Chalmers Conferences, Transvaluation: Making the world matter

The Debtoscope: Transvaluation through Design
Soren Rosenbak

Last modified: 2015-08-17

Abstract


This paper discusses transvaluation through design from an analysis of the ‘Debtoscope’, a design intervention dealing with the issue of debt that took place in Brisbane, Australia, November 2012. Framed around the single question: “How does debt hurt you?” the project used a seven metre long stethoscope made of local recycled trash material to expose the invisible suffering from indebtedness in the public urban space. Through the unpacking of the stethoscope as a Nietzschean metaphor and the discussion of diagnosis as a tactic for hacking infrastructural space, the Debtoscope brings us closer, not only to what transvaluation through design could be like, but perhaps also to what it should be like.


Keywords


Transvaluation through design; stethoscope; diagnosis; debt; extradisciplinarity; extra-regulation

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