Lecturer in Design & Research Fellow

I’m teaching a workshop at the NORDES summer school 2010 entitled ‘Design and Controversial Things’. Here’s some information about the summer school…

Design deals with things, but what does that suggest? In design practice the things we deal with may be objects, products, artifacts and services, but also assemblages, processes, projects and even parliaments. This diversity also goes for contemporary design thinking, focusing things such as design collaborations as well as prototypes and “matters of concern”. This diversity may be noticed in the etymology of the English word “thing” which reveals a journey from a meaning of an assembly, like the governing assemblies in ancient Nordic and Germanic societies, to a meaning of  “an entity of matter”. In short: How are design things being done in contemporary design practice, thinking and theory.

The Nordic Design Research Conference (NORDES) summer school 2010 is addressing such design theory issues conceptually and exploratory in a five-day course for Ph.D students. Each day will have a specific design thing theme (see below), and each theme will be explored both in a reflective seminar and a performative workshop.

In these seminars and workshops we will address:

• Objects and assemblies, practice and reflection

• Parliaments and projects; controversies and publics

• Performance and place

• Design and use; participation and infrastructuring

• Cosmopolitics

The summer school is organized by NORDES (the Nordic Design Research Conference) and the Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education.”