MA Design Research social media editor Jenny Morris spoke with NYC-based experience designer and D-CRIT alum Ida Benedetto (Class of 2016) for our Alumni Spotlight series. Ida is the co-founder of Sextantworks and the brainchild behind Patterns of Transformation: Designing Sex, Death, and Survival in the 21st Century. Ida recently joined the Rockefeller Foundation as their first Director of Dialogue Design and Community Engagement.
Tell us a bit about you.
I’m an experience designer, bringing together a background in game and adventure design. At SVA, I researched transformative social experiences, and since graduating I’ve applied that mostly to strategic gatherings—be that in a corporate context or in the public sector and social impact space.
Can you talk about what drove you to immersive experience design?
I don’t know if anything in particular drove me to this space, so much as it became a useful way to describe what I had been doing. The very first thing I ever did professionally was documentary photography. I got used to being hyper-observant and learned to go with the flow in very uncertain dynamics, while also being somewhat invisible. It was in doing photography in undergrad that someone suggested I look into the design and technology field, specifically game design.
When I discovered it, I realized that it presented a kind of interaction that worked well for accomplishing a level of connection and awareness to a subject matter I’d found photography fell short in. I never was somebody who aspired to be a game designer or felt a particular fidelity towards the game industry. My interaction with adventure design was very inspired by my younger years active in NYC’s underground culture. That was how all of the work with Sextantworks and their trespass adventures started. I was looking at ways to get people outside their comfort zone in a productive way, so they could discover and engage with something new. It wasn’t necessarily that I was moving towards a specific field; so much as I was really engaged with a design practice.
There is such magic in being able to be safely guided out of your comfort zone. In an online bio you wrote, “Somewhat unwittingly under the guise of doing research, I was seeking out places to fall apart and people to put me back together again.” I’m curious how this thought has shaped your career as a designer, and how the role of play comes into your work.
That statement was referencing a personal crisis that I was going through while at SVA. I was rewriting my graduate thesis to publish online and somebody who was helping me edit it confronted me. She was like, “Why on earth are you doing this?” And I had to step back and think. I came to the realization that there was a personal need that I was trying to fulfill. So, when I think about being able to fall apart, in the context of a wilderness trip or even a sex party, play is not the thing that jumps to mind. Now, there are contexts in which play gets people to behave or explore things in ways they might not otherwise. That’s super useful if people are stuck in routines and those routines might have something to do with a defensive stance towards life.
Since graduating, I began working in very high-stakes meetings meant to forge alliances between government agencies, founders and that sort of thing. People tend to have their guard up. They tend to be focused on what they want. So the questions become: how do we actually create conditions for folks to have new ideas? How do we get people to behave in a way that goes beyond their role? We want them to entertain new possibilities instead of simply pursuing their own agenda. That’s where play can be incredibly useful in snapping people out of their routines and expectations, while also connecting them with each other in a different way. I’ve gotten a lot smarter about when and how I deploy play in these contexts. It can sometimes be a tough sell, but I love it when it works.
I would love to be a bystander watching those infrastructures reshape themselves. What would you say is the role of risk in design?
I was looking specifically at risk as it related to transformative social experiences. It’s about bringing the risk down, but keeping the risk high enough so that encounter with something threatening actually creates a new possibility for people. A lot of my approach is about putting the risk back into design. So much of 20th century design is about taking the risk and discomfort out of things. It’s about making things easier and more beautiful and more comfortable. And I think that has been to the detriment of society. So, I’m bringing risk back into my work, because I think it ignites in people what makes life actually worth living.
How would you say this way of working shaped your experience of 2020?
In Patterns of Transformation I talk about three different kinds of risk: social, emotional and physical. In looking at how people are making decisions about their lives right now, I’ve started to see how people are prioritizing which risk they want to expose themselves to. For example, people who visit their family on holidays, regardless of the fact that the virus is still here, are choosing to engage in a physical risk in order to mitigate social and emotional risks. And vice versa. It’s been interesting to see how, because this stuff is so personal and runs so deep; it becomes this big moral quandary. People feel entitled to respond to other people’s choices on moral grounds. And it is partly because there aren’t good options and partly because we are weighing these things that are so consequential and personal. Those are the ways that my research has been present for me this year.
What advice would you give to creatives who really enjoy what they do, but are scared by the lack of roadmap ahead?
Pay attention, not just to what you are enjoying and what’s driving you, but how people are responding to what you’re putting out. If it’s sparking something in other people, then it’s a path that’s probably worth following professionally. You always have time for hobbies and your own creative expression. That’s important to protect. But if people keep responding to and engaging with your work, then that’s a direction worth going, even if you can’t define how it will fit in the world.
What is a moment you felt you saw a spark in other people and their reaction to your work?
One example that jumps to mind is the first experience I did that launched the creative practice Sextantworks. We had stumbled upon an abandoned honeymoon resort in the Poconos and decided to do an adventure there because we were captivated by the place. We found all these documents in the offices, like the old weekly newsletter that they would circulate. It was stuff about who played sexy bingo well, or which couples were perhaps swapping. Some of them were from the seventies. It was apparent from them that the staff loved working there. So when we ran the event I was aware of that. We called the team working the event “the stewards.” They had taken the guests to their rooms and all of a sudden the radios we were communicating on exploded with gossip. All of the stewards were talking about which couples were in their room and how they were doing and what they could hear. And I realized, “Oh! This is why people loved working here!” It was through that organic behavior that the logic of the place made sense. That realization, in terms of the power of place to have that effect on people, is really what launched the whole practice. I might not have launched a practice out of that if something really captivating hadn’t happened. I often say, when I’m designing an experience, if the only thing that happens is stuff that I anticipated, then I’ve done something wrong. Something beyond what I expect needs to happen among the participants. That’s always been what excites me, because then that keeps it interesting for me too.
I grew up in Pennsylvania and went to the Poconos often. It’s such a strange, magical place! Since I know you attended D-Crit after you began Sextantworks, it would be great if you could speak to what drew you to the program.
I wanted to work on my writing. I was still interested in technology and had enjoyed programming and messing with tech in the past, but looking at all my work and the projects I had been involved in — I realized that my contributions were consistently around a strategic or creative insight. I have dyslexia, so I’ve always had hang-ups around writing. I wanted a program where I could come out with a concrete skill. Doing the projects with Sextantworks, people consistently were more captivated and dazzled than we were expecting. I knew we were doing something right. Being able to take a step back and do some research and critical thinking to figure out what that was, was really appealing to me. I didn’t like being the reason people would have FOMO. I wanted to inspire people to create their own adventures.
It reminds me of the Sol LeWitt guide. You create the blueprint to get other people going. How do you feel the program has aided your work?
My ability to diagnose an experience and figure out where to better it has improved dramatically. I’m also much faster with writing now, which is hugely valuable in the fast-paced context that I’m working in. It’s very much about whoever can articulate well, will influence most.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your work. Thanks Ida!
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