Inter-Action Design 2020
Instructor: Prof. Dr. Karmen Franinovic
Inter-Action Design seminar is an introduction into the field of interaction design, its history, concepts and future perspectives, from user-centred to life-centred design. We also discuss a specific IAD approach grounded on the notion of Inter-Action and its foundation in relational and activity-based thinking and making. This seminar will provide a base for the upcoming semesters courses and your projects in which we will interweave theory and practice.
Note: As some of the readings are not freely accessible, all the readings will be provided at Paul learning platform course Theorie 1.2 VIAD Inter-Action Design BDE-BDE-T-VS-1002.20H.001
Coop Himmelb(l)au in Basel, 1971
Session 1: Human-Centred Design
21. September 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Topics: history of interaction design, user-centred design, tangible design, critical design…
Moggridge, B. ed.. Designing Interactions (2007). MIT Press.
Moggridge, B. Lecture 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVkQYvN4_HA
Bill Verplank, Interaction Design Sketchbook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rxCLhzmXY
Session 2: Diversity beyond Human
23. September 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Guest: Prof. Dr. Sascha Roesler
Topics: atmosphere, spatial diversity, bio diversity…
TBA
Session 3: Design Symposium (cancelled)
Session 3: Attunement : Theory in the Field
28. September 2020.
time: 9.00am - 12.00pm
location: Zurich outdoors
Topics : attunement, situated knowledge, situated interaction…
Th. Morton, “Attune” in Cohen, J.J. and Lowell D.. Veer Ecology: A Companion for Environmental Thinking. University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/57348.
ed. M. Kuzmanovic and N. Gaffney, Dust & Shadow Reader #2, FoAM, 2019. https://fo.am/publications/dust-shadow-reader-2/
R. Kirschner and K. Franinović, ”Interacting in Entangled Environments” in Not at Your Service: Design Manifestos, Eds. B. Franke and H. Matter, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2020.
Take a walk through the city of Zurich and develop new ways of observation. A set of sensing and sketching exercises can provide an in-depth understanding of urban space, its infrastructures and interactions, and thus is the basis for a multisensory and people-centered design.
Exercise 1. Sound Postcards
The groups of four to five participants walk to an urban area chosen by the group. At the location, they close their eyes and listen to their surroundings for five minutes. The leader of the group keeps the time and the security of the others in the group. After the silent and blinded observation, each person creates a visual representation of sounds and soundscape they heard in an A5 format (or a notebook page). After approximately five to ten minutes, the participants share their visual annotations and describe what they have perceived.
Exercise 2. Awareness
Focus visually on one thing in the environment and stay with it for 5 minutes. Don’t move your eyes to other things in your surroundings. Sketch and write down what you saw and felt.
Exercise 3. Relations
Look at all the other things in the environment and see how they related to your thing from the previous exercise. Draw at least 3-5 relations and describe how they relate to the thing you were focusing on.
Session 4: Ecological Thinking / Interaction : Theory in the Field
28. September 2020.
time: 13.00am - 17.00pm
location: Zurich outdoors
Topics : affordances, embodiment, enactive interaction…
Gibson, J.J. (1986). The Theory of Affordances. In Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
GibsonJ-The-Theory-of-Affordances.pdfNakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009).The concept of flow. In Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (Ed.). Oxford handbook of positive psychology. Oxford University Press, USA. 89-105
Noë, A. (2010). Du bist nicht Dein Gehirn. Eine radikale Philosophie des Bewusstseins. München: Piper Verlag, München. Noe_DubistnichtdeinGehirn.pdf
Exercise 4. Sensorial Ecologies
Move through an urban area and observe how its elements interact between each other.
Sketch and describe sensorial ecologies :
soundscape of the area
lightscape of the area
microclimate of the area (temperature/humidity/smells…)
Describe how you (or another single person) interact with those ecologies.
Exercise 5. Social Ecologies
Observe an area and how people interact with their surroundings and each other.
Develop and describe its social ecologies through:
Flow map (movement of people in space, grouping, body positions).
Attractor map: Describe and sketch social attractors (where/how people can isolate? where/how do people gather? for how long? why?) Describe and sketch spatial attractors (what attracts people and what rejects them?)
Session 5: Inter-Action
5. October 2020.
time: 10.30 - 12.30
location: Zoom
Topics : digital, analog, digitalisation, inter-action
Franinovic, K. ”Inter-Action/Inter-Acting” in Handbuch Künstlerische Forschung, Ed. J. Badura, A. Haarmann and S. Dubach. Diaphanes, 2015.
Session 6: What is the meaning of „active“ in living beings and materials?
9. October 2020.
time: 11.00am - 13:30
location: Zoom
Panel: Khashayar Rhazghandi, Michael Hirschbichler, Karmen Franinovic, Andreas Gehrlach
Coworking Materials conference, Linz
Topics : action, active materials, intentionality, meshwork
Session 7: Otherness
12. October 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Questions: posthuman, gender, intra-action, new materialism, active materials
Ed. Coole, D. and Frost, S. “Introducing the New Materialism” in New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 2010. pp. 1-43.
Kleinman, A. “Intra-Actions” interview with Karen Barad, Mousse 34, 2012.
Franinovic, K. ”Thinking Active Materials : Actively Thinking Materials” in Raw Flows: Fluid Mattering in Arts and Research, Ed. R. Kirschner, De Gruyter, 2017. pp. 124-143.
Session 8: Complexity
19. October 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Topics: acting, leveraging, ecosystems, biosphere, sustainability
Meadows, D. Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, Hartland: The Sustainability Inst. 1999.
K. Franinović and R. Kirschner, “Microbiospherians: Leveraging Microbes in Biosphere 2”, Journal of Performance Research, Vol. 25, No. 3: „On Microperformativity“ Routledge, 2020.
Session 9: Life-Centred Design
9. November 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Topics: Life-Centred Design, Transitional Design, Planet-Centred Design
Jane Fulton Suri, The Future is Life-Centred https://www.mixed-methods.org/episodes/2019/7/24/the-future-is-symbiotic-jane-fulton-suri-ideo
TBA
Session 10: Essay topic / motivation / structure
16. November 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Essay topic: What is interaction design?
Through the course, we have seen many topics and approaches to designing interactions, both digital and analogue. Pick up one of these approaches or topics and develop it through your own questions and ideas. Chose at least one project that exemplifies the approach or topic you have chosen and discuss how theoretical positions and questions have been developed in further through practice.
Essay writing (3-5 Pages)
What is the topic/issue/phenomenon that you aim to investigate?
What research questions could you ask or what statements could you make?
What methods would you use to to answer the questions or prove your hypothesis?
What is your motivation for investigating this topic?
Session 11: What is Interaction Design? Essay presentations
7. December 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Session 12: Exam / Feedback
14. December 2020.
time: 10.30am - 12.30pm
location: Zoom
Individual discussion and feedback
EXPECTATIONS AND GRADING
Grades will be based on the oral and written presentations and on class participation. Contributing to constructive group feedback is an essential aspect of class participation. Regular attendance is required. Two or more unexcused absences will affect the final grade. Arriving late on more than one occasion will also affect the grade.
Class participation 40%
Essay / Exam 60%
Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.