Slow Times…

Being modern has long been associated with speed. In the 1920s the leader of the Futurist’s art movement, Marinetti, asked his fellow Italians to stop eating pasta as it would slow them down. Later, Le Corbusier would comment that a modern city was a city built for speed.

Latterly, the architect/theorist Paul Virilio has written about ‘Dromotology’ which, rudimentarily, is the study of speed. Part of his investigation is the differences between the digital and analogue world – the digital is screen-centred whilst the analogue is more analogous to a human, or natural, 24 hr cycle. We were reminded of Virilio’s distinction when someone, who was going away for a long weekend, recently told us she had Googled ‘cheap places to eat in Athens.’ Google returned over 1000 suggestions in a second. ‘But I am only going for the weekend’ she bemoaned. This is a dilemma we increasingly face everyday – the instancy of digital screen-based time changes the way we experience the world. This is information at such a velocity, exacerbated by a lack of filtering or reflection, that we loose our more fragile, day-to-day, bodily experience; which helps us make sense of things and is so often lost in navigating the digital world.

One reaction to this process of speeding up is slowing down. A slow food movement began nearly 20 years ago in Italy as a reaction against speed and the accompanying globalization which follows (Virilio sees that one effect of speed is geographical contraction). This movement has spread across Europe and has influenced other areas – we now have slow architecture too.

How, if at all, does this manifest in design – a profession now synonymous with screen-based culture?

Ironically, it was whilst surfing the net that we came across one possible example of ‘slow design’…Post Secrets.com is a site which asks you to give up your secrets to be posted on the site. The idea is not a new one as there are many confessional sites with varying amounts of vitriol. What struck us as key to the way the site engages you was the way you submitted your secrets. Rather than the instancy of traditional digital blogs (which lend themselves to a more instant outlet of emotion “xxx is a shit” etc.), you are asked to produce a card, 6”x 4”, and to post it in. Only then is it scanned and posted on the site. Here, we see a blending time, where the digital is counter-balanced with the temporal/analogue requirements of producing the card. It is the act of ‘design’, here, which makes this a reflective, rather than a reactive or instant response “click here”.

Is there, in this, an embryonic notion of slow design? We would like to propose this blog as a platform to create a manifesto of sorts…

Proclamation one…

22 comments

This is an excellent idea. Charles Eames when asked /what are the boundaries of design? replied / What are the boundaries of problems?/. This challanging position is often forgotten, especially in graphic design. I think the first proclamation should be - does it really need doing?

/Joe D 10/06/2005

We have many slow food type restaurants and cafes here - and the funny thing is, more often then not, they are fall of “creative’s“ staring at laptop screens which might be another irony; slow cafes with wifi? We need to be careful not to think slowing down is a road to creativity - joe schmo sitting in his TV chair missing his mouth with his TV dinner spoon - is not the road to design manna but you are right to ask for a recalibration of time/design/creativity. We need to look beyond the simple hand-made, slow is thinking/politics and can be easily misaligned with some extreme, or plain dumb, notions of back to nature cults/nuts. A manifesto? Tactile over projectile – always!

/Katy 11/06/2005

An interesting study of the effects of speed, specifically slowness, on the design process (and life in general) can be seen at . Entitled Take Your Time, it is John Casserta’s Yale MFA thesis.

/Mike Gallagher 16/06/2005

Hmm, that didn’t seem to come across quite right. The url should be www.johncaserta.com/yale/. Sorry about the mess.

/Mike Gallagher 16/06/2005

Read the link above. Interesting point that technology should add detail and complexity. That might slow things down. If it’s fit for purpose. Complex sites just put you off. But some can make you think -how do we use technology to do that? To think we have to get back onto the tactile world seems like going backwards. Slow doesn’t have to mean you end up actually stopping and going backwards. Katy- projectile sounds perfectly horrid, I agree. But WHAT is it?

/Ralph G 17/06/2005

Ralph, my projectile / tactile comment was alluding to all these icons of speed; woman descending staircases, sculptures of men ripping through space by the futurists and the film of GWM in action - hurling paint at the canvas… A cheap shot really, nothing more tactile than a Pollock painting… It is what you fixate on the ‘action’ or the thing it creates?

/Katy 17/06/2005

Ah, all clear. Interesting that to fetishize the act of speed is ultimately seem as irresponsible. Whereas what amounts fetishizing slowness these days is responsible…yourself I see you rightly dislike the idea of mis/algning with any extreme.
Proclamation 3? Not detail/complexity, so much as looking for the NUANCES that slowing down can illuminate.

/Raplh 17/06/2005

The pursuit of speed – something that has obsessed and driven our culture for hundreds of years – may indeed be coming to an end. I think, however, that it may now be the potential to do something fast that is symbolic of our age.

Computers that operate at speeds unimaginable a few years ago are used to type letters and to look at the web. Jet planes are used for journeys better suited to trains. Those who walk around in trainers, seek to reminder us that the possibility for speed is latent within them. Each year manufacturers offer us cars that travel faster and faster – way beyond the limits of the law. Even the most modest family saloon can do in excess of 100 miles per hour, yet this potential speed is rarely if ever used, it remains symbolic.

The provision of useless speed might be compared to the large areas of empty useless space so often found in the form of vast atriums in contemporary architecture. Is our age about providing excess, giving us only things that we do not required or can not use?

/David 18/06/2005

David makes an interesting point, and, I think, gets to the heart of slowness – speed today is not just a symbolic thing or even a metaphor – it now has a latent existence; we can travel at the speed of sound, run sub 3 minute miles and crash cars at speeds in access of 200 miles an hour. Where as, for the Futurists say, speed was aspirational and truly ‘symbolic’. Today, as David points out, speed is one more product on the shelves of western access – Slowness is not about the temporal alone, I can still microwave my local vegetable’s or after a meal with friends, fast freeze the leftovers for instance – I think the slow movement is about a way of thinking, of providing a platform for identity, nuance and investigation. Slow is the new fast – from the 1920s on, speed was the metaphor for national identity: the nuclear race, the space race etc. In 2005, I think being slow has the same aims; the tempo of French film narratives, the hybrid of cultural history and technology in Manga are two examples of this phenomena; reflection is more than a slowing down – it is situating yourself in a world of latent speed.

Where I fall out with David, is in his conflation with space and excess… but maybe this can wait for another blog!!

/Paul D 20/06/2005

The idea of slowness doesn’t quite seem to be right, sometimes there is need for speed. What I find more interesting is the persistently pushing, yet monotonous pace with which we move through/engage with the environment.
I’m interested in friction and potential that might be revealed/facilitated by it.

Our physical engagement with the built environment is primarily via two modes: Sliding by, and pressing buttons. Both modes contribute to keeping physical contact with the built environment to a minimum, keeping us at a distance. We have the world at our fingertips and before our eyes: We observe the landscape whilst being transported through it and manage it from a distance, like a
conductor manages the orchestra. Technology has greatly contributed to this development. It provides the mediators we use to navigate and communicate with the world. It cushions us from all physical collision and even from the experience of temperature, through air-conditioning. Vehicles, moving belts, escalators and elevators transport us seamlessly through the built environment. We ourselves are involved in less and less physical movements. We are not moving, we are moved. We are objects that are being carried around on conveyor belts, like sushi, or unclaimed items. Dancer Yvonne Rainer was interested in the interchangeability between body and object. “The object quality of the (…) body; [to] use the body to be handled like an object, picked up and carried.” (YR ‘Performance Art’)
The body becomes a passive inhabitant of the built environment. Reduced to watching. News slide by on screens, we slide by billboards. We are in perpetual movement, attention guided along the paths that transport us. Information is always perceived in a bypassing mode. Equality. The choice of editing, how much time to focus our attention on what, is largely made for us.

Sometimes we are shaken from this monotony by failures of the system: Traffic jams, signal failures, escalators out of order generate frustration, interruption in the convenient flow. These raptures don’t lead to productivity or poetry, but only to frustration and negative processes. They spur on the unwillingness to engage and foster seclusion.

Physical convenience is directly linked with mental convenience. Technology is largely a tool of convenience. By reducing ourselves towards the least possible friction we generate monotony, convenience and boredom; the body becomes disengaged and uninspired. For the body generates ideas not only with its mind, but via and in relentless dialogue with its senses over the entire physical landscape. Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that before the body starts to think, it already registers and perceives because it is not a mere object, but a bodily being. The body innately houses potential for creative action; but it is the engaged, active body that creates. We need to bring the whole body back into the action if we want to spur on creative activity.

I would like to propose physical collision and friction as a generator for creative action. Design that activates and inspires the body in order to enhance creative activity: You should not stand in the way of progress. You should collide with it.

(I have examples of the kind of design I’m talking about here, but there is just somuch space here..)

> Body houses potential for Creativity
> Body experiences its Environment in a passive, by-passing mode
> Body remains inactive, uninspired and uninspiring
> Designing an engaging/activating environment, not a disengaging environment
> An engaged Body generates Creativity

/Adriana 22/06/2005

So what’s the fuss? I mean it’s not so difficult being slow in the city; it’s really very easy, you just need to stay still like the buildings. Have a sit down - connect with a bench or a windowsill. It’s all about rejecting speed, attempting to engage with the city so you can slow down, rather than observe the city whilst in motion like a 19th century flâneur.

Friction is a nice idea. I like the idea of the city catching you and pulling you along; maybe it’s like velcro, and we are just the fluffy bits in a city of hooks. I would like it to be like that, I don’t think the city is that sticky. Anyway I think we’re all afraid of becoming stuck, we secretly fear that this will make us too slow or too old, because we know deep down that all cities are old and slow. In fact cities are so slow that they rarely move at all (Tokyo moves from side to side every so often). All the fast stuff is just us moving in the city. Cities just look fast, it’s like the opposite of planes, they look slower the further away you get, whereas with cities they look faster from a distance (both in time and space).

We’re always moving in cities. We walk, we drive, we take the train, and sometimes if we are lucky or unlucky we get stuck. Maybe we live someplace too long, forget to move on, we miss the bus and have to wait. This sticking is like little failures in the city. I like these failures, they are what living in cities is all about. The broken things, the unconnected things, the random things, the forgotten things, the useless things, the derelict things, all the slow beautiful things. These are the things that fix us in the world; these are the familiar analogous objects that give our cities meaning – it’s history. When the architectural critic Charles Moore says in his essay “You Have to Pay for the Public Life”, that ‘real cities are noisy, dirty, crowded, tense and dangerous’ am I not alone in replying - yes and that’s why I love them.

I think Adriana wants us to connect with the city in an interesting different way. But the problem is we are all flâneurs now, rootless wanderers drifting in the city. We have all become completely unstuck; we’ve started to move too fast.

So I don’t like this idea of us sliding by the city. Not touching the city, just looking at it. I agree that so many of us are not in the city, they are just slipping in and out - yes that’s it – thy are like fast eels sliding between the structures. Obviously quicker than the buildings, quicker than the places, they think it’s all so fast, but they can’t connect anymore. They are citizens separated from the city.

Going back to what Paul says about profligate speed not being analogous to profligate space – what better way to demonstrate power than through the medium of waste? Perhaps it is a tool for separating people from places.

/David 22/06/2005

exactly, david. velcro, walking in sand or snow. making an effort. reconnecting or rather connecting at all. it’s not the fastness, it’s the blandness with which we’re moving. nobody notices things anymore, in the blur everything looks, smells, sounds the same.
there is a project in paris that shows just how bland this is: there is a main road that leads into the city, for kilometers going very straight. this causes drivers to fall asleep and alas, causes accidents. to prevent this from happening a design has been introduced: colourful posters have been placed along the road, to provide just the right amount of friction to keep the mind preoccupied, but not completely distracted. while this works here, this is the exact thing i’m NOT interested in, for it is designed to keep the flow moving seemlessly, not to change the way we’re moving.

i recently read a review of a rem koolhaas building, it said that the building is drawing attention to itself by having sharp edges, unusual stair-depths, ‘inappropriate’ material for railings. making it impossible to comfortably move through the building. Creating a slightly shifted physical experience, enough to make the body notice irregularity and forcing an active negotiation with the space. It is as if the building wants to be noticed, pinching one here and there, maybe even provoking small injuries, to get some attention.

engaging landscapes.

as for information, i like the idea of the ‘meme’, introduces by Richard Dawkins (after the concept of ‘gene’). a meme is a sticky bit of information, like the tune you heard on the radio this morning that you can’t get out of your head. memes can be of long life,
or just stay with you for a minute. they are passed on like a virus or a trend. some designers are looking into the usefullness of the idea of the meme for design.

www.slowlab.com, a new york based design group that work with slowness/produce objects that faciliate slowness

i don’t agree that we are flaneurs. if you look at the city (certainly in london) and the way people walk, they have a goal, they are under pressure and they are rushing.

/Adriana 23/06/2005

Why do people assume things are getting faster? What criteria are being used to judge this increase in speed? And if you are unclear about how you measure/count this speed then maybe you are mistaking “getting faster” for “getting slower”. For instance why is the “instancy of digital screen-based time changes” any more instant than anything else that could be described as instant? This seems to suggest, or hint at, some sort of new temporal logic but without attempting any explanation.
And isn’t this whole discussion of speed and fast-time just using the same clichés employed in Hovis and Jack Daniels advertisements where in “the old days” things were always slower, simpler etc. Isn’t this the same sort of thing which has been said/written/pictured from the industrial revolution onwards: urban speed compared to some distant rural Garden of Eden from which we are now excluded. For example you suggest the binary of slow (”reflective”) and fast (”reactive /instant”) - I guess the reflective has to be slow but does the fast have to be reactive?

/John 24/06/2005

Adrianna
Which city do you live in?
” Technology […] cushions us from all physical collision and even from the experience of temperature, through air-conditioning. Vehicles, moving belts, escalators and elevators transport us seamlessly through the built environment. We ourselves are involved in less and less physical movements. We are not moving, we are moved. We are objects that are being carried around on conveyor belts, like sushi, or unclaimed items.”
Does anyone ever have this experience? I don’t think so. Which transport system are you talking about? Have you travelled on the tube in London recently? - is there EVER a point where this experience could equate with your description of being transported “seamlessly through the built environment”. Have you ever stood in the queue to get the express-lift up to the 14th floor of the tower block at L.C.C? Have you ever worked in an office and experienced the wonders of air conditioning at first hand?
You say: ” Sometimes we are shaken from this monotony by failures of the system” but add that these ” don’t lead to productivity or poetry, but only to frustration and negative processes.”
But I would say this is the norm - and it is productive/poetic. You don’t have to worry about friction and collision they are already here, we are continually banging/rubbing/falling etc up against the “built environment” as we take part in our various activities: jogging, snogging, pissing, eating, dogging, puking, dying etc

/John 24/06/2005

john, i’m primarily talking about the ‘designed’ environment, eg the new jubilee line and its surroundings and not about the outskirts, eg lcc (please)
i still don’t agree that the friction you are talking about is productive/creative
i’m interested in the new design that is being produced for the city, it seems to desire smoothness….that’s my context

/Adriana 24/06/2005

Adriana, this smoothness – I find it very suspicious – I mean I don’t believe it is anything to do with design. It’s the same as the streamlining of the 1950’s; it’s an example of the idea that ‘design’ is thing that can be applied to other things, as apposed to a process. The sleek trains, planes and pencil sharpeners that came out of the studios of Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes, there’re just the same internal mechanics as their predecessors dressed up within skins of sculpted aluminum. Interesting real effective aerodynamics are not so smooth; take a look at a formula 1 car and you will see that it is covered with a multitude of complex protruding vanes, wings and devices. Speed is complex.

Anyway do we need streamlined buildings like the gherkin? I mean it’s not like it’s going anywhere (unfortunately). I think that friction is creative, it asks us to examine things. It’s the grit that makes the pearl.

/David 25/06/2005

i think we’re misunderstanding each other here:

- i’m not interested in the exterior smoothness but the smoothness that is facilitated by the design (ie the mode of maonv/experiencing/using)
- i myself don’t believe in speed, slowness or smoothness, but apparently, as you noticed too, the design that is produced for the city, like the gherkin or the jubilee line, is looking to create smoothness (both visually and experiencially)
- i’m saying that the design for the city needs to consider/aim at friction, rather than smoothness, in order to make life in the city richer. this doesnt mean that it necessarily needs to be/or even can be designed INTO the thing, but it should be considered/allowed for

so i think we agree, just maybe not on the specific nature/quality of the friction
yes?

/Adriana 25/06/2005

mind you the gherkin is not really a good example, for its smoothness, as far as i know, is derived from its ecological function
so it’s streamline has a purpose

/Adriana 25/06/2005

Adriana, yes I think we do agree. Some smooth things are very rough and visa versa.

But re the Gherkin, I know Lord Foster talks about an ecological origin for the form but frankly that’s a load of claptrap. It’s basically just ego driven shape making. The building’s ecological function is to be very un-ecological. Foster’s office usually make exaggerated claims regarding the environmental performance of their buildings. In the case of the Gherkin most of the ecological elements of the project (sky gardens etc) got dropped at an early stage.

/David 25/06/2005

would love to hear all your comments about our site: http://www.slowlab.net
and welcome your additions to our blog: http://slowdesign.blogspot.com

also recommended:
the very interesting thoughts of the slow technology folks in sweden
http://civ.idc.cs.chalmers.se/projects/slowtech/

writings on speed (energy and equity) by ivan illich
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/texts/energy_and_equity/energy_and_equity.html

/carolyn 10/11/2005

Thanks for this page. My own background Interaction Design/HCI/Psychology. I work in software design so I guess I have a slightly different perspective on design.

I have recebtkt been thinking about electronic technology and who it is aimed at around in my head. It was triggered by a strange combination of circumstances - I broke my toe and am having to move around on crutches very slowly and I happened to meet a clothes designer who is just about to attend one of the “slow food” conferences. The following day I heard the tale of an old lady who had been up half the night worrying because she had lost her mobile phone. I started to think who are we designing electronic technolgy for?

We have these magic tools within our grasp and yet instead of de-stressing our lives and making them easier they seem to be adding to many peoples stress. It is a real midas touch! Worse than that I would say the technology that we currently have out there is designed for the minority - able young people.

To generalize electronic technology products are overly feature laden so that only people with time and energy can learn its intricacies and make them truly useful to their lives. To my mind this is also fast technology - it encapsulates all the latest ideas and changes rapidly. In the large software companies in which I have worked each version layered feature upon feature onto the technology that we put out into the market without much rhyme or reason - we simply needed to have a good new marketing feature to put on the box. Featuritis we used to call it.

This pace of technology matches the fast paced business world for which a great deal of technology is developed. These also happen to be the people with all the cash. However this is only a part of each of these peoples lives - most people need slow parts too! In fact I’m not sure that fast technology is good for anyone - it adds incredibly to the stress of daily life. How many times have I sat on a bus or the London Underground and everyone around me is complaining about technology. As someone who works on the usability of technology it some days it made me feel as if I had the most important job in the world - my job de-stresses thousands of people every day ….. but in my heart of hearts I know thats not actually the truth. It goes much deeper than that.

As an aside I should add that we probably would not have had a lot of the electronic technology that we have today if it had not been shoved out there into our world and tried out. The question is are we now ready to say enough!

The vast majority of the population lives a much slower pace of life. Children, the elderly, carers, non business people tend to travel through there day in a more haphazard manner, they take on new things more slowly and minimal solutions tends to suffice. Their technology needs are very different. What is more each and every person will go through periods when their pace of life slows and therefore technology may need to be slower e.g.periods of illness, pregnancy and of course old age.

We now have a huge wealth of technological ideas to pick and choose from and as we all know simplicity is the key in design. Can we not start to design “slow technology” that fits with the pace of life of the majority.

Thus my proclamations are - Slow Technology or Slow Design should be:

1. conservative about change so that new learning is minimalized.
2. focused on minimalism - i.e. simplicity is the key focus
3. focused on use - i.e. what is the user trying to do
4. designed with a user group in mind -
5. Should always be tested on those users to check it does not add stress, fits use and is truly a slow technology!

Well its a starting point and it has certainly helped me to organise my thoughts. I’d love to hear any comments. I am thinking of putting together a research proposal on “slow technology” based at Bath University computer science department … I am a visiting lecturer there. These are only my first thoughts on the matter! We’ll see what happens.

Cheers
Lisa

/Anonymous 30/08/2006

In 2009 we released the book ‘Limited Language: Rewriting Design: Responding to a feedback culture’ which re-engaged with this original post.

For more on the book as a whole: http://bit.ly/bookcomments

Colin + Monika

/colin 15/11/2009

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