My mind map for my essay on Maintenance Design – OHD_MDM_0159

After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?

This is a quote from Mierle Laderman Ukeles Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! In the manifesto Ukeles splits the world into two systems: Development (the Death Instinct) and Maintenance (the Life Instinct). Development System is about “pure individual creation; the new; change; progress; advance; excitement; flight or fleeing.” In today’s society we love development; we love a revolution; we love disruption; we love innovation. You can find our love for revolution and the Development System everywhere: in art, design, science, politics etc. It often involves an individual, who is confronted with obstacles or injustice, which they then overcome, and then they are rewarded for their hard work. The Development System is a type of Hero’s Journey. The Development System believes the lone creative myth. The Maintenance System’s role is to “keep the dust off the pure individual creation.” The Maintenance System is what happens after the happily ever after, after the revolution.

In art school I knew exactly what happened after the revolution. At the end of each year the art department would hire four humungous skips, which were filled with the contents of the art studios. I always thought this to be a deeply ironic moment, where a group of avant-garde hippies, the majority of which were vegans would throw away so many resources without a care in the world. Here “pure individual creation” is made and dumped (Ukeles). The structure of a PhD is not that different to a BA in Fine Art. In an art degree you make art, while the aim of the traditional PhD is for you, the individual, to create new knowledge. It is, again, a classic Hero’s Journey and fits perfectly into Ukeles’ Development System. The creation of the art and knowledge is valued above the work required sustain the knowledge or art. I am working on a Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) which is similar in structure to a PhD but with the difference that I am working in collaboration with a non-academic institution. In my case this institution is the National Trust property Seaton Delaval Hall. This collaboration has got me thinking about Ukeles’ question: “After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?” After my CDA, what is going to happen with my work and what is going to happen with my collaboration partner?

While reflecting on these questions I realised I feel a responsibility to not leave the National Trust high and dry when the money runs out. I do not want my project to turn in to a drive-by collaboration. I want it to have legacy. I want my project to live beyond the Development System and the Death Instinct. I believe this to be especially important because I am working on a project in the heritage sector. The heritage sector might be obsessed with death, but in reality Seaton Delaval Hall, the property I am collaborating with, is full with people who are alive. The access to the dead people’s history only exists because of those who are alive are telling their stories. I therefore declare that I must practice:

Maintenance Design!

But how does one achieve Maintenance Design when the structure of the CDA is part of the Development System? I believe the answer lies in how I frame my work and specifically what language I use to describe this framing. I decided to first look at some of the language used in the field of design that I believe reenforces work within Development System. I then will look at how the use of organic and natural metaphors, including the Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the Rhizome, are better in helping designers map complex design situations; supporting them in producing work within the Maintenance System; and allowing designers to achieve good Maintenance Design.

The fuzzy front end is dead, long live the Rhizome

If I was to view my project through the lens of the Development System, I would describe myself as floating about in the “fuzzy front end” trying to tame a “wicked problem”.  Wicked problem is used by designers to describe the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. (Rittel & Webber) The fuzzy front end is used to describe the beginning of the design process and the process of defining this wicked problem. (Smith & Reinertsen) I find that both terms belong in the Development System because they both suggest a finite amount of time. “Front end” suggests the existence of a back end, and “problem” is something that can be defined and therefore is static. (de Mella Freire, p. 91) Yet these terms simultaneously recognise the complexity of design situations through the addition of “fuzzy” and “wicked”. This is no unusual in the field of design. Early on in my masters in Multidisciplinary Innovation I raised my eyebrow at the continuous conveyer belt of toolboxes, methods, and diagrams that all tried to squeeze the design process into a quantifiable amount of time. At the end of my first term, a fellow student sent me a link to a talk by the Pentagram graphic designer, Natascha Jen, titled Design Thinking is Bullsh*t. It resonated with me. Jen was frustrated by the design process being condensed into easy-to-follow steps. She scathingly dubbed it “fast food thinking.” (2018) As a trained designer she was clearly worried by her field of work being squeezed into a sellable product. The words you frequently find in Design Thinking literature and alongside the diagrams Jen is so frustrated remind me of the word Ukeles used to describe the Development system: “The new; change; progress; advance; excitement”. Unlike Jen I do think there is value in some of these diagrams, toolboxes, and methods, but I do struggle with how they confine the “fuzz” to specific amount of time, especially when you consider the value of good and extensive research.

In the paper, Collaborative Problem Solving Through Creativity in Problem Definition: Expanding the Pie, Albert Einstein’s answer to the question “What would you do if you had an hour to save the world?” is used to illustrate the importance of research when trying to solve a complicated problem. Einstein answered the question by saying “I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and then five minutes solving it.” (p. 62) This attitude is not reflected by the diagrams and methods issued by the various design institutions, like IDEO and Stanford’s d.school (fig. 1).  It is also not what I experience during my masters. From what I remember research was often dropped in favour for creating more tangible solutions and deliverables. I imagine that Einstein’s approach would have generated a lot of stress, because we very much operated in Ukeles’ Development system. We were fixated on creating a revolution, not thinking about what would happen after. Erika Hall explains in her book Just Enough Research, why research is often neglected in design projects. Firstly, research means giving up a lot of time and money, and secondly, it means “admitting you don’t have all the answers.” (p. 3) In a world where the myth of the lone creative genius is rife, it is hard to admit that you might not know everything, especially if finding out will take time and money. And sadly, my CDA is structured around time and money.

Let us say that we put aside terms like “fuzzy front end” and “wicked problem”, and all the step-by-step diagrams and methods, what alternative language is there available in the design world? The design theorists Kees Dorst and Nigel Cross discuss how the co-evolution of problems and solutions is key to creativity in the design process. Dorst and Cross write about the time spent defining the problem in a way that does not restrict it to the front end, but has it run throughout the whole design process. (p. 432) In a paper titled, A design-approach to transforming wicked problems into design situations and opportunities, Bailey et al. use the idea of the problem and solution evolving together to demonstrate the transformation of “wicked problems” into “design situations and opportunities” (p. 95). By using words like co-evolution, situation and opportunities instead of problem Dorst and Cross, and Bailey et al. articulate how research is continuous throughout the process of designing and is not restricted to the beginning. In the paper, From strategic planning to the designing of strategies: A change in favor of strategic design, Karine de Mella Freire, from the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos discusses another possible framing of design problems that also does not limit the time for research. De Mella Freire uses the metaphor of design problems being like machines to describe design projects where the terms “fuzzy front end” and “wicked problem” are used. (p. 91) The metaphor of the machine illustrates an enclosed, linear problem that can be easily fixed by replacing or adding a part without there being any consequences to the wider system. As alternative de Mella Freire proposes using more organic and natural metaphors to help illustrate design problems as a network of interconnecting and ever changing things, allowing room uncertainty and dynamic shifts. The language used by de Mella Freireis is similar to the co-evolution of Dorst and Cross, and Bailey et al., however she specifically draws on a post-modern way of thinking. (p. 91) And although she does not directly reference Deleuze and Guattari there are clear similarities behind de Mella Freire’s desire to understand “the world according to the epistemology of complexity”, and Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the Rhizome.

In botany the term “rhizome” is used to refer to an organism’s network of roots and shoots that is mostly found underground. Ginger and turmeric are examples of a rhizome. In philosophy the rhizome was first used as a metaphor by Deleuze and Guattari in their “root” book, A Thousand Plateaus. The rhizome is basically a tool that can be used to help people think about the dynamic interconnection of things. Deleuze and Guattari list six principles that make something a rhizome:

1 and 2. Principles of connection and heterogeneity

“Any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (p. 27). The Rhizome is non-hierarchical. You can be dropped into the rhizome at any point and explore from there. There is no set path. 

3. Principle of multiplicity

“A multiplicity has neither subject nor object, only determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot increase in number without the multiplicity changing in nature.” (p. 28). In order words, actions and change have consequences. For example, if you increase the temperature in the room you feel warmer.

4. Principle of asignifying future

“A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.” (p. 29)

5 and 6. Principle of cartography and decalcomania

“The rhizome is […] a map and not a tracing.” The rhizome was not made from blueprint, it is not a tracing of something that already existed. However, the rhizome can be mapped in order to be better understood. (p. 32)

De Mella Freire’s metaphor of design problems being like machines goes against the principles of the Rhizome. A machine is built from a blue print; it is an enclosed system; if a piece of the machine breaks and is not replaced the machine will stop functioning. However, de Mella Freire encouraging designers to drop ideas around external and internal actors, and focus more on the relationships between actors, is an attitude that fits perfectly into the concept of the Rhizome. (p. 91) The concept of the Rhizome helps me understand the scale of the problem I am dealing with. It allows me to be open to change and new information throughout the project instead of a designated section of time at the beginning. The Rhizome becomes a tool or a mindset that supports me in creating (some) structure in my research, while not becoming completely overwhelmed.

Making maps

In some design literature the act of mapping a network or a rhizome is referred to as “infrastructuring” a design situation. The term “infrastructuring” has its history with information infrastructure which was first introduced by Susan Leigh Star and Karen Ruhleder in their paper, Steps toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces. Star and Ruhleder write about the paradoxical affect technology has on an organisation, “It is both engine and barrier for change; both customizable and rigid; both inside and outside organizational practices.” (p. 111) The reason for this according to Star and Ruhleder is because the unique infrastructure of individual organisation makes it impossible for a technology to completely adapt to the needs of each organisation. In addition, Star and Ruhleder describe how the infrastructure of organisations are not enclosed systems but in fact extend across geographical barriers and the parameters of the group. Individuals within the organisation are often part of the multiple groups and therefore become bridges to other organisations and communities. Because of the rhizomic nature of organisations, Star and Ruhleder emphasises the importance of understanding the infrastructure before you attempt to implement any new technology (or system). Similarities can be drawn between infrastructuring and the fifth and sixth principle of the Rhizome, the principle of cartography and decalcomania, the mapping of the Rhizome. However I believe there is a slight difference in their framing which decides whether the design project falls into the Development or Maintenance System.

I want to illustrate this difference by using a metaphor of a visit to a city. A city has many properties that are like a rhizome: the flow of people, transport systems, culture and identity etc. (Although I do recognise that some parts of the city have been created from blueprints.) Like a rhizome there is no beginning to a city but there are different entry points. If I visit a city, my experience of the city starts at one of these entry points. As I walk through the city I gain information about it, slowly building up my idea of the city. The city is the unmapped rhizome and my path through the city is my map of this rhizome. I believe that the difference between infrastructuring and the concept of the Rhizome is that infrastructuring relies too much on the map, while the concept of the Rhizome understands that the map is only an articulation of a situation at a specific time by a particular person and the city will be different tomorrow. Designing while omitting the fact that the rhizome/situation will change puts you straight into the Development System, because there is a lack of recognition of what will happen once your design has been implemented. In de Mella Freire’s paper, the way she labels that designer’s role in mapping the rhizome or infrastructuring as “problematizer” fits with the concept of the rhizome. According to de Mella Freire the problematizer’s role is to “question the status quo, to discover emergences, indicators of change to the environment, and to develop strategies in support of reorganising the system, in such a way that it adapts and continues to exist.” (p. 91) De Mella Freire identifies that the design must understand the “indicators of change” and create something that “adapts and continues to exist”. The latter in particular is part of the Maintenance System and Maintenance Design because it knows what will happen after the revolution/the end of the design project.

Let’s have hope

In an article titled, Against positivity design, the designer Danah Abdulla discusses how she is against optimism in design, particularly the “performance of positivity.” Optimism is often seen as an essential ingredient in design – there is not such thing as a bad idea. However this “performance of positivity” suppresses criticism. When Natascha Jen voiced her unhappiness with the “fast food thinking” of design thinking diagrams, she specifically highlights the lack of criticism in these diagrams. According to Jen, criticism and the event of the “crit” is essential in her own practice as a designer. Abdulla supports this idea and in her article goes on to describe how this optimism is part of a “culture of convenience” that plagues our capitalist society. Our societies pursuit for convenience makes lazy designers according to Abdulla. I will be the first to admit that the concept of the rhizome is not the easiest and designing via a map of a certain design situation is far more convenient. A map makes it a lot easier to identify and solve various problems and then produce a perfect solution that perfectly fits the situation articulated in the map. But as Star and Ruhleder point out organisations are not enclosed systems, so thinking about them in this way is, in the long run, unproductive.

Abdulla does offer an alternative to this “performance of positivity”. She does not want to kill all optimism but rather switch it for hope. In the article Abdulla quotes the political activist Barbara Ehrenreich from her 2009 book Smile or Die: “Hope is an emotion, a yearning, the experience of which is not entirely within our control. Optimism is a cognitive stance, a conscious expectation, which presumably anyone can develop through practice.” No matter how optimistic we are the rhizome will never fully be mapped. I find that having hope as the accompanying emotion to the Rhizome makes it a little easier to work with it because they are both simultaneously insecure and inspirational. So at the end of our journey we have a rhizome and hope. This is not a lot but it might be a way for me to frame my CDA in a way allows me to think beyond the revolution.

Bibliography

Bailey, M., Chatzakis, E., Spencer, N., Lampitt Adey, K., Sterling, N. and Smith, N., 2019. A design-led approach to transforming wicked problems into design situations and opportunities. Journal of Design, Business & Society, 5(1), pp.95-127

Basadur, M., Pringle, P., Speranzini, G. and Bacot, M., 2000. Collaborative problem solving through creativity in problem definition: Expanding the pie. Creativity and Innovation Management, 9(1), pp.54-76.

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 1988. A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Dorst, K. and Cross, N., 2001. Creativity in the design process: co-evolution of problem–solution. Design studies, 22(5), pp.425-437.

Hall, E. (2013) Just enough research [ebook] New York: A book Apart

Jen, N. (2017) Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is Bullsh*t. 99U Conference June 7 – 9 2017 New York City

Jen, N. (2018) Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is Bullsh*t. Design Indaba Conference February 21 – 23 2018 Cape Town

de Mello Freire, K., 2017. From strategic planning to the designing of strategies: A change in favor of strategic design. strategic Design research Journal, 10(2), pp.91-96.

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M., 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169.

Ruhleder, K. and Star, S.L., 1996. Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research, 7(1), pp.111-134.

Smith, P.G. and Reinertsen, D.G., 1998. Developing products in half the time: new rules, new tools. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold