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Access

June 22–28, 2014, Vinalhaven, ME

As designers we influence and design access to the things we make. That is, we build on assumptions about who can and who can’t use, experience or read the spaces and artifacts we design. We might decide, intentionally or not, whether something is visible or not, and whether someone or something is represented or not. Our choice of technology specifies a group of users. Our framing of a brief specifies an audience. Our references specify a culture. But what, then, could open access mean? Umberto Eco famously wrote about an open work in which the author offers the interpreter, the performer, the addressee, a work to be completed. We’ve had open architecture, open design and open source, all suggesting that a participatory design is somehow stronger or more interesting when it is completed by a particular public. Would open access be a completely transparent process to which anyone could contribute? A truly interdisciplinary, public design that refused to exclude?

In this tenth year of DesignInquiry, we are interested in increasing access to the ideas, initiatives, collaborations developed and continued through DesignInquiry. After ten years of rich, intensive exploration of more than ten timely and pertinent topics (including failure, joy, making do, designing less) how do we extend, track and enhance the effects of a these inquiries on design discourse? How do we open up access to the means and methods of design? We encourage participants to bring strategies and tools to share and cross-pollinate. Repeat performers are encouraged to bring projects commenced at DI, continued at DI or inspired by DI, with a view to pushing them to the next step, be it greater access, open access or some kind of organizing axis.

Bring ongoing and newly-minted research projects related with a view to discussing and pursuing the gnarly issues: who we are trying to access and what could open access mean?

View Access Description and Call

The World is Relief
By: Mark Zurolo
GHOST DRAWING-ASSIST TOOL TESTS at the Poor Farm Ghost Room
By: Anita Cooney, Emily Luce, Gail Swanlund
Warped Perspective
By: Anita Cooney, Arzu Ozkal, Ben Van Dyke, Emily Luce, Gail Swanlund, Heidi Cies, Margo Halverson, Nick Liadis, Patrick Gosnell, Peter Hall, Sarah Perrault, Sarah Shoemake
COLLABORATING with GHOSTS to DRAW and WRITE
By: Anita Cooney, Arzu Ozkal, Denise Gonzales Crisp, Emily Luce, Gabrielle Esperdy, Gail Swanlund
Towards a Discipline of Methodological Research and Nonsense
By: Joshua Singer
ACCESS
By: Heidi Cies
Access
By: Mark Zurolo
Access and Inaccessibility
By: Chris Fox
Pain Project
By: Susan Verba
Open/Close: Gates and Urban Access
By: Gabrielle Esperdy
Peekaboo With Envelopes: A Case For Limited Access
By: Anita Cooney
Access To Food
By: Andrew Twigg
Accessing the Future Through Revisiting the Past
By: Steve Bowden
Island A–Z: Public Access
By: Rachele Riley
ACCESS: DENIED
By: Ben Van Dyke, Gary Nickard
Gaining ACCESS Requires An Ability To Read Deeply
By: Sheila Pepe
A Guide to Image-Making Inspired by the Vishnudhamottara
By: Krishna Balaknshnan
Access Not-The-Schedule
By: DesignInquiry
Whole Earth Catalog
By: Sarah Shoemake
The Grassroots Archive
By: Patrick Gosnell
Open Invite
By: Nathan Davis
On the Spot
By: Margo Halverson
Access
By: Peter Hall
Access
By: Nick Liadis
An Invisible, Elastic Net: Of Access and Essaying
By: Josh Unikel
Access
By: Heidi Cies
Gün
By: Arzu Ozkal
ACCESS TO TOOLS and THE LAST WHOLE EARTH CATALOG
By: Gail Swanlund
Access
By: DesignInquiry
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