Difference between revisions of "Imagining Future Crimes"

Revision as of 10:46, 16 May 2014

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

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 



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 invisability, 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