Schedule

1: Images and Objects

Week 1: Introduction: What is a medium? What is design?

1/6

•  Course Introduction
•  Introduction to MADD Facilities

1/8

• Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140, pp. 1-36
• In-class climate cases

Week 2: Design and the Anthropocene

1/13

• Jeremy Davies, The Birth of the Anthropocene, pp. 1-68
• Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, Polar Diamond
• Amy Balkin, et al., A People’s Archive of Sinking and Melting
• Isabella Kirkland, Descendant (1999), Ascendant (2000), Gone (2004)
• USGS Repeat photography project
• Justin Brice Guariglia, Topographies

1/15

• Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything (various chapters, PDF pages: “Chapter 1: Beyond Radical Design?” pp. 16-21, “Chapter 3: Design as Critique” pp. 43-52, and “Chapter 5: A Methodological Playground: Fictional Worlds and Thought Experiments” pp. 70-82)
• Benjamin Bratton, “On Speculative Design” (online)

Week 3: Graphic Novels

1/20

• NO CLASS – MLK 

1/22

• How to read a comic or graphic novel
• Richard McGuire, Here

❖ 1/24

• Exercise and assignment: Create an object from a future of climate change that is evocative of a climate-changed world.

❖ 1/24

• Special Screening of Snowpiercer (2013) at Doc Films

2: Narrative

Week 4: Film

1/27

• How to read a film
• Discuss Snowpiercer (2013)

1/29

• First Reformed (2017, watch on your own)
• Paul Schrader, The Transcendental Style in Film (excerpt)
• Installation room and alternate reality lecture

Week 5: Games and Interactive Art

2/3

• How to read a game
• Ian Bogost, “Procedural Rhetoric” in Persuasive Games (pp. 1-40)
• James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (pp. 1-12)
• Geoff Kaufman and Mary Flanagan, “A Psychologically ‘Embedded’ Approach to Designing Games for Prosocial Causes” (pp. 1-13)
• Tomorrow Corporation, Little Inferno (play for at least 1 hour and watch ending)
• Jersey Fonseca, Daniel Lee, Hurston Wallace, and Hamlet Fernandez, Fungy (student-created game)

2/4

• Meet with your group to play your board game (before Wednesday’s class)

2/5

• Present board games and design techniques: Climate Catan, Spirit Island, Photosynthesis, Terraforming Mars, Evolution Climate, and Planet

 2/7

• Optional but Recommended: Critical Inquiry Climate Change Theory Event

Week 6: Literary Fictions

2/10

• Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140, pp. 37-298

2/12

• Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140, pp. 298-375
• Amitav Ghosh, “Stories,” The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) pp. 7-24

❖ 2/14

• Exercise and assignment due: Create a card/board/tabletop game in a small group that explores the futures of climate change, exchange and playtest it in class

Week 7: Literary (and Collective) Fictions

2/17

• Exercise: Play Dread and/or Heartwood tabletop storytelling/roleplaying game in the MADD lab

❖ 2/17

• Final project abstract due

2/19

• Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 pp. 376-613

2/21

• Screening/Listening session 

3: Sound and Space

Week 8: Sound Art

2/24

• John Luther Adams, Become Ocean (score)
• Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, performance of “Dear Matafele Peinem” at 2014 United Nations Climate Summit
• Chris Watson, “Vatnajökull,” Weather Report (2003)
• R Murray Shafer, “The Soundscape”

2/26

• In-class final project workshop of key concepts, narratives, and experience design

Week 9: Galleries and Public Spaces

 3/2

• Eve Mosher, HighWaterLine (2007)
• ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro, Cry You One
• Maya Lin, Pin River

3/4

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, watch on your own)

Week 10: Final Project Experiences

3/9

• Final presentations 1/2

3/11

• Final presentations 2/2

❖ 3/15:

• Final projects due: Collaboratively create a climate change interactive room in groups of 4-5. The room should include works in at least 3 different media. Etc.