LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing the course students:
(1) Have a deeper understanding of the experimental design process and capability to see the advantages of it.
(2) Have the ability to execute a complex experimental project from ideation to finalization and presentation.
(3) Organize their creative process more efficiently and produce a broader array of ideas.
Credits: 9
Schedule: 24.10.2023 - 07.12.2023
Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):
Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Anna-Marie van der Lei
Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):
Markéta Dolejšová – marketa.dolejsova@aalto.fi (teacher)
Zoë Robertson – zoe.robertson@aalto.fi (teaching assistant)
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:
The course follows a pre-determined and changing topic that establishes the frame inside which the students work. Each time a different corporate partner or topic is involved determining the characteristics of the introduced course case. The first part of the course is done more collectively, with students generating ideas and materials on which every student can continue their individual work later on the course.
All the findings are documented with the aid of varying media. Here students are encouraged towards an experimental approach, re-thinking about the possibilities, processes and materials not forgetting the case in hand. The second part of the course is done individually where each student continues on the earlier findings developing them into novel artefact, let it be an object or a film.
Students are taught to see design and outcomes from a design process in a broader way to cater the divergent needs of possible clients, in this case the (corporate) partner and the course case. Students will conceptualize their work and translate an experiment into a novel outcome.
applies in this implementation
Course theme (Fall 2023)
Feral Helsinki: Making Sense with More-than-Human Urban Ecologies
The process-led course provides a co-creative space for feral investigations of more-than-human ecologies in the situated context of Helsinki. Attending to ‘more-than-human’ as inclusive of both multispecies and algorithmic agencies, we will explore and drift with the city and its creatures (e.g., plants, animals, microbes, myths, dreams, buildings, computational systems, algorithms) to learn about the local spatiotemporalities, collect and co-create data, and form new relations. We will focus on diverse power dynamics and tensions involved in the formation of Helsinki’s more-than-human ecologies, questioning who has the right to produce knowledge and data, with whom, and for what ends.
To navigate through the course process, we will engage with feral ways of sensemaking that invite open-ended, embodied, sensory-rich, and spontaneous encounters unfolding beyond the bounds of human control. In practice, we will experiment with various performative and imaginative sensemaking techniques including walking, drifting, listening, storytelling, prompting, crafting, noticing, and remembering to gather experiences and create feral data artifacts of varied formats (from performative and participatory acts to sculptures, poems, digital objects, and more).
Throughout the 7-weeks course, we will explore emerging as well as more-known concepts and practices in contemporary practice-based design research including more-than-human co-creation and participation, feral sensemaking and feral data, situated and performative practice, and more. Weekly lectures will be accompanied by co-creative workshops led by experts from various areas, from sound design to poetry, and field visits to Helsinki's more-than-human places, as selected by students. The process-led course outputs co-created by students and Helsinki's creatures – Helsinki Feral Data Artifacts – will be invited for a showcase in the National Gallery Prague, within the 2023 program of the Uroboros art & design research festival.
The course is organised in collaboration with the Uroboros festival & collective. Course participants will engage with the online festival archive as one of the key study materials and will be invited to creatively contribute to the festival program by presenting their individual and/or collective work.
Based on the 2023 course theme, the updated learning outcomes are:
After successfully completing this course, students will:
Understand key theoretical standpoints of designing with more-than-human ecologies and values, and apply them through creative practice
Become familiar with embodied, situated, sensory-rich (feral) ways of sensemaking in creative practice-based research
Be able to conduct, document, reflect on, and present their creative practice-based research process
Combine co-creative exploration with conceptual thinking and research to create process-led experimental artifacts
Assessment Methods and Criteria
valid for whole curriculum period:
Documentation and content of background research, material design process and hands-on experimentations both in individual level and in group context; quality of personal learning diary; visual and verbal communication skills. Passing the course requires attending 80% of the contact sessions: lectures, excursions, group meetings and feedback discussions.
applies in this implementation
Assessment criteria (Fall 2023)
Passing the course requires attending 80% of the contact sessions
Evaluation criteria:
active participation throughout the course
creative process documentation (self-reflective diary, creative visual essay)
completing weekly assignments, presenting in-progress creative work
contributing to peer-feedback
Workload
valid for whole curriculum period:
9 cr - 243 hours. 80% attendance is required.
Contact teaching including lectures, group discussions, assignments and presentations 70 h
Independent work including literature study, writing assignments and studio/Lab work 142 h
Personal reflection 30 h
Course evaluation 1 h
DETAILS
Substitutes for Courses
valid for whole curriculum period:
Prerequisites
valid for whole curriculum period:
SDG: Sustainable Development Goals
9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
FURTHER INFORMATION
Further Information
valid for whole curriculum period:
Teaching Language : English
Teaching Period : 2022-2023 Autumn II
2023-2024 Autumn IIEnrollment :
Min. 8 students - max. 16 students. Priority to Contemporary Design major students who have this course accepted in their personal study plan.
Registration for Courses: Sisu. 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-at-aalto-arts
applies in this implementation
The course content and structure are based on the practice-based research workshop Feral Drifting with Lonja Wetlands organised by the Open Forest Collective for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di. Venezia.
- Teacher: van der Lei Anna-Marie