Welcome!

Designing Economic Cultures is a research project that sets out to investigate the relationship between socio-economic precarity and the production of socially and politically engaged design projects.

The fundamental question the project poses is:
how can designers, who through their work want to question and challenge the prevalent economic system, gain a satisfying degree of social and economic security without having to submit themselves to the commercial pressures of the market?  Read more ›

Construction site for non-affirmative practice

Constructive Dismantling

My Castle Is Your Castle

The Aftermath Project – life beyond the crisis

A research project initiated by Manuel Castells.

“In this crisis, some people are trying to go back and other people are trying to discover what the future could be. What doesn’t work anymore is the present, for anyone. That’s why it’s Aftermath Time.”
Manuel Castells

The Aftermath Project is an expanding database for ideas, texts, videos and images relating to the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. It invites people to provide their perspective on life beyond the crisis and brings together four video documentaries and twelve audio interviews produced in the framework of Aftermath Network, a research program on the social consequences of the crisis.

Go to the website

PWB ethics code

The ethics code of the Precarious Workers Brigade lays out some basic principles according to which the group structures its work. Inspiring!

http://precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com/ethics

‘activity spheres’

We just finished drawing this representation of the 7 ‘activity spheres’ within the evolutionary trajectory of Capitalism, which David Harvey identifies and describes in The Enigma of Capital. Click on the image to open it as a pdf.

Workers’ collectives in Berlin

The designers of Image-Shift produced a set of playing cards that introduces a series of collectives working in Berlin. The game is called “Das Richtige im Falschen” (The right inside the wrong).

Here is a list of all the collectives presented:

Printing
Hinkelsteindruck (print and layout)
Oktoberdruck (printing)

Read on…

Bust your boss!

Bust your boss*!
During a negotiation about work you have the right,
NOT to remain silent about money.
NOT to subsidise the production from your own pocket.
NOT accept a change of agreed conditions without a renegotiation.
NOT to take this job on the promise of a future!

Read on…

Planned obsolescence

Very insightful documentary about planned obsolescence.

Basic income guarantee – referdendum CH

On the 12th of April 2012, in Switzerland a referendum will be started for introducing a guaranteed basic income. The guaranteed basic income would allow all people living in Switzerland to lead a dignified life. It would be paid to everyone independently of their needs and without need of returning a service.

http://bedingungslos.ch/

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – extract

Article 6

1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right.

2. The steps to be taken by a State Party to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes, policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.

Read on…

The Top 50 of the 147 Superconnected Companies

An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc

Read on…

#Milanuncut

#Milanuncut was a discussion kicked off by writers Marcus Fairs and Max Fraser who’d both heard and reported the anonymous grumblings of young designers at the level of work and payment they got for producing the prototypes that were being hyped during the festival. So with this tenuous link; I can post some images of designs around a cube whilst doing the maths to see what a young designer can hope to gain from going into production.

Read on…