Imagining Future Crimes

Ilona Gaynor


Ilona Gaynor is a designer and film maker. She is also Director and Founder of London based studio, The Department of No.
Her work continuously draws upon use of image, rhetoric and cinematic tropes, to construct complexly precise plots,
schemes and narrative texts. Using design as a vehicle, the work aims to manipulate, fantasise and drive forward
the invisible, draconian reaches of political, economical and technological progress and their topologies. The various
outcomes presented, often take form as dense hypothetical plot constructions. Narrative schematics, that manoeuvre
between artefact, artifice and representation. 
 www.ilonagaynor.co.uk 



• Plot becomes the role of the designer - narrative plot politics economics tech law, hypothetical plots
• "we're not coming up with an idea for a form and then imposing it through brute force, but twisting the tendencies you already find in the environment"
• Home Alone - if design is the weapon of the weak, a young child is able to outwit 2 adults
• Catch me if u can (frank wiliam abagnale) - symmetry of design - sleight of hand
• Plot, cunning, traps
• Robert Cutler's JFK Shooting Schematic - drawing as assessment, risk assessment, insurance, disaster planning

• Her design of the Dead President of the US - can we design a scenario in which the president of the us is killed by the flag on top of white house? maybe large bald eagles nesting... how to lure him out...

Everything ends in Chaos

• Everything ends in Chaos (2011) - financial profit, calculated trajectories - Hiscox "a's good as our word'" the insurance company getting an insurance company to ask how much they would lose over time - documented through insurance documents. based on the written word. and therein lies the problem. it is a contract for the transfer of RISK. if the bad event happens, the contract is activated. finances affects outcome. the result is between truth and fiction in the end...

Under Black Carpets

• Under Black Carpets (2012) - with things like csi, bio, landscape topographies, forensics is not just about diagnositics, but also PERSUASION. a presentation in a means which is meant to convince. theatrical. performance plays a large role. the project is about trying to rob 5 banks so you can see how it is dealt in the legal system. designing alibis, police perspective, legal advise. if these objects were wheeled into a court..... they are not evidence from the site, but created for the express purpose of creating legal discussion. law firms are now hiring designers to design the things and examine the materials and design of the crime scene. the form is representation of how much money, discourse, juries are not all design experts as well, so when juries assess a judgetment, the designers may be the witness. - the HEIST is between POLICE/CRIMINAL/CIVILIANS

FBI

• NY hard to rob, LA is easier due to landscape
• qn: how would the police react if you tried to rob a bank? how really? - heist specialist. the police also when speaking about the crimes they witness horrifyingly violent scenes that they speak of it in terms of a movie. also how they police have to submit a report - a narrative.
• homespun murder stories.... vs risk interconnection map

Prof. Paul Ekblom - Designing Deviance

Paul Ekblom read psychology at UCL, and spent much of his career in the UK Home Office working nationally
and internationally on crime prevention research, evaluation and knowledge management, crime futures, arms
races and design. In 2005 he moved to Central Saint Martins to join the Design Against Crime Research Centre
where he continues to explore these areas. Paul has developed an array of conceptual frameworks to help
designers 'think thief' in anticipating crime risks to their products, and crime prevention practitioners
to 'draw on design' processes in their work.
 www.designagainstcrime.com/team/prof-paul-ekblom/ 



• every design is a bet on the future - crime science! everytime you do it you wonder will it be used as intended, will it be involved in crime? abused as unintended?

Design Against Crime

• panoply of things you can design: secure products, securitu products, components, furniture, etc....
• old stuff eg pocket watches could be snapped so it was redesigned - vexed generation puma bike has a cable which forms its lock but also part of bike so snapping it makes bike unusable.
• noisy velcro and things which require two hands to open
• lo tech locks

challenges of designing against crime

• are there design trade offs - inconvenient? user unfriendly? privacy threat? environmentally unfriendly? unsafe? cost? hideous? clunky engineering? FRIGHTENING?
• antiterrorism doesn't have to be scary. (arsenal large words in front of stadium to prevent trucks runnning int)
• DAC doesn't have to cost more (river uck sign - just take away the space in front of the UCK to avoid graffiti.
• ( why did black penny stamp turn red? cos industrial production not so good so red ink not indelible and people would wash them so they printed red stamps which washed off and could be canceled with black ink.
• offenders fight back - with tactical countermoves, reverse engineering, counterdesign, counter-exploitation - eg: how to pick locks, car dent puller used to remove windows, in the past car code beepers not so complex and used fixed code. so people who had casio watches which could store beeper keys (for tv) could also store car keys and use it (after going to bmw showroom)
• ATM design
• evolution of evolvability - script kiddies / 3d printers (ok anyone who says 3d printer and gun in the same breath does not know what is 3d printing)
• red queen
• developing a dirty mind about crime. dont go over the top. avoid paranoid products.
• DD: ok it sounds like he is applying fault tree analysis to design. don't we all.
• Risk and proective factors for misappropriation - Hot products
• ok this guy might be boring or longwinded but his laundry lists of crime prevention principles are useful for brainstorming a plot i guess

capturing the dynamics of criminal events - scripts

• drawing up the cognitive script. what is the MO
• script clashes - some offender and preventer roles have conflicting goals, causing tactical script clashes - surveil v conceal, exclude v permit, trape c elude, pursue v escape, etc
• roles - civil v crime specific

crime futures

• crime threat, crime prevention opportunites
• anticipation has its limits (eg topboxes were priced low by company so no point trying to convince them to make it secure cos company hoped to make money on subscription instead)

TRIZ

TRIZ is "a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, beginning in 1946. In English the name is typically rendered as "the theory of inventive problem solving", and occasionally goes by the English acronym TIPS.

Following Altshuller's insight, the theory developed on a foundation of extensive research covering hundreds of thousands of inventions across many different fields to produce a theory which defines generalisable patterns in the nature of inventive solutions and the distinguishing characteristics of the problems that these inventions have overcome. An important part of the theory has been devoted to revealing patterns of evolution and one of the objectives which has been pursued by leading practitioners of TRIZ has been the development of an algorithmic approach to the invention of new systems, and the refinement of existing ones.

The theory includes a practical methodology, tool sets, a knowledge base, and model-based technology for generating new ideas and solutions for problem solving. It is intended for application in problem formulation, system analysis, failure analysis, and patterns of system evolution.

Thomas Thwaites


Is a designer (of a more speculative sort), interested in technology, science and futures research, as well
as communicating complex subjects in engaging ways. He graduated from the Royal College of Art Design 
Interactions MA in 2009, and have since undertaken a number of commissioned projects, including work on 
social trends, futures forecasting, biotechnology, the history and philosophy of science and bicycles.
 www.thomasthwaites.com 



• Future Crime Design - games designing crime scenarios

Forensic palynology

• Forensic palynology: Two pollen grains of a high mallow flower are attached to a bumblebee's leg (Forensic palynology is the study of pollen and powdered minerals, their identification, and where and when they occur, to ascertain that a body or other object was in a certain place at a certain time.)
• Science Illustrated: Grains of truth: Why pollen is the new hero of forensics
• Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser [2004] - "Thus a farmer whose field contains seed or plants originating from seed spilled into them, or blown as seed, in swaths from a neighbour's land or even growing from germination by pollen carried into his field from elsewhere by insects, birds, or by the wind, may own the seed or plants on his land even if he did not set about to plant them. He does not, however, own the right to the use of the patented gene, or of the seed or plant containing the patented gene or cell."
• DARPA tobacco flu vaccine - http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-flu-vaccine/25966/ - grand designs by govts
• Glowing Plants - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts - http://www.glowingplant.com/ - "The Glowing Plant project was the first crowdfunding campaign for a synthetic biology application. The project was started by the San Francisco-based hackerspace Biocurious as part of the DIYbio philosophy. According to the project's goals, funds will be used to create a glowing Arabidopsis thaliana plant, though long-term ambitions include the development of glowing trees that can be used to replace street lights, reducing CO2 emissions by not requiring electricity."
• in the light of the previous few genetic dna printing plant examples, he was interested in how crimes occur in this field - intellectual property, paten laws
• Dual use problem - all tech used for good can be used for evil

Beekeeping unit

• Synthetically modified pollen which bees pick up
• waggle dance picked up and decoded
• possibility: HORTICULTURE IS PROTECTED BY FORENSIC PALYNOLOGIC TECHNOLOGY (POLICE HIVES!)

Owen Wells


Owens projects place objects as central figures within speculative narratives, viewing design as a means to
explore, experiment, and define larger systems. To him design becomes a medium to facilitate, document or 
critique systems that are often rendered intangible by their invisibility, scale or complexity. His project
 "Who Owns The Arctic" was awarded 1st place in the 2013 Think Space Territories competition. He is a 
recent graduate from the Design Interactions Department.
 www.owenwells.co.uk

Who owns the arctic

• based on global trends 2030 alternative worlds document imagining what the world will be like in 2030 - in story form - PDF: http://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf
• one compelling way to show crime is through films. eg logan's run 1976, gattaca gene therapy to avoid disease if you have money.
• crime is used to narrate the entire system - the moral codes of the world, exposing and subverting the fallacies....
• Border Crossings - individuals crossing borders (biological, physical). all crime is about borders. (in that sense, murder = negotiating someone's passage across the border of morality)
• the arctic is highly strategic and more so because of climate change - sea ice will melt and new routes for shipping will open up
• lately the arctic has been seeing a flurry of activity because there is loads of minerals and oil under the ice
• faultlines: battle for the arctic - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMAZJ6EgC4c
• ARCTIC RESOURCES.... who owns the arctic?
• DD: what a very interesting view! to see it from the top.... the arctic countrhes joining the top of us and russia and europe??!?! never thought it that way cos we think that things are oriented up in a way but i dont think that the tops all connect! coming from someone on equator i suppose
• smuggling route / environmental disater / crab rustling
• visualing scenes of crime / what level of technical proficiency will poeple have to construct instruments or tools