Otto von Busch
Dr. Otto von Busch is Professor of Integrated Design, at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York. In his research he explores the emergence of a new hacktivist designer role in fashion, where the designer engages participants to reform fashion from a phenomenon of dictations, anxiety and fear, into a collective experience of empowerment and liberation.In such practice, design and craft is reverse engineered, hacked and shared among many participants as a form of civic engagement, building community capabilities through collaborative craft and social activism.
His work on fashion, DIY culture and craftivism draws upon political realism (RealDesign), religious studies and Buddhism, esotericism, occulture and the dark arts.
Please visit www.selfpassage.info for more works
His work on fashion, DIY culture and craftivism draws upon political realism (RealDesign), religious studies and Buddhism, esotericism, occulture and the dark arts.
Please visit www.selfpassage.info for more works
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Books by Otto von Busch
Using four design projects as tools for inquiry, Von Busch explores the seductive desires of envy and violence within fashion drawing on political theories. He proposes that the violent conflicts of fashion happen not only in arid cotton fields or collapsing factories, but in the everyday practice of getting dressed, in the judgments, sneers, and rejections of others. Indeed, he suggests that feelings of inclusion and adoration are what make us feel the pleasure of being fashionable-of being seductive, popular, and powerful.
Exploring the conflicting emotions associated with fashion, Von Busch argues that while the current state of fashion is bred out of fear, The Psychopolitics of Fashion can offer constructive modes of mitigation and resistance. Through projects that actively work towards disarming the violent practices of dress, Von Busch suggests paths towards a more engaging and meaningful experience of fashion he calls “deep fashion.”
(second edition - typos corrected)
- What if fashion is not so much about clothes, but primarily a cognitive interface between living organisms, hungry for connection and love?
- How would such shift in perception change our approach to fashion and sustainability?
The psychoanalyst, political theorist, biologist and pioneer of body therapies Wilhelm Reich framed a groundbreaking synthesis on the biosocial aspects of life. Reich never discussed fashion, but taking designerly inspiration from his work, this book argues fashion can be understood as a biological as much as social phenomenon; when fashion works at its best, we feel it in our bodies. The agency of fashion is not in the system, but in your body. Fashion is the organismic pleasure and excitement of growth and expansion, an energy sparkling with life, a form of biosocial flourishing, or more precisely: a vital vogue.
This book aims to provoke new perspectives on the many forms of labor engaged in fashion, from sweatshops to interns and bloggers. But the books also suggests other concepts by which we can understand the production of fashion, perspectives which may open new forms of fashion praxis.
This book provokes new perspectives, challenges existing concepts, and generates new ways of seeing/understanding the varieties of fashion(s); as signs and symbols, concrete human relationships and intentions, gestures and movements. As boundaries, fronts and conflicts, but also as passions and com-passions. As systems and industries, as modes of social industriousness of being together.
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I juli 2013, Malmö, tog en grupp asylsökande och papperslösa migranter initiativet till en vandring från Malmö till Stockholm – Asylstafetten. Vandrarna krävde att deras berättelser om migration, asyl och papperslöshet skulle höras och transformeras till handling. Ett flertal aktiviteter organiserades under den 34-dagars långa marschen, där hantverks-workshoppar ingick. Genom texter och konversationer med deltagare i vandringen, porträtterar den här publikationen flera skildringar av dessa workshoppar; platserna de intog, utövandet och idéerna de frambringade liksom dess kommande politiska potential.
Papers by Otto von Busch
possibilities and to ask speculative ‘what if?’ questions. This tends to be translated into a design practice that privileges creative conjectures about ideal end states. Conversely, designers are rarely encouraged to think creatively about how a recalcitrant social world may scupper their grand designs. In response to this, we argue that the contemporary debate on design could do with a healthy dose of political realism. The lofty ideals of democratic design cannot be realised without recognising
the harsh realities of power.
Using four design projects as tools for inquiry, Von Busch explores the seductive desires of envy and violence within fashion drawing on political theories. He proposes that the violent conflicts of fashion happen not only in arid cotton fields or collapsing factories, but in the everyday practice of getting dressed, in the judgments, sneers, and rejections of others. Indeed, he suggests that feelings of inclusion and adoration are what make us feel the pleasure of being fashionable-of being seductive, popular, and powerful.
Exploring the conflicting emotions associated with fashion, Von Busch argues that while the current state of fashion is bred out of fear, The Psychopolitics of Fashion can offer constructive modes of mitigation and resistance. Through projects that actively work towards disarming the violent practices of dress, Von Busch suggests paths towards a more engaging and meaningful experience of fashion he calls “deep fashion.”
(second edition - typos corrected)
- What if fashion is not so much about clothes, but primarily a cognitive interface between living organisms, hungry for connection and love?
- How would such shift in perception change our approach to fashion and sustainability?
The psychoanalyst, political theorist, biologist and pioneer of body therapies Wilhelm Reich framed a groundbreaking synthesis on the biosocial aspects of life. Reich never discussed fashion, but taking designerly inspiration from his work, this book argues fashion can be understood as a biological as much as social phenomenon; when fashion works at its best, we feel it in our bodies. The agency of fashion is not in the system, but in your body. Fashion is the organismic pleasure and excitement of growth and expansion, an energy sparkling with life, a form of biosocial flourishing, or more precisely: a vital vogue.
This book aims to provoke new perspectives on the many forms of labor engaged in fashion, from sweatshops to interns and bloggers. But the books also suggests other concepts by which we can understand the production of fashion, perspectives which may open new forms of fashion praxis.
This book provokes new perspectives, challenges existing concepts, and generates new ways of seeing/understanding the varieties of fashion(s); as signs and symbols, concrete human relationships and intentions, gestures and movements. As boundaries, fronts and conflicts, but also as passions and com-passions. As systems and industries, as modes of social industriousness of being together.
----
I juli 2013, Malmö, tog en grupp asylsökande och papperslösa migranter initiativet till en vandring från Malmö till Stockholm – Asylstafetten. Vandrarna krävde att deras berättelser om migration, asyl och papperslöshet skulle höras och transformeras till handling. Ett flertal aktiviteter organiserades under den 34-dagars långa marschen, där hantverks-workshoppar ingick. Genom texter och konversationer med deltagare i vandringen, porträtterar den här publikationen flera skildringar av dessa workshoppar; platserna de intog, utövandet och idéerna de frambringade liksom dess kommande politiska potential.
possibilities and to ask speculative ‘what if?’ questions. This tends to be translated into a design practice that privileges creative conjectures about ideal end states. Conversely, designers are rarely encouraged to think creatively about how a recalcitrant social world may scupper their grand designs. In response to this, we argue that the contemporary debate on design could do with a healthy dose of political realism. The lofty ideals of democratic design cannot be realised without recognising
the harsh realities of power.
and takes undesignated paths. This is a paradox for designers, who love to arrange and designate what others should do. Designers build worlds, while activists turn worlds upside-down. Activism celebrates agency over structure, vitality over predictability, prophecy over memory. Activism is agency bound to risk and vulnerability. This makes it tricky business, always moving across shifting sand with power becoming feral. While it can be seductive to let the latest fashion act as a canvas for the latest politics, we must also pay attention to the fact that activism can question and unsettle the arrangements of fashion itself. We can frame it in this way: fashion activism signifies a will to inhabit more worlds than we are offered to purchase. A radical activist fashion, questioning the roots of the fashion
system, promises no new seasonal changes, no slogans to adopt. Instead, it opens the moment up as an inclusive realm that it is possible to inhabit and change. Using the promise of fashion, it is an activism that is never reactive or shallow, but one that redistributes agency in the vital and decisive masquerades of everyday life. Fashion activism helps equip the self to deal with our masked multitudes of unfathomable depths, and helps us do so with a sense of integrity.
As consumers and designers aim for more authenticity, honesty and transparency in the production of textiles, they may be stepping into a paradox, as the allure of draping the social world in textiles is partly founded on mystery, magic and illusion. Yet, some design activists engage with the consumer system to create pre-figurative political interventions, using the illusions of fashion as a mode to imagine and test new creative and productive forms of enclothed togetherness, addressing social and political issues of societal sustainability, reaching through the dazzling desire with daring disobedience.
Fashion is full of paradoxes and certainly one of the most profound is how we try to express individuality using only ready-made objects whose meanings are primarily created outside of ourselves. We assemble an outfit that we want to use to express our modest uniqueness; individual but at the same time not too individual. We try to say something personal through fashion, yet it can never be totally autonomous, just like we cannot have our own personal language, since it has to be somehow shared to work as communication. Fashionable expression is thus stuck in-between the heteronomous process of creation as a communication tool and the autonomous will of the wearer to express something personal.
Moda Praksisi, Hannah Arendt’in görüşlerinin moda üzerine düşünülmesidir. Arendt bize, üzerinde hiç kafa yormadığımız kötülüklerin işbirlikçisi olabileceğimiz gibi rahatsız edici bir gerçekle yüzleşmemiz gerektiğini söyler. Aynı zamanda dünyayı olduğu gibi yani kötülük ve acılardan rahat yüzü görmemiş haliyle sevmemizi ister. Etik moda anlayışı da Arendt’in bu görüşleri üzerinden, politika ve modanın temel bazı güçlerini ve ortak yanlarını anlamamız için çalışmaktadır.
İnsanların tek tip giyinmesine ve eskimeyen giysileri çöpe atmasına sebep olan; görünmeyen yüzünde mültecileri, çocukları ve negatif ayrımcılığa uğrayanları izbe mekanlarda, sosyal güvenceden yoksun bir şekilde aşırı saatler çalıştıran moda tiranlığı, pekala şiddet üretir! Buna karşın endüstriyel modaya küresel düzeyde alternatifler üretebiliriz. Kreatif bir geri çekiliş, reddetme, cesaret, kendi dağıtım ağlarını kurma, paralel üretim, ileri dönüşüm, yeni tüketim modelleri oluşturmak, yavaş moda ve benzeri yollarla neler yapılabileceğine dair küçük ama dönüştürücü bir perspektif yaratabiliriz.
Korkutucu derecede şiddet içeren eylemleri daha derin düşünmek, bize çözümlerin anahtarını da verebilir. İşte bu kitabı çok özel yapan şey, moda üzerine çalışan bir dizi düşünürün, “günlük alışkanlıklarımızın karmaşası içinde görünmez olanın” üzerindeki sıvayı kazımalarıdır.
“Dünyamızın sonu, ona yalnızca tek bir açıdan bakıldığında ve kendisine sadece tek bir perspektiften bakmaya kapı açtığımızda gelmiş demektir.” Hannah Arendt
“Herhangi bir yerdeki adaletsizlik, her yerdeki adalet için tehdittir. Kaçınılmaz bir birliktelik ağına yakalanmış, bir tek kaderin elbisesi ile bağlanmışız. Birini doğrudan etkileyen şey, dolaylı olarak herkesi etkiler.” Martin Luther King Jr
“Endüstriyel moda, kadınların hiç bir zaman yeterli olmadığını ve endüstri tarafından oluşturulan standartlara göre her zaman kendini
geliştirmesi gerektiğini dikte eder.” Jennifer Nelson
There is no arguing with the fact that the history of fashion, like the history of utopian thought, has been stained by suffering, exploitation, and even totalitarianism, but despite their deficiencies and faults, both have also fuelled human imagination, encouraged aspiration and innovation, and provided hope for a better sense of self and an improved, more inclusive society. A world without fashion, like a world without utopia, would be a very sad one. Through this special issue we propose a dialogue that embraces the significance of fashion in utopian visions and one that exploits the potential of utopian imagination to inspire better and more sustainable fashion futures. A dialogue that is fuelled by the belief that positive social change is both possible and desirable.
Guest editor: Mila Burcikova
Contributors: Jane MacRae Campbell, Justyna Galant, Annebella Pollen, Andrew Brookes, Kate Fletcher, Robert A. Francis, Emma Dulcie Rigby, Thomas Roberts, Otto von Busch, Timo Rissanen, Vidmina Stasiulyte, Celia Pym, Ryan Yasin