UWAS-C0055 - Design for the Posthuman Era, Lecture, 10.1.2022-14.2.2022
This course space end date is set to 14.02.2022 Search Courses: UWAS-C0055
Topic outline
-
Description
Climate change, COVID-19, AI technologies, or Bioengineering generate challenges that cannot be tackled using an anthropocentric perspective. Each of these challenges has created disruptions that force rethinking the type of relations humans have established with non-human actors like the environment, other species, and technological objects like Automated machines or algorithms. At the same time, we are already witnessing modifications or enhancements of some humans, which raises even more questions. What does it mean to be human in a context that challenges the idea of “man as the measure of all things”?
The transdisciplinary course “Design for the Posthuman era” aims to open a discussion about these issues while providing tools and methods to gain awareness of the anthropocentric bias and design solutions that address posthuman relations. The course combines ethical discussions with hands-on activities that help acquire first-hand experience on what it means to design technological systems that blur the hierarchies between humans and non-human actors. Throughout the course, participants will get familiar with design thinking methods and tools to design and assess posthuman systems from a critical perspective.
The course is open to all students, there is no prerequisite for enrolment besides having an open-minded attitude and a will to work collaboratively. This course is fully online, sessions will happen on Mondays in zoom. The teacher is Jana Pejoska (jana.pejoska@aalto.fi).
Pedagogical approach
The pedagogical design of the course is student-centered, which means that students are expected to build knowledge based on their own starting level. To this purpose, the course is project-based, which allows students to explore their personal interests and explore issues relevant to them. The coursework itself follows a transdisciplinary approach, where the hands-on work synthesizes the theoretical background while being enriched by the valuable perspectives brought to the discussion by students from different faculties and backgrounds. For these reasons, students are expected to develop the projects in groups. By encouraging students to collaborate with pairs from different backgrounds, they will face and develop strategies to overcome common work-life challenges related to communication and cooperation.
Study materials
The study materials will consist of seminal works, recent publications, and works from art, design research and practice, ethics of design and technology, as well as works from philosophy. Attention to diversity (gender, geographical context, format) will be paid to the selection of readings and materials.
Course aims
The course intends to create a space for critical discussions about what it means to be human in the posthuman era, discuss the notions of non-human entities, explore the current socio-technological implications and their impact in the future. These critical discussions will be founded in ethical issues related to design, technology and systems thinking. Alongside the theoretical part, the participants of the course will individually and in teams, investigate a particular issue, working towards a speculative design solution that will be presented at the end of the course.
The coursework follows a transdisciplinary approach, in which the hands-on work builds on the theories and approaches introduced through the course lectures. During the course, some sessions will include lectures from guest speakers in order to open the range of topics and bring insights from other fields of knowledge.
The contributions of students from different schools and studies are a cornerstone of the course learning design as the design challenges defined throughout the course require a inter- and transdisciplinary approach. Throughout the course, students will get acquainted with design thinking methods and ethnographic research methods.