any of them for a collaboration. But finally I found one interested vendor, Dan, and we will see how far we can push the project in the last month of the thesis.

Values and design approach The vendor's representation

122

Regarding my approach for the visual identity of the brand I made certain determining decisions beforehand. All print communication means should be as easily reproducible as possible allowing a local reproduction at the manufacturer's place.

Therefore I made the design decision to use only black and white, which goes also along with the brand's core values of modesty and simplicity. Every object comes with a small booklet describing in more detail the use and characteristics of each product.

The business cards can be used by both, ma-nufacturers and street vendors, and are similar to the brand patches that are fixed to each textile products.The business card should raises the client's trust and acceptance towards the street vendor. Beside the business cards an booklets each vendor should be equipped with a flag presenting the brand logo as a sign of autonomy and to make people cu-rious about the new approach to street-vending.

Concluding, I want to manifest that I see this pro-ject as an possibilitarian attempt using a active speculative design approach to imagine my view on a sustainable collaboration between small local manufacturers and autonomous street vendors. At the same time the project is a public interventi-on that wants to challenge people's opinion about street vending in general and specifically regarding towards African street vendors. To realize this project and to get enough informa-tion about the background of street vending I was talking to a lot of African street vendors in Bolzano, to the Senegalese head of the culture exchange in-itiative 'Associazione Porte Aperte', Mamadou Gaye, to the administrative responsibles for the coordina-tion of immigrants, Sabine Hofer and Karin Girotto, and other people involved in cultural initiatives like Giovanni Melillo Kostner (Open City museum Brixen) and Sergio Previte (pogrom magazine).

ConclusionVisual communication

123

I still remember the long past times I spent as a child with my parents and friends on Italian street mar-kets and local shopping streets where everything was perfectly prepared for tourists. I am not speaking ironically, to me it really seemed perfect. There were plenty of little charming items, books, lovely desig-ned postcards, etc. Of course there was as well a lot of kitsch, but still they somehow managed to generate a fair balance to create a charming athmosphere. Thin-king about it, I guess, what I really liked about this place in Elba was its imperfection, its incompletness and yet it was much more real, because people impro-vised to make it look attractive with the means they had by hand which created a culture of mindfulness.

Today I wonder if my memory got swapped over time by a romantical idealization of the past or if shop owner and artist in this particular town were simply carring much more about what they sold. Or different: Eventually there still exist artists running a shop without being slopped out by more profitable business.

If I think about most town centres today I could, to put it briefly, vomit. Take 90% of the shops in a particular city, exchange them with 90% of a differnt city's shops and in 90% of all cases you would not even recognise any changes. – the unification of city centre is for quite some time making a clean sweep.

I am aware of the reasons and mechanisms fueling this phenomena and process and I know that one can't turn the clock back, but a city's administration has a couple of means to adjust things…

So finally this romantic turnback was probably also part of my motivation for this project. – Imagine what Italo Calvino would have seen in, thought and written about a city where foreign street vendors are well respected and tolerated being a significant positive phenomena on the streets? It seams like an utopic scenario, but I guess it is not too far from being possible.

Nostalgic reflexions and prospectives

From research to the final project

124

New Players

New Alliances

New Networks

New Collaborations

125

Young Designer ( Creative precariat )

Immigrants ( Street Vendors )

Clients ( Tourists / Locals )

Local social cooperatives ( Alternative Production )

Co– creation

client contact ( communicator )

/ street trading ( distributor )

/ visibility

( advertiser )

local materials ( manufacturer )

/ good working places

( entrepreneur ) /

communication coaching ( mentoring )

/ exchange between all involved players

( Knotenpunkt )

interested in local products ( consumer )

/ personal contact

( customer intimacy ) /

feedback ( evaluation )

client analysis ( research )

/ material research

( research ) /

conception ( design )

126

Ideas without reach are w o r t h l e s s

Reach without a proper idea is w o r t h l e s s

127

Designer / artists provide

creative / technical input <>

Street vendors provide

a wide distribution system

The collaborative system

128

Designer

Street vendors Local manufactures

Social Coops

129

Designer / artists provide

creative / technical input <>

Social Cooperatives / Local manufactures

provide space and facilities = knot for exchange / learning / teaching

<> Street vendors

provide a wide distribution system

The collaborative system

130

The (long) distance from the city center to the social manufacturer AKRAT

Connecting local social manufactures to

the city center

Small local business, like the social cooperative AKRAT, I am working with, have the problem of being fully disconnected from the bussy city centre where most 'business interactions' happen. The rents are simply too high to be afforded by an initiative that would actually not care about money. – Money is seen just as a mean to keep working and progressing and not as a goal. So how to solve part of the problem? On the one hand the manufacturer is lacking of visi-bility, one the other hand the street vendors do have a lot of visibility, even if mostly negatively conotated. So why not connecting both to create synergies? Looking on the map on the right, where the route of street vendor is marked, it seem quite a idea which might work, as street vendors are covering almost every part of the city's centre.

131

The main daily route of street vendors in Bolzano

132 Preventing

/ CounteringRacism

Often African vendors are confronted with racism. One reason for that is the fact that still a lot of people, especially Italians, believe that they would collaborate or be part of some kind of mafiosi organisation that makes them sell cheap products on the streets. In fact that is absolutely wrong. The vendors are mostly just used to perform this kind of activity as in countries like Senegal still 20% of the GDP is made up by informal street vending. Arriving in Italy, often no other possibility is opening up for them. Another crucial setting triggering racism have always been an still are periods of economic recession put-ting huge numbers of people into unemployment. In these periods foreigners are often seen as danger ste-aling jobs, because they work for less money with less securities causing price dumping on the job market. In fact foreign (often illegal) workers are more vulne-rable with regard to working conditions and payment and at the same time even account for a higher share of the GDP than native nationals do.

The third reason for native Italian's reservedness and racist attitude towards strangers is the collision of dif-ferent cultural value system as shown in the introduc-tion to the project (p.41) Concluding, my approach is to bring these two parties together making them collaborate and showing that a problem can also be turned into a new possibility. Besides that neuroscientist have also shown that com-plex problems can only be solved by complex solution systems that emerge more easily from diverse socie-ties with diverse cultures.

Natives and Street vendors

133

Natives and Street vendors

Unemployment

Different value system

Lack of consciousnessProper Information / Communication

Demonstrating advantages of diversity

Defining new forms of collaborative work

“All those street vendors belong to some

kind of mafia organisation.”

“Those street vendors dress in a strange way.

The way they sell is inappropriate.”

“Foreigners take away our jobs, because

they work for less money.”

134 ekaF–lanigirO

135

136

137Original – Fake

138

139Original – Fake

140

–

Abstracts of: Migropolis, Venice / Atlas of Global Situation Vol. II; Wolfgang Scheppe & IUAV Class on Political Representation

141Original – Fake

142

–

Abstracts of: Migropolis, Venice / Atlas of Global Situation Vol. II; Wolfgang Scheppe & IUAV Class on Political Representation

143

Illegal Immigration²

When looking on the kind of products that are sold at the moment by (illegal) immigrant street vend-ors we can observe that the main part of those pro-ducts are them-selve illegal to the national law of copyright. Meaning that most of those products are il-legaly imported counterfeits produced mainly in China.

This led me to the conclusion that in order to in-troduce this new approach to street trading, which we might call 'OPEN street trading' we would also need to make changes in the political framework of how street trading is perceived and reacted to on the administra-tive and executive levels of regional governments.

Instead of illegalizing street trading (which does not lead to its disappearance and thus is not a solution) we need to demonstrate new possibilities that might be part of a more 'sustainable' solution.

We need to make clear that such a systemic improvement would be also beneficial for the local ad-ministrative and executive organs, meaning the rela-ted public offices and the police which is often over-challenged by the number of street vendors.

Therefore we first have to question why street trading is such a problem to the local authorities. The answer might be multifaceted:

The main factor is of course that a part of the street vendors are illegal immirgrant without a permit of stay and thus also without a permit of work.

This leads to the problem that the government does not has any monetary benefit from the economic transactions as (most) street vendors can not and do not pay taxes on their sales. This leads to the pheno-mena of a informal shadow economy which is hard to trace and to put in numbers but which is estimated to a number of 15–17% of the national GDP of which the main part is created by immigrants.

And finally the authorities often consider street vendors, harshly saying, as 'visual pollution' to the lo-cal streets.

Original – Fake

144 Imposed

Improvisation

145

Absurd Planning

146

Improvisation

Planning

Improvisation

Arriving and staying in Italy isn't an easy undertaking for most African street vendors. The material and fi-nancial scarcity, the often uncertain legal situation and strict regional ru-les for street vending enforces them to continually improvise in everything they do – is it vending, housing or sim-ple things of everyday life.Consequently this lack of security gets also reflected in their choices of which products to acquire and sell.

Even though they seem like masters of improvisation it sets them an almost uncrossable limit to further possibilities and activities.

This leads me to the con-cluding question if small or middle sized businesses aren't much more balanced between a certain kind of improvisation and planning making them in their specific way much more likeable. And, further, could street ven-ding become again part of those small sized business? I think the answer is already visible when looking at the regular street markets that always played a strong role in most countries (especially Italy's) economy.

Imposed improvisation

147

Planning Planning

Improvisation

On the other side, we see, if we want so, globally operating cooperations that seem to have almost no limits to their activities allowing them to partly even ignore national rules or to find a way around those by outsourcing activities in countries with lower social and environmental standarts. Often they pay less taxes or evade paying them. Those compa-nies seem to have planned every single step of their activities to the smallest detail – be it design, pro- duction, distribution, sales, etc… This makes them appear, at least to me, like large immoral monsters selling predictable and only trend orientated (boring) products.

Consequently, one could say, that their gigantic size enforces them to a kind of totalitarian planning of every single aspect of their business.

The only problem those mar-kets are facing is that often they are not able to compete with the prices 'multinationals' are setting. In the doom loop of competi-tion and resulting outsourcing of production they also lost the strong selling-argument of locally produced products. In the very end this leads to an empowerment of the customer's decision and a need for moral reflection of which kind of business one wants to support.

Absurd planning

148

–

Abstracts of: Migropolis, Venice / Atlas of Global Situation Vol. II; Wolfgang Scheppe & IUAV Class on Political Representation

149Multiple Identities

150

151Multiple Identities

152 M u l t i p l e

I d e n t i t i e s

M u l t i p l e I d e n t i t i e s

M u l t i p l e I d e n t i t i e s

Multiple Identities

M u l t i p l e I d e n t i t i e s

Multiple Identities

M u l t i p l e I d e n t i t i e s

153

“Looking at the bigger picture, it seems more likely that people may be developing multiple identities, including their “roots”— rather than mul-tiple identities, whilst forgetting their “roots.” Building on a different interpretation of Georg Simmel’s idea of the “global supermarket,” perhaps it is just that the global city “enhances people’s ability to shift among multiple identities” (Abrahamson 2004, 127). In other words, this shift allows the immigrant street vend-or to pick and choose identities, depending on the role needed or situation at hand.

In Money Has No Smell, for example, Stoller talks to an older man who claims to be a devout Mus-lim, and who criticizes the “immorality of Americans,” their use of foul language, and lack of respect for elders. This man speaks of his faithfulness to his wife (who he has not seen for four years), his pious nature in giving to the poor when he can, and his dedication to religion. When Paul Stoller points out the ironic hat he is selling that says “Fuck Off” on it, and explains its meaning, the vendor—“seeing no dissonance between his views on Islamic morality and his business practices”—switches to his “street vendor identity,” and claims that, “We are here in Ameri-ca, trying to make a living… Money has no smell.” (2002, XI). The discord among all of these identities is added evidence of several identities—the virtuous Muslim when not at work, and the Americanized, globalized salesman when vending.

Abstract of

Street Vendors in the Global City:Exploring Genoa’s Informal Economy

–

Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography, Volume 2 Issue 1, 2012

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Another example would be of the vendor, Issifi, who has a wife back home in Nigeria, but a girlfriend in New York. Psychologically, this other identity may serve a purpose, because it is as if this dissociation lets him reaffirm to himself that what he is doing is acceptable (and to an extent, his cultural background also allows it—Issifi does note that men have more freedom in Africa, in terms of marriage) (Stoller 2002, 3). With such little overlap of networks and connections between the identities, Issifi—and street vendors in general—may confidently switch among identities, without threatening any other per-sonas too much.”

Regarding the connection between the vend-or's identity and the products he tries to sell we might find a more adequate way to combine both rather then separating them. In other words the question is:

'Could we develop products that are not only functionally useful but also take the vendor's own identity and ideas into account?'

Or: 'Could the products themselves have multiple identities, meaning different functions or switch in their aesthetically appearance?'

Joseph S. DeLuca

154

155

Normad

Ambassador

Informant

Lawyer

Father

Designer

Networker

Mico-manager

Salesman

Buyer

Communicator

Adman

Entertainer

Multiple Identities

156

The idea of a collaborative 'street brand' of vendors and local

manufacturers

157

158

NU_VOLANTE is an open creative network and brand creating collaborations between designers, local (social) manufactures and street vendors using the traditional and direct distribution system of street vending.

Unestablished designers can experiment with new products and reach the local market in a highly direct way through street distribution.

Small locally operating manufacturers and social production initiatives usually lacking of visi-bility can reach a wider public without renting a space in the mostly expensive city center or spending a lot of money on advertisment. Furthermore their physical (production) spaces can function as a knot connecting all involved players to learn from each other.

(Immigrant) street vendors get connected to local manufacturers and sell more valuable products. At the same time they become self-deployed agents taking the role of vendors, communicators, advertiser and finally 'brand ambassadors' as the brands direct front-end.

It is an open network for creative personalitites and initiatives that love the process of making things and want to distribute through a network of professional street vendors. The network offers a platform which encourages a culture of sharing knowledge and de-signs among the stakeholders to foster the community and speed up its development.

The involved collaborators can use the developed communication means including corporate identity and web appearance and the developed open designs for their own local production.

What is Nu_Volante?

Open Network

Brand Manifesto

159

Since we want to encourage the sharing of knowledge and designs among the network of involved designers, producers and the 'following' public, transparancy and documentation in the pro-duction process is highly important to the brand due to two facts:

– uncomplicated exchange of knowledge and designs via creative commons between designers and producers

– making–ofs as part of the online marketing supporting the network's credibility and raising awa-reness for the production process among the clients.

Every stakeholder in the process, from the designer to the producer to the street vendor gets his/her fair share by signing the network's agreement of 'fair col-laboration' before starting a business relation. Created designs and further production information is also availabe to DIY activists that want to create things just for themselves or want to use the distribu-tion system of participating street vendors. Finally it makes people re-evaluate and appreciate the profession of street vendors as an enrichment of local street life. At the same time street vendors get better connected (integrated) to the local society as they sell more use-ful products and collaborate with local manufactures resulting in more taxes payed and more employment created locally. Every involved player (be it a designer, producer or vendor) should retain the maximum of self–autono-my, meaning that the brand does not enforce one to operate to strict rules – rather it allows to use the built structure and branding and apply it to the local and personal needs.

Fair profit distribution

DIY Participation

Transparent Processes

Re–evaluating street vending

Integration

Autonomy

The first true local open street brand.

1.

Nu–Volante

160

Visual Identity

Nu_VolanteThe new flying ones

NuNew (engl. slang)In music: Nu–Jazz, Nu–Disco, Nu–Metal,…Refering to the new approach to street trading.

VolanteFlying (ital.) Police (ital. slang)Refering to vendor's mobile character.

NuvolaWolke (ital.)1. Refering to vendor's mobile character.2. Refering to the brand's cloud–like network structure

Volantruffle / valance (dt.)In sewing and dressmaking, a ruffle, frill, or furbelow is a strip of fabric, lace or ribbon tightly gathered or pleated on one edge and applied to a garment, bed-ding, or other textile as a form of trimming.

AmbulanteStreet vendor (ital.)

Name finding

Logo / Local branches

161

NuNew (engl. slang)In music: Nu–Jazz, Nu–Disco, Nu–Metal,…Refering to the new approach to street trading.

Why brandning?

Akzidenz-Grotesk A landmark font in type–making. Simple, modest, functional – nevertheless elegant and applicable in various media.

ItalicDynamic and in movement, inpired by the vendor's mobile character.

The low dashAbstract referance to the streets where the business is happening.

Co-branding, also called brand partnership, is when two companies form an alliance to work together, creating marketing synergy. In the example's case to-gether with the social manufacturer of recycled wood and textile, AKRAT, located in Bolzano.

Principles The print communication (Logo, business card, booklets, brand patch, etc.) is designed in a way to be easyly understandable and locally reproducable at the manufacturers place, meaning: Printable on every kind of paper, standart formats, black on white, only one brand typeface.

Branding creates a visible entity (of people and ideas) that operates according to specific values in order to generate public trust and awareness for the brand and the values and ideas it stands for.

Condensed‘Sich dünne machen‘ (to make oneself scarce ) is used in German to express that someone has to disappear quickly, because he/she is in trouble.

Typeface

+ =

Nu–Volante

162

Business card

Print Communication

Collaborazione ed Improvvisazione

Qualità dalla strada

Dal 2014

ww

w.n

uvo

lan

te.o

rg

info

@n

uvo

lan

te.o

rg

Bolzano — Italia

163

Booklets for each product

We seek our happiness in the simplicity of things – produced locally with zero km or recycled materials. Within the network of street vendors you can find simple, beautiful things with a certain life of their own, that invite you to improvise in a playful approach.

Wir suchen unser Glück in der Einfachheit der Dinge – vor Ort produziert mit lokalen oder wieder-verwertbaren Materialien. Im Netzwerk der Straßen- händler findest Du ein-fache schöne Dinge mit einem gewissen Eigenle-ben, die zum improvisieren und einem spielerischen Umgang einladen.

Cerchiamo la nostra felicità nella semplicità delle cose – prodotti locali con materiali zero km o riciclabili. Nella rete di ambulanti si possono trovare cose semplici e interessanti con una vita propria, che invitano ad improvvisare con approc-cio giocoso.

I nostri valori

Our values

Unsere Werte

Borsa di emergenza

—

N o t f a l l t a s c h e

—

Emergency bag

Nu–Volante

164

Brand patchBolzano — Italia

Collaborazione ed improvvisazione

2014Dal

165

Brand Flags “The first flags were used to assist military co-ordina-tion on battlefields, and flags have since evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identifica-tion, especially in environments where communication is similarly challenging.” (wikipedia) For the Nu_volante branding the flag should serve as a sign of autonomy (claiming: “I am my own lord”), offer a strong symbol for public brand identification and means to trigger curiosity when just passing by.

Nu–Volante

166

Five simple products representing the brand philosophy

Core values Material

Manufacturing

Production work

Functionality,

Product attributes

Meta communication

Local cultivated or recycled > Good quality (durable) Simple standard tools > Time saving (reducing costs) Local social workshops Home work > Good working conditions (social) Simple, playful, multifunctional (invitation to improvise) Modesty (material) Playfulness (improvisational use) Connceted to the street vendors value/life style (normadic, modest, good hu-moured)

167

From research to implimentation:

The synthesis

The series of products I designed should serve to illustrate what kind of products could be sold directly from the streets. These products all share one basic philosophy as described before. I choose fabric as the material to work with, becau-se it is light enough to be easily carried around the whole day. At the same time it has a great versatility.

Fabric as resource

There are various ways for a local production, it can be recycled, cut and newly assembled.

Production

Once the basic material is collected (recycling) or produced (locally) it can be transformed in various ways without the need of expensive tools to create diverse series of products all fitting to one embedded philosophy.

Design

The first inspirations for possible products arrived directly from the individuals of my interest, the street vendors. Something that makes them par-ticularly interesting for me is their attitude to impro-vise, as described in various chapters of my previous research (Pragmatism > Improvisation > Learn to Unlearn > Open Value).

Therefore I created two very simple multi-functional blankets that reflect the vendor's attitu-de by inviting the user to improvise with the fabric by using it in various ways. While discovering the different functions of the blankets he/she comes to know better the characteristics of the used materi-als creating a certain awareness for the material's embedded qualities.

The second series of items, the fabric games, represent the brand's playfull approach while not loosing the haptic qualities of fabric. The three ga-mes (Chess, Nine men's morris and Backgammon) I choose are played internationally and in almost all cultures around the globe. In a certain way also games invite to improvise and, more importantly, are the centre and departure for a social activity.

The third series of products are representing more strongly an aesthetical approach to the topic: Collaborating with the textile workshop of the faculty of textile design at the University of Hof (Germany) I created a multicoloured series of fabrics all sharing a common idea: the representation and translation of travelling and globality. Therefore I used open satellite pictures from the Sahara desert provided by the NASA Earthexplorer program (www.earthexplorer.usgs.gov) to translate them into fabric. The results are organic landscape pattern that are by them-sleves already beautiful and appealing (I could have sold already all of them to close friends) and additionally get a special value when one knows about the embedded story of the design: meaning the long distance travel through the Sahara every immigrant from West-Africa needed to undertake to arrive at the Mediterranean Sea to than take the boat to Europe. This story gets communica-ted by a small booklet that is attached to each fabric.

For the other version of fabics I created a pattern made of windroses, stars and North–South symbols representing as well the idea of travelling and navigating ones way through life. All in all, I hope, I was able to communicate in an understandable yet interesting and appealing way the values I wanted to express through the choices for material and the means of design.

168

Improvisational blanket The simple but multifunctional blanket comes in two versions,

one out of recycled pieces of textile and the other out of locally grown and manufactured hemp (which for 50 years wasn't allowed to be cultivated any more). Its' owner has the maximal freedom to use the textil in the way he or she wants. Infact the blanket wants to invite people to impro-vise and encourages the its' owner to use it rather as a good friend you can play and tinker with than a 'passiv' consumer product that you just posess and show.

1

Coperta – Decke – blanket

Zaino – Rucksack – backpack100

150

Crea ombra – Sonnentuch

awning

Borsa – Tasche – bag

TRANS F ORM

169Simple products for the streets

Product was still in development when printing the thesis documentation.

Therefore no images were yet available.

170

Emergency blanket The round, so called, Emergency Blanket has a diameter of

120–150cm and is made out of recycled cotton and linen fabric. The border of the blanket is equipped with 12–16 brass eyelets. The rope comes in black and white (cotton) and various other colours using simple climbing-rope (synthetic). Used as a bag it can be filled and closed within seconds, by simply pulling the robe on two opposite sides. Alternatively the blanket can also be 'missused' as sun shelter, picnic blanket or what ever comes to the users mind.

2

171Simple products for the streets

172

Fabric Sahara To illustrate how a designer could also implement his very own design caring as well for the production, I produced a fabric with a pattern fitting to the context of the street vendors. The pattern is generated by using Open NASA satellite pictures (www.earthexplorer.usgs.gov) of the Sahara region to implement the context of the vendors' long journey from West-Africa to Europe where they need to cross as well the large desert region before arriving to the Mediterranean Sea.

University of Hof (Germany), Faculty of Textil Design where

the translation into fabric was done

Satellite picture from Nasa Open Earthexplorer program (taken July 10, 2011)

– Sahara, Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, 25°10′N 8°10′E / 25.166667°N 8.166667°E

3

173Simple products for the streets

174

Fabric Sahara

175Simple products for the streets

176

Fabric Navigator The other self–produced fabric uses as pattern the compass rose a navigation star in the same style and the letters N and S for 'North' and 'South'. It reffers to the classical pattern often used in the fashion and accessories industry by brands like Louis Vuitton or Gucci. At the same time the pattern narrates a different story – the one of travelling and navigating, in the case of the street vendors from South to North. Personally I think this approach is very adequate for fabric as it is also travelling with you all the time.

The used pattern

4

N

S

Louis Vuitton

Gucci

177Simple products for the streets

178

5 Traditional games on fabric

The fabric games, represent the brand's playfull approach while not loosing the haptic qualities of fabric. The three games (Chess, Nine men's morris and Backgammon) I choose are played internationally and in almost all cultures around the globe. In a certain way also games invite to improvise and, more importantly, are the centre and departure for a social activity.

179

Cotton and linen from recycled fabric

Simple products for the streets

180

Chessa.

181Simple products for the streets

182

Backgammonb.

183Simple products for the streets

184

Nine men's morris (Mühle)c.

185Simple products for the streets

186

Mobile Kiosks

A short overview and valuation of existing kiosk/exhibition stands that might be more or less adequate for street vendors.

187

188

Cost saving $ $ $ $ $QQQQQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

The Blanket

The most used and less expensive exhibition mean mostly used in Venice to escape quickly from the arriving police. Often used with the feature of four strings connected to the corners to wrap the blanket more quickly.

189Mobile kiosks

190

The Vendor's tray

Cost saving $ $ $ $QQQQQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

The vendor's tray is a very mobile and low-cost solution for small items. Especially for selling in bars and cafés it might be adequate. The branding (Nu_Volante) could be attached to the front side of the tray.

191Mobile kiosks

192

Haystack (eng) Heureiter (ger)

Heinzen (pre-alpine region)

Stiffla (south tirol)

Heureiter (auch Reuter genannt) sind verschiedene Arten von Holzgestellen, auf denen vor dem Aufkommen von maschinenun-terstützter Landwirtschaft frisch geschnittenes, abgetrocknetes Gras zum vollständigen Trocknen aufgehängt wurde. Sie kamen vor allem bei lang anhaltender feuchter Witterung zum Einsatz, bei der eine Heutrocknung am Boden nicht oder nur schwer möglich war.

Für den Straßenverkauf eignet er sich jedoch nur in Form eines relativ fixen Standes, der jedoch mit wenigen Griffen auf– und abgebaut werden kann.

Cost saving $ $ $ $QQQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

193Mobile kiosks

194

Connector Structure

Cost saving $ $ $QQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

A structure made from 3-D printed plastic joints and wooden poles would probably be the perfect solution for a fixed stand on a weekend market, but not at all usefull for a mobile version.

195Mobile kiosks

196

The Bike Kiosk

Cost saving $QQQQQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

The classical bike kiosk is a very appealing version of a stand giving the vendor a maximum of mobility, even for far distances but it re-quires a special license to be used. This version would be an interesting solution for the long run when the project's sucess was already proven alowing a bigger invest-ment. The permit of the 'Commune' is inevitable.

197Mobile kiosks

198

Burden bearer / Lastenrucksack

+

Cost saving $ $ $QQQQMobility ̈ ¨ ¨Functionality Appearance Feasibility

The burden bearer in combination with a suitcase could be a soluti-on for rather big and eventually delicate object. But it requires again the possibility of having at least some time to remain at the same location. Again the permit of the 'Commune' would be needed.

199Mobile kiosks

200

Testing four mobile stands

Considering the place (Bolzano) and circumstances

201

202

The advanced vendor blanketa.

203

Conclusion: The classical blanket in its advanced version can be seen as the smart 'status quo' stand option in case the 'Commune' is not changing any regulations in favor of the street vendors.

The emergency blanket is stand, product and por-table item-bag at the same time.

It allows to exhibit the items to potential clients in a slightly more attractive way than the normal blanket does and at the same time gives the vendor the possibi-lity of escaping quickly from the approaching police.

Testing four mobile stands

204

The simple pole

Bottom base from metal: for vertical use Left and right wing: gouges to attache items

Conclusion: Testing the simplest version of a mobile stand and talking about it with the street vendor I am collaborating with, we figured out that the stand in general would be quite useful, but considering the narrov streets in Bolzano's center it is just not very practical.

During a break the vendor can flip the pole upside down (vertical) on the metal base and lean it against a wall.

b.

205

Gouges to attach the lanyard Whole to attach the brand flag

Foam tube in the middle for more comfort

Testing four mobile stands

206

The vertical pole

Conclusion: The vertical pole might be a good compromise for a pilot project and the time before the 'Commune' eventually gives more fixed location to the vendors realising that street vending can actually make the streets more vivid and bring interesting locally produced items to the city's center.

I allows the vendor to exhibit around 6–9 items at the same time. During a break he can lean the stand against a wall or on the ground.

c.

207180cm

80cm

Testing four mobile stands

208

The 3–leg

The three leg was inspired by the

'Heureiter' making a (romantic)

reference to the traditional picture

of agriculture in the alpine area.

Missing in the picture:

– Small screws at the side of each pole to fix

different items. or:

– 3–7 wholes drilled into each pole to put the rope

through in a horizontal way to than attach the

iteam to the rope.

d.

209

Conclusion: The three leg construction would be a simple, low cost solution. but only in case that the 'Commune' grants the vendor a rather fix location to sell. Talking to the vendor we figured out that this solution would be also prac-tical to extend his business for different weekend markets, e.g. the artisan mar-ket at the 'Rathausplatz'.

The three leg can be opened and closed by a single per-

son in less than two minutes. The rope is used to holed

together the stand after its closure.

Testing four mobile stands

210

The website as connecting

knot

An adequate website needs to serve two major functions:

One is to inform potential and actual clients that somehow came to know a vendor and want to know more about the whole brand concept. In this case the website needs to create trust and awareness for the brand and its street vendors. This will be done by providing the attractively designed manifesto, the brand philosophy, a documentation of the production processes and the different ways a vendor can be found within the city the client wants to travel to or is living in.

The other function is to connect all potentially invol-ved players needed for the brand: the vendors, the desig-ners, the manufacturers and the local places (probably a social initiatives or a social workshops) where meetings can be organised and where the vendors can pick up the pro-duced items. Therefore a database of the involved individuals and initia-tives visible to everyone online would be needed. In this way even clients can inform themselve where the products are actually coming from and who is collaborating within the network.

211

www.salon.io/nu-volante

www.facebook.com/nuvolante

www.nu-volante.tumblr.com

212

Info Vendors

Info Manufacturer

eng ita dt

Brand Manifsto

Contact

Nu–Volante is a brand connecting street vendors with local manufacturers. We seek our happiness in the simplicity of things – produced locally with zero km or recycled materials. Within our network of street vendors you can find simple, beautiful things with a certain life of their own. Check out if you can find us already in your hometown or in a place you want to travel to!

213

Info Designer

Info Work with us

Nu–Volante is a brand connecting street vendors with local manufacturers. We seek our happiness in the simplicity of things – produced locally with zero km or recycled materials. Within our network of street vendors you can find simple, beautiful things with a certain life of their own. Check out if you can find us already in your hometown or in a place you want to travel to!

Nu–Volante DIY Blog

Find us

214 Contact

facebook – twitter – instagram

215

facebook – twitter – instagram

Info

216

Public intervention

and feedback

For the actually testing of the communication means and the created series of products I planned a public interven-tion – one or two days of selling in the centre of Bolzano. Therefore I collaborated with a local street vendor (Dane, see photograph on the left). Unfortunatelly the vendor was too uncertain and afraid of the legal situation and a possible interaction with the local police when using a stand that triggers to much attention that we needed to find a differnt way. So we finally agreed that he will first only try to sell the little fabric games in bars and cafés using the created busi-ness cards and booklets to explain better the brand concept and to gain more attentiveness and acceptance from posible clients. The other possibility for a public intervention and testing was organised with a friend of Dane, called Omar, who is already selling bags. At the time the documentation was handed in both public invention were still in progress so that there are no photographs yet to show.

217

218

Future perspectives

After four month of wide and deep research, a lot of conversations with topic-related persons and various collaborations that made this thesis project possible, I finally can make a conclusion and give a future per-spective for the project around the brand Nu–Volante.The meetings and talk with the collaborating street vendors, Dane, Jimmy and Omar showed me that my idea to create a brand for street vendors would still need a lot of afford to get actually realised. Probably it would need a team of two or three engaged young designers next to me to organise various collabora-tions with interested small manufactures and social workshops all over Italy to bring up a real sustainable business model for a street brand based on the distri-bution system of street vendors.

Why all over Italy? Since the vendors are not just based in Bolzano, but have a rather normadic life-style in order to make seasonal depending bu-siness, also the brand would need to adapt to this attitude and create collaborations along the vendors' travelling routes.

What gave me confidence for an undertaking like I tried it with my socio-economical crossover ex-periment was the positive reactions of people hearing about the idea and seeing my personal designed inter-pretation of the topic. Also the vendors I had been in contact with were very interested, especially after the first phase of natural scepticism was overcome.

Surely the most important factor for a continua-tion of the project would be a intensive dialogue with local politicians and administrative decision makers. They are in the end the persons who are able to sim-plify or even enable an undertaking like I have it in mind with a real brand for street vendors. They can give permits for more fixed locations to make busi-ness on the streets and de-criminalize the situation which evolved around street trading as we can see it in Venice, but also in Bolzano. When vendors do not have to be concerned half of their time to look for the next arriving police officer, they could use their time to better communicate with possible clients or settle a more sustainable business which in the long term would probably also be more accepted or even appreciated by tourists and local inhabitants.

Fvt

219

My project showed also that collaborations with local manufactures, like in my case the up-cycling workshop AKRAT, are absolutely possible and even appreciated to solve a part of their own problem, the one of lacking visibility in the city centre. It gives them an additional possibility of exhibiting and sel-ling small items of their creation and at the same time raises their social recognition for being engaged in a integration project.

A point that I hardly wrote about, but that I thought about a lot, is the question of what kind of customers such a street brand would attract. Probably it would not be the same clients than before, but rather persons with more awareness for their way of consumption. These group of clients could be found, for example, in young travelling tourists that are sear-ching for a little present or souvenir to take home to their beloved ones. They often, as my research in tou-rist forums showed, appreciate the contact or presents of street vendors as an enrichment of the street life. If now the vendors could better communicate through a brand identity and means of visual communication and at the same time offer products of higher (perso-nal) value, they would probably have a good chance to emerge as really respected and well seen autonomous personalities of business.

Another interesting improvement, at least for the political and administrative side, would be the fact that those traders could probably also pay more taxes and support the local economy by creating local jobs, which most of the traditional companies can not say about their future potentials.

The last and for me personally most interesting aspect of my work is the approach to the question of how the integration of foreigners is performed in these days. Here I remember a sentence of my dear friend and architect, Niket Dalal from India, who said:

"Enabling people to make autonomously business is the best

way of generating emancipation and well being within a society."

I think, he was absolutely right and it is only now that I fully understand what he could have had in mind. Most of the immigrants coming to Italy are on their search for work. Now one could say that their is not enough work for everyone, which of course is totally absurd as there is always something to do. It is just that we, in the western world, are more and more lacking of classical wagework, which has a lot of dif-ferent reasons… In this aspect the street vendor is in my eyes a special case. He is searching for work, and when not able to find something fitting to his skills, he just creates work by him-self. It is rather a primitive work, one could say, but at least they are improvising and trying which is something I absolutely respect them for.

Hats off, and let's keep up improvising!

220

Einer der wichtigsten theoretisch–emotionalen Ausgangspunkte meiner Recherche und Arbeit.

221

“Die ExpertInnen des Wandels leben

und arbeiten in Wissenschaft und Kunst.

Ihre Beiträge hätten wir bitter nötig

in einer Zeit, in der sich die Umrisse der

Wissensgesellschaft erst herauszu-

schälen beginnen, in der unser Land vor

vielfältigen Problemen des Wandels,

etwa auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, steht. Doch

die Grenzen zwischen Politik und

Kultur sind wie eingefroren. Adrienne

Goehler fordert: Verflüssigen wir sie,

damit mehr Bewegung in den

Wandel kommt!”

– Adrienne Goehler. Verflüssigungen. Wege und Umwege vom Sozialstaat zur Kulturgesellschaft. Frankfurt: Campus, 2006.

222

Colophon

223

All contents (if not noted

otherwise)

Supervision

Paper

Typfaces

Printing

Binding

Icons

Design Thesis

Free University of Bolzano

Faculty of Design and Art

2014

Raphael V.M. Volkmer

Kris Krois

Sebastian Camerer

Munken Pure 150/m²

Lino Letter

Akzidenz–Grotesk BQ

Printpool Free University of Bolzano

Binding workshop Free University of Bolzano

www.thenounproject.com

A4 — 210x297mm

224

Bibliography Abel, Bas Van. Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive. Amster-dam: BIS, 2011. Burckhardt, Lucius. Warum ist Landschaft schön?: Die Spaziergangswissenschaft: Schmitz, Martin, 2006. Burckhardt, Lucius. Wer plant die Planung?: Architektur, Politik und Mensch: Schmitz, Martin, 2004. Burckhardt, Lucius. Der kleinstmögliche Eingriff: Schmitz, Martin, 2013.

Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2013. Goehler, Adrienne. Verflüssigungen. Wege und Umwege vom Sozialstaat zur Kul-turgesellschaft. Frankfurt: Campus, 2006. Melville, Herman. Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.

Musil, Robert. The Man without Qualities. N.p.: Panther, 1968. Scheppe, Wolfgang, and Angela Vettese. Migropolis: Venice, Atlas of a Global Si-tuation. Vol. 2. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009. Thackara, John. Clean Growth: From Mindless Development to Design Mindful-ness, Innovation. Aberdeen: The Robert Gordon University, 2009. Warnier, C., D. Verbruggen/ Unfold, S. Ehmann, and R. Klanten. Dinge Drucken Wie 3D-Drucken Das Design Verändert. Berlin: Die Gestalten Verlag, 2014. Comune Bozen, Provinz Südtirol, Eurak: Immigration in Südtirol Handbuch

Index

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Articles John Tackara: Into the Open; Article for Open Design Now: opendesignnow.org/index.php/article/into-the-open-john-thackara/ (date of visit: 24.05.2014) Viola Caon: Europe's lost generation: how it feels to be young and struggling in the EU; The Guardian, 29.01.2012: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/28/europes-lost-generation-young-eu (date of visit: 3.06.2014) Nicholas DeMaria Harney: Migrant Productivities: Street vendors and the infor-mal knowledge work in Naples; Anthropology/Sociology and History,The University of Western Australia Joseph S. DeLuca: Street Vendors in the Global City: Exploring Genoa’s Infor-mal Economy; John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Journal of Undergratuate Ethnography, Volume 2, Issue 1 Tamar Shafrir Thesis – Looking at Objects, Masters in Contextual DesignDesign Academy Eindhoven, 23 March 2012

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Websites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_%28systems_theory%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_value http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_system#Socio-cultural_value_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiosk http://blog.openstructures.net http://www.intrastructures.net/Intrastructures http://www.o-p-e-n.info http://www.opendesk.cc http://www.wiki-house.cc http://www.streetvendor.orghttp://www.italiannotebook.com http://www.linamariekoeppen.de/LEARN-TO-UNLEARN http://www.futurzwei.org http://www.theguardian.com http://www.zeit.de http://www.theguardian.com http://creativecommons.org/ http://www.hypermanifest.org/kollektiv/ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov

Videography Manouchehr Shamsrizi: Wissen.Macht.Moral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0EfKzKi0So (date of visite: 12.06.2014) Open Structures: Thomas Lommee at TEDxEutropolis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FXTlOytJRI (date of visite: 22.06.2014) CM 2013: John Thackara – Where Social & Living Systems Meet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswcUHAd0ck (date of visite: 2.05.2014) John Thackara: Growing the Bio-City (Ljubljana, 28. May 2013): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfS2GIYNy_E (date of visite: 7.06.2014) Utopie von Harald Welzer: Eine Welt ohne Wachstum: http://www.zeit.de/video/2012-09/1862233284001/die-kuenftige-gesellschaft-uto-pie-von-harald-welzer-eine-welt-ohne-wachstum (date of visite: 12.04.2014) Harald Welzer: Stiftung Futur Zwei, Wir sind nicht nett: http://www.zeit.de/2012/04/Harald-Welzer (date of visite: 9.04.2014) Das Wunder von Riace: https://vimeo.com/34677625 (date of visite: 28.04.2014)

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Images If not otherwise indicated the used images where availabe under the creative commons licens

for non-commercial use or under the public domain and therefore free of known copyright restrictions.

Images under the wiki commons:

Page 40:

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http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/75/Kiosk04.jpg

Images with indication of author:

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http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/520e5fdd69bedda60f000021/spains-richest-woman-and-co-founder-of-

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Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009.

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Acknowledgements

First of all some thankful words to my supervisors and friends, Kris Krois and Sebastian Camerer. Kris, thank you for mentoring me somehow silently over the last years or at least showing me what design can also be when cleaning it from selfishness and narcissism. Sebastian, thank you for all the long critical talks concerning my Thesis and the trip to Hamburg. It was a honor for me to have been taught by you two. After four years of studying in Bolzano I met a lot of remarkable persons that enriched my everday life and made me become more mature, but still allowed me to be the person I am (not making me loose my enthusiasm and naiveté). To some of them I would like to devote some special thanks coming straight from the heart. Thank you: Afra Hackl, for always being 'Big–Mama' in the last four years. Erik Ritzl, for all the late night philosophy and an open ear for my weird toughts. Raphael Walser, Julius Stauber, Max Edelberg and Tim Illner for the best company I could imagine. Dirk and Irmgard, for being my parents and covering my back and supporting me in everything I did, no matter how absurd it might seemed to you. Special acknowledgements to the supporters and collaborators from AKRAT: Peter Prossliner, for showing me what entrepreneurial and personal courage can look like and for all the deep discussions we had while working together. Gerda and Marlen, for supporting me to realize the textil products of my thesis project.

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This thesis deals with the emerging field of Open Design and traces the value framework associated with its underlying ideas. It questions how Open Design might contribute to change our crisis-torn western value system by pushing us to set out for the destination Open Society. Thereby the term 'Open Value' functions as an empty container that gets filled with meanings to describe the leitmotif of my research. To illustrate how one mosaic in this emerging world could look like I finally created an open collaborative brand, called Nu–Volante. Its aim is to connect the local economy (AKRAT) with the distribution network of foreign (mainly Senegalese) street vendors, to generate synergies, raising both social recognition and visibility for locally produced objects of value. The result is an active speculation in how such an alternative brand could look like and how it could communicate. It is organized in a way that every participant can engage with his skills, while obtaining the maximum of self–autonomy. The main partners in this project were the local social cooperative, AKRAT, and two Senegalese street vendors, Dane and Omar.