design heresies

Human Interface Guidelines, Design Standards, Universal Design, User Experience, Software Design Patterns – terms like these all refer to official ideas about how the world should look. Some of them have become so established that any diversion from those norms often met with derision. But many of us have started to worry about the state of things when a few large companies start to dictate the Look and Feel of so much of our everyday lives.

This guest lecture series invites a range of thinkers, artists, programmers and designers to present their own visions for a digital culture that might be more humane, diverse and sustainable.

Future Histories with Lizzie O'Shea

When we talk about technology we always talk about the future—which makes it hard to figure out how to get there. In Future Histories, Lizzie O’Shea argues that we need to stop looking forward and start looking backwards. Weaving together histories of computing and social movements with modern theories of the mind, society, and self, O’Shea constructs a “usable past” that help us determine our digital future.

What, she asks, can the Paris Commune tell us about earlier experiments in sharing resources—like the Internet—in common? Can debates over digital access be guided by Tom Paine’s theories of democratic economic redistribution? And how is Elon Musk not a visionary but a throwback to Victorian-era utopians?

About the Book: Future Histories

About: Lizzie O'Shea