Fixing the Future team member Violet Owen attended the IASDR conference in Milan from 9th-13th October 2023. IASDR is an international, non-governmental, non-profit-making, charitable organisation, and is comprised of member societies of design research from around the world. The purpose of the Association is to promote research or study into or about the activity of design in all its many fields of application, through encouraging collaboration on an international level between independent societies of design research.
Violet presented the paper “Fixing the Future: Cultivating a capacity to repair IoT devices through experiential futures” authored by Matt Pilling, Mike Stead and Paul Coulton, Lancaster University and Tom Macpherson-Pope, the Making Rooms, Blackburn. The presentation was part of the Mobile and Pervasive Interaction track, chaired by Panos Markopoulos, Eindhoven University of Technology.
The conference was incredibly vibrant and brought together a large international crowd of design experts. The track was well attended and there was lots of interest in the work that Fixing the Future is conducting. The presentation introduces the “big problem” Fixing the Future is addressing, namely that as the global consumption of electronic devices continues to grow, so too does the volume of electronic waste (e-waste) that reaches landfill sites, which by 2030, is expected to reach 74.7M tonnes worldwide. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that across Europe less than 40% of e-waste is subject to sustainable recovery, which is further reinforced by the planned obsolescence of devices. An increasing amount of e-waste can be characterised as so-called ‘smart’ Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
(Photo credit: REUTERS/Regis Duvignau).
In order to address these systemic issues we have engaged in research working with industry and community stakeholders to explore their perceptions and behaviours relating to electronic devices, and are in the process of developing a new interactive physical-digital experience on an existing mobile experiential research platform (Future Mundane), creating an immersive experience that demystifies repair processes, to encourage the development of repair cultures to reduce the production of IoT e-waste.
The full paper is available here: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/iasdr/iasdr2023/fullpapers/168/
The ADI Design Museum, Milan: IASDR social dinner (photo credit Violet Owen). As well as the presentations and workshops during the day there were also evening events including keynotes from Lucy Kimble, Ambra Trotto and Paul Hekkert, a traditional Italian Aperitivo event, networking drinks and a social dinner.
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