Topic outline

  • Core Module - General Sessions

    Mandatory Assignment:

    For passing the Core Module, four learning diary entries are mandatory. For each general session, students are expected to write an entry (max. 100 words) describing their own learning and/or possible new questions, answers, reflections, references, etc., which emerged for them within the session. 

    The entries to the single sessions need to always be submitted on MyCourses (https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/view.php?id=37600§ion=7) until the following Monday, 9am. 


    SESSION 1

    Date and Location: 09.01.2023; 9:00-12:00 (Undergraduate Centre, U142)

    What is research? This topic is deeply tied to the notion of epistemology, How do we know what we know? What is knowledge? Possible answers are related to differences within the so-called Orders of Knowledge and their interpretation regarding what is the object of knowledge: in the natural sciences, human sciences, in the arts and in artistic research. Brief introduction to art and design methodologies; new materialist and more-than-human methods; most common qualitative and interpretive methods such as ethnographic inquiries incl. Interviews as well as the use of visual approaches. 

    Guest lecturers: Max Ryynänen, Senior Lecturer, DAM and Pinja Mustajoki, Doctoral Researcher, DAM.


    SESSION 2

    Date and Location: 16.01.2023; 9:00-12:00 (Undergraduate Centre, U142)

    Critical thinking – It could be argued that this notion is rooted how we define What is a concept? What is its validity, reliability and transparency? How do we use and build from previous knowledge? Then there are also the questions related to research ethics, from copyrights to intellectual rights & data management to feminist collaborative ethics? Why are these concepts so important to artistic critical thinking practice?

    Guest lecturers: Bassam El-Baroni, Associate Professor, DAM and Eva Tordera, Doctoral Researcher, DAM.


    SESSION 3

    Date and Location: 23.01.2023; 9:00-12:00 (Undergraduate Centre, U142)

    Working together – Navigating in a complex, messy, and moving world urges us to propose research questions and practices that are critical-creative, experimental, open-ended, transdisciplinary, and engage with multiple ways of knowing. In her talk, Dr. Huopalainen discussed cross-and multidisciplinary approaches from her own positionality and perspective of being in a liminal space on a shared position between two Departments. Understanding research as relation-building processes 'with' mutliple thers, she discussed how research theorizes and produces practice at the same time. One of the challenges in this process of creative exploration, it appears, is making the researcher’s positionality transparent: ‘who I am and where am I in all of this messy context?’ How to navigate and move across disciplines ethically, by doing others justice while embracing uncertainty and ‘not-knowing’? Could cross- or interdisciplinarity in research articulate and then even tend to an ethics of cohabitation? Practical examples were presented regarding constructing research positionality and self-reflexivity in crossing disciplinary borders by engaging with theoretical conversations in several fields. Bringing together potentially new and unexpected theoretical views and letting them activate new thought, while as a researcher, still attempting to maintain sensitivity to the different contexts, was discussed as crucial in multisdisciplinary work. Astrid Huopalainen

    Guest lecturers: Astrid Huopalainen, Assistant professor DAM and Aalto BIZ, Doctoral candidate Kirsi Manning.


    SESSION 4 

    Date and Location: 30.01.2023; 9:00-12:00 (Undergraduate Centre, U142)

    Making a research poster – During this final session student groups will select a topic based on the discussions that they have had in previous sessions and create their own research posters. The posters will be exhibited at the end of the course in the beginning of April.

    Guest lecturers: Rupesh Vyas and Patrizia Constantin.


    RELATED INFORMATION

    1. Link to MA thesis deadlines and guidelines 2022-2023.

    2. Information about graduation. 

    3. MA Thesis guidelines 2022-2023.

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M02/M03 - VCD & ViCCA