The UID Research Seminars take place every second
Tuesday, between 13.15 and 15.00, in the Research Studio at
UID.
The seminars, which are currently on Zoom, are open
to everyone.
Send us an
e-mail, to receive the seminar material and the login
details.
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April 27, 2021: "Envisioning
Alternative Design Museums", with Anja
Neidhardt, Heather Wiltse and Anna Croon Fors
13:15-15:00 via Zoom. For the link, write to brendon.clark@umu.se
The design discipline takes part in the distribution of
privilege and oppression (Buckley, 2020; Canli & Prado de O.
Martins, 2016; Costanza-Chock, 2020). And it is highly supported by
design museums. This is why changing design museums might
contribute to dis-entangling the discipline from these
discriminatory structures.
In this seminar, we will first discuss different ways of how
established design museums could be dis-entangled from systems of
privilege and discrimination. The discussion will be based on a
paper that was recently submitted for publication. It will be
followed by a workshop in which we invite you to collaboratively
envision a variety of possibilities of how alternative design
museums might operate and look like.
ABSTRACT: The design
discipline is entangled with systems of privilege and
discrimination (Buckley, 2020; Canli & Prado de O. Martins,
2016; Costanza-Chock, 2020; Criado-Perez, 2019; Pater, 2016); and
design museums play a key role in supporting them. Changing design
museums might thus be one way of dis-entangling the discipline from
these oppressive structures. In this paper, we explore
possibilities for how this might be done. We first employ
scalar-framing (Hunt, 2020), zooming in, around and out to explore
an expanded scale of approaches that might be applied in order to
change existing design museums. We identify and analyse design
museums' key elements and processes in relation to upholding
potentially problematic aspects of the design discipline before
turning to looking for alternatives to replace them. Drawing
inspiration from protest archives, we imagine what alternative
design museums could be like. Specifically, we introduce the
concept of alternative design museums as a scaffold for emerging
forms of gathering around more just processes and outcomes of
design.
Photo credit: Jen
Hoyer / Interference Archive
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March 9, 2021: "When the prototype becomes the product
in design education - prototyping design education in
transition", with Brendon Clark (UID)
13:15-15:00 via Zoom. For the link, write to brendon.clark@umu.se
In this seminar I would like to introduce and discuss a
specific view about the current state of industrial design
education in this specific time of the current crisis, and a way of
analyzing current teaching experiences. The work presented during
this seminar comes from as part of a current project focusing on
best practices in remote teaching at UID during 2020, and
proposal-in-progress for a project application for a Hybrid Design
Lab potentially starting in the Fall focusing on transitioning from
online to hybrid learning arrangements, and a work-in-progress
article for a journal article for a special issue on Alternative
Studios: Design Education Changes in 2020.
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February 23, 2021: "Mapping Design Methods: a reflection
on project cultures", with Maria Göransdotter (UID) and
Valentina Auricchio (Polimi)
13:15-15:00 via Zoom. For the link, write to brendon.clark@umu.se
This article springs from a recently initated research
collaboration between Valentina Auricchio, Politecnico di Milano
(Polimi), and Maria Göransdotter, Umeå Institute of Design (UID).
It outlines a direction for a joint research endeavour bringing
together design research and design historical research from a
perspective of design methods. The article has been submitted to
the Italian journal A/I/S Design, Storia e Ricerche, for an edition
themed "Relational geographies in the history of design" (still in
review). We are proposing a programmatic framework that brings
design methods to the attention of design history, and attention to
the historicity of design in design practices. We will do this
through sketching a map, a geography in time, to move toward a
deeper understanding of the evolution of methods linked to the
specific cultures and contexts from which they emerge, the
cross-overs, and historical interrelations between these. This
article is a starting point for a wider research project, an
example bringing design historical and design methodological
research agendas closer to each other. Starting from specific
interviews with Italian designers that bring evidence to a gap of
analysis in this field, we highlight the need for a deeper and
continued investigation into design histories of design
methods.
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February 8, 20201: Design Dialogues and the third turn,
with Brendon Clark & Nicholas Torretta
In this seminar focusing on a work-in-progress paper position
paper for a CHI workshop (Decolonizing Design Practice), we look to
how dialogue in design comes about and how it unfolds in order to
explore colonization tendencies in design with good intentions.
Whether we are taking a macro look at back-on-forth moves in
design, up-close inspection of the sequential unfolding of a single
design encounter, we take the position that design dialogue
initiation and turn-taking sequences can expose oppressive
structures that close collaborative possibility, and exploratory
structures that open collaborative possibility, with speculation
about the multiplicity of interpretation arising through the lens
of pluriversality.
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January 26, 2021: Research Project Application
Seminar with Maria Göransdotter and Marije de
Haas
This seminar discussion will revolve around practicalities and
strategies in applying for research funding. Two application
proposals (in progress) for international postdoc funding from
Swedish national funding bodies will form the basis for the
discussion: Marije de Haas' application to Forte, and Maria Göransdotter's application to
Vetenskapsrådet (VR). Please write brendon.clark@umu.se if
you would like to join the seminar and receive the
applications.
For the seminar, please read the applications from the perspective
of the respective assessment criteria and general aims as
formulated by Forte and VR. Bring both comments to Marije and Maria
on how they might sharpen their project proposals and applications,
and any questions you have in general about research funding
application processes that we can discuss on a more general
level.
To conclude, what type of funding might you be looking to apply
for next?
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January 12, 2021: Research Seminar
- Hanne Hede Jørgensen
Designing for Pedagogical Play in Schools -
Research Seminar with Hanne Hede
Jørgensen (visiting PhD student at
UID)
13:15-15:00 via Zoom. For the link, write to brendon.clark@umu.se
During the seminar, Hanne will introduce her PhD project. Attached
find a recommended text to contextualize Hanne's doctoral studies,
and a Danish publication of her's.
Designing for pedagogical play practices in
school
The pivot of my PhD project is the play practices of pedagogues.
The project elucidates if and how pedagogues, who participate in a
design for play, discover and develop play practices that can
support a diversity of play participations amongst children. The
purpose is to support children's ability to play in schools in
general, however, the children who risk exclusion from the play
communities have a special focus. The Programme of the PhD is thus
what I call pedagogical play practices and the Research Question
is: How can the making of play designs explore and develop
pedagogical play practices that support school children's
participation in play?
Collaboration with pedagogues is essentials in the study.
Together with pedagogues in two schools I design for different play
types and I use these play designs as explorative experiments in
order to explore what pedagogical play practices can be. In
addition, I have made two kinds of move testing experiments in
search for ways to support pedagogues in developing a reflective
and play sensitive repertoire for actions. One I call Dramatic
Reflexion. The purpose of this is to engage and provoke the bodily
knowledge of pedagogues. The other I - for now - call a
Child-centred-doll-experiment. The purpose of this is to put my
self in a pedagogical play situation, I do that in order to explore
the pedagogical play practices in a phenomenological way and to
create cases for the pedagogues to reflect upon.
My ambition is to generate a theory of designing for development
of pedagogical play practices in schools; a theory that includes a
definition of what pedagogical play practices might be and some
design principles that other pedagogues can use when they want to
develop their play practices in a pedagogical way.
Bio
My name is Hanne Hede Jørgensen. My educational background is
cand. mag in Literature and dramaturgy. I am associated professor
at Pædagoguddannelsen, VIA, Aarhus. I have taught coming pedagogues
since 1999. My topics were children's culture, play, pedagogic and
organizational cultures. Prior to the research I am doing now, I
have done research on children's perspectives on their everyday
life in Kindergarten and on how pedagogues understand what good
practices are.
I am now doing a PhD on Codesign for Play and Pedagogical
practice. I am doing it at Designschool Kolding. I have a lot of
experience on working with pedagogues and children and I am biased
according to the professions of pedagogues. Meaning, I have written
critical articles on neo-liberal tendencies within the profession
of pedagogues, argumenting for more reflective and classical
practices. The area of design is new to me. I have until now no
experience on conducting and participating in design processes. It
seems, however, that my educational background on literature and
dramaturgy suddenly has become interesting and applicable in new
ways.
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2020, December 15: Final PhD Seminar - Aditya
Pawar
Open collaborative design: Participatory design between
situated collaborations and the discourses of openness - Aditya
Pawar with Discussant Åsa Ståhl (Linnaeus University)
If you would like to participate, write to brendon.clark@umu.se for
Zoom link.
Abstract
Designers have recognised the expanded scope of when and where
design happens; and the active role of local communities in
designing the systems that they use or places that they inhabit.
The scope of participatory designer's role has also expanded to
infrastructuring and staging design processes as participants in a
community's activities and in their socio-cultural environments.
Often in situations that are rarely ever stable. In this changing
context, this research investigates the increasingly ambiguous
concept of openness in participatory design for social innovation.
As such, openness deals with products, processes, practices and
frameworks that are open to participation from a wide variety of
people. As used in this research, Openness is conceptually and
operationally bound to democratic values as a part of participatory
design through a lineage of open source production and innovation
practices; therefore, crucial for designers to unpack. At stake is
the uncritical adoption of this concept by designers in initiatives
that pursue socially progressive ends, often assuming it to be
apolitical.
This research intends to develop capacity around the concept of
openness as inclusion by prototyping of a practice. This
prototypical practice aims to investigate the practice-based design
ontologies brought to bear on sites and situations deemed to be
open (open-to-participation) as a means of making the politics of
participation visible; and to support and strengthen processes of
inclusion where they appear inadequate. This research does not
answer what openness is in general or impose a new taxonomy to
understand it. Instead, it examines the work that particular
notions of openness do to participatory design practice and how
designers can respond to it.
The research practice consists of a series of three thematic
enquiries, each of which includes a subset of smaller design
engagements. The first set of thematic studies takes place amongst
urban and rural food-producing communities, and the consecutive two
studies take place within an open-innovation environment and in a
higher education context, respectively. Each of these studies
explores how designers can organise collaboration in a manner
conscious of the constitutive effects of contemporary practices
that call for openness.
Open collaborative design, the title of this dissertation, is a
proposition for caring for a condition of openness as inclusion,
implying the commitment of the designer to democratic values beyond
the limits of design projects and site boundaries. The dissertation
contributes a set of sensibilities and theoretical-practical
anchors for participatory designers to reflect and respond to
multiple interpretations of the openness concept, and to strengthen
aspects of inclusion in sites and situations assumed to be open.
This dissertation, in addition to contributing to the field of
participatory design, also exposes the paradox behind some of the
common interpretations of openness and in doing so contributes to
fields that are concerned with supporting democratic values such as
for social innovation.
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2020, December 8: [Un]intended
consequences of a Speculative Design -
Research Seminar with Marije de Haas
13:10-15:00 via Zoom
Traditionally speculative designs have been used in gallery
settings and have a limited reach. This paper investigates
speculative designs that have been used outside of the gallery
in various other applications and discusses their potential
implications. One particular case study of a speculative
design created by the author of this paper "The Plug" is used to
see the intended and unintended reach of such a design, and
what this might mean for speculative design as a methodology.
Bio: Marije is a communication designer and a
lecturer. Marije has been working in design practice in London
(UK) and Umeå (SE), and is now based in the Netherlands. She
is a lecturer at Umeå Institute of Design (SE) and creative
director at F31 in Holland. Marije's PhD was
investigating how design could aid communication in ethical
dilemmas, specifically euthanasia in dementia. For her PhD
research she created a couple of speculative designs to
investigate specific dilemmas inherent in the euthanasia
debate, such as assessing suffering, autonomy and timing.
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2020, November 24: Queering Design Museums: Scaling
Up and Out - Research Seminar with Anja
Neidhardt (PhD Student)
13:10-15:00 via Zoom
The design discipline is interwoven with structures that
either privilege or oppress people on basis of their gender, sexual
orientation, skin color and origin, financial circumstances,
belief, dis/abilities and other aspects (Canli & Prado, 2016).
By collecting and exhibiting design results that are involved in
discriminative structures, design archives/museums legitimise these
practices. And not only this, they also exclude certain groups of
people and certain design practices and artefacts. Inviting more
diversity into established design museums might be one option.
However, if we apply a different scale, a range of further options
unfolds. In my research seminar I will present 5 approaches that
become visible through applying an alternative scale, and then
elaborate on one of them. My presentation will be followed by an
open discussion about the topic and my approach. This
work-in-progress is linked to a contribution that I want to make to
the design conference Nordes with its theme "Matters of
Scale".
Note: This page will be updated with an
attachment of the paper/ or instructions to request it closer to
the event.
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2020, October 21: UID PhD Festival 2020 - Matters
of Scale and Situatedness in Design Research
14:00-17:00 via Zoom
Questions of scale and scalability have been fundamental to the
industrial design project. At the same time, an appreciation for
situatedness has been key to locating accountable practices of
design activity and design research. As design turns toward acting
within complexities of socially and environmentally urgent contexts
and have been exploring valuable methodologies, conceptualizations,
and forms of engagement for contemporary design practice, issues of
scale, scalability and situatedness take on new meanings.
For this year's PhD Festival, we will build on the theme set for
the next Nordic Design Research Conference, Nordes and aske our PhD
students to present and discuss how their design research can be
seen through the lens of scale, scalability and situatedness.
Format: 30 minutes per PhD student: 20-minute
slide presentation, followed by 10 minutes discussion.
As always, we invite PhD students to interpret the theme in a
way that makes sense to each, but to in some way relate to notions
of scale and situatedness in relation to their work.
For information and participation, contact: brendon.clark@umu.se
Schedule
|
14:00-14:10
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Introduction and overview of the day (Johan Redström &
Brendon Clark)
|
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14:10-14:40
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Nicholas Torretta - Anti-oppressive and decolonial design for
sustainability
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14:45-15.15
|
Catharina Henje - Designing for diversity
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15:30-16.00
|
Anja Neidhardt - Designing tactics as means to re-design
design
|
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16.05-16.35
|
Xaviera Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada - Co-designing to make
other worlds possible
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16:35-17:00
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Discussion and Mingle
|
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2020, October 13: Curriculum Agility in
Post-Covid-19 Design Education - Research Seminar with visiting PhD
Student Suzanne Brink
13:15-15:00 via Zoom
In this research seminar I will present the concept of
curriculum agility and the seven principles developed in the paper
I co-authored Assessing
Curriculum Agility in a CDIO Engineering Education, and
describe how we (from 6 different universities) arrived at them. I
will then turn to discussing what contemporary design education,
such as UID, can do with these principles, now that we are provoked
to re-strategize what education could look like in a post-Covid-19
world.
If you would like to participate, send a mail to brendon.clark@umu.se for the Zoom link.
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2020, September 29: Paper Review Process seminar
with Heather Wiltse
13:15-15:00
Peer review is a key part of academic life. If you are an
academic, you will often be called upon to provide peer reviews for
work in your field (conferences, journals, funding agencies). And
of course you will also submit your own work for peer review, and
receive feedback on its quality. When done well, peer review
ensures high standards of academic work and can be highly rewarding
to both give and receive. In doing peer review you are able to
champion and constructively critique the work of others (or indeed
prevent poor or immature work from being published). Receiving
thoughtful critiques of your own work can allow you to improve it,
while receiving poorly-done reviews can bring sharp reminders of
how important it is to do this kind of work well. Peer review is
also a key disciplining mechanism within disciplines that can serve
to maintain its existing power structures and paradigms.
In this seminar, we will explore both sides of peer review:
giving, as well as receiving.
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2020, September 28, 2020: The introduction of the
digital wall and how it can change the domestic arrangement
- Morteza Abdipour's 90% Licenciate Seminar
15:00-16:30 - Discussant: Mikael Wiberg (Umeå
University)
This research focuses on the emergence of using large screen
user interfaces in the home environment. It aims to demonstrate the
arrangement changes in the domestic environment in a complex
scenario of using large screens. In the fast-growing demand for
large screens, this product could potentially be available to be
used by people in their home environment; however, this concept is
futuristic and does not yet exist in reality. Constructing large
displays can be carried out with different production methods.
Here, this concept is called the digital wall, and it is a very
thin wall-sized interactive display. The characteristics of the
digital wall will vary to be able to create different scenarios.
One such scenario is a space in the home where the surface of the
wall is covered with screens, which allows multiple possibilities
to experience and interact with the digital contents.
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September 15, 2020: Reorienting Design Towards a
Decolonial Ethos: Emancipatory Directions for Design /
Torretta, Nicholas B., Clark, Brendon & Redström, Johan -
Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
In this research seminar we will put forward the first iteration
of a paper under review by the Design and Culture journal where we
are exploring emancipatory directions for reorienting design. After
a short introduction of the paper, the main concepts and the design
intervention, we would like to lead a discussion around the main
aspects addressed by the paper in what concerns the reorientation
of design for sustainability, as how the argument is put together
in the paper.
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May 26, 2020 - The Role of the
Lecturer in Talent Development
in Design Art School Education - a
Research Seminar with Suzanne Brink, Visiting PhD
Student
13:15-15:00 via Zoom https://umu.zoom.us/j/760515302
"… I call it interval education. My metaphor is training for
a marathon. It is about serially doing different things,
and not always running the same amount at the same
speed. So you play with readingassignments, class
discussion, reflection, Socratic aspects, giving feedback
individually, talking in group sessions... That way, the brain
cannot be lazy."
In this seminar I will present my research on design program
curricula in higher education that foster talent development. My
qualitative study took part in 5 art schools, including UID,
interviewing sixteen lecturers. To kick off the seminar, I will
start by showing how I have used coding to organize my qualitative
data set. Then I will present the four 'blocks'
which appeared in the data (educational system, curriculum,
didactics, motivation), and the three 'actors' (lecturer,
student, professional field). We willzoom into the role of
the lecturer in this seminar, specifically on the
expectations, the humble teacher, flexibility, reciprocal learning,
and assessment for learning. This will be followed by an
interactive part of the seminar in which I pose some questions for
the group to answer and ask for reflections on both my results
and the literature suggestion, such as what do you recognize, what
would you like to do more, what don't you agree with, and what
enablers and barriers do you perceive?
For background reading, follow the link:
Six into One: The Contradictory Art School Curriculum and how it
Came About
Houghton, Nicholas, International Journal of Art & Design
Education, February 2016, Vol.35(1), pp.107-120
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May 12, 2020 - Everyday Reality and Design Research
Challenges / Research Seminar with Erik
Stolterman
14:00-15:45 on Zoom https://umu.zoom.us/j/760515302
Our everyday reality seems to become more complex by the day, in
many cases caused by an increasing number of computational and
connected devices. The complexity of our world is growing. In this
talk I will discuss what this means for design and what new
challenges it brings for design research (in particular interaction
design research).
For background reading to support
the discussion see:
Bio
Erik Stolterman is Professor in Informatics and the Senior
Executive Associate Dean of the School of Informatics, Computing,
and Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also
professor at the Institute of Design at Umeå University, Sweden.
Stolterman is co-Editor for the Design Thinking/Design
Theory book series by MIT Press, and on several editorial
boards for international journals (The HCI journal, International
Journal of Design, Design Studies, Design, Economics and
Innovation, International Journal of Designs for Learning, Studies
in Material Thinking, Human Computation, Artifact). Stolterman's
main work is within the areas of HCI, interaction design, design
practice, philosophy and theory of design. Stolterman has published
a large number of articles and five books, including "Thoughtful
Interaction Design" (MIT Press) and "The Design Way" (MIT
Press) and the recently published "Things That Keep Us
Busy--The Elements of Interaction" (MIT Press, 2017).
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April 28, 2020 - Audio-Augmented
Paper Drawings Tangible Interface in Educational Intervention for
High-Functioning Autistic Children: A Research
Seminar with Andrea Alessandrini
April 28, 2020 13:15-15:00 via Zoom https://umu.zoom.us/j/760515302
This seminar will be focused on a 2016 publication at
the Interaction Design and Children conference.
ReduCat is an audio-augmented paper drawings tangible user
interface system intended to support educational intervention for
children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. It records audio
snippets on standard paper drawings using a tangible user interface
that can be shared between the therapist and the child. It is
designed for the therapist to engage the child in a collaborative
storytelling activity.
Bio
Andrea has an Associate Professor position in Interaction
Design/Service Design at the Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå
University. He has a Research Senior Lecturer position in
Informatics at the Informatics Department, Linnéuniversitetet
(Sweden), and holds a Visiting Professor position at the Design
School at the Politecnico di Milano.
Andrea's scientific interest is within the field of
interaction design, especially the design of digital interactive
systems - grounded by distributed cognition theory and activity
theory - to support people experience. He is particularly
interested in the design of systems and user interfaces (e.g.
through user-centred design and participatory design) for
educational interventions for children and young. Beside these
interests, he also conducts research on prototyping and creative
technologies.
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March 14, 2020 - Transnational Corporations from
the Standpoint of Workers, a Research Seminar with Aina
Tollefsen
Tuesday, April 14th 13:15-15:00 (we have changed back to this
time, plus a 10 minute break during) on Zoom https://umu.zoom.us/j/760515302
For this seminar we welcome Aina Tollefsen, a professor in the
Human Geography department, to share her work on design-related
topic of the organization of transnational work.
The two main suggested readings are two
chapters from her co-authored book Transnational Corporations
from the Standpoint of Workers: Chapter 11 "Production
Regimes - the Wage Labourer's Discontent" (pp. 248-272)
and the Epilogue (pp. 273-278). A further (extra) reading
suggestion is Alf Hornborg's article "Colonialism in the
Anthropocene - the Political Ecology of the Money-Energy-Technology
Complex. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 10
No. 1, March 2019, pp. 7-21
Find the literature on the Staff Teams under the channel:
Research Seminar or click
here.
Aina Tollefsen is Associate Professor in Human Geography at the
Department of Geography, Umeå University. Her publications include
"The production of the rural landscape and its labour: The
development of supply chain capitalism in the Swedish berry
industry", 2018. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series,
40(40), 69-82. (With Eriksson,
M.); and Transnational Corporations from the
Standpoint of Workers, 2014. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan. (With Räthzel, N. and Mulinari, D.)
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March 31, 2020 - Where do sustainability, science and
design meet? A research seminar led by Viola
Hakkarainen
In this seminar Viola will introduce her PhD project to open a
discussion about synergies between sustainability science and
participatory design research.
Sustainability science increasingly adopts collaborative
research approaches to deal with uncertainty in social-ecological
systems and facilitate transformations toward sustainability.
Inclusion of different voices, knowledges and values into ecosystem
governance is therefore seen to increase legitimacy of decisions
and contribute with solutions to face sustainability challenges.
However, these knowledge processes, such as weaving different
knowledge systems, are often superficially described, and thus
there is a lack of reflexivity of issues such as representation and
power. Ultimately, the collaborative turn in knowledge production
calls for new methods and approaches to bridge between science and
society to produce just and actionable knowledge - a call that
participatory design research could help to answer?
Background reading:
Hakkarainen, V., Anderson, C. B., Eriksson, M., van Riper, C.
J., Horcea-Milcu, A., & Raymond, C. M. (2020). Grounding
IPBES experts' views on the multiple values of nature in
epistemology, knowledge and collaborative
science. Environmental Science and Policy, 105. 11
18.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.12.003
Hakkarainen, V., Soini, K., Dessein, J., Raymond, C. (2020)
Place-embedded agency: A new concept for deconstructing local
knowledge through place belonging. In review, please don't
distribute.
Bio: Viola Hakkarainen is an interdisciplinary
researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland and a PhD
candidate at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests
include knowledge weaving processes in ecosystem governance and
sense of place in social-ecological systems research. She has a
soft spot for philosophy of science and creative research
methods.
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March 17, 2020 - Defining Design Activism: A research
seminar led by Anja Neidhardt
Research Studio, 13:15-15:00 (via Zoom https://umu.zoom.us/j/760515302)
Design as activism. Activism as design. Disobidient
design. Activism in academia. Living a feminist
life. Activist design researcher. - How do you define design?
And activism? How would you describe the relationship between
the two? In this seminar we will read four papers with special
focus on how the authors define design (and/or) activism and how
they position themselves in and with their work. After presenting
her readings of the selected papers, Anja will open up the
discussion. This seminar offers the possibility to not only talk
about how each of us defines design (and/or) activism in their own
research, but also to discuss our positionalities as researchers,
designers and activists.
Image: A poster designed by Sheila Levrant de
Bretteville, called "Women in Design: The Next Decade",
from 1975.
It would be great if you could at least read one of
the papers; which one(s) you select to read is up to
you.
Ece Canli: "Introduction" of her PhD
dissertation: Queerying Design. Material Re-Configurations of
Body Politics. University of Porto, 2017.
Tom Bieling: "Designing Activism. An Introduction",
in: Design (&) Activism. Perspectives on Design as
Activism and Activism as Design. Mimesis International,
2019.
Anna Feigenbaum: "Tear Gas Design and Dissent", in: Design
(&) Activism. Perspectives on Design as Activism and Activism
as Design. Mimesis International, 2019.
Cheryl Buckley: "Made in Patriarchy II: Researching (or
Re-Searching) Women and Design", in: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology DesignIssues: Volume 36, Number 1, Winter 2020
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March 3, 2020 - Technology and More-Than-Human
Design: A research seminar with Elisa Giaccardi and Johan
Redström
Research Studio, 13:15-15:00
As digital technologies such as big data, the internet of
things, machine learning, and artificial intelligence increasingly
challenge and even disrupt the everyday job of design-not to
mention everyday life-there comes a need to raise critical
questions about the ways we design.
Write to brendon.clark@umu.se if you wish to attend
and have a pre-viewing of the paper.
_____________________________________________________________
February 4, 2020 - A research seminar with
Monica Lindh-Karlsson. PhD student at UID. The seminar will focus
on a chapter from Monica's PhD dissertation with the
working title Design Togetherness.
This is the second section of the theoretical section, Chapter
2. In the first chapter, I presented an overview of ways of working
together in design with a participatory-, collaborative- and
processual perspective. In this chapter, I claim that we have
extensive knowledge about how we work together as 'what' we are and
lack understanding of how we relate to each other in design. This
second chapter (seminar text) presents a theoretical lens with
three concepts of human doing: labor, work, and action. The three
concepts aim to support us to unpack how we relate to each
other in design. When working together in design is looked at
through Arendt's conceptual lenses, I raise some questions that
concern how we relate to each other. The following chapter (chapter
3) aims to give an example of how an exploration of ways of working
together has been conducted through making. Expressions of,
experiences from, and gained insights will be discussed by using
notions of work and action.
I have three questions
I would like the readers to reflect upon:
Does Arendt's concept of labor, work, and action apply to
working together in design?
What connections and deviations do you see between the concepts
and working together in design?
What questions do the concepts arise when applied to working
together in design?
The thesis organization:
- Prologue/Introduction
- Chapter 1. Working together in design from a participatory-,
collaborative- and processual perspective (theory)
- Chapter 2. Working together and relating to each other as
'what' we are or as 'who' we are. A theoretical lens for human
doing and design' (theory, Arendt)
- Chapter 3. Exploring working together and ways to relate to
each other. (projects)
- Chapter 4. Articulation of design togetherness.
- Chapter 5. Discussion/reflection
_____________________________________________________________
November 26, 2019 - A
research seminar with Monica Lindh-Karlsson. PhD student
at UID. The seminar will focus on a chapter from Monica's
PhD dissertation with the working title Design
Togetherness.
Research Studio, 13.15-15.00
Here, my aim is to positioning my research within design theory
about working together from three perspectives: process and
methods, collaborative design and emancipatory design. The aim is
to argue that we have a solid ground for knowing about working
together, but our understanding in many ways draws on 'what' we
are. Hence, the next chapter, which is also a theory chapter (2),
aim to present concepts for working together as 'who' we are,
_____________________________________________________________
December 10, 2019
- Design, power and colonisation: decolonial
and anti-oppressive explorations on three approaches for Design for
Sustainability - a research seminar with Nicholas
Torretta.
Research Studio, 13.15-15.00
Our contemporary world is organized in a modern/colonial
structure. As people, professions and practices engage in
cross-country Design for Sustainability (DfS), projects have the
potential of sustaining or changing modern/colonial power
structures. In such project relations, good intentions in working
for sustainability do not directly result in liberation from
modern/colonial power structures. In this paper we introduce three
approaches in DfS that deal with power relations. Using a Freirean
(1970) decolonial perspective, we analyse these approaches to see
how they can inform DfS towards being decolonial and
anti-oppressive. We conclude that steering DfS to become decolonial
or colonizing is a relational issue based on the interplay between
the designers' position in the modern/colonial structure, the
design approach chosen, the place and the people involved in DfS.
Hence, a continuous critical reflexive practice is needed in order
to prevent DfS from becoming yet another colonial
tool.
![Kaantopoyta 3]()
Nicholas B. Torretta is a PhD student at UID focusing on
anti-oppressive and decolonial approaches in Design for
Sustainability.
_____________________________________________________________
PREVIOUS SEMINARS
_____________________________________________________________
November 13 - Design Seminar: Looking Out from the
Stall: Hygiene Resources, Maintenance, and the Internet of
Things
With Sarah Fox, PhD
14:00-15:30 Research Studio
Abstract: Restrooms may appear far from
contemporary sites of innovation. But over the past decade,
corporations and public institutions have begun developing internet
of things (IoT) technologies for these spaces in ways that
increasingly define people's experiences of hygiene resources.
Drawing on a 3-year multi-sited ethnographic study, Sarah Fox will
discuss how digital technologies entwine with existing forms of
collaborative labor to sharpen managerial control of public
restroom access and maintenance. Informed by this work, she will
describe her collaboration with local activists and custodial staff
to reimagine these technologies. Across 18 months throughout the
city of Seattle, she developed and deployed a networked sensor
designed to support the needs of people without regular access to
everyday hygiene resources. This work highlights and contends with
a tendency for IoT devices to prioritize concerns for cost-reducing
efficiencies and regulatory techniques, rather than support
collective responsibility-a concern of increasing importance as
design and human-computer scholarship attends to data ethics in
public life.
Bio: Sarah Fox is a Postdoctoral Fellow at
Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction
Institute. Her research focuses on how technological artifacts
challenge or propagate social exclusions, by examining existing
systems and building alternatives. Her work has earned awards in
leading computing venues including ACM CSCW, CHI, and DIS, and has
been featured in the Journal of Peer Production and New Media and
Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Centered Design &
Engineering from the University of Washington and has worked in
design research at Microsoft Research, Google, and Intel Labs.
_____________________________________________________________
November 12, 2019 - Feminist Approaches to
Design (Education) - A research seminar with Anja Neidhardt,
PhD student UID and the Umeå Center for Gender Studies
(UCGS).
Research Studio, 13.15-15.00
The seminar will start with Anja
briefly introducing the work of the
platform depatriarchise design that she co-creates with
Maya Ober. This presentation will be followed by a
discussion of a paper that she wrote in collaboration with
Maya Ober and Prof. Griselda Flesler. The paper (working title
"Pedagogy of Discomfort") is a conversation on the topic of
feminist design education with specific focus on the Design
and Gender Studies Department at the Faculty of Architecture and
Design FADU University of Buenos Aires, which is headed by
Griselda.
_____________________________________________________________
November 5, 2019 - "Making Methods". Research
Seminar with Maria Göransdotter, PhD student at UID.
Research Studio, 13.15-15.00
The seminar will focus on the development of user-centered
design methods at the 1940s Home Research Institute, in the form of
a chapter draft from Maria's nearly-completed PhD
dissertation with the working title Potential pasts,
possible futures: making transitional design histories.
_____________________________________________________________
October 15, 2019 - On/Un-Certainty: A Research
Seminar with Johan Redström
In this seminar Johan will introduce thoughts on design
education he will be developing for an upcoming
publication.
13:15-15:00, Red Room
_____________________________________________________________
October 2, 2019 - A research
seminar with Catharina (Titti) Henje, a PhD student at UID.
Obstacles & risks in the traffic environment for users of
powered wheelchairs (PWCs) in Sweden: Disabled Vulnerable Road
Users (VRU).
In this research seminar, Catharina will present and
discuss a collaborative design project and a nearly-completed paper
focusing on risks and obstacles in traffic environment for users of
a powered wheelchair (PWC). Currently, knowledge and attention
is low for users of PWC in contexts of traffic safety as they lack
their own sub-category in traffic injury statistics, making them
invisible, and as very few studies are done with users on real-life
experiences. PWC users are, part of an aging population, and
an ever-growing group of citizens, which further emphasizes the
need to be regarded in city and traffic planning. The team of
researchers from social science, traffic safety,
physiotherapy, and interaction design, selected material, in the
form of contextual videos and interviews, derived from an earlier
qualitative study, and analysed and categorized them according to
human, vehicle (PWC), and environmental factors. The findings
reflect the researchers observations and the target group's own
experiences of existing traffic risks in built environment. For a
copy of the draft paper, send a mail to brendon.clark@umu.se.
13.15-15.00 in the Administration Conference Room.
____________________________________________________________
March 26 - Research Seminar
with Maria Göransdotter
Practices of participation
13.15-15.00, Research Studio, Umeå Institute of
Design
The seminar will introduce a thesis chapter draft on the theme
of the concept of 'participation' as approached in
user-centered design practices, addressing how a Swedish design
history of this concept might be told.
_____________________________________________________________
February 6 - Research Seminar
with Maja Frögård
Designing public
participation - Tensions and Responsibilities between design and
democracy
13:15-15:00, Research Studio,
Umeå Institute of Design
I will present a chapter from my thesis (in process) in which I
discuss different notions of democracy through design examples and
political philosophy to support designers to challenge
understandings of democracy in their practices.
How does a state driven public process differ for a
designer to engage with in relation to working for
companies or private interests? Being engaged in planning processes
in two different municipalities and state employed through
Konstfack, I would consider the responsibilities of the designer,
of myself, to be towards democratic aims. However, there are many
interpretations of democracy in design; the use of democracy is
connected to different purposes and agendas. Some find
participation crucial, others see activism as fundamental, while
others rely on the relations to institutions. In political
philosophy and theory democracy is seen as unresolvable, consisting
of questions and tensions that has been given different answers
throughout history and depending on context. These tensions from
practice and philosophy are foundational for understanding
democracy as ongoing negotiations rather than something that can be
resolved. Since design is practiced within different parts of
society, this implies that a responsible design practice requires
not only an understanding of democracy but also the frames and part
of society we practice within. Rather than providing an answer of
how to interpret democracy this opens up for further questions
concerning designer autonomy and our relation to institutions;
whose interests we are serving, how our understandings of democracy
differ and who we choose to align with.
Maja Frögård is a PhD candidate at the Art, Technology and
Design program, a collaboration between Konstfack and KTH, and
currently guest PhD at UID. Her projects in different ways concerns
the politics of what ideas, values and realities designers
partake in materializing through giving shape to things,
situations and environments.
_____________________________________________________________
November
13 - Research Seminar with Heather
Wiltse
Conceptualizing digital mediation: Structures, dynamics,
and consequences
13:15-15:00, Research Studio, Umeå Institute of
Design
Everyday life has come to be digitally mediated to a quite
significant extent. This mediation includes both intentional use of
connected things as well as other forms of contact with the
myriad touchpoints of what have become planetary-scale
computational processes and flows. Digital mediation cannot be
understood solely in terms of intentional use and user experience,
since much of what they are and do falls outside of this
frame. This paper argues that incisive conceptualization of digital
mediation in general is therefore needed in order to
understand and articulate the role digital things now play in not
only experience, but also in distributions of power and
agency, visibility and invisibility-and to provide insight on
how to design in order to better care for their consequences. The
paper attempts to outline some key elements of such a
framework, pulling together and integrating previous work. It
begins by considering earlier modes of sense-making in
relation to technologies and how they have shifted to accommodate
changes in understanding of what technologies are and can be,
and the roles that they play in everyday life and society. It then
begins to lay the groundwork for some basic shifts currently
needed in order to grapple with connected digital things. It does
this through proposing and articulating a set
of structures, dynamics, and
associated consequences of digital mediation that can be
used to frame further investigation.
Heather Wiltse is currently Assistant Professor at
Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University
(Sweden). Her transdisciplinary research
centers around trying to understand and critique the role of
digitally connected, responsive, and changing things in experience
and society in ways that can inform
response-able design. Building on
a background in informatics, human-computer
interaction, design, and communication and culture, Heather's
research focus currently sits primarily
at the intersection of design studies and
philosophy of technology. Her recent
book Changing Things: The Future of Objects in a
Digital World (with Johan Redström)
investigates and articulates what has become of things as
computational processes, dynamic networks, and contextual
customisation now emerge as factors as important as form, function
and material were for designing, using and understanding objects in
the industrial age.
_____________________________________________________________
October 30th - Research Seminar with Nicholas B.
Torretta:
Anti-oppressive design for sustainabilities - whose
design, whose sustainability?
13:15 - 16:00, Red Room, Umeå
Institute of Design
Can design for sustainability be non-oppressive and
decolonial? How do we deal with diverse ways of being with and as
worlds in design? In this seminar I introduce a project that
explored directions for anti-oppressive DfS by engaging with
diverse forms of being with and as worlds in design. Posing the
need of increasing situated awareness, relationality, humbleness
and care in design, the findings from the project will serve as
starting point to discuss oppression and colonization in design and
the possible ways for transforming design for sustainabilities into
being non-oppressive and non-colonial.
Nicholas B. Torretta is a Brazilian designer with focus on
the social interaction aspects of design for sustainability. He has
been working with design for sustainability in Sweden, Finland,
Mexico, Mozambique and Brazil. Currently Nicholas is a PhD
candidate at Umeå Institute of Design, where his research concerns
anti-oppressive and non-colonial approaches to design as a way to
nurture diversity through design
_____________________________________________________________
October 16th - A Real Imaginary Experiment
- Enrique Encinas
13:15-15:00, October 16, 2018 - Red Room,
UID
The life of a design research PhD happens among a cohort of real
and fictional objects. There are materials and possibilities, words
and ideas, objects and events. Telling the fictional and the real
apart is a challenging task that might not make sense at all when
designing. In this seminar I propose to take a look at a very real
thing for a PhD: a paper published. It is a real paper about real
people that write real words about real problems without revealing
their real identities. It addresses a real issue about an imaginary
paradigm for HCI researchers. It supports its real argument not
through the use of real data but through real abstracts from
imaginary papers. In bringing this paper to your attention I'd like
to share not only what it is but how it came to be and the objects
I considered real or fictional in the process. My presentation will
be brief so we can have fun chasing the real and fictional objects
that makes a PhD what it is.
I am a designer who studied electrical engineering in ETSIT
(Madrid), semiconductor tech in NTU (Taiwan) and participatory
design in SDU (Denmark). I have briefly supported artists in
Medialab Prado (Madrid) and technical systems in Vodafone Spain.
Now I am working on a PhD in Northumbria University by researching
the region of the design spectrum where fiction is most
visible. enrique.encinas@northumbria.ac.uk
Recommended pre-reading: "Making Problems in Design Research:
The Case of Teen Shoplifters on Tumblr." Encinas, Enrique, Mark
Blythe, Shaun Lawson, John Vines, Jayne Wallace, and Pamela Briggs.
Montreal, Canada, 2018. http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/33898/.
_____________________________________________________________
Seminars
Spring 2018
22 May 2018, 13.15-15.00
Research studio
Trang Vu
Writing workshop - "Finding your little place: Conceptual
tools for constructing arguments"
This workshop focuses on how an argument can be
constructed building on existing theories/concepts while opening up
new perspectives. As an author, you are often expected to
assertively put your points across, clearly convince readers of
their significance, and demonstrate that the points are argued from
rigorous critical reading. This can be a challenging task. Some of
our observations from the last Academic Writing workshop in Autumn
2017 show that UID writers found themselves ¨the invisible
me", "the inauthentic me", "the frustrated me", "the lagom scholar
me" when working with theories and trying to communicate their own
stance. This workshop provides you with an opportunity to look at
your text and evaluate your own little space of argumentation. You
will also start to reflect on and analyse your author's voice.
To prepare for the workshop, please bring a sample
of 3 or 4 pages from your thesis or an assignment that you are
working on. The writing should come from a part where you discuss
your research in connection with theories/key concepts.
Please also send the sample to Trang Vu (trang.vu@umu.se) by end of
Thursday 17/5/18.
8 May 2018, 13.15-15.00
White room
Aditya Pawar
OPEN-COLLABORATIVE-DESIGN
Participatory design between situated collaborations and
the rhetoric of openness
This practice-based research sets out to investigate and
intervene in practices of community based participatory design as
effected by the rhetoric of openness. The thesis proposes the
re-articulation of openness as it relates to the relational core of
collaborative design. At stake here is the uncritical adoption of
an increasingly ambiguous notion of openness inparticipatory
design, which can create new forms of closure. Through a
programmatic enquiry between the practices and rhetoric of
openness, I propose three dimensions of open-collaboration that
draw out a field of operation for designers. The practice based
research elements include situated participatory design engagements
with communities within and outside institutional boundaries. The
first set of studies (Study 1) takes place with food producing
communities and consecutive studies (study 2 and 3) take place
within an open maker-space environment and in a design classroom
respectively. Each study highlights a particular form of
open-collaboration. Relating these particular instantiations of
opencollaborations (as expressed by the studies) in relation to the
research programme provides us with ways to reposition our
participatory practices.
The thesis contributes a theoretical-practice toolbox
to reposition a participatory design practice as forms of
open-collaboration. And in general, create the conditions for a
responsible society characterized by collective agency and the
capacity to respond to local needs.
13 April 2018, 10.00-12.00
Research studio
Holly
Robbins
"Reflecting on Navigating Between STS and Design Practice"
In this seminar, I will reflect on some of the tensions that
emerged in the course of conducting my PhD research navigating
between science and technology studies (STS) and design practice.
As a design researcher, I was concerned with theorizing "the
black box" and how design could potentially support approaches to
make it more legible. From STS I was working with Albert Borgmann's
work on the device paradigm and focal things and practices. I
made inquires into his work with a methodological cocktail of
research through design and design anthropology.
This discussion will not be so much about the content of the
research itself, but more of a reflection on my own experiences,
and teasing out some of the tensions that emerged in navigating
between STS and design practice. These tensions reflected
different styles of working, values and assumptions. In particular,
I found that between design practice and STS there were tensions
between working with different levels of specificity and
abstraction, reference points, and modes of evaluation. In this
seminar I will first elaborate and contextualize some of these
tensions that I experienced, but I hope to use this seminar
as an opportunity to share and discuss our own experiences and
reflections in trans-disciplinary design research.
10 April 2018, 13.15-15.00
Red room
Research Seminar Double Bill
Tuesday 10 April 2018, 13.15-15.00
Red room
D. E. Wittkower
"On Disaffordances and Dysaffordances"
Despite the still-tempting myth of technological neutrality,
examples of technologies with political effects surround us, and
their politics are better and better recognized-from the racist
Band-Aid or "flesh colored" crayon, to the sexism of "girls" and
"boys" toys, to the enforcement of ethic and gender categories in
data entry fields. Research on the politics of technology is also
longstanding and ongoing, from Langdon Winner's 1980 "Do artifacts
have politics" to Safiya Umoja Noble's just-published Algorithms of
Oppression.
This presentation seeks to support research on the politics of
technology by framing a theory of disaffordances and
dysaffordances. I argue that a systematic theory is necessary to
clarify when technologies pass from being merely inconvenient or
badly designed to being discriminatory, and present a couple of
ways of getting at that distinction through extensions to
affordance theory. While this work is directed toward supporting
research with new theory, the talk will not be technical, and will
address a series of lively examples, including racist webcams,
sexist baby strollers, religious discrimination in calendars, and
sexist thermostat settings.
Bruno
Gransche
"Unnecessary and not impossible - Critique and design as
the drivers, challenges, and consequences of accidence"
The impossible, the possible, and the necessary are three modal
domains. If one wants to learn about worldviews, ambition, skills,
or self-efficacy of others, it pays off to analyze how they
classify entities with regard to these domains. The extension of
each domain varies historically, ideologically, and individually
but the extension of the possible is the only one in which
decisions and actions matter. The impossible and the necessary
cannot be altered by actors. The possible can. Challenging these
definitions is an act of modal criticism and a prerequisite to the
shaping of futures.
Throughout the history of philosophy, the entities belonging to
these modal domains underwent significant changes: Aristotelian
ontology differentiates between inalterable substances that inhere
essential attributes and nonessential accidents; Descartes opposed
the two substances res cogitans and res extensa; empiricism and
sensualism foster experience and perception as epistemologically
primary to substance; Kant positioned substance as the hypothetical
persisting rest within the changes of perceptible qualities;
phenomenology emphasized the givenness of the world for a
consciousness and so on. These drifts predominantly follow one
direction: from the eternal towards the alterable, from the
impossible and necessary towards the possible.
For the therefore increasingly growing domain of the
"unnecessary and possible" I propose the term accidence. The
histories of philosophy, of sciences in general, and of
technological "progress" show an expansion of accidence.
Criticizing the respective definitions of the necessary and the
impossible is one driver of this expansion. Actual attempts to
shape and design the newly possible informs the observer about the
hypothetically possible and the actually possible subdomains.
Critique and design, technological and social progress expand
the accidence domain. I will discuss this dynamic as well as its
effects and challenges. If almost everything can be potentially
different - what follows from that: a wider future or no future at
all?
20 March 2018, 13.15-15.00
Research studio
Marije de Haas
"The art of dying well - with dementia"
My research is about euthanasia in dementia, based on the dutch
legal framework for euthanasia. Euthanasia in dementia is legally
possible in the Netherlands, but in practise this rarely happens
because the symptoms of dementia clash with the due care criteria
for euthanasia: the patient must be able to consent at the time of
death, and there must be unbearable and hopeless suffering.
I am trying to address these problems through speculative designs.
I am creating three speculations that each tackle a specific
problem area:
1) A person may have a rational and considered request for
euthanasia in case of dementia, however, doctors can't or won't
comply with this request if the patient in question can't confirm
this request at time of death (even if this is because of the
symptoms of dementia).
> Can we alleviate physician's responsibility in considering
euthanasia requests?
2) Suffering is hard to assess; it is subjective and context
based. Suffering is even harder to assess when one can't
communicate effectively with the person whose suffering you are
trying to measure.
> How can we measure suffering in dementia?
3) Ideas on what is a good death vary over time and cultures. In
contemporary western culture death is a taboo and rarely discussed.
When death is considered by those who are terminally ill, or
professionally engaged in this subject, it is preferred to die
"prepared", to finish what is important and to leave your
loved-ones able to cope without you.
> How can one have a good death in dementia?
For this seminar I would like to hold a design crit. I will
present the three speculations and I invite you to critically
appraise the speculations crafted and give me feedback.
• Do the speculations I have crafted (successfully) address the
problem areas identified?
• How can I best use these speculations to further the
debate?
I would also like to reflect on:
• Using design in design research: how do we address the quality
of the designs created?
• Using design in design research: how can we write about the
designs created?
• Using design in design research: how can we invite readers to
observe the designs created in their original intended form (i.e.
how do we get them to click a link and watch a video?)
6 March 2018, 13.15-15.00
Research studio
Morteza Abdipour
"The Structure of Thesis"
In this seminar, I will present my thesis contents and discuss
about the chapters with more details. Some failures and lessons
that I have learnt so far by doing my Ph.Licentiate
dissertation.
The structure of this thesis has influenced by constructive
design and practice based research methodology. Particularly, I
apply upon the use of the program approach and developing the whole
thesis by tiding the lab prototyping and experiments together with
theoretical elements. Such this structure provides possibility of
emerging invisible work relationships between Digital Wallpaper
(DW) and people.
22 Feb 2018, 13.15-15.00
Green room
Arianna Mazzeo
"Performative Citizenship. A design intervention with Umea. Toward
a civic co-production"
Topic: Design interventions are signals of social making in the
city all over the world. What if Umea is the open lab
of opportunity for all?
Researching trough design and performative ethnography we explore
how theory and practice are inseparable in the making of
our
relations.
AUDIENCE: Design Students, Encounters, Faculty, Phds,
Community, Citizens.
ROOM: With flexible space, projector,
internet, open space for working in groups and move
around the space, outside
METHODOLOGY: Co-design, Performative Design Ethnography
FACILITATOR: Arianna Mazzeo ( DesisLab Elisava Director and
Director Masterlab Service Design Systems, Exploring place and
community through design research)
MATERIALS: internet, projector, mobile ( your own).
LEARNING OUTCOMES: You will learn how co-design a performative
design intervention with Umea citizens, working with a
multidisciplinary team of Umea Faculty, phDs, Researchers and
encounters.
Arianna Mazzeo
Arianna is Design Research and Social Digital Innovation Professor
as well she is the Director of the Masterlab in Service
Design Systems, and Head of International Relations at the Elisava
Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, Barcelona, Spain.
Involved in European Innovation Projects since 2000, she
coordinates under the frame of the Open Design Program, the first
European Open Design School based on the open culture values,
collaboration and co-design with community and collaborative
cities, to open new scenarios in design education trough design
research. She holds a PhD in Design Ethnography and
she is responsible for the design research group Cambio /
Changes, helping professionals, private and public institutions,
cultural and creative hubs, administrations, foundations,
associations and creative industries as well as informal
groups to research through design for a real impact. From September
2017, she lead with Ezio Manzini, the Desis Network Cluster "
Design for City- Making" to explore how cities can play a role
in generating, or regenerating, urban commons. She has worked in
Cameroon, Mexico, Turkey, Armenia, and South Africa on social
digital innovation programs and local government policy
agenda, in order to re-design and re-think design education through
new open educational resources (OER) and new learning formats
outside the classroom, in the city as the open lab of opportunities
for all.
6 Feb. 2018, 13.15-15.00
Aditya Pawar
"Taxonomies of openness"
The proliferation of the term openness in design practice, often
in combination with rhetoric of diversity, innovation and
creativity has made it a buzzword. As the term continues to be part
of a designer's vocabulary it's meaning increasingly becomes
obscured. This presentation tries to enhance the conceptual
clarity of the term and distinguishes 4 concepts of openness from:
object-oriented, organisational, socio-economic and the
socio-political. Each concept has a different understanding of
openness based on its historicity and the choice of methodology
that its practitioners espouse. This presentation also points to
the values and stakes ascribed to each stance. In this
presentation, I will argue for the need to develop a critical
conversation based on a figure- ground relationship between
collaboration and openness, which will help us to make sense of the
objects, values, motives of collaborations in participatory design
projects.
This presentation is an iteration of the chapter 'framing
openness' from the draft of my 50% thesis and will be presented as
a conversation prompted by examples from my thesis work.
30 Jan. 2018, 13.15-15.00
White room
Monica Lindh Karlsson
"Threshold for embracing togetherness"
We have investigated industrial design and ways to open up for
involvement while doing design together in terms of aesthetics.
Although aesthetics historically have been approached in various
ways, we have found the role for a designer as responsible for a
whole as ruling social order have not changed. Hence, we have
highlighted the threshold of designers acknowledged to be
responsible for a whole and keeping things together. Through
project courses in design education with multi-disciplinary teams
we have explored ways to break with pre-dominating social orders
that position designers as responsible. From our initial
investigations we argue that design doing can embrace democracy in
terms of aesthetics, if we recognize those involved as accountable
for a whole. Such re-thinking of social orders allows aesthetics to
shift gravity from a programmatic order based on one position,
toward a distribution of several voices to be heard and a
collective exploration of a whole.
We have found that industrial design can be pushed toward a
social order framed as shared accountability for a whole in terms
of aesthetics. We have articulated that industrial design can be
pushed toward an aesthetic order allowing a poetical and
socio-political aesthetic to emerge, distributing recognition of
several voices and positions toward a whole.
If we are to develop industrial design to meet contemporary
challenges of e.g. democratization and diversity, we might need to
consider designers' capacity to bring in diversity through poetical
socio-political aesthetics. Hence, we need to question how social
orders position designers as responsible for a whole, and
subsequently the way we organize and conduct design education.
16 Jan. 2018, 13.15-15.00
Term kick-off
Collective
Seminars
Fall 2017
12 Dec. 2017, 13.00-15.00
Marije de Haas
Søren Rosenbak
Special double bill: Design fiction bonanza!
5 Dec. 2017, 13.15-15.00
Aditya Pawar
"Design and open-collaboration in post-industrial society"
31 Oct. 2017, 13.15-15.00
Morteza Abdipour
24 Oct. 2017, 13.15-15.00
Nicholas Torretta
3 Oct. 2017, 13.15-15.00
Annika Bindler (University Library)
Writing workshop
12 Sept., 13.15-15.00
Marije De Haas
"Speculative design: An Advance Euthanasia Directive for
Dementia"
In this seminar we explore the ethical complexities around
euthanasia requests for dementia.
5 Sept. 2017, 13.15-15.00
Nicholas Torretta
"Humble design"
28 Aug 2017, 13.15-15.00
(collective)
Semester kick-off and planning
Seminars
Spring 2017
16 May 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Embodiment of people and convey the influences of large display
at domestic environment"
Morteza Abdipour
Imagine in coming years we go to a store and buy some rolls of
digital wallpaper. After installing in an environment, the entire
of surface becomes interactive display. This might be interesting,
but how home environment will change when we use Large display at
home? What large display can do in real world?
In this seminar, I attempt to present the general understanding of
the key elements that are necessary to make the structure of this
research and particularly the main ones to formulate the research
question. There are many ways to study but the main challenge is
how do I choose the choices? The model and examples that I will
argue in this complex subject tries to give a tangibility of
situation to understand the notion of large display and scale of
application. This might help me to identify what do I need to
fulfil the research program among of methodological choices.
Last month, I set up some studies in the Design Lab to explore
people's behaviour in terms of experiencing ambient large display.
I will present briefly the observations that express what did
people do during different sessions? How they adapted their
behaviour? What they require to experience appropriately in terms
of using big screens as virtual environment in the lab?
9 May 2017, 13.15-15.00
"50% seminar onwards: 'Design for open collaborations"
Aditya Pawar
The seminar traces the feedback from Aditya's 50% seminar and
the reflections between research programme and experiment.
The seminar will bring up questions on how the research is
positioned within a community of practice, what methodological
choices have been made and end with what might an exemplar of such
a design proposal look like.
2 May 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Questioning the past to ask the future"
Nicholas Baroncelli Torretta
My PhD research concerns the interplay between learning,
practicing and teaching in collaborative design for sustainability.
I pay special attention to how we articulate and address the power
relations and privilege of positions involved in such design
practices.
18 April 2017, 13.15-15.00
Janaina Teles Barbosa
I would like to invite you for my seminar where I will talk
about the main topics of my research project and the challenges
that I am facing at the moment.
The title of my PhD research project is: Designing
collaboration for commoning: micro-power dynamics in urban
transitions. I am examining the roles of design agency in
the experience of making together in urban design practices,
asking: How can design practices create, support and sustain
transition spaces that facilitate transition practices for
commoning in urban communities? Thus, I am exploring this issue
though a qualitative analyse of four case studies, two in Brazil
and two in Portugal.
About me:
I´m a PhD student in Design at the Aveiro University in Portugal
and I am currently a visiting PhD guest
student at the UID where I intend to improve the methodology
of my ongoing research through a knowledge exchange with other
students at UID.
My background is in Anthropology and Visual Arts. In the past 10
years, I have been working in research projects related with the
production of meanings related with the production of traditional
handcrafts in rural communities in Brazil, including artistic
community interventions for social inclusion. Moreover, I have also
been developing personal artistic projects on the scope of urban
performances, art installations and photography.
4 April 2017, 13.15-15.00
Writing workshop
(collective)
28 March 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Inquiries into limitations and possibilities to regulate design
situations"
Daniela Rothkegel
My research combines a design perspective with a systemic
approach on the role of information generation. The focus of my
research is methodological. I am interested into the generation and
handling of information in human-technology relationships with the
help of intermediary objects. Intermediary objects are transitional
states of products. Therefore I am investigating into the basis for
designers to understand the content of ideas practically while
making proposals.
7 March 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Aesthetics of Being together"
Stoffel Kuenen
A workshop on the trajectory of an argument from set-up to
closure in a dissertation.
21 Feb. 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Drifting"
Monica Lindh Karlsson
At our research seminar next week we will do a workshop
together.
The aim of the workshop-seminar is to collectively, and
individually, explore our research landscapes in our project and
studies in terms of experimentation and 'drifting'.
We will take the notion of 'drifting' as our point of departure
and critically explore our own programmes e.g. how we see actions
building up our arguments, how things related, or not relate, to
our programmes.
Peter Gall Krogh presented his project of drifting at an earlier
research seminar at UID. However, since not all of us where
there at time and others might want to re-fresh his idea of
drifting, I attach the article that Peter Gall Krogh has written
together with Thomas Markussen and Anne Louise Bang.
In the workshop seminar we will create our own tentative
visualization of our programmes and use them for discussing and
problematize ways of conducting Research Through Design from our
own positions. (Think of the visualization that I presented at our
last PhD Festival 2016). We will look into and discuss things that
are concerns of issues for us and also collectively reflect over
our materials.
Everyone are asked to bring issues, perspectives and challenging
concerns to the workshop.
7 Feb. 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Mediating (infra)structures: Technology, media,
environment"
Heather Wiltse
This will be a text seminar based on a forthcoming book
chapter.
The
underlying argument of the chapter is that it is crucially
important to (re)consider the intellectual tools that are brought
to bear on phenomena and practices involving contemporary networked
computational things. These are things that are often very active
and interconnected; and they have functions and behaviors that are
hidden beneath user-facing surfaces and may even be very different
from the functionality and character a person experiences during
interactions with and through it. This state of affairs calls for
new conceptual and analytic lenses that build on the strengths of
existing ones, but also recognize the inadequacies of existing
perspectives and thus develop in the new directions that are
required. The chapter develops the analytic lens of mediating
(infra)structures as a way to synthesize these matters that
are foregrounded, and to point toward new analytic directions and
sensitivities that are required.
24 Jan. 2017, 13.15-15.00
"Pata-design Post-50%, Part II"
Søren Rosenbak
My research concerns the prototyping of a pataphysically infused
critical design practice (what I've come to refer to as
pata-design). In this seminar, I'll pick up some of the key
discussion points from my 50% seminar in June 2016, in order to
sketch out future research trajectories for the year ahead. In this
way, I hope to have an informal discussion about ways to move
forward. Hope to see you there!
An archive of previous years' seminars is found here
