Syllabus
The course will take place on two selected weekends within the semester. Throughout the two sessions, we will go through the main theoretical and epistemological approaches and conflicts within the RtD field, review examples of existing projects, explore diverse hands-on and performative RtD techniques (scenarios, prototypes, artifacts, enactments, LARPs) and conduct RtD case studies on our own. Working in small groups, we will draw primarily on experimental RtD methods; using the elements of participatory design fiction and speculation, ludic design, and other co-creative and co-imaginative methods. We will experiment with various design materials, including low-tech tangibles, edibles, and imaginables. The resulting case studies – in the form of work-in-progress RtD projects – will be presented at the design-art festival Uroboros (https://www.uroboros.design/) that takes place in the DOX Center for Contemporary Art in May 2020.
Course duration: two-weekend seminar (two full days for each seminar). Dates TBC.
Course location: DOX Center for Contemporary Art Prague (Poupětova 1, Prague 7)
Annotation
This course will introduce students to the basics of Research through Design (RtD) — a practice-based approach to research where design activity in the form of constructing artefacts becomes a central research activity. Construction of design artefacts coupled with rigorous documentation, reflection, and analysis becomes the key means of generating knowledge in RtD.
Within a two-weekends seminar, we will go through the main theoretical and epistemological approaches and conflicts within the RtD field, review examples of existing projects, explore diverse hands-on and performative RtD techniques (scenarios, prototypes, artefacts, enactments, LARPs) and conduct our own RtD case studies. Working in small groups, we will draw primarily on experimental RtD methods; using the elements of participatory design fiction and speculation, ludic design, and other co-creative and co-imaginative methods.
We will experiment with various design materials, including low-tech tangibles, edibles, and imaginables. The resulting case studies – in the form of work-in-progress RtD projects – will be presented at the design-art festival Uroboros (https://www.uroboros.design/) in the DOX Center for Contemporary Art in May 2020.
The practice-based projects will reflect on the main course theme "Designing in Troubling Times" addressing issues and challenges around anthropogenic climate change and related social, political, and environmental uncertainties. Through our projects, we will aim to articulate plausible proposals on how to support the – urgent needed – societal transformation towards sustainability.