The idea of “social design” presents what philosophers have called an “essentially contested concept”: the meaning of “social design” cannot itself be given by a set of empirical or analytic propositions, nor derived straightforwardly from existing definitions. Rather, the meaning of social design is itself up for grabs in normative, practical, and imaginative contest about what it means for design to be “social.” Even more contested is the category of the “social” itself.... more

The overload of thumbnails on the iPhone's interface is not images, it is all applications (apps). Apple claims there is "Apps for Everything"; Apps for Working Out, Apps for Around the House, Apps for Going Out, Apps for Managing Money, Apps for Cooks, Apps for Keeping Current, Apps for the Great Outdoors, Apps for Music, Apps for Students, Apps for Mom and Dads, Apps for Work, Apps for Fun and Games, Apps for Traveling. For now this is where the 'Apps for Everything' range ends although I guess that within a month another segment of life will be ‘apped’ and interfaced.... more

HIGH RISE / DOWN FALL

A project by Johannes Schwartz
Essay by Patrick Healy

In the same series: High Noon ( 2003), High Nature ( 2004), HighLight / HighBold (2005).
High Rise was published on the occasion of the exhibition Now and Again that took place in October 2005 at Pastoe, Utrecht.

Down Fall was published on the occasion of an exhibition that took place later that year, at Marres, Maastricht. Both shows were curated by Guus Beumer e.a.
Copyright (c) 2005 JohannesSchwartz

An Alphabet of Space
The Dutch Pavilion, Hanover
October 2005... more

Text by Farabi Fakih
Source: Karbon Journal, published by ruangrupa
http://www.karbonjournal.org/en/archives/detail.php?ID_focus=4

The 1996 launching of ‘Kota Legenda’ or the ‘City of Legends’ near the
Jakarta – Cikampek toll road might be one significant mark for a new era of Indonesian imaginations. The City of Legends is Indonesia’s first ‘travel town’. The styles of the houses offered are varied and a kitsch: You can buy a house in the style of the American Colonial, Classical Europe, or Japan. This is the promise: the world in your hands, without your having to leave Indonesia. This was also what the Jakarta middle class wanted due to the shifts that they and their country had been experiencing since 1985. Thse shifts created fragmented imaginations about new identities, which in turn would affect the imagination on Indonesia itself.

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