Block Seminar Design Theory 3rd semester

Lecturer:
Dr. Joëlle Bitton

The module takes place over 1 week, from 09-13.09.24, from Monday to Friday, 9.00-17.00 - see timetable below for details.

Topic

As we rediscover materialities in a digital world, we are confronted with a growing need to understand how things are made, where they come from, which knowledge, legacies, and traditions are embedded in them, and how those things are transported, discarded, and recycled by whom, and where, etc. These questions tie with a general concern for environmental impacts of consumerism and waste, and the human rights entangled with them. The very finite materials that are being mined in remote locations by exploited labor demonstrate the extension to which extractivism damages local ecosystems and cultural heritage.

These notions of material flows through geography, history, trade agreements, mining of indigenous resources, migrations are now crucial to grasp for a study of making, craft and fabrication.

Objectives of the course

This seminar aims to tie the larger socio-economic context of material sourcing and transformation together with practices of fabrication.

The seminar is structured as a dialogue and the students will work on certain questions themselves. In the end, a one-page website should be created to showcase a proposal. 

In this course, we will look at a range of aspects:

• Trade routes & supply chains (geopolitics of extractivism)
• Materials and mining
• Exploitation of labour and resource extraction / Commodifying animal life - ecosystems
• Entanglements with design and consumer society: tensions and contradictions of values / Disconnection between end product, value - price and resources/fabrication/processes of transformation /
  • Emergence of empires (conglomerates & nations both)
  • Trafficking
  • Systems
• Global exchange of materials and techniques
• Innovation and development / cultural exchanges
• Environmental and social consequences
• Local and indigenous practices
• Trade agreements and trade wars
• Swiss context: banking as extractivism?

Structure

The class will be structured around discussions, lectures, presentations of film and literature materials and in-class exercises.

• Collaborative mapping of the supply chains (local/national/planetary), geologies (temporality/deep time/entropy), futures (projection/speculations/prediction), and effects (cultural and ecological implications, scales) of extractive processes in particular contexts

• 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.

Expectations, Gradings and Presence

Grades for this class are passing or failing. Assignments are general class participation, exercises, readings&reflections through response notes, and final work.
Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.  

Arriving late may also affect the passing grade.
Contributing to constructive group discussion is an essential aspect of class participation. 

Attendance of all the in-class sessions are imperative (3 mornings session and 1 afternoon session).  
The first two sessions are online (Zoom link provided by email) - the last two sessions are in presence. 
Zoom-etiquette during online sessions: please be present on screen (no commuting/travelling or doing another activity in parallel of the class), on time, and with camera turned-on as much as possible. 
Classes online and in presence at the same time are not possible.

Timetable