Henk Oosterling spoke about an emerging tendency he called 'relational design'. Photo: Maeve Stam.
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“Creativity is moving out of the designer’s inner world and into the space between disciplines and between the producer and the consumer,” Professor Henk Oosterling argued in his Premsela Lecture on 1 April 2009. Oosterling described a new tendency and ethic he called ‘relational design’, which is concerned with relationships more than with individuality. He suggested this would be the way to move beyond the problems of excessive consumerism and individualism.
Design is how we deal with the arbitrariness of Dasein, our existence in the world, Oosterling argued. Today, we live in a mediated sphere, always connected to each other. How we design the space between us is important.
As awareness of being part of a greater whole have increased, signs of relational design have manifested themselves. He cited socially concerned architecture and urban planning, open-source software, and media systems that work between users, such as Facebook and BitTorrent.
Relational design, he said in his conclusion, “prescribes nothing but appeals to a consciousness that derives its coherence from another consciousness: an aesthetic, ethical and political one.” Throwaway culture must make way for ecopolitical design if humans are to properly live together.
The sold-out lecture took place at Amsterdam’s Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen. Attendees could take home free copies of the
Groene Amsterdammer
including a shortened version of the lecture.
Oosterling is a professor of philosophy at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and director of its Centre for Philosophy & Arts. He is also chairman of the Dutch Aesthetics Federation. He has initiated various cultural and social projects, including the urban development project Pakt op Zuid. He received the Laurenspenning 2008 for services to the city of Rotterdam.
Photo: Maeve Stam.
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Once a year, Premsela invites an ‘outsider’ to share his or her vision of current developments in design before an audience. Each Premsela Lecture aims to spark discussion and debate. 2009 marked the lecture series’ five-year anniversary. Past speakers have been Józef Mrozek, Ann Meskens, Werner Sewing and Michael Rock.
