January 21, 2021

Inconveniencing

(Conveniencing)

“The technologies of convenience are making our sphere of exploration and experience smaller.”

Robert Englund

At lunch with my friend Amy, I speculated that one day it will seem barbaric that chlorine bleach can be bought at any 7-11 or grocery store. How is it that such a potent chemical is unregulated despite the fact that all of it ends up in our soil and water eventually. My friend replied, “but people don’t know how to use bleach” implying that it’s not the substance but rather knowledge about proper use that counts. Is there a safe quantity of bleach in the environment? Should it really be easier to buy than cigarettes? Chlorine bleach is designed to be distributed in convenient 1 gallon plastic household containers. Is this packaging and distribution design in the interest of the greater Good? As our conversation drifted onto other chemicals and the environment, she remarked that Round Up, the controversial weed killer that has received such intense criticism is itself not so toxic - “…it’s the surfactants it contains, not the herbicide in it that kill fish.” Although one might argue that both components contribute to environmental imbalances, her point was well taken. It’s easy to generalize without understanding all the properties and factors that bring about various results. And it’s important to develop the habit of looking with fresh eyes to see opportunities within what appear to be straightforward problems calling for straightforward solutions. I ordered the Caesar salad with chicken while my friend chose the vegetarian quesadilla.

Because design is an instrumental art it is an embedded feature of any creative initiative. This embedded characteristic of design means that design is optimally positioned or always already “baked in” in all contexts. This gives design an edge for working from within systems, to effect changes in organizational culture or working from outside a system as a disruptor in contexts that matter. As a trojan horse design is fortuitously situated to help develop new strategies for engaging and re-purposing existing systems and channels within any system.

7-Eleven is the quintessential example of the modern impulse to commoditize and rationalize the distribution of anything, including time, by means of convenience. Part of these just in time servicization trend that is such a feature of postmodernity, 7-Eleven instantiates speed, availability, and affordability, embedding these values into the physical fabric of our cities and into our moment to moment awareness on Him usevery other street corner. Convenience, as one of the highest values of modernity is gaining value around the world in the dynamic interplay between globalization and the forces of human evolution. Globally, as ever more individuals come to resonate with the values of modern society including freedom and independence and the capacity to better themselves and to succeed based on their own merits, convenience will continue to be embedded in our success narratives and our built environment.

Taiwan has an abundance of 24-hour convenience stores such as 7-11 and local rival Family Mart, which in addition to the usual defuturing stuff, provide services on behalf of financial institutions or government agencies such as collection of parking fees, utility bills, traffic violation fines, credit card payments, even package delivery. The 7-11 model, delivering Modern convenience and speed at a premium, is wildly successful in this heavily blueORANGE society, as evidenced by the presence of convenience stores at virtually every corner. Our team had identified 7-11 as an ideal sustainability awareness partner, its distribution well situated to deploy alternative quality lifestyle choices and information for consumers and, we had hoped, having a shared interest in lower-material-impact futures.

Even though the value of convenience is on the ascendancy in absolute terms around the world, the developed world exhibits an increasing listening for inconvenient truths, inconvenient commutes, inconvenient conversations, inconvenient practices and existentially inconvienient inquiries. What if opportunities for inconvenience were available on every street corner? What if the cutting-edge supply chain tuning and just-in-time distribution systems of a transnational convenience store could be leveraged for the cultivation of life affirming daily acts of compassion? What if opportunities to get centered were as plentiful as the opportunities to grab a Big Gulp?

The experience of a perfectly ripe organic peach is a sublime pleasure bordering on the erotic. A perfect confluence between my mouth, my spatial location, the season and a particular moment in time. As many authors have noted, exotic foods flown from faraway locations are no match for the overall embodied aesthetics, taste, and nutritional value of local foods. That unripe peach in the grocery store, bred to transport and present well cannot compare. Ripening is something that happens in its own time. Outside of clock time. It can’t be hastened or planned for. Putting that unripe peach in the microwave merely agitates its molecules — cooking it rather than ripening it.

Conscious designers may choose to work in Trojan horse fashion, within the embedded infrastructures of convenience, examples of which are all around us in a globalized world of vertically integrated big-box outlets. Alternately, many conscious change initiatives are organized around providing compelling alternatives to the late modern logics of capital such as brand recognition, accessibility, speedy fulfillment and consistency. The most obvious example is perhaps The slow food movement which has had a growing global impact far beyond the food activist community organizations including Michael Pollan’s work the Locavore, local food networks, safety and protection of our soil and water and extending into the design world in the form of the craft and artisanal food movements and slow lifestyles movements.

Postmodern design practices render - both in form and in social pattern - our basic human drives for acceptance and survival.  Because we practice these forms and patterns repeatedly in the decisive space of the every day,  they gain the dubious legitimacy of the obvious.  What is less evident perhaps is that these familiar ways that we enact our  human needs were once design propositions that we accepted and incorporated into our lives.  Imagine the enormous potential for designing not in service of convenience, speed, and frictionless interaction but rather in service of an altogether different expression of our basic survival needs.  Meaningful expressions could add texture and vividness to living while enhancing rather than deterring from our capacity to thrive in community.  <Affording - Constraining>

In all likelihood, the future will inconvenience us. Our convenient times demand inconvenient designed responses. Al Gore chose the term “Inconvenient Truth” to highlight that this evolutionary revolution will not be convenient. It will inconvenience us in ways that radically shift our sense of self and other and our place in the world. It will inconvenience us in ways that radically shift our horizons of possibility for designing. Inconvenient designing may re-wild us, reacquainting us with our diurnal, animal nature. Inconvenient designing will extend the ideals of the slow food and slow design movements, trading locally sourced goods and locally forged relationships for just-in-time, same-day Amazon Prime delivery. Inconvenient designing will take us out of our way, on an adventure of being embedded in our own lives. Inconvenient designing will trade simultaneity and multitasking for slowing down, making time and being vested in time. Inconvenient design is a trans-generational gift from the present to the future. <Grounding - Ungrounding>

 

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