DES658-02 Spring 2013 (Special Projects) Projects in Transnational Design Professor Tom Klinkowstein klinkows@mediaa.

com Graduate Teaching Assistant Sierra Siemer sierrasiemar@gmail.com Docent Kiko Luijten, AKV St. Joost Introduction This course is a vehicle to think about the micro and macro (the details and big picture) of being a designer now and in the near future. The first half of the course is a collaboration conducted jointly with students from the Masters Program in Research Driven Graphic Design and Visual Argumentation at the AKV St. Joost Academy (Academie voor Beeldende Kunst St. Joost, Avans Hogeschool), in Breda, Holland. This is an opportunity to work with students at the St. Joost Academy via network tools to uncover new perspectives on communication design and to experiment with new ways to learn and work together. Kiko Luijten, a design historian and theorist will be the docent (what the Dutch call a professor at a design academy) on the St. Joost side. Sierra Siemar is the Pratt graduate teaching assistant. There will be a variety of process deliverables (video reports, a collaborative, multi-voice essay and live group presentations via Skype) generated during the collaboration. In the middle of the semester, during the spring break, there will be an optional (at students own expense) trip to Holland to visit design studios in Amsterdam, participate in a workshop and discussion with the St. Joost

students and attend a presentation by Jan van Toorn (Dutch social commentator / designer), in Breda. (If you plan to go, please let me know in the next 10 days before I open up the trip to students outside of our course.) In the second half of the semester, Pratt students will be completing a design project that draws on the results of the collaboration with St. Joost as well as other sources, culminating in a small design fiction installation. Collaboration with St. Joost students To begin, both groups will be reading two short texts: Election Posters by Lies Ros, edited by Mark van Dongen and translated by Kiko Luijten. The second text is, If Designs No Longer the Killer Differentiator, What Is? by John Maeda from the Wired blog. Election Posters is a series of diary entries by Lies Ros from 1984. Lies is a well-known Dutch designer and was principal with Rob Schroder at Wild Plakken (Wild Pasting) a legendary name in Dutch graphic design circles. See http://mobiletest.moma.org/explore/collection/object/7123.iphone? moma_url_type=int&moma_title=Women%20Against %20Apartheid#object_7123. John Maeda is the President of the Rhode Island School of Design and a former professor at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is a long time proponent of the integration of art, design and engineering. See www.maedastudio.com/ Premise for the Collaboration Each Pratt student will be paired with another Pratt student to form a group, each of these groups will in turn will be paired with a group of two or three students from the St. Joost Academy to form a larger group of four or five. (See pairing list that will be posted on the course blog.)

The goal of each of these larger groups (two Pratt students plus two or three St. Joost students) is to produce a multi-voice essay of approximately 1600 words in total for the entire group of four or five by the week of the 25th of February. You are expected to take a stand, find odd, contradictory perspectives, new meanings, unexpected similarities and differences between the two texts, new messages, new questions and new guideposts regarding design now and in the near future. Use the tension, excitement, frustration, texture and rhythm of working with your Pratt as well as St. Joost partners to inform the results. The first report is intended to be unfiltered, emotional and revealing. The final multi-voice essay should make a case to justify perspective, statements conclusions and new questions, using the two texts, outside references (books, blogs, video, etc.) and the interactions within your group. Summary, First Half of the Semester Deliverables The deliverables for the first half of the semester will be primarily the artifacts from the collaborative process with the St. Joost students. Heres a summary, more details below: -Intro video (for each student), to introduce yourselves to the St. Joost students. Post video and url by Thursday, January 17, 10am so it is available for Kikos students to view in their first day of meeting (January 18). -Video progress report (from your group of two Pratt students). Post video and url by January 31, 10am.

-Multi-voice essay (from your group of two Pratt students and the two or three St. Joost students you will be working with directly). This is final deliverable for the collaboration with the St. Joost students, including a live presentation of the essay. Post url and essay by February 25 at 10am. -Live recap and discussion of the multi-voice essay, made to the Pratt and St. Joost students simultaneously via Skype (presentations will be verbal recaps of the multi-voice essay, plus discussion). Date to be determined but will be during the week of February 25 or March 4. -There will be additional research and planning work in the first half of the semester associated with the design fiction project of the second half of the semester (see below) for Pratt students. First Half of the Semester, Week by Week Schedule, Collaborative Work with St. Joost Week of January 14 Introductions Introduction to the course Groups formed Do this week: Create a one-minute Intro video (you speaking into a laptop camera), as an introduction about you to the St. Joost students. Video url posted by January 17, 10am. Suggested contents: -Background (15 seconds) -Design or other creative experience (15 seconds) -Fears (15 seconds)

-Desires (15 seconds) Do this week: Read and analyze both texts, so as to be ready to discuss with your partner in the next day or two, and then your St. Joost partners beginning this weekend (the St. Joost students will be meeting with Kiko, for the first time on January 18; they meet every other Friday, but you will work with them as often as possible within the first half of the semester). Make contact with your Dutch partners via email to begin working towards your progress reports. Weeks of January 21, January 28 No class meeting January 21 but you should continue working. Work with your Pratt and St. Joost partners via email, blogs, Skype, etc., towards the creation of a video report, due January 31, 10am (one video per side, one from your Pratt group and one from the St. Joost group, so two videos per group). This video is an initial progress report with reactions to the text and the process of working together. Traits of the video report: -As raw as possible: the good, the bad and the ugly. Emotion and passion, leading to insight, weird questions and more. -You and your partner speaking into a laptop. -Approximately 2-5 minutes in length. Week of February 4 Review the video reports and other interactions with your partners as a way to decide how to organize the multi-voice essay, due February 25, 10am.

Note: what a multi-voice essay is and how to format it, is up to the four or five members of the group. The only proviso is that it must be all text. Weeks of February 11, February 18 Groups work together via email, shared blogs, Skype, etc. towards creating the multi-voice essay. Weeks of February 25, March 4 Post finished multi-voice essay by February 25, 10am Work with your Pratt and St. Joost partners plan live presentations via Skype to all the students from both Pratt and St. Joost. Make a simple script; decide who will say what. Use your finished multi-voice essays as talking points. Presentations will be approximately 15 minutes per four or five member group, via Skpe and take place the week of February 25 or March 4. Week of 11 March (Pratt spring vacation) Visit by Pratt students to St. Joost for workshop, review of the collaboration, lecture from Jan van Toorn and studio visits. -Pratt Students Only Research and Project, Design Fiction Beginning in the first half of the semester and continuing in the second half: a research and design project building on the results of the collaboration with the St. Joost students and mixing these with references to a fictional character you create. The goal being to suggest a fictional designer working in the 2013-2023 time period, as a mini-installation. Your portrayal may be atmospheric, literal or some combination thereof. .

Schedule, Design Fiction Project -Start by choosing a work of fiction from the last five years with at least one main character. This character can be upbeat, dark, simple, eclectic, troublesome, angelic, etc. The choice of book and character is yours. You will use this character as the scaffolding to build a portrayal of a fictional designer. (add that it can be documentative , atmospheric etc.

-Skim the content of the book and write a first impression, one page overview of the character by January 28. Post the overview. Create a separate blog for the Design Fiction project (so as not to confuse the St. Joost students with material not yet directly related to the first half of the semester collaboration). -Read the entire book by February 4. -Write and post a one page, more detailed overview of the character and present a complete character sketch to the class by February 11. -Integrate the experience, ideas, knowledge, textures and anything else that came out of the first half of the semesters collaboration, with the character sketch from the book, to morph that sketch into a written sketch of a fictional designer, due February 25. Locate, study and post on your blog articles and related in regard to developing characters for fiction (film, art, drama, etc.). -Plan and create a mini-installation, portraying and/ suggesting this designers life, including:

*External cultural, political, economic, technological developments that theoretically could influence the designers career, way of living, etc. *One days activities *Appearance (literal or suggestive) *The value of what they create. (What society would encourage and compensate them to do and why.) You may change these parameters in consultation with the class. Include in the installation three or more media elements, such as, but not limited to: -A large printed sheet (character sketch text and images) -Screen based media -An object -Describe via a blog post and a spoken presentation on March 18, the contents and rough appearance of the mini-installation. Also make a production schedule. -First media element completed and presented March 25. -Second media element due April 1. -Third media element due April 8. -Install and photo-document the installation by April 15.