DES 720B Graduate Studio: Technology B
Section 3 Instructor Tyler Paige [email protected] (609) 218-3003
Steuben Hall, Room 400 Tuesdays 2–5pm
This course is primarily interested in the concept of authorship in an AI-saturated landscape. How do you maintain a sense of agency when randomness is part of the process? How do we reconcile traditional ideas that tie authorship to notions of original, effort, and labor? How do we conceptualize the people who were unknowingly swept into training data? What is our relationship to invisible laborers who manually produce those data sets? The field is rapidly changing, and we have not landed on concrete answers to these questions. Instead our work will explore the territory.
As always, Grad CommD’s Technology course progression is interested in developing a critical relationship to technology, such that you can understand how it constructs social reality and affects power dynamics.
Students do not need to code in this course. Nevertheless we are interested in poetic computational practice. Assignments in this course will encourage you to activate and maintain two modes of thinking in parallel.
Students will critically analyze and explore the tools, skills, and production methods of current and emerging technologies in design media, with an emphasis on effective and appropriate creative visualization, analysis and utilization. Students will investigate technology trends within a historical context, in order to better understand and extrapolate emerging technology systems. 720A is the first semester and 720B is the second semester of this two semester studio course.
This studio aims to connect and integrate the areas of interface, interaction and experience, sequence and time, imaging, information, networks, and dynamic content. Design technology connects networks of information and people, which are transitory. This course will discuss how to cite, show, or publish work that is inherently ephemeral.
Project development is supported with ongoing studio practice, contextual design research, weekly discussions and readings, critical analysis, writing, group critiques, and meetings with faculty. Students are expected to develop innovative research on emerging technology platforms. Lectures, visiting critics and group discussions will cover historical uses of technology as well as emerging applications.
From the moment humans moved beyond utterance and gesture, technology has framed the manner in which we express ourselves and share our collective vision with the rest of our species. The definition of technology is “all things that are not human, used to transform the environment in which humans exist.” The purpose of this course is to look beyond the conventional edges of static production focused implementations of technology, and to look at technological innovation where entirely new social constructs, new devices, and new user experiences await.
Technology is traditionally associated with the tools and crafts that society has at its disposal. It is more broadly defined as the physical and ephemeral constructs employed by humanity to solve problems and achieve value. Technology can also be viewed as a collection of techniques used to fulfill human needs, or as any collection of activities that transforms and influences culture in general. In specific contexts, technology is employed (by designers) to influence and enhance ideation and conceptualization, form and experience creation, dissemination of ideas and knowledge, and interaction and feedback.
Theory-driven concepts that may be woven into the coursework include topics such as ubiquitous/pervasive computing, ambient intelligence, activity theory as driver of human–technology relationships, embodied interaction, and mob-driven/ cloud-driven design. DES 720B should be registered for in the second year, first semester of enrollment (Fall semester).