Switch! speculates on alternatives to current modes of energy consumption and challenges design that affirms the status quo or merely incremental change. Learning from the arts, social sciences, and environmental studies, Switch! conceives and materializes alternative ways of living – and consuming. Graphics, products, and the built environment are designed to express issues of ecological complexity, un/desirable futures, cultural norms, and social in/justice. Conceptually, the Switch! research program explores energy as embedded within multiple technical, material, social, and political systems – and designs that disrupt or introduce new values within these 'energy ecologies'. Methodologically, approaches from critical design, futures studies and design anthropology are developed to stage interventions and discussions in sites of consumption, professional settings, and public forums.
As a practice-based research program, Switch! has been carried out through collaborative development of design examples, namely, Energy Futures, Telltale, 3Ecologies, Green Memes, Ab|Norm and Symbiots.
Switch! was a design research program at the Interactive Institute sponsored by the Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) between 2008 and 2009. More info is available on the web link below.
The Book
SWITCH! Design and everyday energy ecologies is a book edited by Ramia Mazé, with contributors Martin Avila, Jenny Bergström, Loove Broms, John Carpenter, Brendon Clark, Karin Ehrnberger, Alberto Frigo, Aude Messager, Johan Redström, Thomas Thwaites, Anna Vallgårda, Basar Önal, maoworks (Tobi Schneidler, Tom Ballhatchet and Solon Sasson), Olivia Jeczmyk and Bildinstitutet. Published by the Interactive Institute, the book is designed by Martin Frostner and Lisa Olausson at Medium.
