Syllabus

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After completing the course, students: 

• Have a deeper understanding of the experimental design process and the capability to see the advantages of it.
• Have the ability to execute a complex experimental project from ideation to finalization and presentation.
• Organize their creative process more efficiently and produce a broader array of ideas. 

Credits: 9

Schedule: 22.10.2024 - 05.12.2024

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Anna-Marie van der Lei, Marketa Dolejsova

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

Course teacher: Markéta Dolejšová – marketa.dolejsova@aalto.fi 

Teaching assistant: Zoë Robertson – zoe.robertson@aalto.fi

Course venue: Aalto Space 21 (https://www.aalto.fi/en/space21)

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 or stakeholder that establishes the frame inside which the students work.   The first part of the course is done collectively, with students generating ideas and materials. The second part of the course is done individually where each student builds on top of their earlier findings.   Throughout the course students are encouraged towards a process-led experimental approach, re-thinking about the possibilities, processes, and materials. Students are taught to see design practice and research from a design process perspective. Students will conceptualize their creative work and learn how to translate process-led experiments into novel outcomes.

• applies in this implementation

  Course theme (Autumn 2024)

  Feral Ways of Making Sense with Multispecies Ecologies

  The Experimental Design course provides a co-creative space for practice-based explorations of multispecies ecologies and relations, using the Aalto University campus as the main site of inquiry. The Otaniemi campus can carry different meanings for its diverse human and other-than-human inhabitants: it can be a temporary home, a time to grow and connect with others, a place to root or rot. Throughout the six course weeks, we will move and design with the Otaniemi multispecies environment and its creatures (including plants, trees, animals, microbes, buildings, myths, and dreams) to learn, form new relations, and make sense of and with each other. On the way, we will explore and question who has the ability and power to produce knowledge about local everyday realities, whose interests and concerns are taken into account, and who often remain less visible, unheard, and unnoticed. 

  To navigate through the course process, we will experiment with feral ways of sensemaking that invite open-ended, relational, and spontaneous multispecies encounters unfolding beyond the bounds of human control. In practice, we will experiment with various performative, embodied, sensory, and imaginative sensemaking techniques including walking, drifting, listening, storytelling, prompting, crafting, noticing and remembering to gather experiences and co-create feral artifacts of varied formats (from performative and participatory acts to sculptures, poems and digital objects). Working with/in multispecies contexts, we will experiment with sensemaking techniques and co-creative design expressions beyond written language and capture our co-creative work on the feral artifacts as short experimental videos.  

  During the course, we will explore and become familiar with emerging as well as more established approaches in the field of practice-based artistic and design research. Our own (co-)creative practices and sensory experiences actualised throughout the course will form the core basis of our experimental sensemaking. Weekly lectures in the course homebase Aalto Space 21 will be accompanied by co-creative workshops led by experts from various areas and field trips to various multispecies places around the campus, as selected by students. The creative course processes and outputs will be discussed in class, showcased in Space 21, and invited for a presentation at the Uroboros 2024 festival. 

  
  
  
  

Assessment Methods and Criteria

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Documentation and content of background research, material design process, and hands-on experimentations both at the individual level and in the 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 (Autumn 2024)

  Passing the course requires attending 80% of the contact sessions

  
  

  Evaluation criteria: 

  • active participation throughout the course 

  • creative process documentation (self-reflective diary, experimental essay)

  • completing course 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

Study Material

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  A reading list is provided at the beginning of the course. The list will vary according to the theme.

   

Substitutes for Courses

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Substitutes for Courses

Prerequisites

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Prerequisites

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information

• valid for whole curriculum period:

  Teaching Language: English

  Teaching Period: 2024-2025 Autumn II
  2025-2026 Autumn II

  Registration:

  Registration in SISU. Min. 8 students - max. 16 students. Priority to Contemporary Design major students who have this course accepted in their personal study plan.

  1. CoDe students and CoDe exchange students;
  2. Department of Design (exchange) students;
  3. Students from the School of Arts. 

  Otherwise, 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 is organised in collaboration with the Uroboros art & design research festival. Course participants will engage with the online festival archive as one of the key study materials and will be invited to contribute to the festival program by presenting the outputs of their creative coursework. The Uroboros network members will lead guest lectures and workshops throughout the course. 

  Link to Experimental Design course 2023: https://collective.uroboros.design/feralcourse/
  
  
  

Details on the schedule

• applies in this implementation

  
  

  
  

Description