Someone showed this video to me ages ago. I have mixed feelings about it. The film has as its core argument that our consumerist lifestyle, fuelled by a linear system of production, is not environmentally sustainable nor ethically justified. This is a world view which, I am lead to believe, is not inaccurate. So of course I would advocate change just like Annie.
However, I wonder about her methods. She uses, it seems, some skewed facts and figures designed to appeal to viewers emotionally, which is possibly justified as long as they are correct. The breast-milk toxicity is one of those statements. There are claims out there that some of her facts a plain lies but in this heavily politicised debate who can you believe. So I suspend judgement, I suppose.
Either way, designers should try to be world savvy, just like the rest of us should, and I am certain that watching videos like this does not achieve that. It does raise the question about how much the designer should be clued up regarding society and science though. More than the average person?
How much clout does a designer have anyway? In the film, Annie says that it was ID'ers that gave us product obselescence, but surely at the behest of manufacturers, right? So, are ID'ers gonna be able to make the changes or is it more likely to come from the manufacturers who employ us. Just like that video before, where Lovegrove whinged about Sony, implies . Maybe those ID'ers that make all the art stuff have some clout, being artists.
This issue of consumerism is pretty closely linked to ID. If we curb consumerism, does that mean that ID shrinks? Less consumer goods means less peeps needed to design them right? Or maybe we keep consumerism and just make it completely sustainable? Is that possible?
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