Please note! Course description is confirmed for two academic years, which means that in general, e.g. Learning outcomes, assessment methods and key content stays unchanged. However, via course syllabus, it is possible to specify or change the course execution in each realization of the course, such as how the contact sessions are organized, assessment methods weighted or materials used.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

In this course you will be introduced to some of the key problems, provocations and possibilities that emerge from what are increasingly-recognized to be porous and indeterminate boundaries between human and non-human worlds.

We are not going to solve the challenges of climate change and mass extinction in this course. However we will experiment with methods of following Donna Haraway, working with the trouble's that we face in collaborative, artistic projects. You will also acquire tools with which to critically-analyze theoretical texts, artworks and case studies in what Nils Bubandt and Anna Tsing et al. have called The Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. And you will be asked to reflect upon these processes in your individual written assignments.

Credits: 5

Schedule: 02.03.2022 - 06.04.2022

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Lucy Davis

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):

CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):

Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):

Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English

CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD

Content
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    Regarded during much of the modern era as cheap nature, industrial food or passive raw materials, there is of late a recognition, (or rather, a recollection) of the vital, dynamic, roles that all sorts of non-humans, 'living' or 'non living' play in the shaping of our worlds. There is also a recognition of the hybrid, mutable characteristics of entities that modernity has understood as invidual bounded species (including our own).

    These recognitions are paradoxically, making a comeback in theories of modern societies at the very same time that the planet faces capital-led climate and mass extinction crises of unfathomable dimensions.

    Which transdisciplinary tools and inspirations might artists draw from studies human-non-human interconnections and more than human lives as means and as methods to respond, with some degree of positivity, to the critical challenges of our time?

    And what might be some of the politics of doing so?

Assessment Methods and Criteria
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    In order to pass this course you need to be present for 80% of the class

    Course work and participation.

    Activities InsideCourse Time: Lectures & in-class exercises (20%)

    This includes compulsory participation in experiential exercises as well as attendance at excursions and workshops in class time and the noting of these in your course journal.

    Activities Outside Course Time (20%):Readings independent exercises and project preparation.  Work outside course participation in subsequent in-class reading-group presentations and discussions

Workload
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    42h Contact teaching, 93h independent work.

    In part two you will apply the tools and experiences gained in part one in order to co-develop a version of the practice-based group research project that you proposed at the end of the first course. 

DETAILS

Study Material
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    Provided in syllabus.

Substitutes for Courses
Prerequisites
SDG: Sustainable Development Goals

    5 Gender Equality

    10 Reduced Inequality

    11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

    12 Responsible Production and Consumption

    13 Climate Action

    14 Life Below Water

    15 Life on Land

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    x

    Teaching Period:

    2020-2021

    (2021, 2022) - No teaching

    Course Homepage: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/search.php?search=TAI-E316001

    Registration for Courses: Sisu replaces Oodi on 9 August, 2021. Priority order to courses is according to the order of priority decided by the Academic committee for School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/registering-to-courses-and-the-order-of-priority-in-aalto-arts

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