754843670754581578
INTERACTION DESIGN THEORY SEMINAR 4th semester
Spring 2020
INSTRUCTORS
Verena Ziegler, verena.ziegler@zhdk.ch
Dr Joëlle Bitton, joelle.bitton@zhdk.ch
Dr Jean-Baptiste Labrune, jeanbaptisteparis@gmail.com
Verena Ziegler, verena.ziegler@zhdk.ch Stefano Vannotti, stefano.vannotti@zhdk.ch
Office hours by appointment
Class sessions include a lecture/discussion each Monday from 13.00-15.00 ZT in 4.T31.K16 (last day in 6.F01).
OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES
The seminar proposes a critical examination of political components of design as it articulates technology and society.
Design is often understood on the surface as an activity producing more or less useful or ornamental things - outside the scope of its entanglements with questions of policy, trade, labor, gender, resources, power structures. Yet, designers can hold an agenda in these matters and designed artefacts and systems can affect how people live, communicate and act. This seminar thus proposes to uncover the material dimension of politics. Through case studies, observations of situations, film excerpts, exercises, guest lectures and essays, we will look at those entanglements as well as address systems that may not seem 'designed' as such but that present components of being planned and organised for a particular purpose.
The 12 sessions of the seminar are structured around 3 sections:
- 'Spaces, Artifacts and Ecosystems Artefacts and Politics' held by Verena Ziegler
Technoculture and Society held by Dr Jean-Baptiste Labrune
- The Design of Trade held by Dr Joëlle Bitton
Session 01 – 18.02 Observation I
Introduction of course outline and first section: Spaces, Artifacts and Ecosystems
...
'Complex Systems & Power Structures' held by Dr Joëlle Bitton
- 'Enabling, Framing, Orchestrating and Reasoning Design' held by Stefano Vannotti
EXPECTATIONS AND GRADING
The seminar proposes a critical conversation, addressing political components of design and their influence on human life. Methods of discussion, observation and critical thinking are practiced throughout.
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 20%
In-class assignments 30%
Final Essay 50%
Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.
ESSAY
The final assignment should develop a question from the topics dealt with during the semester and include these in form of a critical or argumentative essay. Start with asking a question that you can answer from arguments collected in readings and discussions.
Extent of the essay about 2500 words with references and bibliography.
The essay can be written in German or English.
Essay deadline: uploaded to PAUL on 02.06.20.
More information and submission:
https://paul.zhdk.ch/course/view.php?id=936#section-9
COURSE MATERIALS
Readings are made available in the shared IAD server or PAUL (lesson 8-11)
CALENDAR & SESSIONS
Session 01 – 02.03. Spaces and Politics
Introduction of course outline
| View file | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| View file | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| View file | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
- Georges Perec, “The Street,” in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, (London: Penguin, 2008).
- William H. Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, 1980; Chapter "The street" p. 54-60
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, BBC 1972, http://vimeo.com/22488225.
William H. Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_-nBr2MuBk.
Question to answer in preparation to the seminar:
From what perspective do the two texts speak about the streets perception and systems?
View file
| View file | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| View file | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Session 02 – 25.02 Observations II Spaces and Politics
- Michel Foucault, “Der Panoptismus” in Überwachen und Strafen: Die Geburt des Gefängnisses (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008).
- Efe Basturk, "A brief Analyse on Post Panoptic Surveillance: Deleuze&Guattarian Approach", 2017, International Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. VI, No. 2 / 2017
Questions to answer in preparation to the seminar:Please try to compare the two texts, how do the authors look at surveillance strategies (from a governmental perspective, from a citizen perspective, from a political perspective,...)
Try to map out (or highlight in the text) the Essays trajectory opinions and characteristics.>>> Informal, short presentations of observations (2 min.)
Session
...
02 -
...
09.03. Spaces
>>> Short presentations/performances of observations (2 min.)Presentations of practical exercises
- Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias”, Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité, October, 1984; (“Des Espace Autres,” March 1967 Translated from the French by Jay Miskowiec)
Didier Faustino, https://didierfaustino.com
Readings to be read in advance, preparation of presentations of observations and preparation of notes (from the readings).
Session
...
3 - 16.03
...
. Artifacts and Politics
- Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” in The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
- Bruno Latour, “Where are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts,” in Shaping Technology / Building Society , ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992).
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
View file name If only 4. Seminar 2020.pdf
Session 05 – 18.03 Ecosystems
>>> Short Presentations of Essay investigations (2 min.)
- Jane Bennett, "Vibrant Matter - A Political Ecology of Things", Published: January 2010: Chapter 7 "Political Ecologies" (pages 94 - 109)
Readings to be read in advance, preparation of presentations of essay investigations and preparation of notes (from the readings).
Session 06 – 01.04 Cybernetics Revisited
- C. R. Licklider. Man-Computer Symbiosis. IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, volume HFE-1, pages 4-11, March 1960 – (Full paper)
- Lucy. A. Suchman. Plans and Situated action: The problem of human-machine communication. ISL-6.
- Palo Alto Research Center. 1985 – (Pages 0 to 23 of the Pdf)
- Molly Wright Steenson: "Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape 2018.
(Full video)Widget Connector url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCeYKOqMO4-
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
Short Bio:
Jean-Baptiste Labrune
Jb Labrune is a designer and researcher specializing in the development and study of creative processes in the context of new programmable materials, critical design and avant garde places mixing artists, scientists and thinkers. His researches focus on the notion of “Exaptation”, the way in which users of technologies reconfigure and hack them, producing original and unexpected functions and uses. He completed his PhD at INRIA and postdoc at MIT, then became a researcher at Bell Labs and interaction design professor at ENSAD (Arts Décos School). He then joined SciencesPo University as a senior lecturer while launching his practice at Radical Design Studio. He organized many “hybrid” workshops in art & sciences venues in France (Arts Décos, Beaux-Arts, Palais de Tokyo, Mains d’Oeuvres) & internationally (Mediamatic, Interaction Design Institute Ivréa, IMAL, Hangar, Hyperwerk, Akademie Schloss Solitude, MIT Medialab).
Session 07 – 08.04 The Uses of Literacy
...
height 250
Session 04 – 23.03 - The Design of Trade
Commodities & entanglement
▪Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, “Labour Recruitment in the Nineteenth Century: The Place of Practicality” (Ch. 2). In Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909, University of Rochester Press, 2018.
▪Giorgi Riello, "The Globalization of cotton textiles. Indian Cottons, Europe, and the Atlantic World, 1600–1850". In Prasannan Parthasarathi and Giorgio Riello, eds, The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850 (Oxford, 2009).
▪ Mi You. (2018). Silk Roads, Tributary Networks and Old and New Imperialism. Extra States: Nations in Liquidation. C. Edwards and i. Fokianaki. Antwerp, Kunsthal Extra City.
...
Session 08 – 15.04 Anthropology of Hacking
...
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes
...
to be sent by Monday morning before class. You're expected to inquire about the authors and to research the background of the topics for discussion in class.
Session 05 – 30.03 - Decolonizing Technologies
- SSL Nagbot. Feminist Hacking/Making: Exploring New Gender Horizons of Possibilities. The Journal of Peer Production. January 2016 http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-8-feminism-and-unhacking/feminist-hackingmaking-exploring-new-gender-horizons-of-possibility/(Pages 1 to 3 of the Pdf)
- S.Wuschitz 2014, “Feminist hackerspaces: a research on feminist space collectives in open culture” PhD dissertation, University of Vienna, Austria. (pages 46 to 61 of the Pdf)
- Maxigas. (2012) Hacklabs and hackerspaces: Tracing two genealogies.Journal of Peer Production (2). 2012 http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/peer-reviewed-papers/hacklabs-and-hackerspaces(Pages 1 to 5 of the Pdf)2016.
- Irmgard Emmelhainz. Decolonization as the Horizon of Political Action. e-flux journal #77. November 2016.
- Victor Papanek. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, New York, Pantheon Books. 1971. (Chapter 4)
Rehema Baguma. Teaching HCI and Research in local HCI problems in Uganda: Current Status and Recommendations. HCIxB. 2017.
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes to be sent by Monday morning before class. You're expected to inquire about the authors and to research the background of the topics for discussion in class.
Session
...
06 – 06.04
...
Complex Systems & Power Structures
- Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek. 2013. "#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics". in Robin Mackay. Armen Avessian. #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader. Urbanomic 2014 / MIT press 2019 . (Pages 355 to 370 of the Pdf)
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
Session 10 – 06.05 - On the History and Empowerment of West African Workers
Guest Lecture: Dr Cassandra Thiesen-Mark, Universität Basel
...
- Kate Meagher, Laura Manna and Maxim Bolt, "Making the Right Connections: Globalization, Economic Inclusion and African workers". Journal of Development Studies. 2016.
- Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, “Labour Recruitment in the Nineteenth Century: The Place of Practicality” (Ch. 2). In Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909, University of Rochester Press, 2018.
Short Bio:
...
- (pp347-362).
- Louise Amoore. Algorithmic War: Everyday Geographies of the War on Terror. In Antipode Vol. 41 No. 1. 2009.
- Brian Larkin. The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure. In Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2013. 42:327–43.
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
Session 11 – 13.05 - India’s shifting place in the world wide web of cotton, c. 1600-1950
...
- Sven Beckert, "Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War". The American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 5 (December 2004), Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association.
Giorgi Riello, "The Globalization of cotton textiles. Indian Cottons, Europe, and the Atlantic World, 1600–1850". In Prasannan Parthasarathi and Giorgio Riello, eds, The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850 (Oxford, 2009).
...
Harald Fischer-Tiné is Professor of Modern Global History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich). He has studied South Asian history, political science and Hindi at the University of Heidelberg (from where he earned his PhD in 2000) and the Central Hindi Institute in Agra (India). He has published extensively on South Asian colonial history and the history of the British Empire. His research interests include global and transnational history, the history of knowledge and the social and cultural history of colonial South Asia. His most recent monographs are: Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism (London and Delhi, 2014); Pidgin-Knowledge: Wissen und Kolonialismus (Berlin - Zurich, 2013, in German. He has also (co)-edited ten anthologies, the most recent of which are: Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings (Houndmills, 2017); Global Anti-Vice Activism, 1890–1950: Fighting Drinks, Drugs, and “Immorality” (Cambridge, 2016), with Jessica Pliley and Robert Kramm; Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins (New York and Houndmills, 2015), with Patricia Purtschert; and A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia: Intoxicating Affairs (London, 2013), with Jana Tschurenev.
His articles and book reviews have appeared in many journals including the American Historical Review, Past & Present, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Modern Asian Studies and Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Currently, Harald Fischer-Tiné is concluding the manuscript of a research monograph on the history of the American YMCA in South Asia (1890–1960).
...
Session 12 – 20.05 - Silk Road: Old and New Networks
...
- Hansen, Valerie. (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. New York, Oxford University Press. Read Intro in depth and browse the rest of the book for general overview.
- You, Mi. (2018). Silk Roads, Tributary Networks and Old and New Imperialism. Extra States: Nations in Liquidation. C. Edwards and i. Fokianaki. Antwerp, Kunsthal Extra City.
...
Mi YOU travels physically and metaphysically on the silk road. She curated performative programs at Asian Culture Center (Gwangju) and the inaugural Ulaanbaatar International Media Art Festival (2016) taking the silk road as a figuration for deep-time, de-centralized and nomadic imageries. With Binna Choi, she is co-initiator of a long-term research/curation project Unmapping Eurasia (2018-). She is faculty member at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, and writes on art, performance philosophy and science and technology studies. She is member of Academy of Arts of the World (Germany) and serves as director of Arthub (Shanghai) advisor to The Institute for Provocation (Beijing).
EXPECTATIONS AND GRADING
The seminar proposes a critical conversation, addressing political components of design and their influence on human life. Methods of discussion, observation and critical thinking are practiced throughout.
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 20%
Journal/Blog 20%
In-class assignments 20%
Final Assignment 40%
Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.
ASSIGNMENTS
Journal/Blog
A separate 'Journal' is developed by each student that reflects on learnings from the seminar. It should be in the form of an online blog (ie. WordPress, Tumblr or other):
...
Exercise Observation
The theoretical discussion of the subject is substantiated by a practical observation that can be presented in a freely selectable form. However, this should address the following questions:
(1) What is the origin of space?
(2) Why is this political?
(3) How is space observed and perceived?
(4) How changed does space become through observation and perception?
(5) How does the reader perceive space through the nature of the description?
Essay
The final assignment should develop a question from the topics dealt with and include these in form of a critical or argumentative essay.
Extent of the essay about 2500 words with references and bibliography.
The essay can be written in German or English.
Essay deadline: 07.06.2019 uploaded to the IAD server: (folder essay assignment) smb://fileredu.ad.zhdk.ch/DDE/BDE_VIAD-MATERIAL/01_VORLESUNGEN & PROJEKTE/19FS/Sem4_If only_theory
COURSE MATERIALS
Readings are made available in the shared IAD server: smb://fileredu.ad.zhdk.ch/DDE/BDE_VIAD-MATERIAL/01_VORLESUNGEN & PROJEKTE/19FS/Sem4_If only_theory
Students blogs:
https://medium.com/if-only-design-technology-and-society
https://blog.colinschmid.net/tag/technology-society/
https://rchenblog.wixsite.com/theoryclass
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jenniferduartezhdk
https://mk-technology-society.tumblr.com
https://medium.com/@dominik.szakacs
https://melanieabbet.tumblr.com
https://medium.com/@lilian1997.ll/technology-and-society-e398108e5863
https://designtheory.tumblr.com
If Only: design, technology and society
...
to be sent by Monday morning before class. You're expected to inquire about the authors and to research the background of the topics for discussion in class.
Session 07 – 20.04.2020
Enjoy staying at home. How about already diving into the reading for next lesson?
Session 08 – 27.04.2020 – Enabling Design: MindShift, SkillShift, CultureShift
In the 8th lesson of this theory course we dive into central aspects of a strategic design attitude, into designerly approaches and tools for entrepreneurial and social challenges, and into the characteristics of a holistic design culture.
Keywords: Design Culture, Design Attitude, Systems Thinking, Transition Design, Strategic Design
More information and reading assignment:
https://paul.zhdk.ch/course/view.php?id=936#section-4
Session 09 – 04.05.2020 – Framing Design: Multi-leveled Transformation & Reflection in Action
In today's seminar we focus on the transformative process in the different design dimensions (product, system, society) and we learn how designers actively intertwingle these levels by shaping the in-between.
Keywords: Design Process, Reflective Practice, Role of the Designer
More information and reading assignment:
https://paul.zhdk.ch/course/view.php?id=936#section-5
Session 10 – 11.05.2020 – Orchestrating Design: Co-Design, Innovation Culture & Organizational Change
This Lesson looks at a set of design methods to strengthen collaborative approaches and thematize how to foster a culture of innovation and trust in organizational settings.
Keywords: Co-Design, Design Methods, Organizational Design, Innovation Culture
More information and reading assignment:
https://paul.zhdk.ch/course/view.php?id=936#section-6
Session 11 – 18.05.2020 – Reasoning Design: Design Argumentation, Impact Management & Storytelling
In the last lesson of our theory class we focus on aspects of successful design reasoning: measures, levels of impact and elements of storytelling.
Keywords: Design Artifacts, Design Knowledge, Design Argument, Impact Management, Storytelling
More information :
https://paul.zhdk.ch/course/view.php?id=936#section-7
Session 12 – 25.05.2020
Use the time to write your essay!