Welcome to open and informal seminar with professor Johan Redström, Wednesday February 27th from 13.00 – 15.00 in CODE, Fabrikmestervej 6, Copenhagen K, Room 90. 3. 15. Based on the characteristics of two distinct ways in which something comes together and becomes something more than its constituent parts, this will be speculative discussion on the differences between totalities and assemblages in design. In particular, it will probe the implications of considering an aesthetics of immanence in contrast to prevailing orientations towards transcendence. To give an example: will an aesthetics of the social (in/through/of design) be fundamentally different from an aesthetics of industrial production, and if so, why is that?
Readings
Redström, J. & Wiltse, H. (2019). Changing Things; The future of objects in a digital world, Ch. 1, 2 & 4.
(Primarily chapter 4, but this makes more sense if one has read the other ones before as well (and they are all quite short))
Bio
Johan Redström is Professor in design at Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå University (Sweden). He has previously been Rector of Umeå Institute of Design, and before that Design Director of the Interactive Institute (Sweden). He received his PhD from Göteborg University in 2001, where he also became Docent in Interaction Design in 2008. Working with research through design, combining experimental practice with design philosophy, he has done research in areas such as emerging technologies and traditional materials (e.g. on IT+Textiles), design and sustainability (e.g. on design, energy consumption and awareness) and more recently reconceptualisations of ‘things’ in light of new digital forms of making and using. His most recent books are “Making Design Theory” (MIT Press 2017) and “Changing Things; The future of objects in a digital world” together with Heather Wiltse (Bloomsbury 2019).
