recognise radicality
There are not many forms of relating that escape the reach and hold of legality, formality, or profit. Too many over time have been banned, formalised, commercialised, or hidden, absorbed, erased, forgotten. As unquantifiable dimensions become threats for the empty promise of order and safety of a world shaped by advanced capitalism and neoliberal austerity policies, the social exchanges we have learnt to experience are calculated and utilitarian, impoverished of their sociopolitical potential by their imposed contractual and exploitative character.
As one of the most anarchic of relations, in its disinterest in formality and in its unconcern in law and profit, friendship represents today something radical, capable of destabilising what we have learnt to deem established. In recognising the potential of what is disordered, experimental, and unstable, we are proposing an alternative path, a new social contract, that sees in friendship an action that continues to resist control and that can be adopted as a truly alternative and ungovernable lens to motivate action in our lives and in the shaping of a collective future.
Friendship provides us with a powerful opportunity to escape traditional, stratified, individualistic, and hierarchical forms of organisation, one that can be re-experienced as a solid foundation for practices that sit outside of pervasive systems as they are aimed at challenging them. Friendship as unmaker of individual identities and constant redistributor of understanding, of collective knowledge, creates fertile ground for resilient learning and activist communities that embrace difference, nurture generosity, and form relationships focused on the process of giving, of losing, rather than of obtaining.
Radical friendship can’t be bought or sold, it refuses the logics of the capital and in so doing redefines our conception of value, of time, of linearity in all that surrounds us. In the social and political impasse of our time, where individualism both contributes to the accumulation of crises and impedes meaningful collective action to address them, friendship represents a key to movement, to change. This manifesto is a recognition of friendship’s revolutionary potential and an invite to open discussions on its possibilities before it is completely commodified away by the neoliberal apathetic touch. With our piece we promote the politics of friendship as a radical practice of caring and collective action, our goal is to establish a discourse on a new social contract that values not profit or time, but solidarity and generosity, instability and difference. Not the individuals but what is between them.
This proposal comes in the form of a multimedia digital manifesto, one that, much like friendship, escapes the imposed order, formality, and conventions of academic communication.
written and produced by projektado collective in 2023
references used in the piece can be found here.
2023
references used in the piece can be found here
friendship / radicality / manifesto
we are you: radical friendships and relational realities / interactive storytelling / 2024
an interactive story about friendship and its radical potential in opposition to dominant systems. friendship as a form of system hacking, and hacking as an act of resistance, as an act of care.
traces - tracce / audiovideo artwork / 2023
a monologue exploring the relationship between violence, contact, and the inevitability of leaving traces of influence within and outside of collective practices of living and experiencing reality.
cicadas / video narrative / 2023
a week-long period discussing, relaxing, working, eating, and imagining together. the piece documents the interwoven nature of the collective’s approach to work, life, friendship, creativity, and action. premiered through gudskul and theoneminutes.
recognise radicality / experimental manifesto / 2023
in recognising the potential of what is disordered, experimental, and unstable, this piece proposes an alternative path that sees in friendship a resistance to formality, legality, and profit, capable of destabilising what we have learnt to deem established.
magic 9 ball / issue 2: survival and design / 2023
an interactive narrative fiction that guides the player through unexpected, contradictory, and ambiguous choices and scenarios, in the search for speculative overlaps between utopias and apocalypses, imagination and reality, politics and storytelling.
agitatevi / cheap festival bologna / 2023
responding to the theme "agitatevi", projektado collective designed a set of posters that were printed and installed in the streets of the city of Bologna, Italy, in collaboration with CHEAP Street Art Poster Collective.
ageing from existence / issue 2: survival and design / 2023
a collaborative storytelling project bringing together the works of 21 artists, activists, and collectives under 4 interactive audiovisual pieces. the results of an experimental curatorial process on themes of obsolescence, control, and age.
beyond individual knowledge creation / apria journal / 2022
an informal discussion among projektado’s members on the procedural, collective, and contextual dimensions of knowledge creation and the pervasive issues individualism has imposed in these spaces – produced for Apria’s open call ‘Ways of Knowing’.
in fiamme / cheap festival bologna / 2022
a series of posters designed and illustrated by projektado, and printed and installed by CHEAP Street Art Poster Collective in the city of Bologna, Italy, alongside over 100 contributors responding to the theme “in fiamme”.
references / issue 2: survival and design / 2022
a collection of multimedia and transdisciplinary resources, references, and material that accompanied projektado's exploration through the theme of 'survival and design'.
zines and self-publishing / makeshift tales / 2022
a collection of conversations with six international guests on the practice of zine making, a self-initiated DIY activity with roots in the sharing of stories among subcultures and under-represented communities.
open call / issue 2: survival and design / 2022
projektado offers an experimental approach to the selection of participants within issue 2’s open call: ‘ageing from existence’, an audio-visual project that aimed to include all respondents.
cuban inventiveness / makeshift tales / 2022
an informal discussion with historian Joe Purvis and designer César Beuve-Méry on the context of Cuba, its social and political history, and how over a span of about 60 years this has shaped the behaviours and material culture of its people.
TXTmob / makeshift tales / 2022
a conversation with Tad Hirsch on the creation of a decentralised communication system born out of political dissent in the US in 2004, before the widespread use of smartphones.
spontaneity / makeshift tales / 2021
an informal chat during the summer of 2021 between members of the collective on “what spontaneity is” in reference to makeshift practices – a prelude to the coming podcast series.
prelude / issue 2: survival and design / 2022
an introduction to the macro-theme of 'survival and design', the original intentions and motivations that convinced projektado to embark in this project, and a look into the multifaceted approach issue 2 aims to embrace.
references / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
a collection of multimedia and transdisciplinary resources, references, and material that accompanied projektado's exploration through the theme of 'anonymity in design'.
editorial / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
introducing anonymity and its relationship to design, the editorial expresses projektado’s motivations for this chosen theme, the multifaceted nature of its implications in design and society, and the narrative thread of the pieces that form issue 1.
the good, the bad, and the anonymous / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
an interactive story by projektado featuring several narrative paths that present the intimidating realities of experiencing design as a professional, through the eyes of a recent graduate.
i’m goin on a rant / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
projektado creates a visual narrative documenting the frustrations of finding ways to challenge the overpowering bureaucratic and institutional structures that actively maintains the undervalued and underpaid conditions of young designers within Italy.
radical care: black feminism in architecture / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
Aïssatou Diallo re-evaluates the fields of architecture and design through a black feminist lens as a way to undo the neoliberal, colonial, heteropatriarchal disposition of the profession.
claiming the inbetween / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
Gösta Marsden, through a photographic exploration, documents hidden encampments created by those experiencing homelessness in London, often to be found within the leftover spaces of development and infrastructure.
rethinking libyan placelessness / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
Sarri Elfaitouri enquires into the relationship between the built environment and identity, through an analysis on the effects of the ongoing political and social instability that has pervaded the libyan city of Benghazi for decades.
do refugee camps have authors? / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
discussing with Camillo Boano, Samar Maqusi, and Silvia Aru emerging perspectives on refugee camps which counter the dominant narrative on these forms of life by taking into account their varying sensibilities and subjectivities.
the new tools of war / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
there is a complex relation between surveillance and anonymity. Fernando Silva examines the role of drones in shaping modern warfare by discussing the ways they dehumanise their targets, estranging culprits from a sense of responsibility.
the role of objects / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
projektado, with this brief written exploration, aims to make use of sociological theories on human identity and the self, to try to reassess the relationship we have with objects, their roles, and their identities.
the absurdity of streamlining and lion claws / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
Katharina Pfützner elaborates on the symmetry between the quest for sustainability of designers today, and the social and political conditions that drove professional design work in Socialist Germany.
shenzhen: sharing and shanzhai / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
projektado discusses with David Li alternative views and understandings of intellectual property, ownership, and originality, through the case of the accelerated manufacturing economy of Shenzhen, China.
capitalized / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
through a poem composed by projektado, capitalized reflects on the broader social dynamics that continue to maintain the hierarchical system of two letter cases.
behind the screens / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
a depiction of how excess in adopting inclusivity in graphic design language by industry giants has led to the prevalence of an image of the human figure that represents no one, by Olivia Cheng.
chans: a submissive subversion / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
by delving into the the universe of online anonymous forums 4Chan and 8Chan, projektado question the interests behind anonymous identities and reflects on the meanings of radicality and subversion in these spaces.
(in)evitable / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
through the lens of one of the most iconic works of fiction of the early 2000’s, the Matrix Trilogy, projektado explores notions of control, determinism, and choice in practising design.
open call / issue 1: anonymity in design / 2021
the open call for projektado’s inaugural issue: anonymity in design, a digital flyer that frames the selected theme through a myriad of perspectives.
editorial / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
the editorial of the pilot issue of projektado magazine: how we got here, why we think it’s important to be critical within design, and who has helped us initiate this project.
homogenous homonyms / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
how meaningful is a word when it is represented by countless definitions? This puzzle by projektado visualises and reflects on the issues of definition often associated with the word 'design', and the resulting effects this ambiguity has on practice.
on the relationship between linguistics and design / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
an article by Natalia Meléndez Fuentes exploring how design can transcend language by operating on the border between logic and absurdity.
small talk / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
perhaps you’ve had a conversation like this one...where you get the feeling that your understanding of your discipline doesn’t quite match that of the person you're chatting to. projektado sets this scene, through a short dialogue in ‘small talk’.
this is not a designer / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
a visual narrative by projektado speaking of responsibility, accountability and misconception of the design profession, between written and visual trompe l’oeil.
insurgent designs / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
a collection of free and open online archives curated by Alejandro Torero Gamero to depict Peruvian public intelligence during the November 2020 protests against a legislative coup.
switching channels / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
the scale of usefulness and damage that design can contribute to, from mundane to life threatening, is wide and far reaching. In this video Julius Nobling positions the varying degrees of impact that design has in our daily lives.
discussing presents, rethinking futures / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
Aydam De Paula explores the idea of design in relation to today's social and environmental context, inviting the reader to look into the present to rethink ways our living habitat can be designed for our collective futures.
the catch / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
how is the design industry pushing differently motivated individuals to converge in producing fundamentally equivalent outcomes? projektado reflects through a visualisation of our seemingly predetermined paths.
the city of the others / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
a visual essay advocating for a different and ontological reframing of design as an active, collective, and critical practice, by projektado.
reflections on design and permaculture / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
drawing parallels with design processes and sustainability, biologist Ana Coimbra reflects on the role of permaculture in supporting existing systems to flourish, rather than opposing, ignoring, or redesigning them.
including critics in our circles / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
through this short essay, industrial designer Victor Padilla Figuerola discusses the importance of divergent opinions and intellectual confrontation as a means of individual and collective growth.
my answer / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
in few words, Zhaoxi Huang states his reasons as to why we should discuss design today and why this conversation will always remain open.
étapes / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
a visual narrative of collages created and curated by UX designer and researcher César Beuve-Méry, describing the importance of critical thought in design.
community notice / issue 0: why discuss design today? / 2021
a call to action to continue to critique, dissect and rebuild the field of design through active discussion and collective endeavours.
