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Interdisciplinary IAD Module Fall 2018, in cooperation with DDK, DKV and DKM

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From "life hacks", necessity-based "bricolage", such as Jugaad in India (see other terms in different countries*) to art-based and political-based targeted disruptions, "hacking" could be considered as a form of activism, akin to notions of resistance, disobedience, and subversion, especially as we refer here to "values". 
As such, finding affordable or personal solutions, going around established systems, repairing or subverting an object's use could be ways of gaining or regaining autonomy, gaining or regaining meaning, etc. The hacks themselves often have a playful quality to them that underlines that those forms of resistance are mostly physically non-confrontational and non-violent. 
Forms of hacking can also include statements of living and thriving within subcultures, forms of art and performance (ie. drag culture), taking counter hetero-normative and counter patriarchical actions (such as not being referred to with a gender-based pronoun).  
Finally, adopting and embracing failure, cracks, oddness and uncanniness could constitute again other forms of hacking, and be notably expressed with art, design and craft (see Kintsugi art for instance). 

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Materials as Mediators
Materials surround us all the time, even if we tend to ignore it through our everyday habits, like on our digital journeys around the globe, we are still constantly immersed in it. What about their certain properties, conditions and transformations constituting the space around us? Like the air and atmosphere as a phenomena, we inspire (from latin breathing in) and respirate, we speak through, we form our intimate atmospheres, we can observe this medium on various scales, might it be observing pollutants in the sky down to our microbial clouds surrounding us all the time. By manipulating and co-creating with these material conditions, we learn to play with underlying systems.
link: https://zkm.de/en/event/2011/06/experiencing-atmospheres-dimensions-of-a-diffuse-phenomenon

Social Experiments:
Like in Herbert Garfinkel´s «Krisenexperimente» in the 70s, we would like to emphasise on our everyday routines within social interactions, might it be a daily shopping in the supermarket, where we take out goods from other´s people baskets without asking, not cueing at the check out, being very polite to our best friends, sitting next to the only person in the train and so on. We would like to emphasize in implicit rules, which are inscribed in our social behaviour, making up a certain cultural context we live in. Through this method we might become foreigners in our own culture for a certain action.
link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaching_experiment

Assignments

Exercice 03 - Strollogy Strollology - Methods for the photographic excursion (proposed by Andreas Kohli)

Street as a museum

  • Photograph the urban space and the people as if they were exhibits of an exhibition.

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  • A picture which does not represent to the place
  • The classic postcard
  • An irritating place
  • A photograph that provokes false assumptions
  • A picture that shows a problem
  • A situation: coincidence or intention?
  • A photo taken at the wrong moment
  • A place for a street art intervention
  • The photo I wouldn't actually take
  • Manipulated / not manipulated

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Expectations and Gradings

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Week 1 - ValuesTu. 4.12

We 5.12

Th. 6.12

Fr. 7.12

Morning 
(starting 9:00 unless noted otherwise)

Intro session
{jb, cw, ms, mf, ak, bs}

  • Welcome and Intro 
  • Syllabus presentation 
  • Input on the word "hacking" and various meanings {jb}

Exercise 01

  • Hacking Values
    Noticing your own personal values:
    - what are your boundaries? (physical and moral)
    - where can you change? what is negotiable / non-negotiable?
    - where power structure do you want to challenge? at what scale?  

Input 

  • Lecture:
    public/private space and appropriations
    {ak}
  • Discussion on topics that students want to pursue in their projects - what do you want to hack? (making groups)
    {jb, cw, ak}

    Assignment
    • In preparation of the following week, prepare a quick prototype of your idea
      (how to quickly prototype)
Independent studyIndependent study

Afternoon 
(starting 13:00 unless noted otherwise)


13.00 - 14.00
Exercise 01
- continued.

14.00 - 16.00

Input+Exercise 02
{mf}

  • Hacking Space
    Scale and measuring space


Exercise 03
{cw, jb}

  • Hacking Systems 
    Strollology in a particular place
    (Camera, Pencil, Paper, Voice Recorder) 
  • Quick round presentation of assignment and discussion
    {jb, cw}

Exercise 04
{cw}

  • Hacking Material Conditions – Creating Atmospheres

Assignment

  • Reiterate prototype based on feedback
Classroom3.C063.C063.C063.C06
Week 2 - Actions

Tu. 11.12

We. 12.12

Th. 13.12Fr. 14.12 
Morning
  • Quick presentation of assignments - and discussion
    {jb, cw, bs}

Input 

  • Lecture:
    values and art production
    {bs}

Independent study

Independent study


Independent study






Afternoon Independent study

13.00 - 15.00 
Mentoring - Advanced Prototype - mentoring takes place in working stations
{jb, cw, ak, ms, mf}

Classroom3.C063.C063.C063.C06
Week 3 - Restitution

Tu. 18.12

We. 19.12

Th. 20.12Fr. 21.12

Mo. 17.12


14.00 - 17.00

Guest Lectures on current practices
program tba

Independent study



Independent study

09.00 - 12.00
Final Presentation
{jb, ms, mf, ak}


Final Documentation 
Delivered by 16.00 (email)


14.00 - 16.00
Mentoring - Advanced Prototype - mentoring takes place in working stations
{jb, cw, ms, mf}

14.00 - 16.00

Critique, Outcomes discussion
{jb}

Viaduktraum3.C063.C063.C063.C06


Literature/References

  • Thomas Düllo,Franz Liebl (Hg.)
    Cultural hacking : Kunst des strategischen Handelns
    isbn: 9783211232781
    Springer Verlag Wien, 2005


Additional methods:


Dancing Exercise
In this method, we see performance as an anchor point in hacking values. Like William Forsythe, who's basic idea is taking ballet as a language with its own vocabulary and rules, to break it and bend it, we will take geometries like of classic dance to be twisted, tilt or pulled out of a line. We would like to mess with social conventions. We do not act "properly", like dancing in a discussion or talking in a dancing piece. Dancing becomes a method of investigation like Forsythe was remarking "I think by dancing I was able to understand a lot of things. I was able to intuit things about mathematics and philosophy … "(BBC Radio 3 2003, interview with John Tusa) So how do we understand the patterns of social dynamics around us and how do we stretch and break it apart to gain a better understanding?

link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Forsythe_(choreographer)
link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/arts/design/the-shed-new-york-prelude.html

Bodystorming
Bodystorming is an improvisational brainstorm based on interaction and movement with the body. To remind participants that interactions are human and physical, to teach stakeholders empathy for users, and to get away from our computers. "Bodystorming is useful when you are designing devices or interior or exterior spaces. For example, you might use bodystorming to understand how users of different heights and ages would experience different versions of aircraft cabins (for example, what are the problems with lifting luggage in crowded planes from the floor to the overhead bins), or the layout of modern train cars. Bodystorming can be quite useful in understanding the experience of teams who work in close quarters like doctors and nurses in an operating room or the cooking staff in a restaurant. Bodystorming is a way to envision how people will interact with ubiquitous computing systems like smart homes and virtual meeting spaces." (Design Research at Autodesk)
link: 
Bodystorming as embodied Designing (ACM)






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