Social
Spaces

On March 1^st the e-book Dat is design (This is design) was launched. The book is a collection of essential writings concerning design reflection. It follows the concept of the book Dat is Architectuur (This is architecture) that was published in 2001. 150 texts of the 21^st century, starting from 1850, are presented in chronological order. The texts are categorized in 15 themes, namely triviality (alledaagsheid), canon, consumption, digital, function, tool, identity, critique, art?, literature, machine, research, beauty, sign (teken) and responsibility. The MAD-faculty, and more specifically researchers from Social Spaces, developed the themes digital and research.

Dat is design is a collaboration between the design institutions of the KULeuven Association. The professional bachelor program Interior Design of the group Design & Technology (Lessius Mechelen) initiated and coordinated the development of the book. In this phase the book is only accessible for the institutions of the KULeuven Association. However, the book will be published later. Visit the website for more information (it is in Dutch however).

This special issue of the journal invites papers, projects and reviews exploring and developing the notion of Design Fictions. One of the early proponents of Design Fictions, the author Bruce Sterling, said that design: “seeks out ways to jump over its own conceptual walls – scenarios, user observation, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, critical design, speculative design” (Sterling, 2009). Despite the current burgeoning of this field and its various histories and antecedents, the coming together of design and fiction, as ‘design fictions’, remains relatively underexplored.

Design Fictions might also be sensed as a ‘speculative turn’ in design practice, founding a new engagement in ‘prototyping’ conjectural projections of designed futures. In the context of ever-present near futures, projected as scenarios that threaten radical ruptures of the real, digital creativity expands into a post-digital cybernetics. Design Fictions speculative design methodologies take their cue from science fiction, Sterling however would also have it the other way around, saying that: “design and literature don’t talk together much, but design has more to offer literature at the moment than literature can offer design” (Sterling, 2009).

This issue seeks to put design and literature into conversation. The journal wishes to ask how Design Fictions and related methodological work have mutated or glitched across art, design and architecture, for example in response to ‘design fictions’ (Nokia/Bleecker); in ‘critical design’ (Dunne & Raby); in speculative and visionary architecture (Spiller); in science fiction as prototyping (Intel/Johnson); and in ethnographic work on design and prototyping (Kelty).

Deadline for extended abstracts: 5 March 2012
Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/NDCR

Publication about this call in Wired: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/12/design-fiction-digital-creativity-special-issue-on-design-fictions/

This year, the research project for the students of the third year and bridging program at MAD-faculty focuses on design in the context of human enhancement. The project “H(ello).E.T.!“ aims to explore the field of human enhancement and its implications in order to develop design outputs that relate to the debate concerning human enhancement technologies.

To trigger reflection on the difficulties of this debate, the project started off with an immersion in the world of people with a physical disability. Student teams did interviews and observations with people with a physical disability and experts in prosthetics.

This all served as a kind of extreme user experience. The aim was to bring students closer to situations in which they were confronted with a desire or a moral debate concerning enhancing – or in this case, curing – human performances and abilities. The experiences and insights that the students gained via these observations and interviews will be interpreted and translated to the field of human enhancement in the next phases of the project.

The 8th International Design & Emotion Conference will take place in London at the 11th-14th September 2012.  This conference is a forum held every other year where practitioners, academics and industry leaders meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion. They currently have an open call to submit proposals for papers, case studies and workshops/masterclasses.

For further information regarding deadlines and submission process: www.designandemotion.org

From Friday September 16th on, MAD-shop is open for business! Together with De Invasie and Moozeum, MAD-shop is part of the C-mine pop up shop in C-mine Cultuurcentrum Genk.

Until December 31st, the work of 16 careful selected designers is on display and for sale here. You can go and take a look at the designs of Noortje De la haye, Gilberte Claes, Roos De Krom, Mieke Dierckx, Sofie Hermans,Linde Hermans, Lore Langendries, Fabio Lorefice, Katrien Matthys, Joeri Reynaert, Jihyun Ryou, Dik Scheepers, Caro Van den hole, Karen Wuytens, Jill Ryckaert and Sofie Boons yourself every week from Thursday until Sunday (from 14.00h – 19.00h) until the end of the year.

The MAD-shop is the result of a collaboration between Creative Drive (a project of Stad Genk and Design Platform Limburg) and the Media, Arts & Design Faculty. For more information, see: http://www.mad-shop.be/

(Film by TV Limburg, see: http://www.tvl.be/nl/2011-08-31/designer-pop-up-shops-in-c-mine/)