The Softness of Things: Technology in Space and Form

Catalog description

Through a series of lectures and weekly prompts, this hands-on course introduces a methodology that facilitates the process from thinking to making. Softness is used as both a theoretical and material framework that asks students to rethink the edges of the real and to to engage with structures, organizations, materials and relationships as malleable, fluid, and open to transformation. Students are introduced to foundational concepts through a wide range of examples and readings, and are invited to critically reflect on how these concepts inform and guide their own practice and creative journey. The weekly assignments are meant to help students become comfortable with a variety of techniques and making practices, and in a rapid, playful and experimental manner engage with ideas in an embodied and enacted way. Given that they have a week to complete each assignment, the goal is to help students delve into the core and essential properties of each concept and find ways to express and explore them in their work. The cadence of the lectures and survey of a wide range of artistic practices aims to expose students to different approaches to making, and importantly help them understand how theory and practice are not separate realms but indeed intertwined.