Playing with ethics
Playing with ethics
Playing with Ethics is a playful method that explores ethics through sensory experiences and material exploration. By engaging with ethical dilemmas through the senses and collaborative making, the method supports reflection on ethics as something that is experienced as well as discussed.
Begin by dividing participants into groups of 3–5. Start with a blind tasting where one participant is blindfolded while another offers different foods to taste using a spoon. The participant who can see is responsible for choosing and serving the food.
After the tasting, participants switch roles so everyone experiences both perspectives.
Next, lay out a wide selection of recycled and second-hand materials. Each participant explores the materials individually and selects one or more objects that evoke an ethical question, dilemma or emotional response.
The group then shares their chosen materials and develops a shared ethical dilemma inspired by them.
Finally, the group creates a material installation that invites others to experience or reflect on the ethical dilemma.
End the activity with a facilitated reflection on how the blind tasting, the materials and the installation influenced participants' understanding of ethics.
The method explores ethics as something that is sensed and experienced rather than understood only through theory.
By combining sensory experiences, material exploration and collaborative making, participants develop a deeper understanding of ethical dilemmas and reflect on how ethics can emerge through design practice.
The method has been developed and used in design education to explore ethics through sensory practices. Participants first experienced trust, responsibility and vulnerability through a blind tasting before translating these experiences into material explorations and installations presenting ethical dilemmas. The process encouraged participants to reflect on ethics as something that can be sensed through the body as well as discussed, creating a shared basis for dialogue about ethical questions in design.
Method notes
- Students should have read the text for the day
- Bring an object or material that raises an ethical feeling or reflection
- It is important that the students or teacher does not reveal ethical dilemmas that are intimate or personal in a se
- Bring material of all sort – gladly, recycle material and second hand material with some kind of cultural significance
- Bring food and spoons for a blind tasting that represents different taste plus blindfolds.
More from Playing with ethics
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The method
The method Playing with ethics departs from several years of work between Mikkel Vinding, Marie Kremer, Lene Tanggaard and Anne-Lene Sandwing on the design research paper:
“From ethics of the eye to ethics of the bodies: Rethinking ethis in design research through sensory practices.”
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Research article
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dest...
Sand, A.-L., Vinding, M., Kremer, M., & Tanggaard, L. (2024). From an ethics of the eyes to ethics of the bodies: Rethinking ethics in design research through sensory practices. Design Studies, 95(December), 1-18.