LGM 2013

Proposal

Presentation

Title: Willem de Kooning Academie strikes back: open source approach in art and design BA education

Preferred day

Thursday, April, 11th.

Summary

Three years after the LGM presentation "How to Run an Art School on Free and Open Source Software" that described the central role of free software and free culture in the networked media branch of the Media Design and Communication Master at the Piet Zwart Institute, today the Willem de Kooning Academie is back to share its current progress on a new and exciting challenge in its approach to formal education: the design of three new open source related curriculum for art and design BA students. In this presentation we will give you all the what, when, how and why aspects of these new courses and we hope to open up the discussion on topics rising from such a project, namely on the question of openness of open source driven curriculum, technological forecasting within art and design free software communities, hybrid proprietary and open source software environments, licensing and the use of free software tools and infrastructures in digital literacy.

Bio

The open source domain team is a research group at the Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that focusses on the development of three new BA minors and specialisations and how these new curriculum relate to open source practices from a commercial, social and autonomous perspective. The group is constituted of Aldje van Meer (domain responsible), Deanna Herst (open design specialisation), Jon Stam (digital craft specialisation), Kim de Groot (data design specialisation) and Aymeric Mansoux (advisor).

Meeting

Title: Towards a network of free culture aware educators in art and design education

Preferred day

Friday, April, 12th.

Summary

During the last decade, topics such as free culture and open knowledge have been increasingly present in formal education. The latter often manifests itself as: the choice of open source software for course preparation and assessments, the teaching of free software tools for art and design students, the use of free culture licenses for curriculum and research publications, the shift from top-down to bottom-up course structure, the transformation of classrooms into hacklabs, or simply the inspiration provided by free, libre and open source software development to approach art and design in a novel way. Regardless of the form, it is undeniable that the philosophy behind free software is transforming the academic field by its re-interpretation and re-contextualisation in art and design education. However, most of these efforts are often initiated by individual and groups who by either lack of knowledge or by "not invented here" pressure, tend to reinvent the wheel or miss opportunities to expand their educational palette, whether it is technical or conceptual. By hosting a meeting on this topic at LGM, the open source domain team at the Willem de Kooning Academie hopes to provide the first step towards the building of an international network of peers interested in the link between free culture and art and design education. More than a network with yet another platform, we want to think of a simple way to build upon each others experience and tap into everyone skills and specialisations when an educator tries to solve a concrete problem (which software can I use for this?), needs advice on a specific issue (what license to use for that?) or needs to be connected with a broader scene of artists and designers using free, libre and open source software (who can teach this?).

Bio

The open source domain team is a research group at the Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that focusses on the development of three new BA minors and specialisations and how these new curriculum relate to open source practices from a commercial, social and autonomous perspective. The group is constituted of Aldje van Meer (domain responsible), Deanna Herst (open design specialisation), Jon Stam (digital craft specialisation), Kim de Groot (data design specialisation) and Aymeric Mansoux (advisor).

Talk

OPEN DESIGN

We introduce Open Design at WdKA as a design method for producing physical products. OD implies sharing the design process and product online, using open source methods and tools. The aim is to encourage users to make the design more relevant for themselves.

One aspect of Open Design is digital fabrication, in collaboration with Fablab network / Waag Society Amsterdam.

Open Design raises new paradigms: - about ownership / copyrights: for this purpose we collaborate with CC NL. - and about authorship; an aspect that is important within the context of art education. What are the aesthetics and poetics of Open Design?

At the same time OD offers new possibilities and scenarios for designers. educational goals of this program: - exploring the aesthetics of Open Design (what is Open Authorship) - analyzing and working with the approaches /methods / parameters of Open Design (how do you design participation) - sharing design knowledge - working with digital fabrication in a FabLab

- - - - - - - - - - - - Open[ing] up: the origins of things

This program departs from the notion that product overload, mass production and consumption have alienated us from (the origins of) products. This project is about the opening up of closed products in order to learn about its origins. Reference the maker's manifesto: if you can't open it you don't own it.

Assignment: Tell a new story about a product, re-appropriate it, give it your own meaning. Disassemble an existing product, take it from a scrapyard. Replace, repair, make and invent new parts using digital fabrication. Share your knowledge and product.

goals: - re-appropriating and personalizing industrial products - learning about alternative production lines: from masss-production to personal fabrication: field trips to a scrapyard, fablab, factory.

---

Digital Craft: is about crafts and new tools and technologies
. New technologies such as 3D printing or lasercutting have changed craft and design: The process of making has changed. We make different now. Digital craft is about this change and how we shape our tools.

In an era where digital production technologies are commonplace, the craftsman is now often romanticized an seen as a person who works in the workshop with wood and metal. However, the relationship between technology and craft is and always has been there. The pencil, pen, the kiln and the loom, sit alongside the computer, the laser cutter, the 3d printer. All belong to a list of media technologies, which were all at one point considered new. Craft relies on one’s skill to leverage these tools in order to push and form a material. Next to that it implies that one can take ownership of, or “master”, their own work process.

Digital Craft is concerned with the appropriation of digital media technologies, Appropriation is about learning the “tools”, and “retooling” them. Retooling means to adapt, alter, and make them more suitable to their specific use and making process.

Here, students move away from the blind acceptance of technology or its rejection. Instead, a critical and creative position is taken, built upon a deeper understanding the technology at hand.

A good example to illustrate this program is a first year project called Paper, Strings, & Electronic Things. Paper and textiles are the oldest and maybe most cherished media. It's pretty simple stuff, yet they offer endless forms of inspiration and expression. You can print it, fold it, weave it, stitch it, dye it, and draw on it. But have you ever thought of the possibility of making circuits with it and running current through it? In this module students learn how to create paper and textiles that speak, light up, and move with the help of electronic components.

E-textiles and e-paper are emerging fields of research that is offering exciting possibilities to work technology into soft and tactile materials. Intergrating things as lights, sounds, or movement into 'old media' is not a new thing. What is interesting though is that the switches, sensors, processors and power supplies that drive these interactions are now becoming small enough to envision their everyday use. The technology will certainly become even smaller, and the potential for responsive printed or woven materials will become greater. This module is the starting point for our students to explore and do some basic experiments with paper and strings, augmented by electronic things.

The learning goals in this module are: 1. to learn beginner techniques in connecting and activating electronic and digital media; 2. to experiment with the integration of electronic/digital media in relation analogue media; and 3. to develop your own creative forms of responsiveness and interaction.

---

Data Design: Data are everywhere and now are becoming the material for design. Within this programme we focus on how to design for this dynamic data.

The amount of data explodes: continuously mobile media collect our data: mobile phones with software logs, cameras, microphones, rfid tags, wireless networks, social networks, etc. In addition to our 'own' social data and the data which is generated by the media and everyone else, governments and local authorities are also opening up their data ( I am reffering to Open Data). So, you could say we live in a data dense world.

We think there is a need for designers who can shape and give meaning to this endless flow of data. Numbers, stats and figures tell us little, but when you see them visualised in a attractive and compelling way, the data comes alive and starts making sense. Data design focuses on finding meaning and stories in large amounts of data (data) and than translating these stories into a meaningful visual or experience which communicates to an audience.

The main learning objectives within this program are: To learn students; - select and find relevant data - to analyse and interpret data, - letting them find and discover patterns and stories within the data - visualize, communicate and find ways how an audience can experience this data in a meaningful way.

Within the minor data design is not only important that data is shaped and based on interesting patterns but it also important that our students develop a critical artistic vision. We want them to develop an understanding on topics such as privacy, authorship and social responsibility. Which also fits within the larger themes that form the cradle of the Open Source domain.

An example of our programme is a project with the title 'What does data know?' We ask the students what their daily routines and habits are around their food consumption. Everyone has'consumption habits "associated with behavior and personal and social principles. One way to gain understanding is keeping track of what they consume. This project focuses on food and everything possible what is linked tot their consumption habits. Three weeks long they keep track of what they consume. You could see this as a simple form of collecting data. This personal data is than the starting point of a design that lets them visualize patterns within their consumption habits.

Connected to this personal research we introduce students into a movement which is called the Quantified Self, the people from the quantified self keep track of the smallest details of their lives. A diary is a classic way to keep track of things but this movement goes much further. They are for example, developing mobile software to track snoring sounds to find out more about their sleeping habits. But also build self-tracker devices to keep track of the level of glucose in the blood of diabetics. Important questions within this elective are: how can I find stories in the collected data and how do I communicate this in a exciting and relevant visual story?

The mail learning goals are that students learn to: - Manually collect data - Organize data and categorize - Identify patterns in data - Reflect on the meaning of the data - Learn simple data tools to create visualizations - Get introduced into the rules of information design