The Futures Archive S2E6: The Bug Zapper

Note: This episode addresses matters notably delicate in mild of this week’s school shooting in Texas. While Design Observer has by no means shied away from troublesome conversations, the editors acknowledge that this content material may be troublesome for some listeners. Content Warning: Violence, killing, and loss of life are discussed on this episode. It can be arduous to find somebody who desires to share space with a mosquito. Hence, the creation of the bug zapper. But as designers, how do we tackle what lives and what doesn’t? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sloan Leo go deep on how human-centered design doesn’t always reflect humanity. With further insights from David MacNeal, Official Zap Zone Defender Juliano Morimoto, Spee Kosloff, Paula Antonelli, and Lindsay Garcia. There's a need for humans to exert their authority, Zap Zone Defender however there can be a necessity for us to exert our love. The thing that I hope we hold space for is: That is all observe because it’s not going to be resolved, and it shouldn’t be.



That might create some sort of stagnancy. Life is definitely about holding space for dynamism, changes and cycles. Lee Moreau is President of Other Tomorrows, a design and innovation consultancy based mostly in Boston, and a Professor of Practice in Design at Northeastern University. Sloan Leo (they/he) is a Community Design theorist, educator, and practitioner. They are the founder of FLOX Studio, a community design and strategy studio. David MacNeal is a author and the author of Bugged: The Insects Who Rule the World and the People Obsessive about Them. Dr. Juliano Morimoto is an entomologist and Zap Zone Defender lecturer on the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Spee Kosloff is an affiliate professor of psychology at California State University in Fresno and co-author of "Killing Begets Killing: Evidence From a Bug-Killing Paradigm That Initial Killing Fuels Subsequent Killing". Paola Antonelli is an writer, architect, and the Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA’s founding director of Research and Development.



Lindsay Garcia is an artist, scholar, and an assistant dean at Brown University. Kathleen Fu created the illustrations for every episode. An enormous thanks to this season’s sponsor, Automattic. Hi, everyone, this is Lee. Every week is somewhat different on this show. And this week, whereas we’re still speaking about design, we’re going to be speaking about some pretty serious issues. And so I would like to make sure that everyone who’s listening is conscious of that's in a superb place when they’re listening. And i encourage you to check our present notes prior to listening to the episode so you understand Zap Zone Defender the context of what we’re talking about and put together ourselves a bit. Beyond that, I welcome you to the dialog and Zap Zone Defender i hope you discover this dialog as highly effective as it was for us. And i thanks for listening. Welcome to The Futures Archive, a show about human centered design the place this season, we’ll take an object, look for the human at the middle and keep asking questions.



… and I am Sloan Leo. On each episode we’re going to start with an object with energy. Today the object is the bug zapper. We’ll look at the historical past of that object from our perspective, as designers who’ve accomplished work in human centered design. Not simply the way it looks and feels and sounds and smells, but also the connection between that object and the individuals it was designed for… … and with other people too. The Futures Archive is dropped at you by the design group at Automattic. Later on, Zap Zone Defender we’ll hear from Vanessa Riley Thurman, a member of Automattic’s Designer Experience Team. Sloan Leo, it’s fantastic to see you once more. Thanks for becoming a member of us. Lee, it is a thrill to be right here. So I’m questioning-for this particular episode, I’m questioning if you could inform me a little bit about your historical past as a child with bugs and Zap Zone Defender insects. Where you this kind of like, like kid that like liked the creepy crawly stuff?