Student Course Kick-Off at OsloMet

On the 7th-8th of November, WP3 DESIGN, led by  Dr. Dan Lockton & Dr. Nenad Pavel, organised a 2-day kick-off seminar for the student course designed by IMAGINE researchers for OsloMet students.

The course, MAPD5000 Technology and Design is a six-week subject part of the Master’s Degree Programme in Product Design – Design in Complexity

Day 1 included information and introductory sessions about the IMAGINE project and speculative design and was held at the OsloMet Kjeller Campus.

Day 2 included a morning session where the students were introduced to the theoretical underpinnings of imaginaries and some of the findings so far in the project, and an afternoon workshop where they got to start playing with the materiality of futures through objects. This day was held at the central Oslo Pilestredet Campus and was open also to students from the Department of Art, Design and Drama, where the IMAGINE themes are being integrated into their course-specific subjects.

We will be following the student work and are excited to see what they come up with.

The course will also be repeated next academic year at OsloMet and a parallel version, DCM100 Constructive Design Research runs at TU Eindhoven this autumn (imaginaries.es).

Various forms of technology are intrinsically woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. Technology also holds a central place in how we imagine and anticipate the future. Particularly in how we imagine more sustainable futures to be and come about. Processes of developing, introducing, and using technologies, as well as of imagining future ones, are often filled with ethical dilemmas, assumptions, and power struggles. This course explores how to use speculative design approaches to critically engage with current technological developments and imaginaries of sustainable futures, in order to shed light on and provoke critical reflection on present trajectories of change.

The course is taking place within the frame and scope of the research project IMAGINE– contested futures of sustainability (imagine.oslomet.no). Candidates will be included in the network of project participants and encouraged to find their own role and perspective. The learning outcome of the course includes participating in interdisciplinary research by applying prototyping and visualization skills to make imaginaries of sustainable futures tangible and therefore more accessible for critical reflection. These materializations of imaginaries we call provotypes. A number of projects will be exhibited at the IMAGINE exhibition at DogA. The course gives students the opportunity to develop anticipatory skills and to conduct research through design in the context of an international research project.

Program