Interaction Design Unstable Media
NOT A PALIMPSEST
In thinking about a description of the process that a students undergoes when following an educational course, like ours of five consecutive years, it could be compared with the re-writing that is done on a palimpsest. The old text, that once coded the student is scrapped from its ground, and when that ground is sufficiently cleansed,
the surface is filled with a re-writing, that may be totally opposed to the code that was there before. The educational institute then is the factory, the prison, the correctional institute that scrapes away the identity of the person,
and recomposes it anew with a new text, a new code (of thinking and conduct). In this version of education the act of learning then is a fundamental re-coding of the student. The only hope then is that some traces of earlier texts can still be deciphered, as is the case with the classical examples of palimpsests. (e.g. the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus).
Over the years I have seen students change during their study at DOGtime. I cannot deny that, yet I hope that it was not due to the machinic logic mentioned above. For,
it would be a rather gruesome way of reformatting people as if they were considered to be merely a hard disc of a computer that needed a new, updated Operating System (a new form of the palimpsest, only without the traces of the former texts). It would be the act of the undoing of history, of destroying time having had its singular effect on the formation of an identity. If this would be the case, the student would have been rid of the capacity to construct, even momentarily, a view on his/hers own trajectory of learning, and thus on his/hers understanding of how to learn.
Within DOGtime we do our best to refrain from this type of the re-formatting of students. It would imply that we would have such a text, a code to overwrite an old one. That text is missing as long as we teach at DOGtime. How then to explain for the changes of the students that have followed the course?
Apart from the simple observation that people change overtime, maybe at DOGtime the students are more prone to change, even to the point where transformation becomes chronic. Why so? Perhaps it is because when you are invited to closely examine something, you cannot help to note the inherent changes that manifest themselves in a permanent flux. Experience always invents, and every perception is a creative activity culminating in the production of an event of change.
This year’s graduation candidates of IDUM show in a
rich diversity of approaches work that demonstrates and showcases a transformational ability. Gosia Kaczmarek in her work let you experience the transitional zone of medial attention that scrapes against the perception of real, bodily life. A infra mince zone that in its instability oscillates between different perceptual registers, and invites the participant of the work to interact with this unsettling condition and re-sensitize him/herself with this new perceptual paradigm. Eugen Georg in his post-dramatic theatre piece reaches a similar instability by actively deconstructing the traditional frames and suppositions
that are associated with drama and performative practices. Alexander (Sascha)Kraemer combines real mirroring effects with synthetic mirroring and the live interaction between these two perceptual and medial registers. Put yourself in the middle (medium) and experience what it is to deeply reflect on the instability of media. Travel and transition are the elements of the installation by Alexander Schierl. As a commuting student he travelled in his Rietveld years between Berlin and Amsterdam; somewhere in the middle between the two locations is a pole in Bunde, it is the hinge that unsettles time, place and a sense of destination.
I am very pleased with this year’s graduation candidates, for they show convincingly to master the ability to produce the conditions for change; not only on the level of perception and medial awareness but also on the level of their own and your identity transformation.
Willem van Weelden
Thesis tutor DOGtime5 Interaction Design Unstable Media
Interaction Design Unstable Media
NOT A PALIMPSEST
In thinking about a description of the process that a students undergoes when following an educational course, like ours of five consecutive years, it could be compared with the re-writing that is done on a palimpsest. The old text, that once coded the student is scrapped from its ground, and when that ground is sufficiently cleansed,
the surface is filled with a re-writing, that may be totally opposed to the code that was there before. The educational institute then is the factory, the prison, the correctional institute that scrapes away the identity of the person,
and recomposes it anew with a new text, a new code (of thinking and conduct). In this version of education the act of learning then is a fundamental re-coding of the student. The only hope then is that some traces of earlier texts can still be deciphered, as is the case with the classical examples of palimpsests. (e.g. the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus).
Over the years I have seen students change during their study at DOGtime. I cannot deny that, yet I hope that it was not due to the machinic logic mentioned above. For,
it would be a rather gruesome way of reformatting people as if they were considered to be merely a hard disc of a computer that needed a new, updated Operating System (a new form of the palimpsest, only without the traces of the former texts). It would be the act of the undoing of history, of destroying time having had its singular effect on the formation of an identity. If this would be the case, the student would have been rid of the capacity to construct, even momentarily, a view on his/hers own trajectory of learning, and thus on his/hers understanding of how to learn.
Within DOGtime we do our best to refrain from this type of the re-formatting of students. It would imply that we would have such a text, a code to overwrite an old one. That text is missing as long as we teach at DOGtime. How then to explain for the changes of the students that have followed the course?
Apart from the simple observation that people change overtime, maybe at DOGtime the students are more prone to change, even to the point where transformation becomes chronic. Why so? Perhaps it is because when you are invited to closely examine something, you cannot help to note the inherent changes that manifest themselves in a permanent flux. Experience always invents, and every perception is a creative activity culminating in the production of an event of change.
This year’s graduation candidates of IDUM show in a
rich diversity of approaches work that demonstrates and showcases a transformational ability. Gosia Kaczmarek in her work let you experience the transitional zone of medial attention that scrapes against the perception of real, bodily life. A infra mince zone that in its instability oscillates between different perceptual registers, and invites the participant of the work to interact with this unsettling condition and re-sensitize him/herself with this new perceptual paradigm. Eugen Georg in his post-dramatic theatre piece reaches a similar instability by actively deconstructing the traditional frames and suppositions
that are associated with drama and performative practices. Alexander (Sascha)Kraemer combines real mirroring effects with synthetic mirroring and the live interaction between these two perceptual and medial registers. Put yourself in the middle (medium) and experience what it is to deeply reflect on the instability of media. Travel and transition are the elements of the installation by Alexander Schierl. As a commuting student he travelled in his Rietveld years between Berlin and Amsterdam; somewhere in the middle between the two locations is a pole in Bunde, it is the hinge that unsettles time, place and a sense of destination.
I am very pleased with this year’s graduation candidates, for they show convincingly to master the ability to produce the conditions for change; not only on the level of perception and medial awareness but also on the level of their own and your identity transformation.
Willem van Weelden
Thesis tutor DOGtime5 Interaction Design Unstable Media