INTRO

This project is part of a course in which we have had the opportunity to explore different approaches to work and the organisation of a company.

We met a number of people who presented their cooperatives/businesses/associations/...

The diversity of these different players enabled us to tackle a wide range of subjects and gain new perspectives on the world of work.

However, we were forced to realise that even if we wanted to change things for 'a better world', we still had to deal with the reality of groups evolving in a capitalist society where money is always an important issue that sometimes holding them back in their evolution and radicalisation.

That's why I wanted to imagine this new world, this 'heterotopia' where monetary value no longer exists.

RESEARCHE/INSPIRATION

Heterotopia

Heterotopia is a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow ‘other’: disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside. Foucault provides examples: ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, fairs, Muslim baths and many more.

Foucault uses the term «heterotopia» (French: hétérotopie) to describe spaces that have more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meet the eye. In general, a heterotopia is a physical representation or approximation of a utopia, or a parallel space (such as a prison) that contains undesirable bodies to make a real utopian space possible.

For this project, I’m imagining a heterotopia inspired by a place I know in Rennes, my home town in France. It’s a synergistic place where a farm, a bike repair shop and a second-hand shop coexist. It’s a place where monetary value is tending to disappear, replaced by others such as time and energy, or the sharing of knowledge through learning.

This project is a heterotopia among many others, which could be extended and changed according to your reflections.

PROCESS

As for the graphics, I wanted to create symbols that were simple to understand. The aim was to be able to visualise a network and the relationships between different protagonists via non-pecuniary values.

I wanted to create an interactive flowchart with the knowledge I had of animation, coding and design: not much, as I'm an architecture student.

So I worked on Indesign to create an interactive pdf with the principle of buttons that can reach „cyber hyperlinks“. So it's not a programme as such but a pdf with buttons that allow me to move from page to page more easily.

TO GO FURTHER...

Ideally, I would have liked to have been able to create a 'real programme', more fluid with animations.

It's also important to bear in mind that this flowchart represents ONE heterotopia and that it could represent a thousand others, with different values, protagonists and scales.

FINAL PROJECT