This track is devoted to global tensions between mainstream contemporary design cultures and those of peripheral or semi-peripheral capitalist cultures. In this respect design and the total aestheticization of the world is crucial considering how late-stage capitalism applies design as a way of anaesthetising consumers. This comes hand in hand with the total virtualisation and alienation of citizens living in a "sublimated slavery" in which basic human rights and dignified living conditions are no longer tenable. The neoliberal McDonaldization that swept through the post-socialist region is a unique phenomenon that is yet to be fully understood in the broader perspectives of the failure of liberal democracies in the region. But the postcolonial situation of the global south is also in our focus, because meaningful comparisons help us find diagnoses and prognoses. We invite scholars and design educators to discuss options for critical and speculative design and practice-oriented design culture studies and interventions that can help us better understand the recent past, and in turn create new perspectives for a better, more dignified and more humane future. The power of criticism, whether written or built into art and design projects, is very much of interest in this respect.

POTENTIAL THEMES

• Critical history of art and design
• International institutions and networks of design culture
• Global power structures of modern design
• Globalised design culture
• Mainstream design culture vs. competing localities
• Local traditions and global futures
• Geopolitical tensions
• East-West dynamics in contemporary design culture
• Design cultures in the Global South
• References to capitalism and (techno-) neo-feudalism in shaping the design world and the art world
• Post-colonial theory in relation to art and design
• Autonomous design
• Art, design and gender

TRACK CHAIRS

Márton Szentpéteri

Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest

Anna Keszeg

Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest

Zsolt Gyenge

Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest

Hanna Orsolya Vincze

Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca