Experiment: links to inspiring work, published at irregular intervals.
Studying up
If anthropology were reinvented to study up we would sooner or later need to study down as well. We aren’t dealing with an either/or proposition; we need simply to realize when it is useful or crucial in terms of the problem to extend the domain of study up, down, or sideways. […] We have as anthropologists studied the cultures of the world to find in the end that ours is one of the most bizarre of all cultures […].
Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives Gained From Studying Up by Laura Nader (1972) (via Counting Up: Designing Agonistic Data Collection in the Court Room by Anh-Ton Tran and Carl Disalvo at DIS ’24)
Waterworks
Although money plays a key role in our lives, the workings of our monetary system are a mystery to most of us. […] In an attempt to change this, Carlijn Kingma [‘cartographer of society’], Thomas Bollen and Martijn Jeroen van der Linden have made the world of money accessible through metaphors and architectural drawings.
Waterworks of Money by Carlijn Kingma, Thomas Bollen and Martijn Jeroen van der Linden + Animated explainers: Waterwerk, Follow The Money [Dutch] + Film: De Wereld van Carlijn (2024) [Dutch]
Design bookkeeping
Entries into our design bookkeeping ledgers aim to bring insight into the messy work that takes place to produce a polished exhibition piece.
Design Bookkeeping: Making Practice Intelligible through a Managerial Lens by Elizabeth Meiklejohn, Laura Devendorf, and Irene Posch at DIS ’24
Il Campionato Mondiale di Umari
Il Campionato Mondiale di Umari encouraged participants from around the world to seek out a construction site, and to find time to observe it, and to put their observations onto paper.
The Winners of the 2024 Campionato Mondiale di Umari by Spencer Wright in Scope of Work (2024)
Cloud atlas
A cloud atlas is a visual depiction of various types of clouds accompanied by their classification and nomenclature. Cloud atlases were primarily developed starting in the 19th century and utilised for training weather forecasters and meteorologists.
“One Can No Longer Distinguish the Sun’s Outline”: Atlas of Clouds and of States of the Sky (1930) by Fosco Lucarelli in SOCKS (2024)
Eenvoudig
Het actieprogramma ‘Huh? Wat bedoelt u?’. Het doel van het programma: om ‘heel Nederland eenvoudig’ te maken. Dat doet het programma door gemeenten, organisaties in het sociaal domein en woningcorporaties te helpen met het eenvoudig maken van hun dienstverlening, processen en communicatie. […] Gemeenten openen op straat meldpunten voor onbegrijpelijke zaken […] Dat mensen weleens iets niet begrijpen moet normaal worden […].
Welbeschouwd door Pieter Verbeek in Publiek denken (2024) [Dutch]
