SYLLABUS
[POST] PLANETARY DESIGN
Professor: Ed KELLER
School of Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design
PSDS 5702 elective seminar open to cross school / division students
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“As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron. My longing was beyond the power of opposition; I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms toward the god of my vocation and felt myself drawn with the suddenness of thought through the trackless immensity of space.”
This course will run as a design research seminar exploring all the aspects of design at a post-planetary scale. Throughout the semester we will screen scifi films, read bright and dark futurologies, scan, debate, and re-scan critical histories and theories, and ultimately produce a set of ‘black papers’, design
proposals, short videos and/or interactive projects that speculate on the next 50 to 1000 [yes, one thousand!] years of cross disciplinary design. Post-Planetary will bring invited guests and collaborators to participate in the course via lectures and reviews. The course aims to create a set of proposals outlining the full spectrum of risks and benefits of going off-world, of taking ecology beyond the human, and beyond the planet.
What is at stake at the Post-Planetary scale?
Design today usually deals with objects, supply chains, recycling, and cradle to cradle. Sustainable design is justified according to a logic of Glocal: ‘Think Global, Act Local’. Yet, when we think of longer timeframes- decades, centuries or millennia- this set of questions inevitably scales up to the post-planetary. We cannot think of design a century from now without taking it off planet. The consequences of this leap will be profound. Industry in space will be a wildly profitable and phenomenally hazardous enterprise. The ultimate design strategy takes into account planetary and larger scales of design. And in this process we may well discover or contact alien life. What could be more disruptive to a human centered model of ecology than these design variables? What new politics and economies, what new modes of individual and collective sovereignty, will emerge in the cosmic scape that we see in films like Kubrick’s 2001? This course will explore what it means to go beyond Geopolitics to define the role of design in establishing a new Cosmopolitics.
COURSE STRUCTURE: Post-Planetary will operate as a research seminar: films and readings will be assigned; in class we will run a series of discussions and lectures. Across the semester, these seminar sessions will continue, and students will team up to produce a series of design research studies, culminating in a final assignment to be presented at the end of the semester, taking the form of research ‘black papers’, design proposals, short videos, and/or interactive media pieces. Engagement with outside competitions and challenges, such as the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, will be encouraged. Additional lectures and events will take place outside of class time and will be recorded for async viewing and participation. All work should be accumulated in an OpenAccess dossier ready for publication online and in print. Publication of work is an option and will include prior events including the 2014 Post Planetary Capital symposium, as well as student research.
SPECIAL GUESTS: Post-Planetary will include invited guests and collaborators with expertise in fields ranging from astrobiology to post national politics to urban design. Previous guests have included Peter Watts, Kim Stanley Robinson, Benjamin Bratton, Geoff Manaugh, Carla Leitao, Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, Dan Mellamphy, Kazys Varnelis, Mo Salemy, and others.] All dates TBC.
COLLABORATION: Post-Planetary may have the opportunity to participate in an online forum initiated by eFlux. Details to follow. Additional collaborations TBA. In the past we have run conferences in parallel to the course, such as the Post Planetary Capital event: http://ctm.parsons.edu/events/conferences/sp-2014-post-planetary-capital-symposium/
SCREENINGS AND READINGS: Post-Planetary will explore a fabulous lineup of scifi films and texts, as well as a cutting edge selection of critical theory, futurology and history. We will read some novels and theory texts in full, and a wide range of shorter excerpts. A partial selection is listed below to give a sense of the range. Online materials and games TBA.
FILMS
Under the Skin Nausicaa Her Interstellar Powers of Ten Black Mirror Leviathan Nostalgia for the Light Cave of Forgotten Dreams Melancholia Code 46 Ghost in the Shell 2 Children of Men 2001 Minority Report Videodrome Alphaville Pandorum Andromeda Strain The Fountain Mission to Mars Aliens Solaris The Thing District 9 Moon Total Recall Contact Event Horizon SUNSHINE Fifth Element Pitch Black Super 8 Dark City Final Fantasy Avatar
READINGS
2312 Dune Blindsight Echopraxia Accelerando Stars My Destination Rainbows End Xenofeminist Manifesto The Eerie Silence Across the Sea of Suns The Geopolitical Aesthetic Means Without End Shockwave Rider Diamond Age & Snow Crash UBIK Invisibles Future Now HP Lovecraft [various] Cyclonopedia In the Valley of the Kings Rendezvous with Rama Solaris Schild’s Ladder The Star Pit Skylark The Authority Neuromancer Cosmicomics Global Catastrophic Risks Limits to Growth Hypersea Essays on Extinction
…and many more writers including Haraway, Colebrook, Bostrom, Hanson, Dyson, Cirkovic, Plait, et al.
SEMINAR OVERVIEW:
The course is divided into three sections [see week by week schedule at
http://post-planetary.tumblr.com/class_sched for detailed readings/films/assignments]:
THINKING THE PLANETARY
Planetary Design, Biopolitics, Technology, Ecology
Readings, screenings and in class discussions.
Research proposal due Week 5. Students work individually or in small teams.
THINKING THE [POST] PLANETARY
Readings, screenings and in class discussions.
Research project reviews begin ~ Week 10. Students are recommended to work in teams.
[POST] PLANETARY DESIGN
Readings, screenings and in class discussions.
Final research project/paper/video work.
WEEK 15: FINAL ASSIGNMENTS DUE, final class and review, date TBA
GRADING:
Class Participation: 10%
Midterm Paper & research proposal: 30%
Research Project: 30%
Final paper: 30%
Learning Outcomes and Deliverables
By the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Think critically about design at multiple scales; understand how and why design has both local and global consequences; make basic links in thinking and practice between design theory, philosophy, science, culture, the arts.
2. Follow contemporary/cutting edge science and technology and use innovations in both research and design to inform projects, as well as think predictively about disciplinary disruption and its consequences.
2. Synthesize concepts from both science and science fiction and demonstrate this synthetic thinking during in class discussions; in projects; and in presentations
3. work in teams integrating diverse approaches, developing a research project and basic design proposal for a ‘post planetary’ scale.
4. present team project work in both a final project to be reviewed in a group final discussion, and a short paper