1 What is Doors of Perception ?
It is an annual conference which was started in November 1993 as the first major project of the Netherlands Design Institute; (we did the first two conferences with the magazine Mediamatic). The conference is now spawning a variety of workshops, projects and other initiatives around the theme: "the design challenge of interactive multimedia and networks".
2 How big is the conference?
642 people came to the first conference at six weeks' notice in response to this theme. 1100 came to the second whose theme was "@Home". About 600 came to number three "On Matter" (when we changed the format and made it last a week); and we expect 850 this year for Doors 4 on "Speed", which is the capacity of the theatre. So far people have come from about 42 countries (*it's usually about 50:50 Dutch and foreign atendees) with a lot from the USA, Germany and Scandinavia.
3 What is the story?
The main idea from day one has been to ask - in relation to the >so-called 'information superhighway' - not so much what it can do as what it is for?When we first did the conference all the talk in America was about tele-shopping and >video-on-demand, which sounded very boring. We thought: There must be more than this! - and organised the conference to consider more exciting and socially useful alternatives. The words "Doors of Perception" come from a poem by William Blake, although the words are better known to many people as the title of Aldous Huxley's book.
4 So is Doors some kind of computer industry trade show?
>Not really: many interesting and important people from the computer industry are involved - but they are not allowed to make product presentations! They speak on equal terms with a variety of other disciplines. The Doors concept is that multi-media networks and connectivity are economically, socially and culturally important - and that you can't separate these factors. We mix together scientists, artists, business people, designers, artists and policy makers, confront them with a theme, and ask them to react.
5 What kind of themes?
Doors 1 did not have a focus yet but we had two questions: "what is this stuff?" and "what is it *for*?". The theme of Doors 2 (in November 1994) was "home". Not just home as a >market for new products, but home as a social and cultural notion that is likely to be changed by the penetration of new communication media. For Doors 3 "on matter" we took an even bigger subject: the relationship between environmental sustainability and information technology. The event became known as "info-eco" which describes the two very diferent comunities that came together. Doors 4 develops the info-eco theme by focussing on "speed".
6 What were the main results of Info-eco?
Firstly, a huge amount of documentation now published in this website! Second, some understanding . Doors 1 and 2 asked (about multimedia and the infobahn): "what is this stuff for? We did not receive an answer to this question. So for 1995 we asked hypothetically: "how can information technology contribute to environmental sustainability?". An international programme team of scientists, designers, information technology and environmental experts met three times during 1995 to translate this very abstract question into the week's programme. We decided that the 'organising concept' of Doors would be "matter" - to contrast hype about information technology with the real, hard, physical world in which we live. We also agreed that the main aim of the event would be to bring together "info" and "eco" communities.
7 Surely this subject was covered already elsewhere?
We did look for several months we looked around the world for a similar 'info-eco' meeting but - to our amazement - there had been nothing of this kind. So Doors 3 was a step into the unknown for us all. But it was an important step: the planet is in bad shape. Understanding why we choose to ignore this basic and rather well-publicised fact - about our only home as human beings - was one of the psychological and cultural themes of the conference.
8 So you went Green?
Well not as such. Nobody would ever consider Doors to be close to ideologies like deep ecology. But we asked: can we use information technology to help make ourselves more aware of the planet and its systems? And can we use I.T. to work more collectively to change the ways we live and produce - ways that are doing the damage in the first place?
9 But these are such broad questions!
True. But we do have a technique for moving from the meta to the matter-of-fact. Each event is about the interaction of "Big Stories"(eco and info) and "Small Actions". We call it "thinking and doing". That's why last year's (at Doors 3) workshops were so important: Doors 3 was not just a talking shop, but an experiment in new ways of working together.
10 So what is a "workshop"?
A room, a table, and from 3 to 30 people from diferentr disciplines. The three key features of the workshop process are: 1) we do design scenarios or 'back-casting' from a future in which we have already achieved a Factor 20 balance; this process is not utopian, but it does imply hope. 2) the workshops are to re-design processes rather than products; 3) the projects are multi-disciplinary; we are not here to say: "designers will save the planet"!
11 Do you use the internet in this?
A fourth feature of the workshop process is indeed that we used the internet (our DOME web site with its Futplex shared on-line workspace) as practical working tool that started many of you discusssing and exchanging information before you came to Amsterdam.
12 Does the online workspace actually work?
To a degree: DOME was a technical experiment - we in The Netherlands are rather proud of our innovativeness using these new media - but it was also a design and a social experiment. The site continues to grow and change so long as we interbvemne and keep it refreshed. But when we stop that, it dies too.
13 Who pays for all this activity?
So far the Dutch government, which provides 80% of our money; the City of Amsterdam , which gives us our fabulous building rent-free; plus some income from companies; and of course the price (very low) people pay for tickets to our events.
14 Do you do the conference on your own or are there partners?
We were rather pleased that three different Dutch ministries supported Doors of Perception 3: VROM (the Dutch environment ministry) collaborated with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (which provides core funding for the Netherlands Design Institute), and also with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
15 What's in it for the government?
The Dutch government is rather well-known internationally for its commitment to long-term ennvironmental research and planning; indeed, it acts as a kind of (unpaid) consultant to many other governments and inter-governmental organisations. But there are also limits to what governments can do. The environmental crisis is the result of unbalance among incredibly complex global systems - living systems, human systems, industrial systems. And their complexity rules out the idea that a single authority can 'repair' them.
16 So what can be done?
The task of governments and institutions like this one is not to say: "leave it to us: we'll fix the planet for you" . No. Our role is to pose questions to society, to stimulate the creativity of people. It is from their actions - your actions - that the solutions will emerge, not from government reports nor even from well-intentioned (and important) legislation.
17 What has all this got to do with design?
A good question. We are a design institute, and it's by no means clear to many people what business we have getting involved in this whole business of the internet, not to mention the environment. Although some people use 'design' as a noun - to describe an object, a building, or a document - design can also refer to processes by which things are produced, or the way things are organised. Design in that sense is as much about people, infrastructures, materials, energy, matter and information, as it is about things. So when you look at the principles of sustainability outlined by people like Paul Hawken - such as minimising the waste of matter and energy, reducing the movement.