The structure of this course is based on expansion and contraction. Begin with one object. Expand this into a list. Condense this into a packet. Expand this into a site.
Throughout the semester, design different ways an audience can experience this material. Your design should aim to transform this object, altering its meaning and/or its function through choices concerning content, material, visual form, language and sequence. Your decisions are not neutral. Be prepared to articulate why you have compiled this particular collection and its relationship to a larger social context.
An object is culturally produced and formally expressed. As a designer, you can formulate and represent this meaning in various forms. Start by choosing an object that will inspire substantial analysis for the duration of the semester.
Consider these modes of inquiry:
— analysis of form
— analysis of use
— historical precedence
— current and potential audience
— associative meanings (how this changes depending on audience and context)
— academic, theoretical, cultural context
Describe your object. Why did you select it? What does it look like? What are its parts? What is its function? If this is unclear, provide a hypothesis. Who made it? When? What is the historical precedence? Who was the intended audience? How has its audience changed? How does its meaning change depending on audience or context shift? Do not hesitate to be critical or oppositional.
Document this object to be shared in class. Consider forms of documentation and their respective purposes: photography, video, poster, etc. When you present the documentation, consider all elements of the display. Is it meant to be seen in a browser? On the wall? In a white cube? In a library?
Create a 2D printed representation of object
The object section of this syllabus was adapted from a prompt written by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville for Yale MFA GD Core Foundation 2012.
What is a list? What is the length and sequence? Are things nested? What is the taxonomy? Can this be nonlinear? Is it a timeline, map, trail? What is the metadata? How is it meant to be read?
Consider… blogchains, learning trails, indexes, maps & legends, nesting structures, folder poetry, hypertext
What is a list…?
— Linear progression of ideas surrounding one concept
— enumeration
— Different points of separation
— Classification
— Extrapolation
— Organization
What is the structure of a list?
— One thing next to the other
— One thing on top of the other
— A mapping of complex concepts
— Chronology (order of time)
— Order of importance
— Order of complexity
How do you show hierarchy?
— Bullet points can shift (a, b, c); nesting
— Pyramid
— subsections
Create a multipage document
— Octavia Butler, hypertext excerpt
I generally have four or five books open around the house--I live alone; I can do this--and they are not books on the same subject. They don't relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I'll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another... So, I guess, in that way, I'm using a kind of primitive hypertext
— Are.na
— Ted Nelson, Computer Lib Dream Machines
— Leo Shaw, Dream Machine, “Learning Trails”
— Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog, are.na/sam-hart/whole-earth-catalog
— internet timeline, are.na/block/2446384
— Penelope Umbrico, All the Catalogs, penelopeumbrico.net/AllCatalogs/AllCat_Index.html
— Office for Creative Research, A Sort of Joy
— Charles Broskoski, Directions to Last Visitor, are.na/block/1932711
— Hello World: Revising a Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, smb.museum/en/exhibitions/detail/hello-world-revision-einer-sammlung.html
— Mimi Onuoha, Library of Missing Datasets, mimionuoha.com/the-library-of-missing-datasets
— Taryn Simon and Aaron Swartz, Image Atlas, 2012, https://anthology.rhizome.org/image-atlas
What is a packet? How are its contents held within? What happens when it is opened? How is it distributed? Is there a specific quantity?
Create something that encloses and distributes
— packet switching
— Sneakernets
— El Paquete Semanal + The Pirate Book
— zip bombs
— offsiteproject.org/ZIP
— Rhizome, Digital Publishing unzipped
— Rhizome, Sorry to dump on you like this
— Is airdrop the contemporary zip bomb?
— Morehshin Allayari, Material Speculation
— Dexter Sinister, On a Universal Serial Bus
— Duke Riley, Trading with the Enemy
— Kameelah Rasheed for Michel Obultra
— The Thing Quarterly
— Werkplaats Typografie, Wurm
What is a site? What are the differences between physical and digital sites? How is time related? Are there size constraints of what constitutes a site? How do people navigate? To whom does the site belong?
Consider… physicality, locality, websites, signage, wayfinding
Webster's Dictionary defines sites as...
a. the spatial location of an actual or planned structure or set of structures (such as a building, town, or monuments)
b. the place, scene, or point of an occurrence or event
c. one or more Internet addresses at which an individual or organization provides information to others an FTP site especially
Create a site
— Chloë Bass: Wayfinding, studiomuseum.org/wayfinding
— Martin Beck, An Organized System of Instructions, fall2019-ds1.designforthe.net/library/an-organized-system-of-instructions
— Paul Elliman, The World as a Printing Surface, fall2019-ds1.designforthe.net/library/world-as-a-printing-surface & averyreview.com/issues/26/the-how-of-an-exhibition
— A Pattern Language, Mosaic of Subcultures
Gather all of your work from the class, including process and your research index. What are the shared attributes, visual strategies, cultural contexts, etc? You will create a presentation (length tbd) for a panel of critics. Be conscious and careful about the structure of this presentation. Do you walk critics around a space? Is it a video or performance? Is it a slidedeck? Be prepared to discuss the aspects you’d like to push into the next semester.
Consider… reading as performance, video, exhibition, tours
December 11th
Critics TBD
Location: CSB 119