(Lecture)
5-6 PM Live on YouTube and Facebook

Why do old bank buildings look like temples? Why do we offer our bank card to a dirty machine in an alley at 2am? Why are all fintech apps white with a shade of blue?
This is a performative talk on how aesthetics build trust. Gijs tries out different trust aesthetics, analyses their attractions and limitations, and explores an alternative way to design trust that tries to avoid fooling people.
Trust is a condition for doing economy. Before you buy, save, invest or exchange, you need to trust a product, bank, company or currency. The kind of trust aesthetic that comforts you may reveal something about you. Are veined marble and frictionless payments so seductive because they make you feel safe and in control? Because they promise good weather in stormy times?
If so, design is both complicit and a potential ally, and the game of trust a basic unit for economic reform. There may be something to learn from pop culture, ecology and the honesty of Monopoly money.
(Talk based on MA Thesis “The Shine of Money: A Trend Report on Trust”)
On August 27th at 17:15 CET, you can watch the talk on our Economia Festival YouTube channel and Baltan Laboratories Facebook Page, where the videos will remain accessible afterwards.
In addition to watching his lecture, there is the opportunity to join the conversation in a live Q&A with Gijs. If you want to join this Q&A, please click on the following Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/94112931266. The room will be open from 16:45 on, at 17:00 we will start with an introduction.
Gijs de Boer (1992, NL) is a design researcher based in Rotterdam. He investigates how to make sense of the self in an entangled world, borrowing methods from trend forecasters, pop artists, philosophers and designers.
Gijs graduated from MA Contextual Design at Design Academy Eindhoven and is currently writing his thesis in philosophy of technology. He is part of the collective Extra Practice.
(#Shifting Value)