Chris Speed, Chris Elsden, Youngsil Lee, Carlos Guerrero Millan and Natalia-Rozalia Avlona

Defined as “a product or commodity that has been contracted for: that can be replaced by another identical item without breaking the terms of the contract. More generally: interchangeable, replaceable.” (OED), fungibility is most commonly applied to money and its innate quality that “commensurates incommensurabilities” (Carruthers & Espeland 1998, p. 1400). The use of money as a device to support the exchange of practically anything, has traditionally allowed us to disassociate any contextual information from a product or service, as money carries only an economic value with it. However, as data becomes smart by being ‘bound’ to information in immutable blockchains, we find that even forms of digital currency are forced to the remember where and who they came from, and what they were used to buy (O’Dwyer, 2019). A process that makes them non-fungible.

As the data economy continues to pervade every industry, using technology such as blockchains, this webinar explores the opportunities to design after fungibility. Following a brief introduction to the concepts of fungibility and non-fungibility, the team introduce a design methodology to encourage designers to reconceive a design process through a non-fungible lens.

This is the second webinar that contributes to questions of value in the context of design research within data-driven cultures and economies. The webinar also forms part of an ongoing discussion within the European DCODE PhD network to explore how digital economies reshape forms of value creation and displacement across design.

Bio

Prof. Chris Speed, is Chair of Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh where he collaborates with a wide variety of partners to explore how design provides methods to adapt and create products and services within a networked society. Chris is also the Director for the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Chris led the development and leadership of the Institute for Design Informatics that is home to a combination of researchers working across the fields of design, social science, and data science, as well as the PhD, MA/MFA and MSc and Advanced MSc programmes.

Dr Chris Elsden is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Service Design in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is a design researcher, with a background in sociology, and expertise in the human experience of data-driven services. Using and developing innovative design research methods, his work undertakes diverse, qualitative and often speculative engagements with participants to investigate emerging relationships with technology – particularly data-driven tools, FinTech and blockchain technologies.

Youngsil Lee is a PhD student part of the DCODE network funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant and located in Design informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her current research focuses on an ecological approach to rethink data in food systems through design.

Carlos Guerrero Millan is a PhD student of the DCODE network in Design informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is an interdisciplinary designer studying the interaction and collaboration of humans with technology, applying co-creative methodologies and physical interactions as instruments to approach complex systems, uncover social and cultural relations through data and develop new interpretations of diverse concepts.

Natalia-Rozalia Avlona is a lawyer, researcher and Marie Curie PhD Fellow (DCODE) at the Computer Science Department of the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on the creation and implementation of medical datasets in the AI-driven Health Care Sector.

Running Order

16.00 – Welcome by Chris Speed and Chris Elsden

16.10 – Discussion – Chris Speed, Chris Elsden, Youngsil Lee, Carlos Guerrero Millan and Natalia-Rozalia Avlona

16.40 – Q&A

17.00 – End

Limited seats at Inspace are available, please book tickets in advance.

* Please note that this webinar will be recorded *