If/Only: design, technology and society 2020

If/Only: design, technology and society 2020
INTERACTION DESIGN THEORY SEMINAR 4th semester

Spring 2020

INSTRUCTORS

Stefano Vannotti

Office hours by appointment

Class sessions include a lecture/discussion each Monday from 13.00-15.00 ZT 4.T31.

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, Artefacts and Politics held by Verena Ziegler
Complex Systems & Power Structures held by Dr Joëlle Bitton
xx 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 20%

Final Essay 60%

Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.

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: uploaded to the IAD server: (folder essay assignment)

COURSE MATERIALS

Readings are made available in the shared IAD server.

CALENDAR & SESSIONS

Session 01 – 02.03. Spaces and Politics

Introduction of course outline

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.

Michel Foucault, “Der Panoptismus” in Überwachen und Strafen: Die Geburt des Gefängnisses (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008).

Questions to answer in preparation to the seminar:

Try to map out (or highlight in the text) the Essays trajectory opinions and characteristics.

Session 02 - 09.03. Spaces

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.

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.

Session 04 – 23.03 Decolonising technologies

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)

Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes to be sent by Monday morning

Session 05 – 06.04 Accelerationism

Mark Fisher. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative ? Zero Books, 2009 (First chapter)
Sadie Plant. Zeroes + ones: digital women and the new technoculture. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1997 (Pages 105 to 120 of the Pdf)
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 to be sent by Monday morning

Session 06 – 06.05 - 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).

▪ 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.

Session 07

Session 08

Session 09

Session 10

Session 11

Session 12