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Attending [to] Futures: Matters of Politics in Design Education, Research, Practice - cover image
adocs publishing

Attending [to] Futures: Matters of Politics in Design Education, Research, Practice

  • Johanna Mehl (editor)
  • Carolin Höfler (editor)
  • Jacob Watson (translator)
  • Jost Goldschmitt (contributions by)
  • Philipp Pätzold (contributions by)
  • Charlotte Rohde (contributions by)
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TitleAttending [to] Futures
SubtitleMatters of Politics in Design Education, Research, Practice
ContributorJohanna Mehl (editor)
Carolin Höfler (editor)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.53198/9783943253726
Landing pagehttps://adocs.de/en/buecher/design-theorie-praxis-open-accessebooks/attending-futures-matters-politics-design-education-research-practice
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
CopyrightJohanna Mehl, Carolin Höfler
Publisheradocs publishing
Publication placeHamburg, Germany
Published on2023-10-01
ISBN978-3-943253-62-7 (Paperback)
978-3-943253-72-6 (PDF)
Short abstractAcknowledging the ways in which design (as practices, forms of knowledge, and sets of objects) is accountable for ongoing social and environmental injustices, this anthology contains contributions that envision alternative ways of exploring and designing more livable futures. Attending to these futures requires a reckoning with a multiplicity of actors and contexts, from institutional norms and regulations, to pedagogies, curricula, programs, digital tools, infrastructures, and architectural environments. Last but not least, attention is drawn to the mechanisms and protocols by which these futures are imagined and shaped. This includes critically examining the ways in which design is talked about, taught, and learned in order to empower future designers to engage with the political issues, cultural conditions, and social and environmental implications of their work.
Long abstractIf “design” is the lens through which we glimpse into possible futures, this volume asks: What are the futures we are capable of imagining? As a subject of study, design is enabled and constrained by educational institutions and academic traditions. As a profession it is conditioned by systems of labor. As a creative activity it is shaped by what tools are programmed to do. Authors in this book challenge common ways of knowing, being, and doing in design with regard to the futures they facilitate and interrogate the role, responsibility, and potential of a plurality of design practices in confrontation with social and environmental crises. In this way, this volume does not only ask about designed futures, but also the futures of design: What are the consequences drawn from a critical examination of the histories and politics underlying normative renderings of design? How can we disrupt the perpetuation of biases and reification of social injustices? Self-reflexively engaging their own experiences and work, authors in this volume interrogate design in all its convoluted modalities: as activism, practice, discipline, way of knowing, field of study and set of objects.
Print length294 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Dimensions190 x 10 x 250 mm | 7.48" x 0.39" x 9.84" (Paperback)
Media99 illustrations
THEMA
  • 1D
  • 3MR
  • 4CTB
  • ABA
  • AKP
  • AKX
  • JBC
  • QDTN
BISAC
  • ART027000
  • DES000000
  • DES004000
  • DES011000
Funding
Contents
  • Carolin Höfler
  • Johanna Mehl
  • Jiye Kim
  • Johanna Mehl
  • Tomás Ignacio Corvalán Azócar
  • Sally Loutfy

A List of Longings

(pp. 41–49)
  • Luiza Prado de O. Martins
  • Henrique Eira
  • Søren Rosenbak
  • Isabella Brandalise
  • Dorsa Javaherian
  • Abigail Schreider
  • Rafaela Angelon
  • Frederick M.C. van Amstel
  • Carmem Saito
  • Bibiana Oliveira Serpa
  • Jaione Cerrato
  • Jon Halls
  • Torben Körschkes
  • Tom Bieling
  • Frieder Bohaumilitzky
  • Anke Haarmann
  • Lauren Williams
  • César Neri
  • Adam DelMarcelle
  • Heather Snyder Quinn
  • Heather Snyder Quinn
  • Ayako Takase
  • Federico Pérez Villoro
  • Chris Hamamoto
  • Mindy Seu
Contributors

Johanna Mehl

(editor)
Research Associate and PhD candidate at the Chair for Digital Cultures at TU Dresden

Johanna Mehl (she/her) is a designer, scholar, and educator interested in the politics and relations that take shape through and around design practices. She holds a B.A. in Communication Design from the Niederrhein University of Applied Science and an M.A. in Art and Design Studies from the University of the Arts Folkwang, Essen. Besides her design, artistic and curatorial practice, she has taught in the fields of digital media, culture studies, and design theory at different design schools across Europe. She holds a research associate position at TU Dresden where she is a PhD candidate at the Chair for Digital Cultures researching the cultural history of environmental design practices. She is an editorial board member of the Design+Posthumanism Network and part of the research group Against Catastrophe.

Carolin Höfler

(editor)
Professor of Design Theory and Research at Köln International School of Design at TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences

Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler (she/her) is Professor of Design Theory and Research at Köln International School Design of TH Köln. She studied art history, modern German literature, and theater & film as well as architecture at universities in Cologne, Vienna, and Berlin. Since 2022, she is a member of the research training group “connecting – excluding: Cultural Dynamics Beyond Globalized Networks”, a collaborative venture between the University of Cologne, the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and TH Köln, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Next to her spatial practice, she works in the team of “oza _studio for architecture and scenography” in Berlin. She is co-editor of the publication (with Philipp Reinfeld): Mit weit geschlossenen Augen. Virtuelle Realitäten entwerfen. Paderborn: Brill | Fink 2022

Jacob Watson

(translator)

Aside from conducting research in the sociology of the senses—see his edited volume Sensing Collectives – Aesthetics and Politics Intertwined (transkript 2023)—Jacob Watson is a freelance translator and editor in Berlin. He studied philosophy and languages before obtaining his Diplôme avancé d’etudes françaises & traduction at the Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg (2002). His fields are philosophy and law, sociology and history, art and film, most notably as house translator for the law journal Ancilla Luris of Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. Recent book translations are Work – the Last 1000 Years (Verso, 2018) by Andrea Komlosy and Eros, Lust and Sin by Franz X Eder (forthcoming).

Jost Goldschmitt

(contributions by)

Philipp Pätzold

(contributions by)

Charlotte Rohde

(contributions by)