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Interrogative Design Workshop—
Conflict, Trauma, Design
Instructor: Krysztof Wodiczko
Office: N52-396
Telephone:617-253-4415
Send e-mail: wodiczko@mit.edu
Units: 3-3-6
Level: H, U
Prerequisites:
Interrogative - n., a construction that has the force of a question.
This course will focus on the development of experimental design concepts and projects that interrogate, respond, address, and transform the conditions of life of those who are marginalized and estranged, of those, who in the course of their survival, suffered overwhelming life events and social conflicts.
The politico-ethical credo of this course is that democracy cannot be sustained and advanced if we do not provide the cultural conditions for the inclusion of voice and presence of (and by) those who are perceived and treated (at best tolerated) as strangers.
In considering the social and psychological impact of the present War, the course will look at the situation of war veterans and their families - to whom trauma spreads, creating the condition of secondary trauma - and of the trauma experienced by the Iraqi and Afghani civilians caught in the theatre of war. Students will propose, fabricate, and experiment with devices that could be described as cultural prosthetics, instruments that replace defective or absent parts of the body (physical and mental) with artificial substitutes; these allow traumatized bodies to extend their reach and negotiate both the physical and social realms. The prosthetics can explore analogue, mechanical, electronic, digital, or any other objects, networked objects, spaces, and systems. Projects can build upon the discussions of vetrans and civilians affected by the current war, or be developed in relation to other situations of conflict and trauma, and investigations for design.
