ElectroSmog: Sustainable Immobility

ElectroSmog International Design Competition – ElectroBlog: News about the ElectroSmog Festival:

Today we issued the call for the international design competition for sustainable immobility. We invite young designers, artists and other interested professionals and advanced students in design and art disciplines to submit proposals for designs for ’sustainable immobility’.

ElectroSmog is a new festival that revolves around the concept Sustainable Immobility. The festival will introduce and explore this concept in theory and practice. With Sustainable Immobility we refer to a critique of current systems of hyper mobility of people and products in travel and transport, and their ecological unsustainability.

The exploration of Sustainable Immobility is a quest for a more sustainable life style, which is less determined by speed and constant mobility. A lifestyle that celebrates stronger links to local cultures, while at the same time deepening our connections to others across any geographical divide, using new communication technologies instead of physical travel.

The Mobile Misuse Manifesto (early draft outline)

(a work in process on the design and development of interactive technologies)

"We drive into the future using only our rear view mirror."
- Marshall McLuhan, 1967

Manifesto Section 1

1. Choosing to be “lost” or “disconnected” is an option.
2. Time is finite, whatever is implemented must be worth the value of the time invested. (development & use)
3. The planet is finite, whatever we develop or buy reduces it.
4. Whatever device we say “Yes” to means “No” to something else in our lives.
5. Disappointment is intrinsic in our experience of new technologies.
6. The malfunction and arrogance of constantly changing technologies must not be overlooked.
7. Technology may be inevitable, but our use of it is not.
8. Refusal is an option.
9. Failure as an option.

Subset A

1. If you build it, they might not come.
2. If you build it, they might come and then leave.
3. If you build it, they might all come and overwhelm the system.
4. If you build it, it will be obsolete in a matter of months, weeks, days, or minutes.
5. If you build it, you will have to build it again and again and again.
6. If you build it, someone else may have already done it (and better).

(feedback appreciated)