Session 03 – Positioning

In order to express ones thoughts and share them with others, it makes sense to write them down, to bring them onto paper. If we look back in history, this has happened many times. The format of a manifesto seems to be a valid format when it comes to communicating new ideas and opinions. In the following text I want to specifically look into a manifesto, which I found in my research, but of course mention my own reflections, based on three questions, which could eventually lead to my own manifesto about myself.

Manifestos of the past centuries and their relevance in the present

The Futurist Manifesto

The Futurist Manifesto was published in 1909 in the magazine figaro in Italy. It was written by Filippo Tommaso Martinetti an Italian poet, editor, art theorist. The text calls for the celebration of speed and danger, admires violence and war and denies anything old. In the ending passages of the manifesto he writes: “

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

The statement delivered a base for the same called art movement but also was incorporated in the Italian fascism movement after WWII, lead by Mussolini.

Although, Martinetti’s ideas have many dark and violent sides, I must say I kind of agree with some points of his statement. It is right, that we shouldn’t take old things for granted. We should always rethink our structures we are situated in and change them in order to move forward. Nevertheless, it is very important to also look back and learn from what has been done in the past with the purpose of not doing wrong decisions again (like for example fascism in my point of view). This is something that is for me personally a crucial point, that is not mentioned in the futurist manifesto.

A very valid point, which also applies to our nowadays society to some extend, is the critique that people do not feel value and the “fire” of their lives anymore. Martinetti tries to revoke this with war and violence on one hand, but also through technology. This is a very interesting thought which never crossed my mind before. But since we’re living in a even more technologized world nowadays, such an approach to experience the “fire” of life, through exploitation of technologies that drives us to our limits.

My Personal Positioning

In order to find our own position, we were asked three questions, which we had to answer within about 10 Minutes. For every question, I want to just paste in the exact text I wrote in this short amount of time. After every section I will make a short statement or elaborate on it.

Question 1: Who are you?

I am a pretty specific arrangement a Atoms, situated in very specific spatial circumstances, My formation was created about 22 years ago, a variable, that is defined by our species which defines our feeling of duration.
What makes me individual to others of my kind is at one hand my visual appearance, but also the flow of energy in my atomic arrangement, the so called body. This energy flow decides on how I act in my environment and interact with others.

With this short text I tried to explain who I am, without taking things and circumstances for granted, because this one of my basic principles. I really tried to describe how I see the reason of my existence in the world or even the universe. Why do I even exist? What and why are (my) thoughts?

Question 2: What is your Ambition as a Designer?

Because I knew that this question is not possible to answer with a text (with word after another word) I created a MindMap which enabled me to think about it in more than just a one dimensional, linear way.

Since for me the description of a designer is very broad (after two years of studying design), I tried to not only to comment on the design discipline itself, but rather how I see myself in the future and what drives me to get there. After doing this task and hearing others commenting their findings in the round, I once again realised that I am pretty satisfied with where I am standing at right now and what I study.

Concerning my future “design” career I asked myself what my ambition is in the projects I want to do. The first thing I wrote is “having fun”. I think it is very clear to me, that being a designer cannot be a nine to five job. Thats why it is very important to do jobs, that makes fun (but of course also finances my life to a certain extend).

I think everybody’s ambition is to create something with impact, but I really tried to figure out what this means to me. Is it only to get acknowledgement from people? This i’m still not really sure about myself. What I’m pretty certain is, that I cannot do things only for myself. Projects need to be in connection with people, is it in the process (working in a team) or in the usage of the design.

A crucial thing about myself is the aim for experience and knowledge. I would describe myself an observer and explorer, who always tries to find new ways, recombination of things in order to create something new. This is for sure something I never want to loose in my life.

Question/Task 3: Pick a topic, where you can say something, that no one ever has heard before

My topic/thoughts:

Why is there no graveyard for digital data?
We people own digital data as if it is real objects (which they basically are, but we perceive them differently). But what happens to our personal belongings in the digital space? Obviously if one has a hard drive with stored data on it, other people can read it. But especially in a time of security and privacy, data access gets more and more restricted to the owners.
Since death is (mostly) a unpredictable event, many people do not define what happens with their belongings after and if they do, they do not care about the digital space.

This is a topic, that crossed my mind several times the last few months, when I was moving to a new flat and needed to change the addresses in various digital platforms (bank accounts, insurances etc). At the same time, I try to figure out the best way to organise my data on my hard drives and passwords. So far, I’ve never heard of this combination of a inheritance in digital space.