The most important thing that society has to learn in the future is thinking in long term. The effect of this thinking is of course acting in a certain way that will be more sustainable. This can now be achieved by giving people an incentive to act sustainable, but this is a shortcut to the intended behavior because humanity has to evolve and deeply realize that we can not go on with the way of living we do today. I want to educate people about this in a playful way whilst also directly having a positive impact on the climate.

 

If we look at past civilizations we see that they could start developing their culture and technology once they had created a safe and stable subsistence. For many parts of the world this is not a problem anymore and I believe that in order to develop further we have to do the exact opposite of what our ancestors have been doing, meaning we should not try to indulge ourselves in food and other means of subsistence but rather create humane technologies that help us get a grip on our consumption of food or information. This means we have to learn about and act in an anti-consumerism way which is of course very difficult to incorporate in a system where value is seen as the ability of a product or service to create money preferably in the short term. Humane technology for me also means that we have to look at humans not as an interchangeable commodified blocks of energy but rather acknowledge that they have hopes, fears, personalities and many other unique aspects (also known as Kansei) that can be used to design products or services that are much more pleasant to use.

 

Entertainment and edutainment is becoming more important in this information society and I think digital means have many benefits, because it is very fast and does not use as many resources. Even though the basis of our existence is grounded in the physical and not digital world I do think that we need to change our mindset about which products are actually necessary and which are not. I want to develop a more sustainable mindset in people and teach them that often we don’t need to buy more stuff but we could rather spend our money on experiences or use products without owning them. Adam Smith’s ideas changed the world of production and brought us cheap products but the price we pay for this is that there is no ‘’soul’’ in most of the products. What I realized in japan when I made my own pottery was that drinking from this (for other people utterly normal) cup gives me a type of satisfaction that I can not buy anywhere in a shop. And I hope that by teaching people design thinking and hands on skills they will change the way they values things.

 

Marcus Aurelius put this very well when he said ‘’ They have not learn to know the manifold significance of theft, of sowing, of buying, resting, seeing what ought to be done. This depends not on the bodily eye but on another kind of vision.’’

 

My goal is to design tools or ‘’glasses’’ that people can wear in order to see this ‘’other kind of vision’’ but eventually they have to take them off and learn to see this perspective for themselves.