TRUST IS WORK
Since 2017 the Digital Urban Living research project have been running a series of Master-courses called ‘Design Studio: Digital Urban Living’ at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). Here, interaction- and service- design students, together with our researchers and project-partners, have explored what it could mean to design for a digital, nordic welfare-society. Together with our students we have addressed how the digital shift is changing and challenging society, and how the design disciplines can contribute to how we understand, shape and critique digitalisation. Our main focus has been on what is at stake when the global digitalisation trends meets the nordic societal model, and how we might design for a digital shift built on societal participation, trust and civic rights. One of the outcomes of the 2019 course is the student-published book TRUST IS WORK (available online).
In 2017 a team of students looked at how to use digital and cultural resources for urban activism in the project Mellomrom, and in 2018 a group of students asked how our digital cities could promote inclusion with the project Manifesto for the Inclusive Digital City. In 2019 the topic we set for the course was ‘digital sjølråderett’. In the research project we have suggested the concept of ‘digital sjølråderett’ to address the challenges and possibilities of the digital shift in the nordics. The concept comes from ‘sjølråderett’, the nordic term for the right to societal self- determination and self-governance. In November 2019 we hosted a conference called Digital Sjølråderett — Design for a Nordic digital shift at AHO about this concept together with writer and designer Dan Hill, Director of Strategic Design at Vinnova, the Swedish Innovation Agency. Our students’ work was an important part of both developing this conference, and was a part of the program as a poster-exhibition and presentations.
The final outcome of ‘Design studio: Digital Urban Living 2019’ is a book titled TRUST IS WORK. The book is written and self-published by the students — Elias Olderbakk, Hanna Øfsti, Alvilde Jerpseth, Erlend Grimeland, Aurora Fiveland and Geir Atle Hustoft. TRUST IS WORK documents their explorations, design-interventions and exhibitions, and reflections about their work. In this project the students have identified and explored the concept of trust in nordic society, and how societal trust could be governed by digital services:
We identified trust as both a driving force [in society] and a resource for design, innovation and service development. Trust can be a competitive advantage, a resource for designing new services and for questioning old service systems.
TRUST IS WORK is available online as at trustis.work. The book won a diploma for graphical design in for the annual Norwegian design award Visuelt 2020! Congratulations!!
’Design Studio: Digital Urban Living 2019’ was run by myself, Einar Sneve Martinussen, and PhD fellow Kai Reaver from the project-group, together with artist James Bridle as a guest-teacher. Below I have included som pictures of the book, and my afterword for it.
My afterword for the TRUST IS WORK :
Exploring Digital sjølråderett
What is at stake when global digitalization trends meet the Nordic welfare states? What kind of challenges and possibilities does the digital shift bring about for societal development, policy, and design? How can the digital shift be used to promote societal values of trust, equity, and collective rights? And is there a Nordic model of digital design in the making that could challenge the hegemony of Silicon Valley?
The Digital Urban Living research project at AHO explores what the ‘digital shift’ and the ‘digital city’ means in a Nordic setting. Over the last 10 years we have witnessed an increasing, if yet under-defined, digitalisation of both cities, industries, daily life and societies as a whole. This digital shift is particularly evident in the practices and products of the growing digital industry and the rapid growth of digital services. This is an industry dominated by global actors, such as Amazon, Facebook, Airbnb, Alibaba, Uber or Google, that deliver discrete digital services across the world that typically cater to individual, and often privileged, desires and needs. Within urban development and societal planning, the ‘digital shift’ is currently presented as the technology-led vision of ‘smart societies’ and ‘smart cities’. Current criticisms of such strategies and developments focus on issues of privacy, lack of regulation, corporate data-ownership and private-public power-relations. Based on a specific Nordic perspective our additional claim is that these developments also represent deep-seated problems in terms of social and societal sustainability: current digitalization strategies challenge ‘the Nordic model’ in which values of trust, equity and inclusion, and collective rights and responsibilities is highlighted.
We suggest that designing for a ‘Nordic digital shift’ presents us with the possibility of exactly not adopting the dominant arguments and practices of the global, often Silicon Valley-based digital industry, but instead develop our own visions and designs. We argue that a first step should be to address the digitalisation of cities and societies as a debate about societal values, culture and democracy, and not just about technology. The digital shift can’t simply be understood as a technological solution for current problems, but instead should be seen as a resource for building a future for society, culture, citizens and environments. It is therefore important to question which digital futures are made possible, or impossible, by the current processes of digitalisation — and by whom?
We need to ask who has the right to envision and shape our futures. The right to shaping our societal future can be limited by the digital shift, and today it seems like the democratic, digital possibility space for societal development is shrinking. This raises the issue of how to develop and protect the rights for digital self-governance and -determination for nations, regions, cities and communities, what we in our research have termed ‘Digital Sjølråderett’. ‘Digital sjølråderett’ comes from ‘sjølråderett’, the Nordic term for the right to societal self-determination and self-governance. Historically ‘sjølråderett’ has been used in activism, politics and policy to argue for the right for developing and defining collective futures.
In the autumn of 2019 a group of students and researchers at AHO have explored Digital Sjølråderett, and identified challenges, possibilities and values for a Nordic digital shift. In projects presented in this publication, issues of digitalization have been discussed not just as technologies, but as debates about social values, culture, and democracy. Secondly, technology have been approached from a broader societal perspective — not just as tools for solving current problems — but as resources for making alternative cultures and futures. Finally, we have discussed how to further develop rights of digital self-determination. As Alvilde, Hanna, Geir, Elias, Aurora and Erlend have shown in ‘Trust is work’, a key starting point for exploring Digital Sjølråderett has to be the urgent need for multiple, rich and grounded perspectives on the digitalisation. ‘Trust is work’ tells also us that trust in society is a resource that have to be regenerated through societal participation and collective effort. This is a valuable reminder to us as designers that we, through design, not only shape interactions and user experiences, but also take active part in governing trust in society. If we are to design for a Nordic digital shift, we need to see values like trust, equity and collective rights as frameworks and resources for design and innovation — and hopefully this will allow us to create a future where these values are developed and extended across society.
— Einar Sneve Martinussen, PhD / Project leader Digital Urban Living 2019
