Topic outline

  • Welcome to Design Culture NOW 2023!


    MUO-E0022 Design Culture NOW
    V Period. 3 ECTS (81 hours).
    Independent study and contact teaching: 24.4.2023 - 8.6.2023
    Contact teaching: six Monday sessions, 24.4.2023 - 5.6.2023, 13:15-17:00. 22.5 hours.
    Independent study: 58.5 hours.

    ——

    CURRENT INFORMATION

    On the final day of the course, Monday 5 June, the entire class came together again, to reflect on learning takeaways, get a peek into the individual intellectual work accomplished across groups... In PechaKucha style, students presented one takeaway from the course ‒ something new learnt, some new perspective for finetuning the way of looking at design objects, a new sensibility for placing the own productions in broader contexts, including theor own degree programs. The works presented reflected course themes and said something about contemporary design, using an object/issue as an example. Have a look at the 'One Takeaway' common Miro board.

    Huom. | From the Course Handbook >Program and Assignments:  Final learning reflection due Thursday 8 June at 16:59 (includes the one takeaway learning from the course already presented on 5 June).


    Contact teaching takes place in six Monday sessions, from April 24 to June 5, from 13:15 to 17:00. Note that Monday 1st of May is a national holiday, and so the second session of the course takes place on May 8. In this 3 ECTS course, contact teaching is about 20 hours and your independent study time is appraised in close to 60 hours.  In the first two weeks of the course you will, independently, dedicate time to getting familiar with course material. You will proceed with your work with the video-lectures by Guy Julier and Harun Kaygan on Models of Object Study, the four required readings, and the pre-recorded guest lectures arranged under four course themes. This groundwork with the course material will better enable you to get the most out of the upcoming sessions and enjoy them (all while avoiding unwanted accumulation of too much workload in a too short period of time).  Ahead of May 8, concentrate on the material and assignment specific to that session.

    Refer to the Course Handbook (second section under the main menu on the left). Its two parts, Course Guidelines and Course Program and Assignments, offer all the information needed on the course.  In Course Program and Assignments, you find not only the course schedule, but how the course material available on MyCourses is used: it indicates what material to study and what assignments to prepare on which week prior to which session ‒ and, in correlation with the program, it presents the briefs for the weekly assignments.

    We kicked-off at 13:15 at L01:Hall Y124/Luentosali E, Undergraduate Center, Otakaari 1.


    THE COURSE

    Through lectures, discussions, (video) guest talks, readings and short assignments, this course introduces and explores some of the wider contexts of contemporary design culture. In particular, we focus on how global and local systems of meaning in design interact. We explore some of the economic, political and social forces that shape these different scales and historical processes of design. Throughout this course you are encouraged to explore design objects – in all their manifestations – in relation to the bigger questions that are raised.

    The course focuses on the relationships of global and local processes in design and invites you to explore a series of questions. —— How has globalisation affected the 'presentation' and identities of localities ‒ countries, regions, cities through products, services and experiences? —— Where does design take place in the networks of goods and capital? —— How have colonial systems of power shaped particular ideas of what design is and should be? —— And how might these be questioned and contested?

    Having looked at design in terms of more orthodox, dominant cultural understandings, here we are also concerned with 'low', everyday or subcultural expressions of design culture. —— How do cultural practices that are independent of dominant orthodoxies function? —— What characterizes these? How do such localised activities and meanings interact with global flows of signs? —— How do everyday practices shape design cultures?

    The overall idea, then, is that we get an enriched understanding of global-local, high-low relationships in design. We cannot cover all the debates, issues and possibilities that are available within this rubric. But, hopefully, we can begin to unpick some key questions that you can take back into your studies and your understandings of design and culture.

    You are warmly welcome!

    —Paola Cabrera,
        ‒the Teaching team,

        ‒and also on behalf of Prof. Guy Julier, who is on Research Leave from January to June 2023.