Open set 2015 catalogue designing experience

1

Designing experience: Moment — Stage — Memory The approach to research was a physical one. Laptops and phones were left in bags, pens and paper were put down and the group began to move, walk, stretch.

Methodologies and strategies were researched with the body; both personal and ‘the other’ and within interior and exterior space. I am aware that the mindful act of walking is an extremely powerful one and I can happily accept walking as an artistic practice. A number of years ago, whilst studying, my practice was more bodily and I created performances in which I pushed myself to physical limits. However, in the professional world of funding applications, administration and the pressure to formalise ideas in ways that are accessible as possible, the more experimental and performative side of my practice has taken to the sidelines.

25 July

open set 2015 dutch graphic design summer school

25 July

3

Multidisciplinary approach Awareness of new technologies Design and ethics Social engagement

25  July Open Set 2015 Values and introduction

5

group of participants investigated the meanings, ethics and strategies of designing new experiences and what impact those have on contemporary society. Among the contributors of Open Set 2015 were Max Bruinsma, designers Prem Krishnamurthy, Martijn Engelbregt, Jan van Toorn, studio Superflux, artists Annette Krauss, Bruno Listopad, researchers Florian Cramer, Caroline Nevejan and Els Kuijpers.

Creative director Open Set Irina Shapiro

25 July

Designing experience: Moment — Stage — Memory The Open Set Summer School is an event composed of a two week intensive series of workshops and lectures, hosted by Kunstblock Rotterdam. It aims to promote and en hance the social value of design by facilitating debates around the chosen theme from a rich diversity of perspectives, design trends and traditions, and cross-disciplinary cultural practices. This edition examined creative strategies of designing experiences and their power to provoke and influ ence the construction of individual and collective identities. We considered two meanings of the term Experience: experience as the here and now, and experience as gathered knowledge, heritage, culture. The international

Location Rotterdam, the Netherlands Andy Altmann, Max Andrews, Max Bruinsma, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Richard Fussey, Cuby Gerards, Andreas Gysin, Els Kuijpers, Karin Langeveld, Annelys de Vet, Richard Vijgen, Karel van der Waarde

2014 Social Game

Location Breda, the Netherlands Jonathan Barnbrook, Petr van Blokland, Max Bruinsma, Binna Choi, Dennis Elbers, Martijn Engelbregt, Daniel Gross, Wilfried Hou Je Bek, Geert Lovink, Joris Maltha, Christian Nyampeta, Marleen Stikker, Jan van Toorn, Annelys de Vet

2013 Commonomy

Location Breda, the Netherlands Max Bruinsma, Thomas Castro (LUST), Liza Enebeis (Studio Dumbar),Petr van Blokland

2012 Utopia

2012 - 2015 Open Set Editions

25 July Open Set 2015 Past editions

25 July

Location Rotterdam, the Netherlands Max Bruinsma, Christine Boshuijzen - van Burken, Florian Cramer, Anab Jain (Studio Superflux), Prem Krishnamurthy (Project Projects), Emily Smith, Jan van Toorn, Ricardo O’Nascimento, Caroline Nevejan, Bruno Listopad, Martijn Engelbregt, Jacqueline Heerema, Annette Krauss, Laura Pardo, Füsun Türetken, Els Kuijpers, Dennis Elbers

2015 Designing Experience: Moment — Stage — Memory

7

25 July

Irina Shapiro

Experience ad Medium

Experience as medium The Open Set 2015 edition under the theme ‘Designing Experience: Moment — Stage — Memory’ examines creative strat egies of staging new experiences and their capability to provoke and influ ence the construction of individual and collective identities. The program identifies four inter-related angles of experimentation: Body, Environment, Interaction and Medium.

The discourse on the relationship between experience and our percep tion of reality and identity has a long history within the philosophical, edu cational, physiological and social fields. For instance, the involve me and I’ll understand1 mentality, popular within the educational sector since the 1 [The version I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember; I do, and I understand was first popularly used in education in the 1960s. I Do — and 1960s, remains the best method to improve academic performance in any I Understand was a 1966 book and a 1967 film by Derek Williams and the Nuffield Foundation. Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may subject. In this approach, students are engaged through physical experi remember. But involve me, and I’ll understand was credited to Dr. Herb True in 1978. Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve ence in the form of play, hands-on activities or experiments. What is essen me, and I learn. was credited to Benjamin Franklin.] tial here is the link between physical experience and empathy. By trying something yourself, you increase your chances of understanding the con ditions, background and experience of another. Trying to play a piano for the first time reveals the complexity of the task, while observing a pianist at a concert makes it seem easy. The understanding reached through personal physical experience improves processes and increases appreci ation of places, activities, products and even people.

Aside from this very practical example, I cannot help but think about the relevance of experience design to contemporary society and its urgent challenges, from our rapidly changing climate to our unstable economic system. Perhaps if we want to address these challenges, we first need to experience our own reality and to recognise the lived experience of others, rather than its spectacular representation. Furthermore, we need to under stand not just how to think about our reality, but how to understand the link between our experience, heritage and future. Experiential processes can help engage us with our present reality, and also inform how we think about our future existence.

This method of reaching understanding through experience has been used by other sectors outside of education and social science. There are several ingredients that make the subject relevant to designers as well, particularly in imagining future scenarios from different social, economic, informational and technological perspectives.

Perspective 1: Experience and Economy Welcome to the Experience Economy2 illustrates the value of experience in contemporary marketing practices. The authors Pine & Gilmore argue that, within the Experience 2 [B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore, Welcome to the Experience Economy, 1998. web: hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy] Economy formula, the product itself is less important than the service related to the product. The perceived value lies in the amount of fun asso ciated with the use of the product. The authors use the example of a birth day cake: “Now, parents neither make the birthday cake nor even throw the party. Instead, they spend $100 or more to ‘outsource’ the entire event to Chuck E. Cheese’s […] or some other business that stages a memorable

event for the kids — and often throws in the cake for free.”

A positive experience of a product establishes a personal relationship between the consumer and the product, increasing the chances of the consumer buying the product again. This, of course, has an economic ben efit for the company. The process of linking a product with a sense of per sonal reward facilitates the construction of memory and habits that are mediated by the media and the market, producing behavioural patterns that individuals might not even be aware of.3 Perspective 2: Embodied Experience and Information This practice of [Nir Eyal, Want To Hook Users? Drive Them Crazy, 2012. web: nirandfar.com/2012/03/want-to-hook-your-users-drive-them-crazy] 3 using experience to form habits demonstrates the effectiveness of experi ence design, but with the goal of stimulating consumerism rather than un derstanding. If we switch our perspective, from marketing to information and communication design in general, the question becomes: Do we de sign for the consumption of information or for its understanding? To inform or to engage people?

Any experience — from our interactions with images, public installations, games or even people — has the ability to engage us and Nevejan C. (editor) Participatory Design & Design of Trust, 2012 – See page 124 change our perspective. So, what is the difference between an experience that moves us and one that leaves us indifferent? Perhaps, the difference can be seen in the strategies: engaging strategies are those that emerge W. J. T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?, 2005 – See page 126 from a subjective individual experience and in doing so provoke a reaction from another individual.

A remarkable example in this context is the new Information Experience Design course at the Royal College of Art in London. The course explores how we as individuals not only receive but also experience information, and aims to transform information into experiences through design.4 But what has happened to information that it now requires “experiential” as a [Information Experience Design web: rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-communication/ied/] 4 prefix?

I believe the reason for this lies not in a changing definition of informa tion, but in the sheer amount of available information and our relationship to it. The way we receive and process information has changed: it is no longer static text, but a complex mix of interconnected media, images, links and systems. Instead of perceiving individual words or phrases, we rapidly scan a constant flow of (visual) information.5 At the same time, the boundaries between our bodies and our tools is rapidly dissolving. For [Petra Loffler, a professor of Media Philosophy at Bauhaus-University, in her lecture at the Unlike Us 2013 Conference, introduced distrac5 example, our smartphones have become not only an externalisation of our tion as one of the strategies aimed to increase and grasp the attention of the target audience. She argued that distraction is a result of the bodies, but are directly linked to our individual identity. Information is no multiple possibilities of consumerism. As Loffler states, that traditionally philosophers understood distraction as the opposite of attention longer “consumed” via these devices but directly absorbed. and concentration. Being distracted was a synonym for being inattentive. Later, the definition of distraction was changed and regains a more So, what is so important about designing experience? What is so impor positive meaning as a way to restore mental health and to create a healthy balance between work and leisure.] tant about experience itself? To address this, I would like to clarify my definition of experience in the context of this discussion.

The word experience comes from the Latin ‘experientia’, which means ‘to try’. It stands for ‘trying’, ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’.It refers both to experiencing the ‘Now’ and also to the knowledge gained from a situa -

25 July

9

25 July

Irina Shapiro

Experience ad Medium

tion or a series of situations that one has lived before. So, when we say “experience”, we simultaneously mean Moment and Memory, Future and Heritage, Individual and Collective. We cannot mean only Now, because Now does not exist without Memory: we cannot play the piano without referring to our past education. This creates an interesting tension within the word, which is key to understanding the power of experience design and its ability to persuade, stimulate, inform, envision, entertain, and fore cast events, influence meaning and modify human behaviour.6 Experience shapes our identities as individuals as well as our sense of collective belonging. This identity is formed through embodied cognition of informa 6 [Ronald Jones, Are You Experienced?, 2009. web: frieze.com/issue/article/are_you_experienced/] tion, tools, environment, cultural patterns and preconceptions, and hu man interactions. This is why the discussion of experience in relation to information and communication is irrelevant without considering the notion of the body.7 John Bargh, a social psychologist currently working at Yale University, argues that our body influences our understanding of ideas and situations 7 [Dennis Waskul, Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body, 2012.] just as certainly as words do. He formed the Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation, and Evaluation (acme) lab8, which focuses on unconscious or automatic ways in which our current environmental surroundings cause us to think, feel, and behave without our conscious intention or knowledge.

8 [ACME Lab web: http://www.yale.edu/acmelab/] Past research at acme has shown that these automatic processes play a role in stereotyping and prejudice, social behaviours such as aggression and politeness, as well as our like and dislike of people, places, and things.

Perspective 3: Experience, Individuality and Standardisation Our embod ied cognition is not only constructed but also stimulated by the factors mentioned above. Our physical relation to the environment is mediated by a variety of tools, such as emerging technologies, which allow us access to experiences that were not available to us earlier. Indeed, there are a few examples of very exciting recent developments in technology: from de vices that help us in everyday life (Amazon Echo: an intelligent speaker that reacts on the commands of users) to interactive educational systems that facilitate the understanding of content (a video monitor at the Cleveland Museum of Art that uses facial recognition to match any face the visitor might make to a work of art in the archive) and new perspectives in the health care (retinal prostheses: wearable optoelectronics) and inventions that make a new step towards virtual reality (Oculus Rift). These technol ogies contribute to a new environment that dramatically questions human interaction, its norms and limitations.

These tools are designed to enrich and optimise our lives, and to make us feel safe and comfortable. They are an expression of an ideology that hopes to reach a better future through technology, improving on the unsta ble and fragile reality of our bodies. However, in this context we see a paradox, because individual experience is antithetical to optimisation and standardisation.

Optimisation is the process of collecting an enormous amount of perso nal data and analysing it to extract patterns and create systems that are designed to predict and assist the behaviour of the “average” person.

Smart devices provide some degree of individual control by allowing cus tomisation and the adjustment of personal settings, but only within the confines of the established system. There are two levels of compromise here: by using these tools, we accept the limitations of the system imposed on us, and we willingly contribute our own personal data in exchange for comfort and efficiency. Within these conditions, a truly individual experi ence of movement, communication, health and society is not possible.

Conversely, our lived experience is inherently individual: we can only un derstand our experiences on the basis of our own perceptions and heritage.

When we perceive an experience on a personal – and often unconscious – level, the experience forms part of our own identity and plays a role in framing our perception.

These tensions leads us to important questions regarding the ethics of design. How do we, as designers, deal with standardisation? How do we work within these systems to deliver specific individual experiences?

Which parameters can remain standardised, and which should be open to an individual response? Is it ever possible to image a truly individual response within a predesigned framework, in this age of efficiency, opti misation and profit?

The essential complexity to understand here is that an engaging experience is one that directly addresses the individual, while at the same time connecting us with the collective identity to which we belong. We need space to express both our own creative individuality and our relationship to our community, in order to learn new things about ourselves. This grey area provides a challenging tension for designers, one which we will con tinuously explore during Open Set. One way of looking at it is to differentiate between systemic standard Annette Krauss. Hidden Curriculum, 2007 – See page 130 isation and the unification of individuals through common culture and her itage. Culture is a system as well, but I would prefer to see it as a system of values than of optimised parameters. Rem Koolhaas underlines this difference in his paper about Smart Cities, arguing that we tend to surren der our social values in the process of optimising of our public space: “Traditional European values of liberty, equality, and fraternity have been replaced in the 21st century by comfort, security, and sustainability. They are now the dominant values of our culture, a revolution that has barely been registered.” 9 Perspective 4: Experience, Recognition and Projection In light of the com plexity of the theme, one could wonder what we hope to achieve with [Rem Koolhaas, edited transcript of a talk given at the High Level Group meeting on Smart Cities Brussels, 2014.] 9 Open Set. To address this, I quote Mika Hannula’s definition of experience: “This process always takes place in a continuity of acts and actions, a game between experiences and expectations. We can relate to the process by

25 July

11

Irina Shapiro

Experience ad Medium

25 July

recalling the different ways in which something that is known and typical is changed all of a sudden into something specific and strange. These are the moments when things that are taken for granted collide with a new kind of weird touch that alters the way we have understood this given activity.”10 Hannula refers to this as the Moment of Awakening, which is where I see the potential of designing experiences: to enable a moment of individ ual awakening, recognition, repositioning and reflection. That is, using 10 [Mika Hannula, Politics, Identity and Public Space — Critical Reflections In and Through the Practices of Contemporary Arts, 2009.] experience as a means of awakening yourself from the spectacular repre sentation of the world, recognising and positioning yourself within reality and then reflecting on possible future scenarios. In the specific context of Open Set, I think this process can be facilitated by exploring the theme in collaboration with a selection of designers, researchers, critics, chore ographers, artists, historians and philosophers.

I also see the urgency of this within the traditional context of the de sign profession. Designers work with possible futures: we prototype new images, objects, spaces and platforms. We can choose to simply project our current reality, but we can also choose to shape and enact change.

Perhaps our ability to propose alternative futures is an area where notions of individual experience and collective identity are essential.

25 July

Location WORM Design history, Art history, Literature, Philosophy, Experience design, Ethics, Military, Philosophy, Curatorial practice, Social design, Ecology

29 July Christine Boshuijzen - van Burken, Max Bruinsma, Dennis Elbers, Jacqueline Heerema p.35 Symposium: Designing

WORM Cinema, Curatorial practice, Media research, Design history, Art history

Location

26 July Florian Cramer p.30 Lecture: A brief history of experience aesthetics from flaneurs to context mapping

Location TENT Conceptual design, Strategy approach, Social design, Curatorial practice, Exhibition design

26 - 28 July Prem Krishnamurthy (Project Projects) + Emily Smith p.20 Experiencing the Space: 10-minutes Incidents

13

Location WORM

Location Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Architecture, Information

Location TENT Choreography, Experience design

Bruno Listopad p.71 Reconfiguration - Movement Research

Location V2 Social design, Experience design, Product design, Fashion

31 July Ricardo O’Nascimento ( ) p.57 Hacking Public Space with Sound

City planning, Architecture

Location V2 Social design,

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma p.49 Social Infrastructures in the City

design

Cinema, Curatorial practice, Media research, Design history, Art history

Florian Cramer p.40 Screening 30 July Alfons Hooikaas p.43 Activate the surface

25 July Index Tutors, workshops and disciplines

25 July

Social design, Meditation

Location WORM Conceptual design, Strategy approach,

Martijn Engelbregt p.183 Intuitive Human Beings Approach

Location V2 Strategy approach, Social design, Speculative design, Design fiction, Design history, Technology, City planning, Design fiction, Design history, Technology, City planning, Conceptual design

Location WORM Strategy approach, Information design, Social design

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma p.103 Design of Trust 02 August Day off p.123 Reader 03 - 05 August Studio Superflux p.168 Port fiction

Experience design

Location Showroom MAMA Strategy approach, Social design,

01 August Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo p.92 Read-in

15

Location Witte de With Center for

Location Kunst in het Witte de With Kwartier Festival

Raw Data Cafe p.227 Open Set 2015 project Tutors biographies p.232 Colophon p.236

Contemporary Art

Location Witte de With Center for

Closing Ceremony p.222

Contemporary Art Editing/Editorial practice, Social design

06 August Studio Dumbar visit p.200 06 - 08 August Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers p.203 Staging the Message: Strategy, Method and Language use

25 July Index Tutors, workshops and disciplines

25 July

Open Set debates — Hyperlinks Method p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 149, 152, 161, 164, 194 Design and designers p. 78, 145, 151, 154, 190 Tools p. 113, 124 / 125, 150, 159

17

25 July

26 - 28 July

19

Prem Krishnamurthy (Project Projects) + Emily Smith Experiencing the Space: 10-minutes Incidents Location TENT

26 - 28 July Prem Krishnamurthy + Emily Smith Experiencing the Space: 10 - minutes Incidents

26 - 28 July

21

26 - 28 July

P! - Possibility 02: Growth Parts I-VI, 2012 Exhibition view with “Provopoli (Wem gehört die Stadt)” (2012) by Aaron Gemmill and “Maxhedron” (2012) by Bec Brittain

Prem Krishnamurthy + Emily Smith Experiencing the Space: 10 - minutes Incidents

23

tutors as the starting point of the design process to follow and trust the observations and experiences generated by the gallery space – Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and TENT Rotterdam – and by the city in general. During the workshop there were a few exercises on communica tion, these experiences were visualized and transformed into a meaningful form. As for the final assignment the participants were asked to create a 10 minute incident within the gallery spaces, which would address, comment, explore and experience the building in a new way (the space, social context, exhibitions or the workshop itself). The design proposals ranged from perfor mances of singing and reading to interactive installations and interventions.

26 - 28 July

Assignment For Open Set 2015 Prem Krishnamurthy and Emily Smith led a three-day design workshop that explored movement and notation, trans lation between disparate media, presentation as practice, and the city itself as a venue for exhibition. The workshop began with an examination and analysis of specific curatorial structures to inform a set of custom walking tours developed by students. Each of these itineraries was conceived as a piece of design, a performance score, and a distributed exhibition. Through point and counterpoint, resonance and difference, the tour form emerged as a locus of activity and space for intervention within routine modes of de sign practice. Results The workshop started with an invitation from the

26 - 28 July

Prem Krishnamurthy + Emily Smith

Experiencing the Space: 10 - minutes Incidents

26 - 28 July

Project Projects - Repetition and Difference, 2015

25

26 - 28 July

Prem Krishnamurthy + Emily Smith

Experiencing the Space: 10 - minutes Incidents

26 - 28 July

27

26 - 28 July

Prem Krishnamurthy + Emily Smith

Experiencing the Space: 10 - minutes Incidents

26 - 28 July

29

John Smith - The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976. London, UK 12 minutes, Black and white, English

Florian Cramer Lecture: A brief history of experience aesthetics from flaneurs to context mapping Location WORM

26 - 28 July Florian Cramer Lecture

26 July

31

26  July

Florian Cramer

Lecture

33

1973 film Day for Night in which the director gives instructions to the actors, and even tells a dog to urinate on a lamppost. At Stamford Road in Dalston Junction of east London, the camera follows pedestrians, cars and birds while a narrator, who appears to be the director behind the camera, seems to instruct the objects. “In relinquishing the more subtle use of voice - over in television documentary, the film draws attention to the control and di rectional function of that practice: imposing, judging, creating an imaginary scene from a visual trace. This ‘Big Brother’ is not only looking at you but ordering you about as the viewer’s identification shifts from the people in the street to the camera eye overlooking the scene. The resultant voyeurism

26 July

The public lecture and debate with applied research professor Florian Cramer, who explored the theme of this year’s edition Designing Experience: Moment – Stage – Memory. The lecture was a crash course in the history of “experience” in arts, design and aesthetic theory before, during and after 20th century modernism. Key witnesses are Edmund Burke, Casper David Friedrich, Walter Benjamin, surrealists, situationists, psychogeographers and contemporary experience designers. This lecture has included a screening of John Smith’s short film The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976. The film is widely acknowledged as one of the most important avant-garde films of the 20th century. The film was inspired by a scene in François Truffaut’s

Symposium

Designing Experience

26 July

takes on an uncanny aspect as the blandness of the scene (shot in black and white on a grey day in Hackney) contrasts with the near ‘magical’ control identified with the voice. The most surprising effect is the ease with which representation and description turn into phantasm through the determin ing power of language.” Michael Maziere, Undercut magazine, 1984

29  July

Max Bruinsma, Christine Boshuijzen - van Burken, Dennis Elbers, Jacqueline Heerema Symposium: Designing Experience Location Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art

35

29  July

Symposium

Designing Experience

37

The symposium Designing Experience was organized as part of the 4th edition of the Summer School and was hosted by Kunstblock in Rotterdam (at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art). The speakers explored the theme of this year’s edition, Designing Experience: Moment – Stage – Memory from artistic, curatorial, scientific and academic perspectives, and addressed the questions: what does it mean to mediate new experiences, and what form can it take? What is the social and ethical impact of these new experiences? The contributors were: Max Bruinsma (independent de sign critic, editor and curator), Dennis Elbers (curator and director of the Graphic Design Festival Breda), Jacqueline Heerema (artist), Christine

29 July

Boshuijzen - van Burken (professor of Dutch Research School for Philosophy (ozsw) and Linnaeus University in Sweden) and Florian Cramer (Applied Research Professor). The symposium was followed by a screening of the film News from Home (1977) by Chantal Akerman, with an introduction by Florian Cramer.

29  July

Symposium

Designing Experience

29 July

Chantal Akerman - Synopsis: News From Home United States, France 1976 85 minutes Color 1.33:1 Language: French

39

Florian Cramer Film screening Location WORM

29  July Florian Cramer Film screening

29 July

41

Florian Cramer

Film screening

Letters from Chantal Akerman’s mother are read over a series of elegantly composed shots of 1976 New York, where our (unseen) filmmaker and pro tagonist has relocated. Akerman’s unforgettable time capsule of the city is also a gorgeous meditation on urban alienation and personal and familial disconnection. “The films of Chantal Akerman are meditations on space, interior and exterior, and the emptiness within the clutter of both. There is a sense of alienation and distance in her films that can be chilly and des olate – the camera moored to the urbanscapes and architecture she sets her eye upon. Her art records the simple drama that exists in the day to day rhythm of life as lived, rarely pumped up by any narrative or cinematic

29 July

gimmickry. Under the steady gaze of the camera the ordinary can be quite magical.” (by Marc Campbell).

30  July

Alfons Hooikaas Activate the surface Location Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art

43

Alfons Hooikaas

30  July

Alfons Hooikaas - David

Activate the Surface

30 July

Alfons Hooikaas - 1815, Willem I Frederik Der Nederlanden returns from defeating Napoleon at Waterloo to build the foundations of the ‘Koninkrijk der Nederlanden’

45

Alfons Hooikaas

Activate the Surface

Assignment Context: to create a large scale experience a designer has to look 360 degrees into every medium: interaction, architecture and graph ics, for example. Medium: large-scale graphics in a semi-public space.

Assignment: propose an alternative for the large-scale graphic on the roof of the Markthal in Rotterdam. The proposal can be anything. It can blend in with the architecture or function of the Markthal. It can comment on the functions, it can be provocative, it can be seductive. Results The work shop concentrated on re-imagining the interior of the Markthal Rotterdam, exploring a broad range of strategies: from branding to public art and graffiti. The final proposals included imagery with reference to abstract

30 July

notions of sound and color, visual stories introducing the history of the area, as well as proposals for light and 3D projections.

30 July

47

30 July

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma

Social Infrastructures in the City

30 July

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma Social Infrastructures in the City Location V2

49

30 July

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma

Social Infrastructures in the City

51

tion and Medium”? Results The workshop started with a tour through the Luchtsingel. The participants had a chance to see the structure by itself as well as the projects, installations and initiatives which had already be come part of the infrastructure. The following discussion about the impor tance of such raw structures in a city and their meaning in contemporary urban planning touched on a lot of existing similar examples from around the world. The workshop was concluded with presentations of the maquettes and prototypes developed by the group of participants.

30 July

Assignment The point of departure for the workshop was the Luchtsingel in Rotterdam. This temporary structure by ZUS architects not only con nects two parts of the city which were disconnected for a long time by the railroad separating them, but also the various themes of Open Set 2015: Moment – Stage – Memory. The remarkable aspect of the Luchtsingel is that it was in part crowd-funded, and therefore the names of all benefactors are written on the bridge’s inside. The group considered the Luchtsingel as a piece of ‘raw’ infrastructure, which challenges designers to use and extend it; what could be a valid and valuable social extension or use of this infrastructure, bearing in mind the focus on “Body, Environment, Interac -

30 July

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma

Social Infrastructures in the City

30 July

53

30 July

Füsun Türetken + Max Bruinsma

Social Infrastructures in the City

30 July

55

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimanto ( ) Hacking Public Space with Sound Location V2

57

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

31 July

59

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

61

groups were working during the workshop and each of them chose a public space in Rotterdam for the intervention. After a preliminary research about the context of the space and the people who use it the groups created sound narratives that transformed how the space is perceived. During the final phase of the day the developed prototypes were tested in the public space and the intersection with the audience was observed. For the sonifi cation the participants used simple electronic sound triggers combined with soft sensory techniques.

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento (POPKALAB) - Wearable Facade, 2015

Assignment In this workshop the participants hacked public furniture using sound and interactive technology. Borrowing strategies from tactical urbanism and the urban guerrilla style of working the workshop aimed to create new embodied ways to experience the city and by doing so change our relationship with it. The proposed projects were able to change the original or expected sounds, to make people stop and surprise them with special sound effects. Within this area of investigation, the main research questions were: why and where would we need to use interactive tech nology? How is our embodied experience influenced by the sound inter ventions in the city and what impact can they have? Results Three

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

63

the Open Set Graphic Design Summer School, DAFNE took the opportunity to talk with him about some his work, his preferred exhibitions and what he has in store for Open Set. DAFNE’s Maurice Blokhuis talked to Ricardo.

Here’s what he shared: DAFNE: So tell us a bit about your background Ricardo O’Nascimento: Well I started with a bachelor in International Relations, and then went into a master in Interactive Art in Austria. That’s where I started developing towards more interactive systems and installa tions – more towards art pieces I would say. Since then I’ve been working in interactive arts and interactive installations with a focus on wearable

31 July

Interview by Dafne.com published on 31 July 2015 “We are disrupting people’s path through that space” Ricardo O’Nascimento is an artist and researcher on the field of new media and interactive art. Much of his work presents simple ideas but on closer inspection are layered with context. He is the founder of POPKALAB – a design and research studio focused on innovation on the field of wearable technology. He has received numerous awards including CYNETART award 2012 and Rumos Arte Cibernética and his works has been found several museums, galleries and art festivals like Ars Electronica, FILE, LABoral, V2, Instituto Itaú Cultural, Soft Galleri, Transmediale and MAC – Coruña, among others. Hosting a workshop at

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

31 July

technology, and that’s something that just happened. And now I’m here in Rotterdam where I have a studio [POPKALAB].

D: Could you tell us how that started?

RO’N: Actually the studio started because of my own artistic practice.

When you’re working independently, presenting your work, or applying for a job, you have to be your own legal entity, so POPKALAB made that easier. But then we ended up having more people interested and calling us for projects and that’s how it kind of became a business in the shape that it is right now. That’s really it. We also do more, let’s say, classic installation – like video and sound reacting to your body and things like that. But as I

started to work more in the wearable tech field, people ended up asking the studio for projects in that field and that’s how we ended up specializing in it.

D: Your personal work in fashion got quite a lot of attention, could you tell us more about it?

RO’N: Well in fashion I developed several what I call reactive garments, not interactive because they are garments that react to something. So i have one, for example, Paparazzi Lover, which is a dress with leds that reacts to camera flash. So this dress in particular is about the relationship between the celebrity and paparazzi, because for it to light and show its –

31 July

65

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

31 July

Ricardo O’Nascimento (POPKALAB) with Anbasja Blanken - Paparazzi Lover Photo: Peter Griller

let’s say – ‘full potential’, it needs a camera flash to work.

D: What do you think makes Paparazzi Lover so appealing?

RO’N: I think it’s because of the humour in it, and that it can be critical Method mentioned p. 68, 81, 147, 149, 152, 161, 164, 194 at the same time. This is one aspect of my work that I find very important: To convey a message through humour and something that is funny and enjoyable. Especially in new media art, sometimes things tend to be very deep and scientific but in a way that most people don’t understand it. So I tend to make art pieces that are very simple and have one clear message.

And I think it’s good because I don’t want people to feel stupid. Because this happens to me sometimes when I go to an exhibition:you have to read

the text before and have Phd degree in art (laughs) and then you can un derstand the exhibition. I mean you want to enjoy the exhibition, not end up reading a book. I just want people to enjoy, and they can enjoy my work on different levels too. That dress for example: someone takes a pic ture and the led lights shine, and then you think ‘oh, cool’ it’s done and you’re happy. But if you take a bit more time and reflect, you can take into consideration in what context this happens. The situation of celebrities and the paparazzi, and this sort of hate and love relationship. Are we are aware of this relation? How do we position ourselves towards it? So, there are several questions that could be raised from this apparently simple piece of

67

touching, approaching; there will be sound that comes with it and that sound could tell a story, advice people about something or invite people to use the space in a different way.

D: How would that play out?

RO’N: So we’ve already pre-prepared some things to avoid spending too much time on setting up things; it’s quite a hectic workshop (laughs). But the idea is that we are going to have pillows that produce sound, depending on their sensors and then students can easily move them around – so if they want to hack this space for example, they could exchange some of these pillows with ones that make no sound. And as we’re just using sound,

31 July

work. And this is what I try to do most of the time. Sometimes it doesn’t work (laughs) but that’s my goal, to do something that’s enjoyable and can be potentially deep if you’re willing spend time on it, but above all enjoyable.

D: What will be in store for your workshop at Open Set? RO’N: Well the idea is to work with the relation of the body in a public space. So what we are going to do is to hack the public space, more specif ically a piece of furniture, and use sound and interaction to convey a mes sage. What the message is going to be, I don’t know, that is something for the students to reflect on and think about. But basically it will be a sonifi cation of public furniture. So when people interact with it by sitting, laying,

Ricardo O’Nascimento

Hacking Public Space with Sound

31 July

the idea would be to trigger different sounds so that the pillow could convey a story.

D: Is this workshop geared towards the sensor-society? Smart-cities?

RO’N: Well, you know smart cities are a hot topic nowadays, with sensors being embedded everywhere, and making things more efficient. For par ticipation as well, but mainly for efficiency. And I think the workshop will touch on this indirectly. In the workshop, we don’t want to be efficient at all. Rather we are disrupting people’s path through that space – instead of hiding the sensors, make them present and part of the experience. What the goal of this is, we want to make people think about it in a way that you

could use that space in a different form, in a different shape, and maybe experience the space in a different way as well.

D: That’s really interesting RO’N: Yes, it’s going to very experimental (laughs) D: What would you want your students to walk away with?

Method mentioned p. 66, 81, 147, 149, 152, 161, 164, 194 RO’N: Well in the end its about creating experiences. A designer should think, I think, about how you can extend your design to the public space.

So for example, a poster. A good poster is visually interesting, will convey the message that you want and that’s basically it. But you can expand the poster – with something like interactivity – and create an experience

31 July

69

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

around it. So I guess what I want students to walk away with is to make them think about making experiences. I mean to think beyond the screen or board where you draw your design and see the space as their canvas as well – in that way you scale up your tools. I think that’s it. In theory it works pretty well.

D: Can you define the Dutch Creative Industry? Do you think this is pos sible? Is it distinctive?

RO’N: Netherlands is well known by its great art and design and I believe that this reflects on the creative industry. There is a big governmental aid to it via grants and other types of financial support. This creates a good sce -

nario for entrepreneurs and designers to continue their researches and experiments and show it around the globe. However, surprisingly, our busi ness is 90% outside the Netherlands. I am not sure why this happens but the fact is that the creative industry here seems to be very protective and conservative in a way. I think the most visible aspect of the Creative Industry in the Netherlands is its excellence on design and execution.

Maybe the concepts we see are not that innovative, but the way that they are developed is very impressive. Design around here is a serious matter and it shows.

D: Ricardo, thank you for this interview.

31 July

Bruno Listopad Reconfiguration – Movement Research Location TENT

71

31 July

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

73

Assignment With this workshop the group explored how the emergence of movement can be perceived and repurposed by undergoing a process of physical sensitization. This was achieved through a porous relational practice that questioned the contours of the body and explored the inter stices between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, intuition and control, chaos and order. The participants researched how fiction, precariousness and contin gency can be utilized to reconfigure how we experience and perform in the world. Results The class progressed from a gentle introspective warm up based on relaxation towards a more extroverted kinetic explora tion of a body ‘strange to itself.’ One of the stages was to create a small

31 July

conversation, creating phrases via movements. The exercises were executed both individually and collectively and that created the opportu nity to be informed by individual experiences as well as the ones shared with others.

31 July

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

75

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

Bruno Listopad - Spectatorship, 2009

Interview by Dafne.com published on 31 July 2015 “Design is rapidly reshaping the way we live and experience the world” Bruno Listopad may be best known as a choreographer, but he is also an art consultant, an independent curator, and a professor amongst the many other professions you could place his work. Making his first debut in the Netherlands in 1998 at the Holland Dance Festival, he has since then won numerous awards among which the Prize of Interpretation Prix Volinine (1997), Revelation Prize Ribeiro da Fonte from the Portuguese Ministry of Culture (1999), the Choreography Encouragement Prize from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (2000), and the Philip Morris Art Prize (2001). Next to his performative career, Listopad is an

active individual in progressing and taking the field of choreography and dance further such as during the time he in which he led the choreog raphic research institute Danslab with four other choreographers during 2007 - 2009.

Part of the Open Set Graphic Design Summer School, DAFNE’s Maurice Blokhuis was excited to sit down and talk with him about his upcoming workshop, research and the link between design and dance.

Here’s what he shared: DAFNE: Coming from a background of choreography, what got you interested in doing a design workshop?

Bruno Listopad: My choreographic work, at least the one operating

31 July

77

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

within the traditional sense of the term – like stage work – has an interdis ciplinary dimension. I felt that was to reductive or limiting to stay operating within the principles of a single discipline – not just for me individually, but also for the sake of the development of the discipline itself. So, I’ve been from very early on fascinated in intersecting disciplines – by utilizing no tions of fine arts or philosophy – to find how such concepts and materials could inform and enrich choreography. These other disciplines did not just influence my choreographies, at a certain instance, my own artistic prac tice started taking place in some of those fields too, in particular within fine arts. Yet, I’ve come to the point where I also sensed the limits of what

is possible to realize within this discipline – although this encompasses such a broad field of practices, you know? Recently I’ve started to be Design and designers mentioned p. 145, 151, 154, 190 interested in design because sometimes I feel myself like a designer as well, a designer of experience you could say. Of course, one could say this about any art discipline, but what interests me in design is the way that this is rapidly reshaping the way we live and experience the world.

D: And how is that?

BL: I see both the private and the public sphere more and more designed and aesthetised, I guess that this is indicative of a desire for controlling perception, experiences and movements. Therefore, I feel that makes

79

a notion of design that is valuable for dance and vice versa. That is why I rather prefer the term interdisciplinary than transdisciplinary. Interdisci plinarity does not aspire at surpassing disciplines to create a new discipline out of the knowledge produced by two or more disciplines, instead, this enables different disciplines to be informed and enriched by each other without wishing to invent a new one. So, I would rather say, that I operate in different disciplines and that I tend do explore each of these through an interdisciplinary perspective.

D: So how does this play out? How have these disciplines informed your work?

31 July

sense that choreography becomes more consciously aware of those prin ciples that often subliminally reshape today’s social subjectivity. Choreog raphy is porous, and posses an undefined ontology, and as such this can accommodate, analyse and re-purpose these principles.

D: So would it be fair to call you trans-disciplinary?

BL: Well no, I wouldn’t say that (laughs). Not in the sense of combining the disciplines and coming up with a new discipline out of others already existing. But rather learning something from one discipline and creating something that is of value for other discipline – so, for example finding something that is valuable for both choreography and fine arts, or, finding

31 July

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

81

fields, the more I see the differences between these. So, my curiosity con mentioned p. 66, 68, 147, 149, 152, 161, 164, 194 Method cerns what would an encounter generate, between one practice and an other, or one concept and one that belongs to another discipline – what could these encounters generate? And because this is an experimental ap proach, in terms of objective results not all these explorations can have successful outcomes. But out of this, there is always something interesting that is generated, something that is released, a new realization comes into being, a new awareness is acquired, and that’s what I’m interested in.

D: What can we expect in the workshop you will be hosting?

BL: I want to focus on the body of the participants (laughs). Well, in the

31 July

Bruno Listopad - Erva Daninha, 2007

BL: Not only other disciplines, but things outside of “disciplines” as well; situations, relations and encounters. But certainly disciplines, or other contexts informed my work – what is the effect of choreography when this is displaced from its conventional sites, for instance? When this takes place outside the theatre venues? What happens to choreography when one changes its habitual audience or context? For example, there are a lot of different understandings of what performance is in fine arts – this is a very general term for a very varied field of creative output. I’m operating in dance, theatre and fine arts and I see that the differences between these disciplines are enormous, and the more I work in both dance and other

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

condition of their own perception while experiencing time, space and site; I want to encourage them to be in touch consciously with their own bodies as an element that can produce and mediate experience and invent expe riences for others. So, the focus will be on “speculative empiricism” by sensitizing physicality towards an intense abstract experience of aliveness.

Basically, I will be leading a movement research workshop.

D: Movement Research? Is this something you’re teaching at the ArtEZ Master of Theatre Practices?

BL: As well, although there, I’m mainly teaching choreography, where I’m looking at what the students wish to articulate or bring into being – the

course is focused on the development of a specific individual practice or the creation of an artistic event. And formally, the shape of that event can be very varied; this can have the shape of a book, an installation, that is, expanded choreography or a performance taking place in a convention al theatre venue. So, the focus is placed on the creation of a singular artis tic gesture or in supporting analytically the path of an artistic research.

While movement research, which I teach more often at SNDO School for New Dance Development, but also in other places, is independent of cre ating that artistic gesture and operates more like a preparatory, pre- chore ographic sensitization of the body – making this more available in order

83

D: By being public, do you mean specifically on the stage or the daily life as well?

BL: Well in choreography, movement research can be seen – although not necessarily, but this can be understood as a step prior to making chore ography. But by experimenting with perception and physicality, the awa reness produced can also change how one relates with the world on a regu lar daily basis, because we start experiment with the condition of alive ness itself. Our lives are mediated through the body and so we never see objectively, we co-produce what we see. So, through movement research, we can redesign these perceptive modes and we can experiment how we

31 July

to receive and project information. At least in my perspective, I don’t want to define what movement research is universally (laughs). The movement research as I teach is dedicated at the development of technologies of per ception. So, that the body is more able to intensify and structure attention but simultaneously be organized by the attention of the perceiving other – the active spectator. This practice exercises in correlation with the aspira tion of performing publicly, by physicaling concepts, but its primary focus is on discovering what can the body do. Not in terms of deliberate athletic gestures and movements, but in terms of the perception of perceiving, by shaping and dramatizing reciprocally the perception of the onlookers.

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

choose to perceive reality, and then how we want reality to be perceived by others. And of course, these experiments can be done in a studio, which is a safe place where there’s an agreement or a common under standing on what one is experimenting with. But these experiments can also be taken onto the stage, or let’s say a public venue which can be an art space or theatre, where an audience is not per se informed about which technologies of embodiment the performer is utilizing, but, nevertheless, this audience can experience the effect that those experiments or technol ogies have upon their bodies. And yes, there is also the possibility of ex perimenting within public sphere, by practicing this on the streets, where

is even more likely that others will not be informed by our procedures.

This is what you could call the dramatization of the social sphere within the framework of a fully lived encounter.

D: So, how would you approach that then? It seems a bit abstract.

BL: (Laughs) It is something that’s easier experienced than talked about.

The production or design of experience can start with what kind of body we want to have, so what kind of capacities we want develop, our desire is already a manifestation of a potential that we already posses. We do this by dwelling with the limits of what is provided and given – yet finding room to maneuver to go beyond those constrains. Limits such as your physical

31 July

85

31 July

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

87

into motion by activating those witnessing participants.

D: An activation? Could you give an example?

BL: One way of understanding would be for example when that cat appeared [a cat walked past the doorway not too far from us], and I recog nize that I have a bodily reaction to it, because of the unexpected presence of another being that suddenly traverses our conversation. Before I could identify it as a ‘cat’, there was already a physical reaction of mine – this is something we could work on in movement research. We try to extrapolate affective potential out an encounter beyond identification.

D: Okay, so is that the same as an innate behavior?

31 July

Bruno Listopad - Erva Daninha, 2007

body, gravity, or the site you are in, these are the givens in which we can play with our potential through the production of concepts. You could say that by wish of designing an experience one first has to attempt to redesign ones own body, but I don’t refer to the image of the body. The body image will change in the process, but that’s a residual effect of the change in body capacity. I’m talking about the experience of being a body bodying, the awareness of a body perpetually coming into being. The purpose of movement research practice is to invent the necessary techni cities (techniques that surpass predictable technical outcomes) to change our perception make-up through an encounter, and really set something

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

BL: Well if I quote him correctly, Brian Massumi says that the ‘skin is faster than the word’, so, let’s say a mouse runs across the floor right now, many people’s reaction at that moment, would be stronger in experience than their general ‘notion’ of mouse. That is one of the things that movement research is busy with, intensifying that affective encounter. So move ment research is recognizing and developing potential out of relations, and dramaturgy – you know choreography as a dramaturgical device – is occu pied in creating a singular ‘event’ that stands in itself out of an encounter with others as co-creators. So, with movement research I am not nec essarily focusing on this dualism between innate and learned, thinking and

feeling, as these operate simultaneously. Yes, I ponder in those questions but with movement research as experience design, if we can call it that, I deal with designing the conditions to produce the experience of an en counter beyond dualisms.

D: I see, that’s interesting in this context.

BL: Yes definitely, and I mean that’s the question you know? The work shop is really more of a proposal coming from my experience in dance and choreography. We will find how concepts or tools I have been dwelling with inform the participants practice. We start from this curiosity, so it’s humble proposal.

31 July

89

Bruno Listopad

Reconfiguration – Movement Research

31 July

D: Preparing for this interview, I wasn’t really sure what to expect what dance and choreography had to offer to a graphic design workshop, but this makes me think that the potential is huge.

BL: (Laughs) Very often people associate dance solely as the body ex pressing rhythmically in space and time, and I understand that this notion arises but this is a reductive view, you know? Dance and choreography can be so much more. I mean you can expand the notion of choreography to city planning – one can conceptualize this as a score that proposes modes of experiencing life by inciting new movement. So, the notion of choreography can be expanded in the sense that even the social sphere

movements are choreographed. Throughout history, choreography, and especially dance have not been taken very seriously because of the connec tion with the body and the body being viewed as inferior to the spirit. Still today the Cartesian divide is pervasive, one can feel that dance and chore ography still need to emancipate within the arts and society at large.

Although the underestimation of dance is still very present, but certainly less than when I started studying dance at the age of ten. (laughs).

D: Bruno, thank you very much for having this talk with us.

01  August

91

Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo Read-in Location Showroom mama

01  August Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo Read-in

01  August

93

Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo

Read-in

Read-in - Read-in Manual: An outline of the Read-in practice, 2011

Assignment The workshop addressed the experimentation of the political, material and physical implications of collective reading and the settings of any reading activity. The research aimed to contextualize reading as a practice as well as creating a new awareness and experience of a public space, such as the street, the harbor, the supermarket and in general, the world around us. The process of the workshop expanded the practice of reading towards other ends, as well as to grapple with ideas of representa tion of this practice for various contexts. Results The workshop engaged our participants with the bombardment of text that faces them every day.

Special attention was given to the filtering strategies, which help us to

01 August

focus, and ‘make sense’ of the information surrounding us. The representa tion of the conclusions and results took the form of performances inside the workshop space and outside – in the public space. All of the reading experiences of the workshop were gathered into a spontaneous zine.w

01  August

95

01  August

Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo

Read-in

01  August

97

01  August

Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo

Read-in

01  August

99

01  August

Annette Krauss + Laura Pardo

Read-in

101

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma Design of Trust Location WORM 103

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

105

to redefine the brief? For these essential topics of design practice, the of fered method of researching the context of any design towards human involvement might be seen as a solution. Using the YUTPA framework, the participants researched the level of trust in a few case studies – already existing brands, such as Uber, Fairphone and even Open Set itself. The re search considered categories which could give enough information for a proper analysis of the experiences of the participants, such as emotional space and embodied sense, negotiation and tuning, reputation and roles, integration rhythm and duration of engagement. Based on the results, the participants made alternative proposals for 2D-5D design solutions:

01 August

Assignment During Open Set Caroline Nevejan, in collaboration with Max Bruinsma, offered a workshop on Presence and the Design of Trust. In the opening lecture of the workshop Nevejan elaborated on designing human experience from the perspective of designing trust. She introduced the YUTPA framework, which allows for analyses and design of trust, and dis cussed a case study to which we applied this framework. Results How can designers improve the reception of their projects and be more aware of the possible impact they have? What can help designers identify the real problem that should be addressed, rather than the one defined in the brief? What are the arguments designers have to come up with in order

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

01  August

2D-graphic; 3D-object; 4D-time based media; 5D-social structures and society.

01  August

107

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

01 August

Interview by Dafne.com published on 01 August 2015 “As a witness you can intervene with what happens next and testify to what happened before” Caroline Nevejan has been researching Internet Culture since the 80’s and as such, her resume seems endless. Between 2006 and 2014, Caroline Nevejan was a crown member of the Dutch Council for Culture and the Arts and was member of the supervisory board of the Foundation for Democracy and Media. Before that, she was connected with the Amsterdam School for Communication Research of the University of Amsterdam from 2004 to 2006. She has also been connected to the Performing Arts Lab (UK) and the Doors of Perception network. Together with Marleen Stikker she

founded Waag Society. Most recently, Caroline Nevejan has been working as a researcher and designer with the Participatory Systems Initiative at Delft Technical University, where she focuses on Witnessed Presence and the Design of Trust. She collaborates with the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths in London, where she is curator of the Logan Symposium for building an alliance against surveillance, secrecy and cen sorship. She is member of the supervisory board of the New Institute in Rotterdam as well. Hosting a workshop at the Open Set Graphic Design Summer School, DAFNE’s Maurice Blokhuis had the opportunity to skype with her (while she was enjoying her family holiday) about her book,

01  August

109

01  August Caroline Nevejan - YUTPA framework - Relation, 2012

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma Design of Trust

111

communication with relatives who are far away or doing business etc. – but there wasn’t a lot of attention for how it changes our social structures.

D: And that is the focus of this book?

CN: Yes, I first worked in cultural entrepreneurship for about 25 years or so and after that it was really great because I managed to take about two and half years for reflection on what we did during that time. So, by revisit ing a lot of the events and tools we developed I realized that how we wit ness each other and establish trust is very different in the networked world than to the world before networks were there.

D: What does witnessing exactly mean?

01 August

‘Witnessing You, On Trust and Truth in a Networked World’, the process behind it, her ground-breaking YUTPA Model, and of course what we can expect at the workshop. Here’s what she shared: DAFNE: So, could you tell us what led you to writing ‘Witnessing in the Networked World’?

Caroline Nevejan: Well, I’ve been involved in internet culture since the 80s, which is quite a long time. So, about a decade before the whole com mercialization of it we were looking into the potential of the technologies and using it, design a lot of events. But then you got this commercial wave – which was great because it brought billions of people access to say,

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

113

Tools

01 August

CN: Witnessing, before it became judicial persona was already a very important social structure. It’s a physical presence. When you witness, you inscribe something with your body, and as a witness you can intervene with what happens next and testify to what happened before – and also change the course of events because of your testimony. So, as I see you do things your actions become deeds to me, and because I’m a witness I have the possibility to intervene and influence the course of events.

D: How does this differ now than before?

CN: Well, in the world without information technologies, or the world with the written word and the television and radio of course – witnessing each other was very fundamental in establishing trust in social structures.

So we would be witness to our families, or colleagues, or with your neigh bours or friends. And because you’re a witness you have the possibility to intervene and influence, basically take reflective action. But now with information and communication technologies we’re present in each other’s lives in many different ways. When my daughter sends me an sms it’s as real as if I were to meet her, or email, or a Skype session. So it’s not only time and place that changes but it’s also how we relate to each other and how we can act. Because I can be in touch with you all the time, but if you fall ill and I’m 2000 miles away I can’t do anything. I cannot buy you gro ceries, or bring you to the doctor. I may be able to get a neighbour to do it, but I myself can’t. So we have whole new configurations of time, place, action and how we relate to them and each other.

D: How did you address this in the book?

CN:So after my dissertation, I continued with research, worked with 11 academics and 30 artists to find out what the dynamics are in witnessing to understand how it would work or function in our current and new com munication configurations.

D: And this research led to the YUTPA Model?

CN:Yes, YUTPA stands for to be with ‘You in Unity of Time, Place and mentioned p. 124 / 125, 150, 159 Action’ and there’s a fundamental configuration which is that we are in each other’s physical presence, like when a baby is born, or when we share a dinner. Now with all the mobile and internet networks we have many more and other configurations. And every configuration has a potential to establish trust or to break it down in specific ways. It’s a line of research where we use the combination of intuition, analysis and reflection to better understand how to establish and communicate trust – for 25 years there was a lot of focus on the ‘applications’, but at the moment the issue is really how do we create sustainable social structures. So, that’s why we devel oped this model, which we now use at TU Delft in a variety of case studies.

As an example for a YUTPA analysis DAFNE copyedited a short case study with Nevejan’s permission from her website-turned book. Currently smart grid technology is developed worldwide. Boulder Colorado, for example, the first Smart Grid city in the USA, provided two-way connectivity to the

01  August Caroline Nevejan - YUTPA framework, 2012

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma Design of Trust

01  August

115

01 August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

city. Citizens can be both consumers and producers of energy and the Grid negotiates and divides according to the needs and possibilities of each household. In Western Europe energy is available 24/7. In current energy market ‘supply’ follows ‘demand’. With the expectation that over time, as energy resources and needs change (for example with the introduction of electric vehicles) future Smart Grids have to be designed in such a way that ‘demand’ will follow ‘supply’. In this example the YUTPA framework is used to identify solution spaces for designing smart grid technology in West European cities.

Relation: Currently our role in energy nets is most often as a consumer.

As more and more consumers become producers (prosumers) our roles change. Prosumers are more engaged with the energy they use. Critical solution space for designing smart grids is the facilitation of different forms of engagement allowing people and businesses to accept different roles in the production and consumption of energy. Smart reputation design is becoming a factor of significance, for example, related to the contribution prosumers make to societal sustainability. The shared meaning that may emerge as result of being involved with the smart grid, offers a solution space for both designed and emerging cultural dynamics that affect com munities energy supply and demand.

Time: Personal duration of engagement with the electricity grid is characterized by moments of intense use and periods of non-use. However electrical current is available 24/7. Because of its ‘continual availability’ there is no need to integrate our personal rhythms with nature (day and night, cold and warm) or with our neighbours for more efficient energy use.

When energy is less abundant, two factors in the time dimension offer so lution spaces for design. Smart integration of rhythms between people, communities, businesses and geographical regions, offers new opportuni ties for efficient energy production and energy use. Secondly synchro nization of performance between supply and demand create a solution space that can be explored in which new developments in ict (Mobile networks, sensor technology and agent-based platforms) can significantly contribute. Concerning ‘moments to signify’, the current electricity net is seen as a utility that has to function 24/7. As consumers become prosumers, and actively both consume and produce energy new moments to signify may emerge. Designing new moments for signifying the way individuals and communities handle their energy use, may contribute to a new culture of energy and play a role in strategies for change.

Place: The experience of energy is bound to the place where the body resides. Body sense and environmental impact are fundamental to energy use. Energy keeps us warm, allows us to read at night, and makes ict func tion. However, body sense and environmental impact are more a given than a solution space for design. Emotional space is not directly influenced, although the effect of no energy directly affects personal and relational

01  August

117

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

spheres as indicated by the urban myth that a babyboom takes place 9 months after an energy black out. Situated agency is defined, for most, by turning on a switch anytime during the day and by paying (automatically) a bill once a month. The feedback to our ‘energy actions’ is immediate; a light turns on. The expense of our ‘energy actions’ is very remote; the bill comes weeks later. In a Smart Grid situation, local production of energy affects actions in day-to-day life, ‘demand’ follows ‘supply’ and feedback is experienced in the here and now. Surplus energy is traded locally, region ally or even globally, but all benefits are awarded locally. Design solution spaces in the place dimension for smart grids are mostly defined by the bandwidth for situated agency.

Action: The quality of deeds concerning energy are very diverse: cutting a tree for a fire, mining coal under the ground, executing operations in a nuclear plant, placing a solar panel on the roof or turning the windmill towards the wind, all have deep impact on day-to-day lives. Tuning human behaviour and the production of energy is one of the possibilities that Smart Grid technology provides. Developments in ict (sensors, Internet of things, big data, agent technology) support personal and local aggregation of data on the basis of which energy use can be tuned/aligned with human behaviour.

Where today negotiation of energy resource provisioning (and prices) is mainly the domain of the electricity companies, communities of consum ers are emerging in which energy production and consumption is negoti ated. In such energy communities reciprocity in exchanging energy re sources between participants directly affects the lives of the participants.

Each of these factors (tuning, negotiation, reciprocity and quality of deeds) offers solution spaces for design of smart grids.

Conclusion: This short YUTPA analysis shows there are many design spaces for Smart Grid technologies in which individual presence and col lective strive for survival and well-being are intertwined and where this interdependency can be fruitful.

Faced with different social and ecological crises, understanding the de sign space for presence is fundamental for social structures of the future.

It should drive innovative solutions for next generation infrastructures. Our participation in complex distributed architectures and infrastructures re quires the taking of responsibility. Having the possibility to enact our own presence, to execute our own agency is fundamental to infrastructures, architectures and governance structures that rely on us to take responsibil ity and accept accountability. Presence design as value sensitive design emphasizes participation as a way to manifest presence of participants involved.

D: This will be featuring in your workshop during Open Set? CN: Yes but there’s also a new tool that I’m developing that I would like to explore with the participants. Together with Max Bruinsma we are

01 August

119

01 August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

developing this framework to work with 2D to 5D design and to orchestrate within these different scales and products, how you can enter such a design solution space.

D: The title of the workshop is human experience, could you tell us what experience is in this context?

CN: I did a lot of work on human experience and I have a very distinct opinion on what it is. So for example in Dutch you have Belevenis, or in German Erlebnis, but you also have Ervaring or Erfahung – but in English you don’t have this. You could say Happening and Experience, but that wouldn’t fully capture it. Instead the way the word experience is used is the same as Belevenis, and I think that is not true. I want to make the distinc tion between a sensation when something happens to you, so a Belevenis, and only when you add reflection to it – which means you take the social, historical and economic context with it, then you get an Experience.

Experience is the ground on which you act.

D: This is similar to the social theories from the Frankfurt School, right?

CN: Yes, they did a lot of research after the Second World War on how to create a viable, resilient and sustainable public domain, and their conclusion was that you need a social historical reflective component because only then can we take responsibility for our actions and be witness to each other.

D: How does this fit coming from the graphic perspective?

CN: What is interesting in a design trajectory, is that designers have to be creative and come up with a solution. My work asks first what has happened, what values are there and what values are made operational through the YUTPA framework. Then, you can identify the solution spaces and only then do you start to design. So I add a layer of analyses to the design practice, before, during and after a design is made.

D: Can you define the Dutch Creative Industry? Do you think this is possible? Is it distinctive?

CN: Creative industry is a word that is embraced by Dutch policy makers in the first place. Personally I do not like the word and prefer to talk about ‘creative economy’, which is a term that also UNESCO uses. The word ‘industry’ seriously limits the potential of creative economies. It puts the focus on the narrow scope of making profit and resonates the neoliberal paradigm of the USA, which is not beneficial for countries like ours where social democracy, which includes business and social responsibility and a vibrant public domain, characterises our society I do think you can analyse the specific character of every country of city or region from the perspective of creative economy and identify possibilities for development of that specific creative economy. A creative economy includes also the sharing economy, which is fundamental to any alive culture of creativity.

When focusing on ‘creative industry’ this is often used as a parachute or catalyst for change in a region. In my experience though, if this is not matched and integrated with local culture, it is bound to have little effect

121

01  August

other than for the businesses involved.

D: Caroline, thank you for this interview.

01  August

Caroline Nevejan + Max Bruinsma

Design of Trust

02 August

Day off Reader 123

Tools  mentioned p. 113, 150, 159 

How are trust and truth established in the emerging network society? How to the stories we exchange become part of the experiences we share? Are we in touch with each other, do we witness each other, when time and place are not shared? Witnessing is aquiring new dynamics. Networks are like mirrors to the self and fuel imagination. Love and passion drive engagement. However, engagement in merging realities challenges human dignities to the core. Dr. Caroline Nevejan, pioneer in digital culture since the 1980s, works together with 13 artists to explore today’s footprint on the future. The artistic research explores new values for the (meta) design of participatory systems in which people accept responsibility for their words and deeds and negotiate trust and truth in a networked world.

02 August Day off Reader

Witnessing You: On Trust and Truth in a Networked World Nevejan C. (editor), (2012), Delft University of Technology

02 August

125

Why do we respond so powerfully to the images and pictures we see in everyday life? Why do we behave as if pictures were alive, possessing the power to influence us, to persuade us, seduce us, or even lead us astray? According to W.J.T. Mitchell, we need to reckon with images not just as inert objects but as animated beings with desires and drives of their own. What Do Pictures Want? highlights Mitchell’s profoundly influential thinking on picture theory, ranging across the visual arts, literature, and mass media.

02 August Day off Reader

Mitchell, W.J.T. (2005). What do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

02 August

127

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

129

02 August

Day off

Reader

Hidden Curriculum A project by Annette Krauss, produced by Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, November 2007, episode publishers, Rotterdam

02 August

131

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

133

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

Hidden Curriculum looks at the unintended ans unrecognized forms of knowledge, values and beliefs that are part of learning processes and daily life within high school. It focuses on the kinds of actions that are developed by the students that go beyond existing norms, showing creative ways of navigating institutional structures and subverting enforced cultural valuess and attitudes.

Hidden Curriculum was realized through a series of workshops for the students in order they could investigate thier own actions and forms of behaviour and develop critical stances towards their own actions.

135

The theorists of art and film commonly depict the modern audience as aesthetically and politically passive. In response, both artists and thinkers have sought to transform the spectator into an active agent and the spectacle into a communal performance. Rancière discusses critically Marxist and postmodern social and cultural critiques. He is familiar with and sensitive to modernist, avant-garde and contemporary art, theatrical performance, photography and cinema while seeking to displace the oppositions that structure the debates that surround them: activity and passivity; individuality and community; ignorance and knowledge.

02 August Day off Reader

The Emancipated Spectator Rancière, J. (2008). The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by G. Elliott. London: Verso.

02 August

137

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

139

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

141

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

143

02 August

Day off

Reader

145

Graphic Design Summer School Open Set 2012 Catalogue Group discussion with Thomas Castro (LUST)

02 August

Design and designers  mentioned p. 78, 151, 154, 190

02 August

Day off

Reader

147

02 August

Method  mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 149, 152, 161, 164, 194

02 August

Day off

Reader

149

Graphic Design Summer School Open Set 2012 Catalogue Interview with Petr van Blokland

02 August

Method  mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 152, 161, 164, 194

Day off

Reader

02 August

Tools mentioned p. 113, 124 / 125, 159

151

02 August

Design and designers  mentioned p. 78, 145, 154, 190

Day off

Reader

02 August

Method  mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 149, 161, 164, 194

02 August

153

Day off

Reader

02 August

Design and designers  mentioned p. 78, 145, 151, 190

Graphic Design Summer School Open Set 2013 Catalogue Introduction by Max Bruinsma

02 August

155

02 August

Day off

Reader

Graphic Design Summer School Open Set 2013 Catalogue Interview with Binna Choi (Casco)

02 August

157

02 August

Day off

Reader

159

02 August

Tools mentioned p. 113, 124 / 125, 150

02 August

Day off

Reader

161

02 August

Method  mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 149, 152, 164, 194

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

163

Day off

Reader

02 August

Method  mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 149, 152, 161, 194

Graphic Design Summer School Open Set 2013 Catalogue Group discussion with Martijn Engelbregt

02 August

165

02 August

Day off

Reader

02 August

167

Studio Superflux - Museum Of Future Government Services

Studio Superflux Port Fiction Location V2

03 - 05 August Studio Superflux Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

169

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

Assignment Cities are, in many senses, the crucibles of our global future.

Rotterdam embarks on becoming a global city with a thriving economy and large - scale ambitious infrastructure projects. In this workshop partic ipants explored the port of Rotterdam, its operational, economic, cultural and political impact on the city – historically, today, and in the future. We investigated how these forces will shape and influence the city, its geopol itics, its economy and its people. The participants became agents or sleuths, observing and recording their findings in photographs, texts, drawings and videos. They worked through a series of foresight and futurescaping exercises to map out interconnections between their observations and

wider trends, weak signals, unforeseen events, and uncertainties. The participants imagined new, alternate, mutant versions of the Rotterdam port, and/or its visible and invisible infrastructures. Results The invitation of the workshop was to imagine and explore possible future scenarios of the port of Rotterdam using a tool of visual storytelling for creating narra tives that engage people, rather than just leave them being informed, and that allow them to position themselves and form an opinion. The stories, presented as group projects, confronted the audience with the geopolitical, economic and ecological issues of the port in a possible future, while starting with a real situation in the present, backed up by media or research.

171

03 - 05 August

The future port was depicted as, among other options, a tourist attraction, shelter for immigrants, and as a center for the bio industry.

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

173

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux - Energy Autonomous Devices

175

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux - Energy Autonomous Devices

177

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

179

03 - 05 August

Studio Superflux

Port Fiction

03 - 05 August

181

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt Intuitive Human Approach Location WORM 183

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

185

of humankind. Results What is the role of intuition in design practice?

What will the design process be if its point of departure is not the conven tional objective position but the subjective experience of the designer?

Would this strategy still influence people and help designers to build a con versation with the audience? Those were the main questions addressed during the workshop. This resulted in the participants developing a collec tive manual for the Intuitive Human Approach, which includes steps such as trust, silence, presence, happiness and comfort, and at the same time creates a confrontation between the audience and all the notions mentioned above.

03 - 05 August

Assignment In this three-day workshop we intended to work with our hands, our brains, our minds and our bodies. We engaged every one of our twelve senses in order to improve our beautiful earth and its inhabitants.

We found new ways to deal with human beings, ourselves, others, plus the me in you. We collaboratively researched the ways people treat each other in order to influence them in our precious but humble way. We went out into the streets, into the parks, into the bars and museums to explore the others, make notes, record data and find unwritten rules. We bent all the rules – written and unwritten. We presented a one-page graphic manual in the form of an exhibition/performance/installation/design for all members

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

Interview by Open Set (Irina Shapiro and Mariette Twilt) published on Dafne.com on 05 August 2015 “There is one reality. This reality, yourself in your body”.

Martijn Engelbregt, an individual holding many identities and professions to his name, is the founding managing director of egbg and Circus Engelbregt. His work is inquisitive and provocative, focusing on organizing complex processes to raise awareness of specific social issues.

Conducting a workshop at the Open Set Graphic Design Summer School, founder Irina Shapiro and Mariette Twilt interviewed Martijn Engelbregt as part of coverage the summer school.

Open Set: We would like to talk with you about creating experiences,

and the role of the designer or artist within this: as creator or mediator.

Martijn Engelbregt: Great, yes… Do you consider the work I make as experience design?

OS: We will come to that.

ME: Oh, okay. You have the questions.

OS: Yes, in fact we do the questioning.

ME: But I think it’s also my work as a designer to question…

This is a conversation with Martijn Engelbregt and indeed, questioning is what he does. In his work he tries to break away from society’s tendency to pigeonhole, which results in a number of works projects that touch on the

187

make when meeting someone is ‘am I dealing with a man or a woman?’.

Then we see their clothes, which gives us some more links. Then we ask ‘what is your name?’, and then ‘what do you do?’. And all sorts of things come up in our head. So when someone says ‘I’m a doctor’, you immediate ly think: ‘this guy studied really hard’. Or if he is a lawyer you think, ‘that’s really dull’. If you are aware of this process you start to protect yourself from other people’s judgements, and your own judgements. That is why I like the freedom to choose for every project or occasion a different job title and I tend to play with it, choosing a new profession every year. At the same time I make it very difficult for myself. For example, when I finished

03 - 05 August

wounds of society. The questions he raises with his projects sometimes even become the starting point for debate on a national level. His tendency to question does not stop at his work – he seems to be constantly searching for his own identity as well. Apart from being a designer, he is labelled many things: researcher, process manager, procedure artist, collector, statistician, data administrator, fine artist, managing director and undoubtedly many others as well.

OS: What does it mean to constantly question yourself like this? Who is Martijn Engelbregt (currently)?

ME: I think this is an interesting playing field. The first judgement we

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

189

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

studying graphic design I thought to myself: ‘graphic design? But then I have to work with typography and clients! No, maybe it’s better for me to become an artist.’ And within a year I found out there are also a lot of rules in this system and I didn’t want to fit in with these rules. So I called myself Design and designers mentioned p. 78, 145, 151, 154 a process artist. That’s new, I thought. But then again, nobody knows what that is.

Last week I spoke at the What Design Can Do conference and in the program I was referred to as an ‘artist’. Suddenly I was really glad: yes, I call myself an artist and some people recognise me as that. But at the very same time, I work with a group of students at the Boijmans van Beuningen and recently one of them told me: ‘this is not art – you use strategies, and

art does not work with strategies’. Well honestly I don’t care. I really don’t care. Still, yesterday I was at an art fair and someone asked me: ‘what kind of artist are you?’. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Well I’m this disordering, connecting…’ [laughs] I like to be playful with it and ask myself: ‘what would I like to be today?’ At the same time I’m being very conscious of not fitting in any of these labels. It is not just playing, sometimes it hurts too.

Someone who asks questions should deal with the answers as well. In the case of Engelbregt, this means dealing with the response of participants during a project. With his projects, Engelbregt provokes the public to step out of any kind of socially generated identity into their own experience,

191

I think it’s alright. It’s actually good if people have other ideas about what I do and in this way find a way to respond to me. One very literal example is my Do Not Disturb [Niet Storen] sign. I did not have a very specific idea about how I wanted people to interact with it. I walked around with these ‘do not disturb’ words in my head for quite some time already when I was asked to do a project for an art-bike-tour just outside the city of Utrecht. I had never been in this area but at that specific time the local farmers were having a lot of problems with mad cow disease. We had to clean ourselves completely whenever we went in or out of the area. It gave us this uneasy feeling of not being allowed there. This was in such contrast with how

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt - Giant Leeuwarden, 2009

discovering themselves in the process. Inevitably, this means losing some control over his own projects.

OS: How do you deal with the unpredictable factor in your work?

ME: I like it when people react in a way I did not expect because it does not make any sense to do it otherwise. If people only react in a way that I’m prepared for then why do it? This means that when everybody is really enthusiastic and moving in the same direction it feels like failure. Of course at the same time is doesn’t, because it also means I’m getting a lot of pos itive feedback, but when something happens that I did not expect then in stead of blaming the project or blaming myself for doing something wrong,

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt - Giant Leeuwarden, 2009

beautiful, green and quiet the area was. Why would anyone want to invite all kinds of art-minded people on a bike there? This mix of feelings made me come up with the idea for the Do Not Disturb sign. I found a farmer who was totally into this idea. He felt suppressed by the new rules of the government and the sign felt to him like a perfect expression of his ideas.

You should know that in this area it is not allowed to put a big sign on your land. It is an eyesore for the local farmers who are trying to sell ice cream or run a camping site next to their farming business. And then suddenly some artist puts a gigantic sign there! When people don’t understand something, they can sometimes become aggressive. First the sign was

covered in graffiti, so we cleaned it. Later, somebody took out all the nuts and bolts, which made the sign fall over. I installed the sign in public space, you could read it from two kilometres away. I expected that it would get a lot of attention and it’s fair for people to respond in their own way, but in this case it really hurt. I was really attached to it. People were passing by, taking pictures in front of it while reading the newspaper, or standing with their babies. It got a lot of positive feedback in the newspapers and I was really proud of it. After this, I realised that this is actually what my work is about. I can invite people to think differently, which automat ically gives them the possibility to react. If they do this in a way I did not

193

town hall At the time I thought it was fine, people can write whatever they think. But the mayor really thought it was a danger, so we had to stop delivering the bricks immediately. Of course, I was aware of the ambiguity of a brick: you can either break something or build something with it. But the decision of the mayor to stop the operation really hurt me. At once you reduce all citizens to potential brick-throwers. In a project where we’re trying to build something together! Besides that, there was a whole logis tic system to spread the 45,000 bricks through the city. We gave 33 home less people the task to deliver the bricks. These bricks are really heavy – you cannot do this on a bike – so we came up with a delivery system by car. I

03 - 05 August

expect I should not only be unhappy but instead try to understand what is happening.

OS: Another example is to be seen in the Giant Leeuwarden project.

ME: Spreading 45,000 bricks through the city, leaving these bricks on someone’s doorstep when they are not at home… of course this can have negative connotations. But we made nice wrapping paper and I talked about it with the police beforehand. We even got funding from the munici pality so I really thought it would work. But for all sorts of reasons the citi zens of Leeuwarden were angry at the municipality, stating anonymously on the website that they would throw the bricks though the windows of the

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

Martijn Engelbregt - Niet Storen, 2005

found such beauty in the idea that there were 33 homeless guys spreading enough bricks through the city to build three entire houses. There was such poetry in the whole action and then, after only one day of delivering, the mayor said stop.

To provoke people and get them out of their usual mindset, Engelbregt uses different recipes. What he wants is for them to wonder about other possibilities when facing a situation in which they feel stuck. Creativity plays an important role here.

OS: Creativity — is it something that belongs to everyone and can be learned by everyone?

ME: I see how often we get stuck — in meetings, in our contact with our neighbours. That’s when things don’t flow anymore and people start to Method mentioned p. 66, 68, 81, 147, 149, 152, 161, 164 get irritated, stressed and tense. I think that’s the place where creativity can play a big role. Creativity has the power to — instead of creating more tension — find other ways to deal with it. I always call this ‘turning irritation into wonder’. I consider myself a creative person but I don’t think I can tell other people how to be creative. I can invite them, maybe provoke them a bit, but I cannot force them. I can only invite them to think about the fact that maybe there is another possibility and I often use humour for that.

Creativity is something that is in every human being, but some people can

195

ME: Normally, when people sit and talk there has to be coffee on the table. At the same time, most of these conversations get stuck, they don’t really work. People don’t really interact because there is a table in-between them. This makes it difficult to really come up with new plans or new ideas.

You stay within your own background and specialisation. There is no actual meeting. We call it a meeting, but it isn’t. It’s just a coming together of three beings.

There is something which Engelbregt cannot answer, but keeps questioning in every project: the acceptance of ourselves and our inability to engage with the world around us.

03 - 05 August

access it more easily than others. I think it’s important for everyone to try to increase their access to creativity. It just isn’t being activated. We are living in a society where a lot is based on specialisation. People become doctors, study for fourteen years and then they know something very pre cise. Managers are the same: they all learn how to manage. But all this specialising for very specific professions makes it impossible to reach the full extent of our capabilities. We need creativity not only from designers and artists but also creativity in the baker and in the doctor and in the nurse. We are creating so many problems because things are too special ised.Earlier Engelbregt gave the example of a business meeting:

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

OS: Can this be the goal for a designer — to be a creator of new experiences?

ME: One hundred, two hundred years ago, people were making things with their hands. Repairing, knitting: there was a connection between making something, being something, and the social connection. If you are knitting you can easily talk and it’s a whole other level of communication than when you together go watch a movie or talk about social media, or even go to a bar to have a drink. This daily exercise using your hands… I think we lost that somehow with the arrival of the industrialisation. After that we lost the connection to our feet and legs because we did not have to

walk or bike anymore. We just go on the bus, the train or the car. Now the time has arrived that we’ve lost connection to our heads because there are other things doing all the work. If I consider this, I think it’s awful. I can hardly make a connection with my feet or feel the possibilities of my hands.

And I know a big part of my head is in my computer or in my phone. I know that there is something missing. It’s easy but I also see there is a lot that I used to do here [pointing to his head] …and now this is all in my computer and in my phone. You could say it allows more possibilities; you could say it leaves room in my head for bright ideas. But what happens is that I’m more afraid to be lonely. Often I find myself doing nothing nowhere, being a bit

197

so stuck. Actually, they only seem stuck because we don’t find the space and time to try other possibilities. The first thing to do is to acknowledge whatever is happening in your body. It’s okay to feel it… You need to engage with your self as you walk on this planet. I think many people are not – they seem to be on other planets, caught up in thoughts about other realities.

And this is not something that I can solve. It’s not that designers can solve these things for the rest of the world. But I think my projects are about this.

All of my projects invite people to step out of their own established iden tities, whether self-created or otherwise, into our common reality. There is no guaranteed recipe on how to do this but the most important part is to

03 - 05 August

lost in space and time, but in connection with other people who are lost in space and time as well. I say that creativity is important, but creativity alone is chaos. Creativity in itself just keeps on going — if you put five very creative people in a room to organise a party, then you’ll have one hundred ideas but no party. We need structure too, someone who says: okay, nice creative ideas, but what’s the location? It’s that magical tension between chaos and structure. We need both, equally. I think that structure is a bit too overrated at the moment, but we also can’t do without it. In a way, we need structure to be creative. We need to explore creativity, to train it eve ryday. We need to be aware that all the things we take for granted are not

Martijn Engelbregt

Intuitive Human Approach

03 - 05 August

have people participating. People should feel engaged with whatever is happening in them. In this sense it’s not only about a physical, bodily experience, it’s about mental stuff as well. There is one reality. This reality, yourself in your body. experience

03 - 05 August

199

Visit at Studio Dumbar

06  August Studio Dumbar Studio visit

06  August

201

06  August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers Staging the message: Strategy, Method and Language Use Location Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art 203

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

205

and editing information and lays the foundation for the staging, the mise - en - scene of fact and vision to the multiple sensory tracks of the visual.

Results The working process included collecting and archiving visual arti facts, analyzing, editing and shaping the visual material into a message.

The participants were invited to look at the visual representation from the perspective of personal as well as collective experience. They recognized and rethought the conventional ways of visual representation and commu nication, treating these notions as capable of creating meanings instead of thinking of them as purely aesthetic objects.

06 - 08 August

Assignment The workshop intended to offer participants theoretical and practical tools for an editorial approach of visual production. It concentrated on the diversity of means of the ‘journalistic’ tradition of design in media that furthers more complex and argumentative forms of communication and foregrounds the constructed nature of messages in order to solicit the active interpretation by the viewer/reader. The emphasis was on the poten tialities and richness of the ‘reflexive’ or ‘dialogic method’, trying to recu perate the specificity of its projective and emancipatory practice. Keeping in mind these social aspects, the workshop focused on the process of editing and making. It introduced a method which structures the collecting

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

207

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

209

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

211

Jan van Toorn - Affiche Van Abbemuseum, 1971

Jan van Toorn - Een Kollektie Is Ook Maar Een Mens Poster, for Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1973

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn - The Bad New Days of Form vs Substance

Jan van Toorn - The Nature of Things, 2012

Jan van Toorn - December 1972.

Jan van Toorn - Cover of the 1972 / 73 “People calendar” for Mart.Spruijt.

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers Staging the message

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn - Newviews 2, 2008

Jan van Toorn - The Intellectual Gearbox, 2012 Jan van Toorn - May/June 1972.

Jan van Toorn - June, 1972.

213

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

215

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

217

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

219

06 - 08 August

Jan van Toorn + Els Kuijpers

Staging the message

06 - 08 August

221

Closing Ceremony Location Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art

08  August Open Set Closing Ceremony

08  August

223

08  August

Open Set

Closing Ceremony

08  August

225

08  August

Raw Data Cafe

Open Set 2015 project

11 - 13 September

Location Kunst in het Witte de With Kwartier Festival

Open Set 2015 project

Raw Data Cafe

227

11 - 13 September

Raw Data Cafe

Open Set 2015 project

229

Open Set invited Raw Data Cafe, project designed by Giacomo Boffo, to represent these two weeks of intensive programs to the public at large at the Kunst in het Witte de With Kwartier Festival which takes place every year in September and gathers more than 30.000 visitors. The Festival is organized by the Kunstblock Rotterdam, the association of cultural institu tions located at Witte de Withstraat, which has invited and hosted Open Set for the second year in a row. Raw Data Cafe aims to (literally) give a taste of the strategies for art and design to connect and engage people which were discussed during the course, to provoke and influence debates and social processes. Disrespecting all cultural and traditional values associated

11 - 13 September

with nutrition, Raw Data Cafe focuses on the gustatory aspect to deliver straightforward statistical information. The stiffness of the data is balanced by the immersive and interactive nature of the feeding process, in which the public is involved by the snacks on both a sensory and mental level.

11 - 13 September

Raw Data Cafe

Open Set 2015 project

“Every moment has a quality”

231

Biographies

Tutors

Alfons Hooikaas is a designer focussed on creating information experiences by aggregating editorial, interactive, illustrative, motion and branding strategies into an imaginative mix.

Hooikaas has been continuously running his own studio since 2005.

After 2x4, Alfons became a freelance associate at Project Projects in NYC, leading design teams on projects for the likes of The Bass Museum Miami, USC Roski and the Bard institute. Alfons holds a B.A. from De Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Arnhem. He is the recipient of a ranges of awards and grands, including various stipends from the Dutch Government and sever al nominations at Chaumont Festival International de l’affiche et du graphisme.

Max Bruinsma is an independent design critic, editor, curator and editorial designer. Since 1985, his critical writings have featured regularly in major Dutch art and design journals and in a range of international design publi cations. In 1997, he succeeded founding editor Rick Poynor as editor - in - chief of Eye, the international review of graphic design. He has been the editor of the Dutch design magazine Items, published and edited several books on graphic and new media design, and taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.

Florian Cramer is an applied research professor and director of Creating 010, the research centre affiliated to Willem de Kooning Academy and Piet Zwart Institute at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. He also works for WORM, a Rotterdam-based venue for DIY avant-garde culture.

Dennis Elbers is a curator specialising in contemporary visual culture and its social relevance. He frequently curates exhibitions for the Graphic Design Festival Breda and other international institutions, and occasionally contributes to design media and lectures at art schools. He is an advisor for various governmental funding and policy organisations. In 2007 he founded the Graphic Design Festival Breda, which puts the spotlight on a characteristic selection of graphic designers with exhibitions, lectures, workshops and interventions in public space.

Martijn Engelbregt is a researcher, procedural artist, collector, statistician and founding managing director of egbg and Circus Engelbregt. His work is inquisitive and provocative, focusing on organising complex processes to raise awareness of specific social issues. Engelbregt aims to transform spectators into participants and invites them to look in a different and creative way at the notions and social issues which are usually taken for granted.

Jacqueline Heerema is a conceptual artist and independent urban curator

233

who develops interactive community-based collections to develop new artistic insights that she connects to non-artistic domains. She invented the concept of Innovatory Heritage, a new approach to develop and imple ment new narratives of the interactions of man and water. It changes our perception of protective-exclusive heritage into dynamic-inclusive herit age: intended to change and to trigger both mental and physical transi tions and innovations. Most of all, Heerema collects and connects local knowledge on a global level and acts as a catalyst between society, arts and science.

Anab Jain is co-founder of the London based studio Superflux, a new kind of design practice that is responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Superflux is a collaborative design practice that acknowledges the reality of our rapidly changing times, designing with and for uncertainty, instead of resisting. They create speculative critical projects, visualising possible future scenarios based on recent technolo gical developments.

Prem Krishnamurthy is the founding principal of award-winning design studio Project Projects. He is a New York-based designer and curator who creates some of the most respected design work today. He combines a conceptual and socially engaged focus with a pioneering approach to visual rhetoric. In addition to commissioned work, he initiates and pro duces independent curatorial and publishing projects. He is also the founder, director/curator of P!, a multidisciplinary exhibition space and gallery in New York City’s Chinatown. The space employs an integrated approach to curatorial practice, exhibition design, and art production that shifts and redraws boundaries of agency within varied modes of display.

Annette Krauss works as an artist whose practice addresses the intersec tion of art, politics and everyday life. Her work revolves around informal knowledge and institutionalised normalisation processes that shape our bodies, the way we use objects, engage in social practices and how these influence the way we know and act in the world. Her artistic work emerges through the intersection of different media, such as performance, film, historical and everyday research, pedagogy and texts. Krauss has initiated various long-term collaborative practices that reflect and build upon the potential of collaborative practices while aiming at disrupting taken for granted “truths” in theory and practice.

Laura Pardo is a visual artist currently living and working in the Netherlands.

Her work scrutinises the condition of the everyday through the artistic agency, exploring how the quotidian and the non-spectacular, far from being superfluous, can give signs of fundamental underlying issues. By

Biographies

Tutors

working exhaustively with collected material, engaging with people and places and developing works that take the form of drawings, events, swaps and paintings, Laura opens up new spaces for understanding cultural and socio - economic changes. Some of her works look at the aesthetics of the city and the graphic information found in common printed matter to ad dress issues of identity, localities and authenticity in a so called globalized world.

Els Kuijpers is an author and curator on graphic design and visual culture who sees writing as cultural production. She is interested in the assump tion that language (visual and textual) constructs meaning in dynamic, social processes. She was head of the research centre and editor academic publications at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht. Currently she teaches design history and theory at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague and exhibition design at the Academy for Art and Design in Zwolle.

Ricardo O’Nascimento is an artist and researcher of new media and inter active art. He investigates body-environment relations focused on inter face development for worn devices, interactive installations and hybrid environments. He is the founder of POPKALAB, a design research studio focused on innovation on the field of wearable technology.

Dr. Caroline Nevejan is a researcher and designer working with the Partic ipatory Systems Initiative at Delft Technical University, where she focuses on Witnessed Presence and the Design of Trust. She collaborates with the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths in London, where she is curator of the Logan Symposium for building an alliance against surveil lance, secrecy and censorship. In 1994 Nevejan co-founded the Society for Old and New Media. The Waag Society, as it is known today, is an inde pendent media lab and a knowledge center with a specific interest in the future of the public domain.

Emily Smith is a Berlin-based designer, educator and researcher. Her multi - disciplinary practice investigates the interplay between the narrative and the spatial, experimentation as play and as research, and visual commu nication of the emotional and the systematic. She currently teaches in the Communication and Motion Design departments at the BTK University of Applied Science Berlin, and lectures internationally.

Jan van Toorn studied graphic design at the Institute of Arts and Crafts in Amsterdam, where he has maintained a practice in communication design since 1957. The emotional charge and open character of van Toorn’s design work stems from his interest in investigating visual meaning and the social role of the profession in the media, as opposed to purely practical require -

235

ments. Jan van Toorn taught graphic design for many years at various academies and universities in The Netherlands and abroad, including the Gerrit Rietveld academy in Amsterdam and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, USA. From 1991 until 1998 he was director of the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.

Füsun Türetken is an architect and visual artist from Istanbul. Füsun works primarily with themes related to visual culture, power structures and mate riality. In 2008, she set up Studio features (Studio ft.), a platform for supporting the critical, collaborative artistic research and work (of others).

The same year she was director of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale Venice. In 2013 she joined Piet Zwart Institute as core tutor at the Master of Interior Architecture and Retail Design, where she leads the history and theory module and is a graduate supervisor. Füsun is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Department Visual Culture at Goldsmiths, London.

Christine Boshuijzen - van Burken holds a BSc in Human Kinetic Engineering (The Hague University of Professional Education, 2002), a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (Eindhoven, Fontys University of Professional Education, 2004) and a MA at the Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit, faculty of Philosophy (2006). She worked several years as a mechanical engineer before starting her PhD studies in the field of ethics and military technology. She currently works for the Dutch Research School for Philosophy (OZSW) and Linnaeus University in Sweden.

Colophon

Tutors and participants

Open Set Dutch Design Summer School 26 July - 08 August 2015 Kunstblock, Rotterdam Tutors: Jon Ardern (Studio Superflux) Max Bruinsma Florian Cramer Studio Dumbar Dennis Elbers Martijn Engelbregt Jacqueline Heerema Anab Jain (Studio Superflux) Alfons Hooikaas Prem Krishnamurthy Annette Krauss Els Kuijpers Bruno Listopad Ricardo O'Nascimento Caroline Nevejan Laura Pardo Emily Smith Jan van Toorn Füsun Türetken Christine Boshuijzen - van Burken Participants: Magali Abraham Noura Atwi Brian Berding Giacomo Boffo Alessandro Carosso Joanna Cheung Anaïs Cuillier Michael Curia Geertje Debets Victoria Donelly Fanny Giordano Irina Goryacheva Andrea Guccini Ryu Heekyung Jess Ho Myriam Humm Brigitte Jansen

Patty Jansen Jenna Jeong Kang Stephanie Jones Petra Kalousková Yunghun Kan Eliso Kirvalidze Lucia Kolesárová Bon Hae Koo Lívia Kožúšková Kaats Külli Sarah Lancelin Leopold Lanzgeiger Da Eun Lee Estell Lee Meaghan Li Gianluca Lonigro Lisa Maione Natalie Mcllroy Francesca Merlo Annatina Nay Desiree Niu Bart Oppenheimer June Park Isabelle Rancier Stephanie Richa Matteo Sardina Tania Shevereva Lee Sonyun Charlotte Tasma Tom Tjon A Loi Phillip Tretyakov Cleo Tsw Tarry Woo Joo Yeou Yoo

237

Colophon

Tutors and participants

239

Catalogue Open Set 2015 Designing Experience: Moment – Stage – Memory Text - Irina Shapiro, Dafne.com, Mariette Twilt, Giacomo Boffo (Raw Data Cafe), Natalie Mcllroy (cover text).

Photos - All photographs in this catalogue are by Open Set, Pendar Nabipour and Oana Cliţan (Raw Data Cafe) unless otherwise indicated.

Concept and design - Alessandro Carosso with Lucia Kolesarova Stiching Open Set Board Max Bruinsma (chairman) Joanna van der Zanden Vlad Butucariu Open Set team Irina Shapiro - initiator and artistic leader Susana Pedrosa - production manager Oana Cliţan - event coordinator Germa Roos - location coordinator Max Senden - graphic designer Sarah Louise Lancelin - communication & special projects Volunteers Tom Tjon A Loi, Jinyoung Kim, Alessandro Carosso, Anežka Minaříková, Giacomo Boffo, Tarry Woo, Larissa Monteiro, Eva Nobbe, Olga Oudman Special thanks to: Yoeri Meessen, Simone Dresens, Dennis Elbers, Monica Ophuijsen All the workshops’ assignments where coinceved and written by the tutors.

Open Set 2015 was made possible with the generously support of Creative Industries Fund NL, Kunstblock Rotterdam and following partners and sponsors:

Colophon

Tutors and participants

Open Set, Rotterdam, The Netherlands www.openset.nl

241

08 August

Open Set Catalogue 2015

‘Every moment has a quality’