Evan Barba
RSD12—Entangled in Emergence was a radical new approach to hybrid conferences in keeping with the Systemic Design Association’s ethos of forward-thinking experimentation, diversity, and inclusion. The experience consisted of in-person and hybrid sessions held over two weeks at thirteen locations worldwide. It was hosted virtually by Georgetown University and the Iteration Lab in the Communication, Culture and Technology Program to expand the reach and interest in systemic design. There was an unprecedented response to the call for partner hubs and contributions of all types, and the resulting proceedings catalogued here are the record of this success.
One day, we will mark the beginnings of new ways of doing things at some point other than the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to that time, but it is not today. 2020’s RSD9 event, hosted by the National Institutes of Design in Ahmedabad, India, was the first entirely virtual RSD conference. In response to challenging circumstances, RSD9 introduced our community to new ways of convening and discussing our work and interests. For many, this was a first experience with virtual conferences. A year later, RSD10 faced similar uncertainty and materialised as a mostly virtual event with a small contingent of participants convening at TU Delft, Netherlands, for in-person activities. RSD11 took these lessons to heart. The organisers conceived it from the beginning as a hybrid event with extended virtual sessions (RSDX) beginning before the conference and hybrid meetings during the event held by the University of Brighton, UK. RSD12 continued pushing these boundaries and testing the limits of a post-pandemic conference, combining approaches from the previous RSDs and breaking new ground. [all RSD editorials]
During RSD12 pre-planning, many in the RSD community expressed their desire to explore new ways of convening that could lessen the environmental degradation associated with conference travel. Others expressed their enthusiasm for the newfound accessibility offered by virtual and hybrid formats; the ease of connecting to virtual events accommodates many participants for whom travel is not an option while also lowering financial and other barriers for those wishing to engage the RSD community. Equally many expressed their delight with finally returning to in-person programming at RSD11 after years of feeling distanced from global colleagues. These competing aims were at the forefront of our minds when we began planning RSD12, and the question of how we might accommodate all by conceiving a new experiment was something we grappled with extensively. We finally settled on something bold: a network of smaller conferences held sequentially and linked by a continuous online event. RSD12 would be like a string of pearls, each unique but part of the same extended whole, making something more beautiful than anyone alone and impossible without each other.
The theme for RSD12, Entangled in Emergence, emerged after much discussion. It references the systems concept of emergence, the holistic idea that different hubs of systemic design could interface over a cloud-based video communications platform while maintaining regional identities and priorities, or the focus of their academic domain, to create something categorically different from any one host alone. It also references the quantum physics notion of entanglement, the idea that two particles at great distances from each other and unconnected physically, can still react and respond to each other across space and time. These concepts were both inspiration and ideals for the organisation of RSD12.
In the end, RSD12 spanned 14 days and networked 12 hubs in eight countries across four continents, showcasing a stunning range of keynotes, papers, presentations, workshops and interactive sessions dedicated to the interdisciplinary weaving of systemic design. In addition to founding institutions such as OCAD University, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the National Institute of Design, and Politecnico di Torino, nine new partner institutions organised onsite systemic design symposia, representing nine unique ways of thinking about systemic design. Each hub focused on one particular interest in systemic design, a thread that was meaningful to local participants and relevant to the broader audience.
The 12 regional hubs and topical areas were:
- Bogota, Colombia: Design Research
- Pittsburgh, United States: Transgenerational Collaboration
- Kingston, United Kingdom: Cyber and Digital
- Ahmedabad, India: Hopeful Futures
- Monterrey, Mexico: Participatory Ecosystems
- kihcihkaw askî: Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom
- Amsterdam, Netherlands: Co-Design
- Nordmarka Forest, Norway: Reflexivity, Ecocentrism, Regenerative
- Loughborough, Great Britain: Synergy Between Sciences
- Toronto, Canada: Futuring
- Vancouver, Canada: Climate Justice
- Turin, Italy: Localising Systemic Change
The culminating symposium, “Emerging from Entanglement,” was hosted on my campus at Georgetown University in Washington DC, United States. As with all experiments, some results were expected, and some were surprising. Some surprises were inspiring, and some were challenging. Regardless, all expectations were exceeded. There are many lessons to be taken from the RSD12 experience. Some can be found in these proceedings, while others may only be discovered by following one of RSD13’s Rivers of Conversations. We urge anyone interested in learning more to engage with any of the organisers or participants wherever you can find them.
