HYB Intimacy at distance, a tech quest 

Kategorie: Design & Technologien
Keywords: Kulturtheorie, Designgeschichte, Kulturgeschichte, Human-Computer Interaction, Human Connectedness

A course revisiting the endless technological quest of bringing each other closer together at distance.
Nummer und TypBDE-BDE-T-WP-BW-2013.22F.001 / Moduldurchführung
ModulWahlpflichtmodul Theorie 2. Semester 
VeranstalterDepartement Design
LeitungDr. Joëlle Bitton
ZeitMo 7. Februar 2022 bis Fr 11. Februar 2022 / 8:30–17 Uhr
Anzahl Teilnehmende6 - 20
ECTS2 Credits
VoraussetzungenFür DDE-Bachelor-Studierende:
Keine
LehrformThe class will be structured around discussions, lectures, presentations of film and literature materials and in-class exercises.
ZielgruppenWahlpflichtseminar Studierende 2. Semester
Lernziele / KompetenzenThe aim of the seminar is to reflect on the ways communication and interaction interfaces have modelled our lives and our expectations of relations at distance. We will look at historical case studies, at the field of human connectedness and at how intimacy, sex, friendships, daily conversations are choreographed by online experiences. The seminar is structured as on-going dialogue and the students will work on certain questions each day. In the end, a short essay & a web app experience should be created to showcase an interpretation of the topic.
InhalteRight now, you are reading the description of this course on an intranet service or on an email. You have spent the last two years of the pandemic discussing, learning, engaging with the world online, likely on Zoom and may have even used a co-working platform such as a Miro board. You are using WhatsApp or Instagram or Facebook and many other communication apps on a daily basis. This is how you are in touch with your friends, lovers, sexual partners, family… Maybe you even consider yourself “addicted”.

How did we get here? Over the past twenty years, the tech industry has built an infrastructure of communicating at distance and of sharing the most intimate parts of ourselves (even the ones we are not aware of).

Yet, distant communication interfaces are not new: mail - via horse, train, air and more recently, the telephone have played essential roles in the construction of our interactions. And just as the emergence of the phone and the networks in the 19th century enhanced our communication models, the Internet and its palette of services accommodate distance in our daily relations. Each of these systems have set a range of social behaviours that frame our expectations and boundaries. And with every service, we discover how they can allow us to be in a greater mode of intimacy with each other.

This course will address:
  • the affordance of distance for relationships (sexual/non-sexual)
    
- the field of human connectedness in human-computer interaction

  • the ways communities build up around networks 

  • the data that is generated and that commodify our conversations
Bibliographie / LiteraturA bibliography will be distributed at the beginning of the seminar.
Leistungsnachweis / TestatanforderungActive and regular attendance of all the class sessions (min. 80%); participation to discussions; Compose and present an independent contribution to the topic (short essay&web app experience).
Termine7 - 11 February 2022 (block week)

7/8 February 8:30 - 12:00 planned on site
Bewertungsformbestanden / nicht bestanden
Termine (7)