portfolio anne arzberger
Hello.
WE ARE THE FIRST GENDER FLUID TOY COMPANY
OUR MISSION
We are a fictional team of human and non-human designers, working together on queer toys. Gender representation plays a significant role in childhood identity development. However, stereotypical thinking, as inherent to a society, is impeding designers intentions in creating childtoys, that equally encourage a child’s talents, beliefs and futures. Thus our mission is to diminish and overwrite existing mental images and stereotypes of child toys by creating genderfluid and challenging toys.
OUR PORTFOLIO
Like other media and advertisements, toys have become cultural symbols representing current societal norms and values. These early socio-cultural experiences, that accumulate over time, perpetuate existing gender norms and influence the formation of cognitive abilities and motivation of children. The toys we present you, will challenge those current stereotypes and help you and your child to envision new futures.
OUR TACTICS
Unlike technological approaches, mean to augment our human capabilities in making fair and unbiased decisions, we follow a forward faced, reflexive approach. We use the common technological flaws of exacerbating societal biases, to challenge our own designerly decisions. We follow four tactics:
It is not surprising that we are now and then presented with situations that puzzle us. Moments where we are not able to assign a known category to things or people.
It is such a moment of reflection, sparked by the wish to escape the unpleasant moment of irritation, that can break up a too narrow view on the world.
create monsters
The moment an expectation collapses creates a discomfort that will force the designer to shift from the ‚automatic system‘ to the ‚reflective system‘ . It can be seen as interruption of habits and well-known practices.
clash expectations
It is the shift in perspective through the means of a metaphor that can hereby allow critical reflection without constraints of common norms and expectations.
Seeing yourself and the world around you through the eyes of someone or something else can free the mind from it‘s blind spots.
shift perspective
Auto-confrontation means confronting someone with the traces of their own doing.
Such an auto-confrontation is not only a trigger for reflective processes, but can also enable users to ‘recall and reflect on more than is recorded in the data, providing critical insight for further design and development.’[6]
auto
confront
OUR TEAM
AI Discriminator
Bias Reflector
Alina Janner
Edith May
Information Generator
Botti
Jesse Hummel
