This year, what is left of it, my aim will be to take the first step for a long-term project on the transformative potential of ‘participatory street-up innovation’ (e.g., the innovative ways people are adapting the use of a product to their needs and way of working).
I added the term ‘participatory’ to street-up innovation because when people start to share their experiences with products these stories would show (part of) the material circumstances of an individual. Sharing a personal experience will show alternatives to deal with material circumstances. And although the line between a personal issue with products and a public issue may be subjective, when a large enough part of society is affected by an issue, it becomes a public issue. In this way people could become aware of new material (and social?) circumstances and its alternatives ways of dealing with it. At least that’s my hypothesis on participatory street-up innovation.
There are two elements that fascinate me in the concept of participatory street-up innovation; first whether an individual story, about a personal experience with products in this case, possesses a trans-formative potential from an individual story to the public sphere and second how an alternative way of dealing with products can give meaning to a social issue? If a transformative potential in street-up innovation exists, by transforming an individual story into a meaningful approach to address a social issue, artists and designers can use this transformative potential to co-create long-term strong concepts to support committed work of thought carried out by the public?
Next: What are material circumstances, what is the relation between material circumstances and the use of products and why is dealing with material circumstances important?
Karin – Filterdesign & University of Applied Science Amsterdam
Art, Design and Research 