This course aims to engage students in a research-based process of investigation into the evolution of disruptive technologies. From the planetary level to networks and social actors, this course will provide students with a vast range of resources, such as film, literature, and media arts, to explore and understand the relation between disruption and technology. In an iterative action-based approach, using design and artistic strategies, students will gain experience in mapping, connecting, and weaving relations between mainstream and obscure histories, developing their critical and analytical thinking.
Furthermore, using design and artistic strategies, students will gain hands-on experience and a comprehensive understanding of concepts of disruptive technologies. Students will learn about systemic approaches for mapping and identifying scopes of technological disruptions that transform societies by looking at their broader networks.
As a result, the students will gain creative agency to envision design interventions, that can enact change and innovation. With a transdisciplinary/participatory approach, this course encourages students to think, actively work and envision orders of technological rise, decline, and disruptions in society.
Course Plan
The class is established as a three-day workshop/masterclass setting, with a theoretical research and practical hands-on approach. Each day of the class will consist of four parts, structured to engage students with diverse approaches to the topic, including literature, theory, discussions, video, and film. Over these three full-day sessions, the students will develop cartographic projects by investigating disruptive technologies of choice. By developing a mapping/cartographic project, the students will choose particular topics and genealogies of the relation between technologies and society.
Course Work
individual, hands-on iterative cyclical research, in-class research mapping by methodology of critical cartographies, accompanied by roundtable feedback and discussions, one collective output.
Course Outcomes
Students will learn how to analyze and visualise research topics, draw connections between phenomena, and gain confidence in self-guided research. Students will also learn how to assess and measure the impacts, interests, and objectives of the adoption and dissemination of technologies, so as to gain a comprehensive understanding of the socio-technical aspects of contemporary times.
Students will learn two artistic and design approaches to transformation and innovation: affirmative and critical, and understand each mode's implications and relevance. Moreover, students will understand the relevance of other disciplines (e.g., art and design) for innovating and organizing ideas and concepts, and developing creative strategies to tackle problems in the industry.
- Teacher: Joaquin Santuber
- Teacher: Kristina Tica