Roy Bendor | Delft University of Technology (original) (raw)

Papers by Roy Bendor

International Journal of Design Vol 15 (3), 2021

Moving into the social and public sector, service design is becoming both more complex and more p... more Moving into the social and public sector, service design is becoming both more complex and more participatory. This is reflected in the greater diversity and interrelatedness of stakeholders and the wicked problems being addressed. However, although many service designers working in the social and public domains bring into their design practice the intention to make design more participatory and equitable, they may lack an in-depth understanding of power, privilege, and the social structures (norms, roles, rules, assumptions, and beliefs) that uphold structural inequality. In this paper we present findings from seven interviews with service designers to investigate the challenges they face when addressing power issues in design, and their experiences of how power shows up in their design process. By drawing from understandings of power in social theory, as well as the interviewees’ perspectives on how power manifests in design practice, we outline a framework for power literacy in service design. The framework comprises five forms of power found in design practice: privilege, access power, goal power, role power, and rule power. We conclude by suggesting that service design practices that make use of reflexivity to develop power literacy may contribute to more socially just, decolonial, and democratic design practices.

Futures, 2021

While the past is present in all futuring activities it tends to remain implicit and has not rece... more While the past is present in all futuring activities it tends to remain implicit and has not received adequate attention by futures scholars and practitioners. In response, this conceptual paper offers a novel framework with which the past can be brought into futures studies in a structured and comprehensive way. We begin by providing a brief account of how the past already figures in futures studies as part of efforts to understand the lingering effects of the past on the future; as part of a drive for ontological pluralization; and as a way to augment more mainstream futuring exercises. We then introduce two past-facing approaches to futuring, recasting and pastcasting, and illustrate their symmetry with the more familiar future-facing approaches, forecasting and back-casting. The symmetry, we argue, is based on shared aims and a shared style of inquiry. We then compare the different approaches and illustrate the landscape of futuring as an interplay of two dimensions: the focus of the activity on outcomes or pathways, and the stakes involved in it.

Proceedings of DeSForm'19, 2019

This paper suggests robot citizenship as a design perspective for attending to the sociality of h... more This paper suggests robot citizenship as a design perspective for attending to the sociality of human-robot interactions (HRI) in the near future. First, we review current positions regarding robot citizenship, which we summarize as: human analogy, nonhuman analogy and socio-relationality. Based on this review, we then suggest an understanding of citizenship that stresses the socio-relational implications of the concept, and in particular its potential for rethinking the way we approach the design of robots in practice. We suggest that designing for robot citizenship (in the terms suggested by this paper) has the potential of fostering a shift from a logic of functionality to one of relationality. To illuminate the direction of this shift in design practice, we include and discuss three robot concepts designed to address and rethink present HRI challenges in the urban environment from a relational perspective.

Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2019

Escape the Smart City is a critical pervasive game that uses an escape room format to help player... more Escape the Smart City is a critical pervasive game that uses an escape room format to help players develop an understanding of the implications of urban surveillance technologies. Set in downtown Amsterdam, players work together as a team of hackers to stop the mass deployment of an all-seeing AI-enhanced surveillance system. In order to defeat the system players need to understand its attributes and exploit its weaknesses. Novel gameplay elements include locating hidden surveillance cameras in the city, discovering and exploiting algorithmic biases in computer vision, and exploring new techniques to avoid facial recognition systems. This work makes two distinct contributions to the CHI community: first, it introduces critical pervasive games as an approach to engage the public in complex sociotechnical issues, and second, it experiments with the escape room format as a platform for critical play.

Science, Technology, & Human Values, 2019

This article argues for engaging with the smart city as a sociotechnical imaginary. By conducting... more This article argues for engaging with the smart city as a sociotechnical imaginary. By conducting a close reading of primary source material produced by the companies IBM and Cisco over a decade of work on smart urbanism, we argue that the smart city imaginary is premised in a particular narrative about urban crises and technological salvation. This narrative serves three main purposes: (1) it fits different ideas and initiatives into a coherent view of smart urbanism, (2) it sells and disseminates this version of smartness, and (3) it crowds out alternative visions and corresponding arrangements of smart urbanism. Furthermore, we argue that IBM and Cisco construct smart urbanism as both a reactionary and visionary force, plotting a model of the near future, but one that largely reflects and

Digital Technology and Sustainability: Engaging the Paradox , 2018

We report on preliminary results from a public engagement project based on a procedural approach ... more We report on preliminary results from a public engagement project based on a procedural approach to sustainability. The project centered on an interactive art installation that comprised a live actor, an immersive soundscape featuring a handful of different characters, an interactive touch-table, and four interactive rooms within which participants wandered, partially guided by a narrative through-line, yet at the same time left to make sense of any larger meanings on their own. The installation was designed to experiment with two propositions: (1) that there is value in public engagement with sustainability based on the exploration and articulation of deeply held beliefs about the world—the worldviews, values, and presuppositions that mediate perception and action; (2) that there is value in replacing the infocentric tendency of most public engagement on sustainability with an approach premised in aesthetics and experiential resonance. Following the installation's two-week pilot run, our preliminary results indicated that the majority of participants found the experience both resonant and thought provoking, and were mostly willing to critically engage with their pre-existing notions of sustainability.

In this exploratory paper we propose 'worldmaking' as a framework for pluralistic, imaginative sc... more In this exploratory paper we propose 'worldmaking' as a framework for pluralistic, imaginative scenario development. Our points of departure are the need in scenario practice to embrace uncertainty, discomfort and knowledge gaps, and the connected need to capture and make productive fundamental plurality among understandings of the future. To help respond to these needs, we introduce what Nelson Goodman calls worldmaking. It holds that there is no singular, objective world (or "real reality"), and instead that worlds are multiple, constructed through creative processes instead of given, and always in the process of becoming. We then explore how worldmaking can operationalise discordant pluralism in scenario practice by allowing participants to approach not only the future but also the present in a constructivist and pluralistic fashion; and by extending pluralism to ontological domains. Building on this, we investigate how scenario worldmaking could lead to more imaginative scenarios: worldmaking is framed as a fully creative process which gives participants ontological agency, and it helps make contrasts, tensions and complementarities between worlds productive. We go on to propose questions that can be used to operationalize scenario worldmaking, and conclude with the expected potential and limitations the approach, as well as suggestions for practical experimentation.

This is a short essay that describes the SSHRC funded project I am involved in as a postdoc. It w... more This is a short essay that describes the SSHRC funded project I am involved in as a postdoc. It was published in the Sept.-Oct. issue of the ACM's journal Interactions.

During the spring of 2011 nearly 2000 Vancouverites weighed in on the future of the city’s urban ... more During the spring of 2011 nearly 2000 Vancouverites weighed in on the future of the city’s urban design by casting votes through strategically located interactive kiosks. The kiosks, commissioned by the Museum of Vancouver and designed and built by local outfit Tangible Interaction, were part of Mashnotes: a public engagement initiative aiming to broaden conversations about urban architecture and planning. Approaching Mashnotes as an instance of what DiSalvo calls “adversarial design”, this case study asks how simple – almost rudimentary – interactive affordances may produce potentially politicizing effects, while drawing attention to the limits of dialogue as means to engage the public in civic politics.
The complete chapter is available here: http://civicmediaproject.org/works/civic-media-project/mashnotes

"What happens when you allow researchers to enjoy the liberating effects of the imagination? How ... more "What happens when you allow researchers to enjoy the liberating effects of the imagination? How would the capacity to break from the constraints of the “now” and project different futures outline new and exciting research directions? A recent CFP sent by Daniel Pargman, in preparation for Critical Alternatives 2015, gave [...Roy Bendor...] and me an opportunity for some playful experimentation. Here’s what we came up with." from http://www.digitalsustainability.com/?p=495

This position paper includes three components: first, a discussion of the meaning of sustainabili... more This position paper includes three components: first, a discussion of the meaning of sustainability, in which I suggest that in addition to seeing sustainability as a desired end-state we should view it as a process of collective future-visioning. Second, drawing from Stephen Duncombe's notion of the "ethical spectacle", I propose a model for designing inclusive, resonant, engaging and thought-provoking interactive experiences to promote public engagement with sustainability. Third, moving from the conceptual to the practical, I suggest a few concrete guiding principles for designing interactive ethical spectacles for sustainability (IESS).

This dissertation explores the design of new media technologies for engaging the public on the po... more This dissertation explores the design of new media technologies for engaging the public on the political aspects of urban sustainability. Focusing on new media’s “responsive aesthetics”, it asks, how are interactive experiences designed to mediate the underlying political culture of sustainability? In order to provide initial answers to this question, this dissertation draws on phenomenological approaches to the philosophy of technology, critical theory and contemporary work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), to develop a framework for considering the politicizing aspects of interactive experiences. At its centre is a conception of interactivity as a form of world disclosure that mediates being, perception, action and meaning. The validity and utility of the conceptual framework is demonstrated with a variety of case studies that include Mash Notes, a public interactive installation; MetroQuest, a sustainability decision support tool; public engagement processes facilitated by UBC’s Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP); and several “serious” games. The design of interactive experiences is discussed on the background of what is identified here as an incipient turn to experience in environmental communication. Perceived as a response to the decline of the dominant science communication paradigm, known as the information deficit model, the turn to experience is explained as an appeal to resonant, felt, meaningful aspects of the public’s perception of, and engagement with, environmental issues. It is illustrated by two communicative strategies: the first aims to evoke resonant experiences with politicizing effects, while the second aims to create consonance between the public’s everyday experiences and the issues underpinning political decision-making. The dissertation’s critical analysis of the relations between politics and design aims to provide environmental communicators with a better understanding of the potentials and limitations of designing interactive experiences to engage the public on sustainability, and provide technology designers with a more comprehensive and nuanced conception of the political significance of their creations.

Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics, 2014

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2013

Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology features a sophisticated analysis of the ways by ... more Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology features a sophisticated analysis of the ways by which social forces influence processes of technological de- sign, production and use. While Feenberg is foremostly read as a critical theorist, this essay argues that his call to democratize technology stands on distinct phenomenological grounds. This is based on the way he illustrates the role of experience in subtending potentials for the progressive transformation of the sociotechnical sphere. Against this background, this essay identifies an important shift in the way Feenberg articulates experience, from relating it to lifelong processes of learning and identity- construction (Bildung) to an emphasis on visceral immediacy (Erlebnis). This shift manifests a newfound focus on material, embodied meanings over-against linguistic ones, and results in a considerable tension between Feenberg’s appeal to experiential self-evidence and his critical position toward technology. The discussion of the two modes of experience exemplifies the current that underlies Feenberg’s work, namely the creation of traffic between ontological and ontic accounts of sociotechnical entities, practices and relations.

Proceedings of iConference ‘12, Toronto, Canada, 2012

This paper identifies two approaches to designing user experience in decision-support tools, each... more This paper identifies two approaches to designing user experience in decision-support tools, each drawing from a particular model of political culture and operationalizing a different set of assumptions about typical users and potential use effects. While the analytic approach emphasizes the benefits of involving competent citizens in a ‘rational’ process of consensual decision making, the deictic approach highlights the benefits of finding resonance between everyday, lived experience and the premise and principles of policymaking. The paper demonstrates the two approaches by analyzing the visualization strategy chosen by the designers of MetroQuest, a Canadian sustainability decision-support tool commissioned by the City of Vancouver. The paper concludes by suggesting that the normative questions associated with the design of sustainability decision-support tools should be reconsidered in light of the relations between user experience and political culture.

Journal of E-Democracy and Open Government , 2012

Social media are considered ideal means to promote inclusive political participation by “reaching... more Social media are considered ideal means to promote inclusive political participation by “reaching citizens where they are” in scalable and cost-effective ways. However, with all the excitement about the new virtual public sphere, little attention is given to the technical mediation itself – the affordances of e-deliberation platforms and the kind of interactions they support. In response, this paper aims to thicken the account of the interrelated political and technological contexts of e-deliberation. Using recent Facebook deliberations on sustainable transportation in Vancouver as our example, we argue that different rationales for public participation in policymaking animate different approaches to discourse, which, in turn, inform and are affected by different design and use strategies for e-deliberation platforms. Our argument suggests that the design affordances of e-deliberation represent opportunities to promote or curtail certain visions of a political culture of sustainability.

This article explores the ways in which Waltz with Bashir (2008), Ari Folman’s animated war memoi... more This article explores the ways in which Waltz with Bashir (2008), Ari Folman’s animated war memoir, combines a commentary on memory with a moral stance on war.The authors argue that the film exemplifies the capacity of animated documentaries not only to show what is otherwise difficult or impossible to represent in non-animated documentaries, but to serve as a vehicle for fostering new relationships between the viewer and the documentary text. In this vein, the authors argue that Waltz with Bashir synthetically produces a rich, consistent, and thus trustworthy sense of reality for its viewers not despite but because of its unique aesthetic choices – its innovative animation techniques and mixing of reality with fantasy. Accordingly, the authors weave together analyses of the film’s content and form with accounts of their reception, discuss how the film evokes certain somatic responses with individuals, and consider the political significance these responses may engender.