The Futures Archive S2E6: The Bug Zapper

Note: This episode addresses subjects particularly sensitive in mild of this week’s faculty capturing in Texas. While Design Observer has never shied away from troublesome conversations, the editors acknowledge that this content material may be tough for some listeners. Content Warning: Violence, killing, and death are discussed on this episode. It would be exhausting to seek out someone who desires to share house with a backyard mosquito control. Hence, the creation of the bug zapper. But as designers, how do we tackle what lives and what doesn’t? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sloan Leo go deep on how human-centered design doesn’t all the time reflect humanity. With further insights from David MacNeal, Juliano Morimoto, Spee Kosloff, Paula Antonelli, and Lindsay Garcia. There is a necessity for people to exert their authority, but there can also be a need for backyard mosquito control us to exert our love. The factor that I hope we hold space for is: That is all observe as a result of it’s not going to be resolved, and it shouldn’t be.



That would create some type of stagnancy. Life is actually about holding house for dynamism, changes and cycles. Lee Moreau is President of Other Tomorrows, a design and innovation consultancy based mostly in Boston, and a Professor of Practice in Design at Northeastern University. Sloan Leo (they/he) is a Community Design theorist, educator, and practitioner. They're the founding father of FLOX Studio, a group design and technique studio. David MacNeal is a author and the creator of Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessed with Them. Dr. Juliano Morimoto is an entomologist and lecturer on the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Spee Kosloff is an affiliate professor of psychology at California State University in Fresno and co-author of "Killing Begets Killing: Evidence From a Bug-Killing Paradigm That Initial Killing Fuels Subsequent Killing". Paola Antonelli is an creator, architect, and the Senior Curator within the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA’s founding director of Research and Development.



Lindsay Garcia is an artist, scholar, and an assistant dean at Brown University. Kathleen Fu created the illustrations for each episode. An enormous due to this season’s sponsor, Automattic. Hi, everyone, that is Lee. Every week is a little bit completely different on this show. And this week, while we’re nonetheless speaking about design, we’re going to be speaking about some pretty severe issues. And so I want to ensure that everybody who’s listening is conscious of that's in an excellent place when they’re listening. And i encourage you to test our show notes previous to listening to the episode so that you perceive the context of what we’re talking about and prepare ourselves a bit. Beyond that, I welcome you to the dialog and i hope you find this dialog as highly effective as it was for us. And that i thank you for listening. Welcome to The Futures Archive, a show about human centered design the place this season, we’ll take an object, search for the human at the center and keep asking questions.



… and I am Sloan Leo. On every episode we’re going to start out with an object with power. Today the object is the bug zapper. We’ll look on the historical past of that object from our perspective, as designers who’ve achieved work in human centered design. Not simply how it seems and feels and sounds and smells, but also the connection between that object and the people it was designed for… … and with different people too. The Futures Archive is dropped at you by the design workforce at Automattic. Later on, we’ll hear from Vanessa Riley Thurman, a member of Automattic’s Designer Experience Team. Sloan Leo, it’s wonderful to see you again. Thanks for joining us. Lee, it is a thrill to be right here. So I’m wondering-for this explicit episode, I’m wondering if you would inform me a little bit bit about your historical past as a baby with bugs and insects. Where you this form of like, like kid that like cherished the creepy crawly stuff?