Otto Von Busch

Designers are often depicted as social change agents that serve the good in the world. Similarly, co-design tends to be described as a democratic mode of creativity that is somehow beyond reproach. But is change a virtue in itself, and do participatory practices always produce socially beneficial outcomes? Such questions are becoming more pressing as co-design has emerged as a dominant practice in planning and urban design, while also informing corporate management and public administration. In this book, Otto von Busch and Karl Palmås suggest that designers tend to overemphasize the place of ideals in design, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with a social world of power-wielding and zero-sum games. Seeking to reorient the concerns of the Scandinavian tradition of participatory design, they suggest that co-design processes are rife with betrayals, decay, and corruption, and that designerly empathy has morphed into a new form of cunning statecraft. In putting forward Realdesign as an alternative conception of design practice, von Busch and Palmås ask: What hard lessons about the social must today’s designers learn from realists like Machiavelli?

Designers are often depicted as social change agents that serve the good in the world. Similarly, co-design tends to be described as a democratic mode of creativity that is somehow beyond reproach. But is change a virtue in itself, and do participatory practices always produce socially beneficial outcomes? Such questions are becoming more pressing as co-design has emerged as a dominant practice in planning and urban design, while also informing corporate management and public administration. In this book, Otto von Busch and Karl Palmås suggest that designers tend to overemphasize the place of ideals in design, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with a social world of power-wielding and zero-sum games. Seeking to reorient the concerns of the Scandinavian tradition of participatory design, they suggest that co-design processes are rife with betrayals, decay, and corruption, and that designerly empathy has morphed into a new form of cunning statecraft. In putting forward Realdesign as an alternative conception of design practice, von Busch and Palmås ask: What hard lessons about the social must today’s designers learn from realists like Machiavelli?

Making hacks into reality. It engages matter in ways that trespass the boundaries between the civic realm and the state-assigned laws. Even with primitive tools and skills, designing and making can break open and repurpose arrangements of power. The proof is that some crafts are so controversial—lock-picking, moonshining, shoplifting, smuggling, sabotage—that they need to be controlled or even outlawed. When designers and makers touch on these contested realms, they run into trouble. This highly original book explores how the material power of design and making can challenge arrangements of agency and domination. Unpacking a series of conflicting cases—from illegal making to the strategic and civic use of crafts to manifest radical alternatives to the current order—it shows how designers and makers can use even basic tools to work towards more.

Making hacks into reality. It engages matter in ways that trespass the boundaries between the civic realm and the state-assigned laws. Even with primitive tools and skills, designing and making can break open and repurpose arrangements of power. The proof is that some crafts are so controversial—lock-picking, moonshining, shoplifting, smuggling, sabotage—that they need to be controlled or even outlawed. When designers and makers touch on these contested realms, they run into trouble. This highly original book explores how the material power of design and making can challenge arrangements of agency and domination. Unpacking a series of conflicting cases—from illegal making to the strategic and civic use of crafts to manifest radical alternatives to the current order—it shows how designers and makers can use even basic tools to work towards more.

What if fashion was a state? What kind of state would it be? Probably not a democracy. Otto von Busch sees fashion as a totalitarian state, with a population all too eager to enact the decrees of its aesthetic superiority. Peers police each other and deploy acts of judgment, peer-regulation, and micro-violence to uphold the aesthetic order of fashion supremacy. Using four design projects as tools for inquiry, Von Busch explores the seductive desires of envy and violence within fashion drawing on political theories. He proposes that the violent conflicts of fashion happen not only in arid cotton fields or collapsing factories, but in the everyday practice of getting dressed, in the judgments, sneers, and rejections of others. Indeed, he suggests that feelings of inclusion and adoration are what make us feel the pleasure of being fashionable—of being seductive, popular, and powerful. Exploring the conflicting emotions associated with fashion, Von Busch argues that while the current state of fashion is bred out of fear, The Psychopolitics of Fashion can offer constructive modes of mitigation and resistance. Through projects that actively work towards disarming the violent practices of dress, Von Busch suggests paths towards a more engaging and meaningful experience of fashion he calls “deep fashion.”

Fashion is about growth, feeling, and aliveness. It thrives in excess and abundance. With the everyday discourse around circular business, we buy sustainable fashion. But how can we shift focus to how we become sustainable and more fashion-able? This book discusses circular fashion models and how these can amplify the vitality and purpose of fashion. As fashion renegotiates its relationship with consumerism, designers must not forget how fashion plays with desires, passion, and flourishing. If fashion is any good, it must be vital, or it is nothing.

Our desires for fashion, our addiction to cheap clothes, our fixation on surface looks . . . can we find ways to make what we wear more positive? Here's a quirky, irreverent way to consider what's a more sustainable way to be with—and still enjoy—fashion. This little book shows that fashion isn't shallow but connects us to the depths of existence. Especially today, fashion can tell us something about life, and this series of meditations and conversations between fashion "hacktivist" von Busch and Buddhist teacher Josh Korda shows how a Buddhist perspective on fashion can help us engage with clothes in wiser ways. It may seem a Buddhist approach to fashion would be about denying fashion and living an ascetic life in dull robes. However, Buddhism can teach us to be more present and take more pleasure in fashion. With practice and reflection, we can live a wiser life with the consumption of clothes. Includes "action exercises" to help put ideas into practice in your life and closet.

What if fashion was a state? What kind of state would it be? Probably not a democracy. Otto von Busch sees fashion as a totalitarian state, with a population all too eager to enact the decrees of its aesthetic superiority. Peers police each other and deploy acts of judgment, peer-regulation, and micro-violence to uphold the aesthetic order of fashion supremacy. Using four design projects as tools for inquiry, Von Busch explores the seductive desires of envy and violence within fashion drawing on political theories. He proposes that the violent conflicts of fashion happen not only in arid cotton fields or collapsing factories, but in the everyday practice of getting dressed, in the judgments, sneers, and rejections of others. Indeed, he suggests that feelings of inclusion and adoration are what make us feel the pleasure of being fashionable—of being seductive, popular, and powerful. Exploring the conflicting emotions associated with fashion, Von Busch argues that while the current state of fashion is bred out of fear, The Psychopolitics of Fashion can offer constructive modes of mitigation and resistance. Through projects that actively work towards disarming the violent practices of dress, Von Busch suggests paths towards a more engaging and meaningful experience of fashion he calls “deep fashion.”

Boken Mode och motstånd undersöker vad politiskt motstånd kan lära från hur kläder formar, stramar och strukturerar. Och vad kan civil olydnad lära från hur mode sprids genom imitationer och innovationer. I Mode och motstånd blir tyger och sömmar politiska samarbetspartners snarare än passiva objekt. Skall vi förstå klädkoder som en form av lagstiftande? Lär oss mönsterkonstruktion hur vi förändrar politiska strukturer? Mode och motstånd är ett samtal mellan Otto von Busch och Per Herngren om ickevåldsmotstånd och kläddesign. Med exempel från deras praktiker växer filosofi om politisk förändring fram.

There is a spectre haunting fashion, the spectre of witchcraft, a dark allure of social sorcery, a demonic reality of appearances, carnal pleasures of seduction and rivalry. This conjuring of dressed deception lures us, entices us towards arousal, servitude and evildoing; Maleficium. Why are we ashamed to look at it? Fashion is a labor of allure: it concerns simultaneously attraction and cunning, seduction and deception. As a form of biosemantic and affective labor, being fashionable lures as much as entices, pushes, coerces. Thus the knowledge of fashion is not abstract; it is a highly sensorial capacityinvolving the whole physical body. When fashion works at its best, it thrives in the same animalistic sensorium as the arousing labor and gratification in sexual conquest. Moda Maleficarum, is an experimental study of the labor of allure in fashion.