Tower Hamlets' Unregulated ZoneOn the 4th and the 5th of February, a few recent RCA graduates and students went up to Lancaster together with Fiona Raby to run a workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies. The workshop was part of the 'New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe Living' research programme and it was an experimental confrontation between social scientists and designers. Starting point was the graduation projects work of James, Jess, Jon, Michael, Michiko, Tanya and a little bit of my graduation project-in-progress, all situated in the 2018 Tower Hamlets unregulated zone. It was up to the scientists to enter this speculative space and give feedback as experts in their particular field and from that, we designed new possible initiatives and institutes. Out of these multidisciplinary teams, a future bio-identity, an animal surveillance system, and a new currency was born.
For both parties, it was an incredible insightful process to realise how their worlds speak total different languages and yet can still inspire and challenge each other. The breakthrough happened during 'the toaster session' where a quick design session was meant to explore and push the ways an object can hold values, resulting in the quote of the week: "There's nothing as abstract as a decontextualised toaster."