Prototyping Reconsidered Unfoldings and Accomplishments in Open Design (Research) Experiments

April 10 to April 12, 2024

Organizers:

• Professor Thomas Binder
• Associate Professor Erik Grönvall
• PhD fellow Camilla Vesterberg Christensen

Lecturers:

• Thomas Binder, Professor at ITU
• Erik Grönvall, Associate Professor at ITU
• Li jönsson, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University
• Joanna Saad-Sulonen, Associate Professor, School of Engineering Sciences, LUT University, Lahti
• Andrea Botero Cabrera, Associate Professor, Dept of Design, Aalto university, Helsinki
• Carl DiSalvo, Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

Credits: 3 ECTS

Room:
3A20, RLV

Course description:

The engagements with prototypes and prototyping are almost emblematic for contemporary design and design research, yet as design is turning towards participatory speculation, “designing meaningful relations that are enacted as part of our ongoing re-configuring the world” (Frauenberger, 2019), the status of the prototype has become less clear. Is the prototype what is speculatively enacted, and if the enactment is part of an on-going reconfiguration of the world, what is it then a prototype of, and for whom and in what (transient) ways does it provide an archetype of meaningful relations?

Within research-through-design the emphasis on design research inquiry as open-ended explorations driven by a succession of design experiments have gained considerable traction over the last decades (Gaver et al, 2022). In this tradition it is widely accepted that the knowledge produced is situated within and enacted through the unfolding of design experiments. While this orientation towards the openness of design experiments may help us to conceive of prototypes as tentative outcomes of experimentation rather than as a starting point for design interventions most of the literature on such experimental design research falls short of addressing how the particularity of design practices shape what can be known through such inquiries.

Rather than attempting to overcome the particularity of what can become known through design engagements many designers and design researchers are more openly embracing and taking responsibility for what unfolds in these engagements.  Some have proposed to see such engagements as infrastructuring or institutioning, emphasizing how design practices may provide grounds for knowing and acting without necessarily pointing towards specific (re-)configurations of systems or practices, for example in community-based work and volunteering practices (Christensen et al, 2022, Christiansson et al, 2023). Others have suggested re-thinking collaborative design engagements as democratic design experiments or participatory design events prefiguratively enacting alternative imaginaries (Jönsson, 2022). Platforms for content creation and grassroot-driven, ongoing designwork have also been explored (Grönvall et al., 2022). And along similar lines yet others have advocated for alternative economies of design promoting a care of the possible through design justice and communing (Botero & Saad-Sulonen, 2010 & 2019). In a recent book, Carl di Salvo brings together many of the attempts to re-think design practices of participatory speculation with his suggestion to promote ‘design as democratic inquiry’ His book makes vivid a common concern for how that which is sparked into being through design encounters, in the moment of unfolding exceed commonsensical and mundane experiences and (might) open up potentiality, for that which is not already known or even imagined.

In this doctoral course we invite participants to engage with the unfoldings and accomplishments of open design experiments of participatory speculation through a re-tracing of conceptualizations of prototype and prototyping. The point of departure for the course is that the concepts of prototype and prototyping are so much part of contemporary design legacy that they must be re-considered and re-vitalized assigning primacy to processes of formation as they unfold in collaborative design encounters or other hybrid (design) formations. The participants will work with examples of recent design research projects presented by the lecturers. The project examples will together with presentations of the participants own design experiments be explored as evolving design events, as emerging (imagined) institutions and as on-going experiments in alternative economies of design.

Programme:

The three days will be a mix of morning lectures and workshops based on the lecturers’ recent research projects, and afternoon sessions with discussions and hands on workshops in small groups based on the participants own projects.

Prerequisites:

PhD students at all levels and with all backgrounds can participate. However, the course might be most relevant for students who are familiar with codesign, speculative design and participatory design, and who have in their own projects been involved in open design (research) experiments.

Exam:

Participants will prepare a position statement based on course readings before the course and present this at the course with a relevant discussion of how it relates to the topics discussed during the course. Further the participants will comment upon the position statements of other participants

How to sign up:

Submit 300 words (as a Word or PDF) to Thomas Binder (tbin@itu.dk) Explain why you want to participate in the course. In the same document, we invite you to request any accessibility considerations that the organizing team should consider.

Participation is limited to 15 PhD students from different universities. If more than 15 students apply, priority is given to students that work with and/or are part of underrepresented communities. 

Registration deadline is: 1 March 2024.