Eventual Everydays: Infiltrating and Opening Systems through Design

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how design can be less a singular solution to a problem and more an opening to possibilities, facing a scenario of apathy and crisis of imagination. Infiltration is proposed as a method of active appropriation and opening in the urban space, generating prefigurative events rather than actual propositions. The project is an attempt to embody this proposition, and consists of the narrative of the NYC Subcommittee of Temporary Operations and Public Dissent (STOPD), an agency that exists non-existently. This paper navigates in the fields of urban and political theory, philosophy, activism, critical design and literary arts, to explore a social thesis (crisis of imagination), a design thesis (design as an opening process), a design proposition (infiltration-opening), and present a specific project with its supporting artifacts (narrative of STOPD). The project is evaluated through conversations with people involved in the context, as it intends to be a design stimulus to trigger imagination around government, dissent, and agency over the city.