Copy of Habére / Habitat – Future of Dwelling in the Age of Climate Change: a Theatrical Prop.
Interdisciplinary DDE Praxismodul 2018 – Climate Change in Switzerland
Instructors
Dr Joëlle Bitton
Dr Antonio Scarponi
Clemens Winkler
Timeframe
The module takes place over 4 weeks, from 26.03.18 to 20.04.18, from Tuesday to Friday, 9.30-17.00 - see timetable below for detailed hours and classrooms. Class sessions include discussions, mentoring sessions, in-class exercises, assignments and independent study blocks.
**Projects are conducted individually or in a team of three students at most** Check
Overview and Objectives: Habitat & Climate Change threats
The Latin word "habére" highlights and addresses multiple powerful meanings that refer today, to the relationship with our environment.
It means, in fact, to "have", to "hold", to "own", or to "possess". It is the etymological root of many words of today's languages. The word "abito" in Italian for instance, stands for the noun "dress" but also for the verb "abitare," to "dwell" or to "inhabit," in English. In Italian, it also stands for "abitudine," or "habit," in the sense of "having good or bad habits" exactly like in the English sense. But most important, it is also the etymological root of the word "habitat", defining in a more holistic way, our environment and the specific set of conditions in which a species lives.
All these multiple meanings reflect an attitude that humans have towards the environment. On the one hand, they stand for something that we "have" or "hold", "own" or "possess", like in the sense of a habit, of a dress, or a home, items with a very strong symbolic but also functional meaning. On the other hand, they stand for something in which we are held within, like a habitat. In other words, it describes an attitude that we keep in reaction to an external condition, but at the same time, it is the outer condition in itself.
Based on these etymological considerations of the word "habitat", students will be encouraged to reflect upon the fragility of the human existence under the constant threat of change (political, economic, technological, sociological, environmental, etc.). Based on the narrative of climate, students will be specifically asked to imagine and to build a 1:1 interior of the "house of the future", made of corrugated cardboard, as a symbolic material that stands for precarity, temporary, fragility, of human existence on the planet. In particular, the constraint of the uncertainty of what tomorrow is made of (anything can happen) should be emphasised in the overall creative process.
The "home of the future" will be constructed as cultural, theatrical, scenographic prop. Students will be divided into groups and develop the different part of what it will be considered the "future of living" based on the primary human activities that define our domestic landscape. The course will establish a temporary "cardboard lab" where the construction and realization of a collective interior of the future will be guided, reflected, developed.
Connection to Climate Change:
Overall goals:
- taking the notion of climate change as a narrative (inviting scenographers on the discourse)
- setting up a Cardboard Laboratory as a space for spatial cardboard props reflecting different angles on climate change
- democratic decision-making on the process
- the Cardboard Laboratory takes cardboard as a temporarily media of civilisation
- role of landscape and theatre
- students work in groups on different scales (abito ~ human approach; habit ~ social approach; agitare ~ ecological approach;)
- in the first two weeks setting up a scenography, such as a Laboratory for treating Mind Illness through Climate Effects or space capsule for Escapists, )
- in the second two weeks the students bring their settings into live, with storyboards, acting, performing, inviting, improvising, interacting..
- outcome will be recorded movies as well as scenes from the Cardboard Lab in the final exhibition of the interdisciplinary DDE modul
- role of landscape and theatre
- the basic conceptualisation and chosen materials is fixed – the students focus on their personal angle on the topic and train their skills in experience prototyping (as interaction design method)
- thinking fiction in stories and acting sustainable with "usual" cardboard
Deliverables:
Photos, Recordings
Instagram Account
Booklet to lay out for final day
Timetable:
Availability of Lecturers in brackets []
week 1 KW13
Monday, 26.03.2018 symposium at Kunstraum [C] [J]
Tuesday, 27.03.2018 Making-Workshop at Aktionsraum [C] [Joseph Popper?]
Wednesday, 28.03.2018 project work [C] [J] > Task develop story draft/ plot
*lecture to present where we discuss topics at hand?
Thursday, 29.03.2018 Easter Holiday
Friday, 30.03.2018 Easter Holiday
week 2 KW14
Tuesday, 03.04.2018 Presentations of first Plots [C] [A] [J]
Workshop with Characters and Keywords
Wednesday, 04.04.2018 9-11 walk around & project work [C] [A]
Thursday, 05.04.2018 9-11 walk around & project work [C] [A]
Friday, 06.04.2018 9-11 walk around & project work [C] [A] [J]
week 3 KW15
Tuesday, 10.04.2018 11-13 walk around & project work [C] [A]
Wednesday, 11.04.2018 9-11 walk around & final filming [C] [A] [J?]
Thursday, 12.04.2018 9-11 Pre-presentations at Aktionsraum [C] [J] [A] [ev. guest MA student]
12-14 photographs with us art directing
15-18 dismantle
Friday, 13.04.2018 Final Private Preview 9-13 [C] [A] [J]
*we should open to public viewing
Get the brief for final documentation
week 4 KW16
Tuesday, 17.04.2018 15 -16 Discuss deliverables internally & remind to students [C] [A]
Wednesday, 18.04.2018 9 - 13 Postproduction (Print for public presentations) [C] [A]
Thursday, 19.04.2018 preparing presentations
Friday, 20.04.2018 final exhibition at Kunstraum [C] [A] [J]
(Involvement: Antonio 5.5 days, Clemens 5.5 days, Joelle 4 days)
Materials to organize:
- [C] How much cardboard shall we order and where?
400m2
http://brieger.ch/de/verpackungszubehor/wellkarton-in-rollen-und-bogen/wellkarton-in-bogen.html (next day order)
- [C] Buy (hot) glue, wood glue and tape?
I am not sure. I am wondering if we can get that in Jumbo as they might have more variety.
In the cardboard lab we would need:
Fast white glue (wood type)
Normal white glue (wood type)
Hot glue + gun.
Stiches + gun.
- Wooden Planks
BBQ or even better cheap chop sticks for horizontal connections panel 2 panel.
- [C] Space question – Preferably a permanent space: Aktionsraum
Yes, this is important. We need a room that we can book. We need that ASAP. Ideally an Atelier space.
- [C] Which media equipment do we need?
White board, flip chart, beamer projector we take from the seminar room and the lab
- Anything else ???
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First notes
joëlle:
Notions of civilisation
agriculture
nomadism
civilisation / mathematics
traffic of merchandise / people
containers movements
flight traffic
travel
traffic of data
data as currency
data centres energy expense
data farms creating microclimates
underneath the visible
making trade visible
threats
nuclear plants
methods
science collaboration
science - designers
continuing research from previous years
atmosphere
powers of ten
heaven and earth
exploration of deep seas
objectives/questions
make outcome graspable
urgency
time pressure
what is the cost of living a quiet life?
Uncertainty, "you don't know what tomorrow is made of"
"mobile": root of the word, furniture that you have to take it with you from one day to the next (Italian farmers)
Transience
Reflections on the issue of property
Brief: students are not problem-solving for potential future consumers, they are the actors of their own world
antonio:
_
_
clemens:
_how to formulate hyperlocal experiences on a global topic?
_how would CO2 balancing (compensation and creation of it) affect cryptocurrency?
_uncovering human relationship to climate change in history
_different layers of the atmosphere get sold (in terms of finding "stable windows")
_ways of articulating climate through computational data, performances, political debates(climate change conference bonn) - (http://www.olafureliasson.net blog)
_material speculation workshop on clouds* as spin-off for the seminar (potentially, I could ask a professor for a Skype conversation within our seminar – I met her at MIT – Weather in a tank - cloudsYouTube)
*(f.l.t.r. Nebula (artificial cloud) exhibition in Zurich 2016, "Per-Forming Clouds" Workshops 2016-now, junior summer school on geo engineering/ cloud seeding "Stormy Weathers" at ZHdK 2017)
_personally wishful process/outcomes: narratives about living with our climate in 2100 (climate forces new materials to arise or stock markets exchanges), models and simulations of climate/ trading systems, instruments for observation)