Re-futuring: Awareness and design process in hyper-technologic era

Abstract

The complex relationship between man and technology is the starting point of an interesting design process, aiming to highlight the lack of awareness in most of the behavioral choices of man. Man is distinguished by its nature of finding short-term solutions, with the almost complete inability to prefigure long-term effects resulting from his unconscious decisions. Technology, on the other hand, is developing fast, becoming day by day more potentially uncontrollable. Specific attention is given to the innovations that can cause unpredicted impacts on human life: knowing history by its sociological implications allows us to recognize some recursive patterns that can then be transformed into opportunities. The goal is not an attempt to predict future trends in technological innovation but to find the right formulas in order to raise the level of responsibility in individuals’ behavior. In this paper the role of the designer is analyzed within the technology of 3D printing, enhancing its potential ability of changing both technological and human environments. A first answer to the problems triggered by 3D printing can be found, for example, in the positive phenomena that are activated within collaborating groups by sharing space and knowledge, in communities with a bottom-up approach, where the designer is actively involved.

Keywords: human factors, ethics, awareness, 3D printing, rapid manufacturing, behaviors, transdisciplinarity, re-thinking, re-making, metadesign.