Design is the practice of translating ideas into action. In this course, we will focus on the action part. We will study activist methods, from civil disobedience and hacktivism to lockpicking and direct action, and translate them into a series of simple yet practical design projects. Using strategic perspectives to explore contested contexts of design, we will employ simple making methods to ideate and prototype tools that intervene in these contexts. We will build models with simple hand tools, scale them up to full size, and test and evaluate our interventions with our peers. You will leave the course having built a range of practical projects and honed several strategic design capabilities to intervene in and alter our immediate world. No hands-on skills are needed to start, but you will have built a lot by the time we are done.

This Project based studio will focus on the intersection of food, design, and systems thinking. This Class looks through the lens of the multifaceted food system to develop scalable and actionable design outcomes that discover and respond to ruptures in the food system. Each iteration of this studio elective will address a particular theme as it pertains to food design. This year’s theme will be Food Waste. Outcomes will be comprised of prototypes and small scale design interventions.

This Project based studio will focus on ideas and work surrounding any and all of forms of Design and The Performing Arts. Students will be asked to seek and nurture collaborations with other students, faculty, and artists within the New School community or with other institutions. Collaborations locally and remotely are encouraged within both The Performing Arts and Design. Students can explore traditional or non traditional media as well as new and emerging digital and social media in their Collab projects. Once explored, outcomes, schedules, and final deliverables will be created and agreed upon by both the student(s) and faculty member. Projects can emerge from individuals or in small groups of students. Today there is a deep and sincere need to celebrate and embrace creation and human connections in all forms. We want to be able to connect and express ourselves emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. We will look at ways we can connect, create and share with others what we manifest toward all forms. Works and ideas will be supported to explore and express via art, music, film, poetry, objects and environments including mixed media and multiple platforms and outputs.

Like tricksters, daemons hover betwixt and between humans and other forces. With the advent of the computer in the 1970s, the word daemon was used to describe feedback, noise, interference, or, that which exceeds a logical system. Today’s “printer daemons” and “mailer daemons” lay dormant until summoned to handle requests for services such as print spooling and file transfers — yet they often seem to have a mind of their own. What are the social, spiritual, and technological functions of daemons? How does the invention of daemons preserve/challenge myths of progress, business as usual, and the status quo? How can daemons, tricksters, and other charismatic objects enrich how we design and interpret our world? What can we learn from these Others and how can they transform our worldview? In this course, students will work in groups to create 10 magazine-ready editorial, issue-driven photographs featuring a daemon. To produce these works, students will work with an external stakeholder or community partner whose needs will inspire the photos that will be created to help interrogate, promote, or advance a concept, ideal, professional goal.