Block Seminar Design Theory 3rd semester

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• Trade routes & supply chains
• Materials and mining
• Exploitation of labour and resource extraction
• Entanglements with design and consumer society: tensions and contradictions of values
• Global exchange of materials and techniques
• Innovation and development 
• Environmental and social consequences
• Local and indigenous practices
• Trade agreements and trade wars
• Swiss context: banking as extractivism?

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• Creative interrogation of explorations & materials collected from site/s AND our relations to each other in undertaking this investigation
  Think of where the materials come from, how they have been extracted, by whom, their lifecycle, their history, their trade, their price value, their exploitation, rarity, waste, off-the-shelf, availability, function, unfunction, forms of fabrication, etc... 
  

Deliverables

• Assignment 0 (before Monday 9.9)
  • Read 
    
    
• Assignment 1 (prepare on Monday 9.9 afternoon) - send notes by email on 9.9 by 19.00
  • Watch 
  • Answer with 1-2 paragraphs the question: 
  • Read 
  • Write 2-3 paragraphs about your impressions on the paper, remarks (what concept is new to you, inspiring aspects, positions you disagree with, etc..), questions...
    The remarks should capture learning points and possible critiques of the papers.
    
    
• Assignment 2 (prepare on Tuesday 10.9 afternoon) - send notes by email on 10.9 by 19.00
  • Find 3 design projects that has for you (you will present 1 or 2 of them in class with 1 - 2 sentences each). Post link, author(s), title, date, picture, comment on Miro board.
  • Read 
  • Write 2-3 paragraphs about your impressions on the paper, remarks (what concept is new to you, inspiring aspects, positions you disagree with, etc..), questions...
    
    
• Assignment 3 (prepare on Wednesday 11.9) - send notes by email on 11.09 by 19.00 
  • Read in depth 2 of those papers and browse through the third one:
  • Write 2-3 paragraphs about your impressions on the paper, remarks (what concept is new to you, inspiring aspects, positions you disagree with, etc..), questions...
  • Design ? Post images/ideas/sketches on Miro board.
    
    
• Assignment 4 - Final Work: The format of the final outcome is decided by each student- it will be an online representation of your reboot ideas (possibly 1-page website, written essay, video, or use of hosting platform such as TikTok, filmed performance, games, new object). Individual work (some works can be in connection with one another). Your work needs to be in adequacy with the intention and the process. The collection of works from each student will constitute together an online exhibition.
  • +500 words to give context to the piece.
  • 3-5 mn presentation : why you made it, how it relates to the topic
  • topic ideas: Ask yourself the question of 'what you would like to reboot' (in your studies, life, design field, in societal conventions, etc..), respond to the proposals of the papers you read (for instance, about undesigning, or considering unconventional ways to address a topic), go back to the initial questions at the beginning of the week (what would you do differently in your studies?), etc.... The final assignment is a statement or positioning or response to those provocative questions
  • the ideas could represent your position on a topic above or on a case study discussed in class, your new proposal, or your interpretation of an issue
  • potential audience: other people in the design fields or?
    
    
• Final presentation in class - upload on platform on 13.9 by 11.30 & present in class concisely. Send me as well a hard copy via email / wetransfer by 11.30.

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