Jasper Johns once wrote in his notebook: "Take
an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it." In
this class we investigate what it means to "do things"
to objects in ways that transforms them and our relationship to
them. We will experiment with materials and objects, stretching
their limits and exploring their relationship to space and the body.
These investigations are grounded in an understanding of the interactional
possibilities of gestures, social and spatial dynamics, networks
and open source systems while we develop a new set of artifacts
and construction techniques. Softness, modularity, adaptability
and re-configurability, washability, power management, connectors
and ways to engage the senses (and sensors) are just some of the
ideas and topics we examine through weekly assignments and social
experiments. [Syllabus.pdf]
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Week
1
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Introduction– Intro
- what is this class about. What it means to “do something to
a thing”, how technology participates or affects the transformation
of objects, perceptions and interactions? How can we as designers
and practitioners experiment with objects and materials and create
new emergencies?
Assignment: Make a “thing” that communicates
what you are interested exploring in this class. |
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Week
2
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Modularity – Configurability
- Adaptability-Modularity exists in all levels of the biological
hierarchy. We will look into the history of modularity, from the disk
of Phaistos to Lego blocks and Vodoo IO, and experiment with developing
our own modules, which we will reuse throughout the semester. In the
process we will examine camouflage, strategies of reinterpretation
and reformulation, adaptation, reconfigurabilty, inheritance and conservation.
Assignment:
Readings: |
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Week 3
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Connectivity connectors and connections-“I
made a connection”, “I connected the dots”, “She
is so well connected!” In the making of new things a great
challenge is to find ways to connect them to “old” ones.
When we create new connections we also create new possibilities
while the lack of connections, physical or otherwise, has distinct
effects. We will survey existing connectors and investigate what
it entails to create new ones.
Assignment:
Reading:
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Week 4
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Networks & Flow - With
connections networks become possible while they often serve as substitutions
for physical connections. We will look into mesh networks and their
nodes, communities, marginalization and flow, and experiment with
creating our own.
Assignment: Make a network
Reading: On actor-network theory: A few clarifications by Bruno Latour |
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Week 5
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Ecology, energy and sustainability-
There is much talk for the need of sustainable design. We are in a
unique position to explore “sustainability as interaction”
– both figuratively and literally. We will look into Buckminster
Fuller’s World Game, the lessons of Cradle-to-Cradle and see
what alternative energy sources we can harness for our own projects.
Assignment: 1:
What is "energy"? Create a piece that communicates your
relationship to energy
2:
Keep a log of all your "waste" and propose alternatives
to your consumption/waste patterns.
Readings: Running Dry, from the Economist
The Dark Side, Making war on light pollution by David Owen, from The New Yorker
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Week 6
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The Oxford English Dictionary, Open
Source and Free Software - It is clear that for sustainable
solutions to come about we need to engage in “distributed problem
solving”, in team based multidisciplinary practices, in others
words, learning to share. We will survey the existing state of sharing
and technology, from open source to DIY and explore how we can share
work produced it this class.
Assignment: Improve upon an existing design OR document and share part of your practice |
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Week 7
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Body - “Man is the measure of
all things” and human centric design–Designing
tools and devices for humans. What is the methodology to follow? Design
after our own image? And what about “emotional” design?
We will look into the human body and mind, evaluate existing design
objects and create our own variations.
Assignment: explore notions of embodiment + physicality | create an "object" that relates to these explorations
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XTRA (in-between) assignment:
In 1975 the sociologist Stanley Milgram asked his students to a to board a crowded train and ask someone for a seat. These were young, healthy looking students like you. (read about a remake of the experiment here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/nyregion/14subway.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
What I would like you to do by next Thursday is design your own experiment, one that takes you out of your comfort zone in terms of how you relate to your body and space - of course this has to happen outside of ITP - and as all experiments go, it has to be repeatable - you have to have an insight you want to gain, and then present your results. the experiment might "fail" but you have to set up yourself a task and have a point you need to make. If you are stuck, you can replicate Milgram's subway experiment. |
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Week 8
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Space (architecture, form, dance)
--Understanding the way we relate to space is fundamental in any investigation
of interactive design. We will look into architecture, dance, social
and spatial dynamics, relate them to our practice, and see what type
of interventions we can come up with. |
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| Week 9 |
Principles of Interactivity:
Dr. Wires & Paul Pangaro discuss interactivity and performance
Assignment: enact (or develop) an interactive model / relationship - consider what makes it "interactive" versus simply reactive, what are the agents? how is the relationship modeled?
Reading: What is interaction? Are there different types? by Hugh Dubberly, Usman Haque, and Paul Pangaro
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Week 10
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Meaning / Narrative - Presence / Awareness
- With technology the possible is ever expanding. We can
measure, track, quantify, visualize, sense (and so on), a vast number
of data – but to what end? What role does meaning and narrative
play in this process? How can objects become part of narrative, what
is the “middle” of narrative? And what about notions of
presence and awareness in a techno-efficient environment?
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| Week 11 |
New Materials - The “materials
is the mechanism” – How do new materials affect our practice?
What new materials can we use and how can we extend their prescribed
use? From Eva Hesse’s work to Biomimicry we will probe into
the nature of materials and their uses, and stretch their limits in
our projects. |
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Transformations -Technology
is largely about transformation. We will retrace the themes that we
have been working on throughout the semester and see how they have
transformed our work. We will retrace assignments, exercises and projects
we developed during the semester and synthesize them. In the process
we will transform them, reevaluate their various aspects, and improve
them with final transformational interventions. |
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Week 13
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Class Presentations |
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| Week 14
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Class Presentations |
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