- Andrey Sudarikov
Andrey Sudarikov is a gigant in the multidisciplinary design field in Russia, so having a Masterclass with him and then getting theoretical insights into hies work approach was quite enriching, as he talked not only about the conceptional aspect or the technical aspect, but rather how you can implement projects in a big scale and the importance of networking.
- Saskia Schmidt- Work Work
Saskia Schmidt ist eine ehemlige Alumni der FH Joanneum und beschreibt in ihrem Video ihren Werdegang und die notwendigen Schritte für sie auf dem Weg in die Selbstständigkeit.
Im Video ist eine der ersten Grundsätze die sie teilt:
“Ein guter Gestalter kennt die Regeln und setzt sie außer Kraft.”
Damit ist gemeint, dass erst wenn due alle Regeln kennst du bewusst diese in der Gestaltung einbinden oder brechen kannst um hier etwas außergewöhnliches zu kreieren.
Schmidt geht im Anschluss darauf ein, dass man durch Herausforderungen wächst und beschreibt dies durch ihren Werdegang und wie man Chancen ergreifen kann/muss, am Beispiel dass sie ihr Praktikum bei EN GARDE bekommen hat, dadurch dass sie ihren Professor auf der FH angesprochen hat.
Ebenso beschreibt sie die Wichtigkeit nicht nur bei großen prestigeträchtigen Designagenturen zu arbeiten, sondern viel mehr zu schauen, welche Agentur/Unternehmen für einen am sympathischsten ist.
Schmidt reflektierte sich auf diesem Prozess konstant und dies ist wichtigkeit, weil sie dadurch ihre vorlieben im designürozess/feld kannte.
Ein weitere spannender und wichtiger Aspekt in meinen Augen ist, der Aspekt von Erwartungen vs Realität nachdem man die akademische Ausbildung abschließt und ins Arbeitsfeld einsteigt. Hier betonte sie sich nicht vion der Realität unterkriegen zu lassen. Im Rahmen dieser Ernüchterung kam in ihr der Wunsch auf Selbstständig zu werden.
„Du kannst nicht auf alles scheißen und dich dann wundern, wenn es stinkt.“ (Zwupp, Forward Festival) Dieses Zitat ist ein ständiger Begleiter in Schmidts leben und bedeutet für sie, dass wenn dich etwas die ganze Zeit beschäftigt du es ändern solltest.
Zum Abschluss geht Schmidt noch auf die Wichtigkeit eines Netzwerkes ein. Hierzu sagt sie, dass das schönste Netzwerk aus freunden besteht und das es essentiell ist ein Netzwerk zu haben für eine Selbstständigkeit, den dadurch ergeben sich Möglichkeiten, Projekte und Kunden.
Was ich an Schmidt’s Ansatz mochte, war ihr Mut und die Offenheit sich auf Möglichkeiten einzulassen und sich nicht auf einen Weg zu versteifen, denn am Ende haben all diese Möglichkeiten sie in die Selbsständigkeit ihrem finale “Arbeitsziel” geführt.
- Astrid Kury
Astrid Kury is a cultural scientist and director of Akademie Graz, in her talk she showcases her approach to work and why she thinks it is important to collaborate, why it ist he best way to work and how the process of collaborative work is.
A statement I reallly enjoyed in the beginning was that before starting to collaborate we first need to have a common understanding of things.
Benefits of collaborative methods:
- Bigger picture
- Brings different perspectives and expertises together
- All stakeholders have the possibility to integrate their perspective on the topic
- Mediation and audience development a spart of the creation
As with every project there aren’t only benefits, but also the challenges are mostly in the beginning and if you power through as a team, you can achieve great projects.
Challenges of interdisciplinary team:
- Need to get a mutual understanding and to define common aim and a common ground
- Building trust in an open process where it is not clear how the outcome will be
- Accepting joint authorship and share ideas
- Much more communication
Kury also talks about the needed aspects/roles in an interdisciplinary
In an interdisciplinary team you have the following roles:
- Scientific research
- Mediation
- Clients
- Arts
- Audience
- Design
All of these combine the multidisciplinary expertise.
To be more concrete: interdisciplinarity is working between different academic disciplines and in a broader sense it is about combing different perspectives.
Kury then talks about the steps to create an exhibition:
- Content
First the interdisciplinary team comes together, defines the topic, main goal and key messages and then splits up into different work groups. - Design
With the key message and topic, main goal and content in mind a design gets created.
- Exhibition
Finally, everything comes together in an exhibition.
For Kury culture is the best practice for working interdisciplinary.
Another main aspect when designing, which is also really interesting for me as an interaction design student is: Participation.
Participation means engaging the audience and integrating the knowledge of many people.
Participation in the cultural field aims for:
- Open access
- Social engagement
- Engaging more people in creative activity
- Fostering democracy / empowerment of minorities / fighting social exclusion
- Attracting new audiences
“Inclusion is the vision of a world without barriers to the diversity of human beings.”
I liked this quote a lot, even though it is idealistic it gives hope and a compass how to approach everyday life and not only projects.
Kury showed many projects, but the one I liked the most was from La casa de Carlota and friends. I think it is a beautiful use case of including people with down-syndrom and autism into the design/creative field in an easy, down-to-earth- level headed way. I also loved the statement the interviewer gave about “original design. Original people”, and liked the designs a lot.
- Florian Doppel-Prix
Doppel-Prix is talking about how to make the impossible, possible and the importance of thriving through the chaos and the importance of building up your skills and not getting frustrated, when you don’t succeed at first. Also I found his 40/40/20 rule very interesting. He tries to split it up into the following: 40% technological knowledge, 40% Hausverstand and 20% luck.
- Burcin Cem Arabacioglu
Rapid and big growth in cities. The scenery of Istanbul consists out of modern buildings and historic land sites. Arabacioglu poses the question how many had really hired professional interior architects, who can work sustainable. He then continous stating, that only a very small percentage hired professionals, as most can’t afford it.
Accourding to Arabacioglu the concept of sustainability is new for human kind, and has not been internalized by the large part of society and if there isn’t much awareness on it, the possibilities are limited.
“The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating: things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the end, wisely carefully we shall re-adjust the balance of animal and vegetable meet to suit our human needs.” (The Time Machine Herbert George Wells)
Arabacioglu emphasis the need of urgently acting sustainable and the very need for it, as the human population is growing, the need for resources is growing, but actual resources can’t keep up.
A statement or explanation I really liked was: A sustainable life is the application to a sustainable lifestyle choices and decisions. An understanding of a sustainable living requires an understanding of the approaches, that need to be adapted to meet current ecological, social and economic needs of humanity without compromising these factors for future generations.
The projects he mentioned, where also very interesting – I would have liked to see some graphs, or how these interiours looked like.
All in all, a very interesting talk with a key message of starting small and that everyone can take part thorugh making sustainable lifestyle choices.
- Sylwia Ulicka
Ulicka has several roles (designer, professor & researcher) and these help her with the topic she researches on, which is sustainability. Here Ulicka mentions the importance of balancing 3 aspects when wanting to design sustainable: ecological, social and economical aspects. What comes through the whole lecture is Ulickas critic on our consumeristic society and the need to design provocatively
to make people think and rethink what they take for granted.
- Ursula Tischner
Even though Urusla Tischner’s talk is from 2015, her topic is more burning then ever. In her talk Tischner talks about environmental and social policy issues. Here she raises awareness and triggered my attention when she stated that only 1% of what we designed will still be there in 6 months. This leaves so many questionmarks in my head as a designer: how/what do I want to design? How can I design as sustainable as possible and how can we change our society and the consumerist lifestyle.
- Klanglicht Symposium
Anastasija and Martin Lsjak stellen ein interessantes Konzept der zusammenarbeit vor: das einer transdisziplinären Gemeinschaft. Hier kommen alle mit ihren stärken zusammen und ergänzen sich bei den projekten. Diese Arbeitsmethode entspricht auch ihrem Ansatz des „New Holism“ in dem es darum geht, Projekte ganzheitlich zu denken und in einem Guss.
- Wolfgang Schlag
Schlag talks about the history of radio, his work in this area and the importance of it. A special focal point was how radios as a plattform was/is used for political engagements and propaganda. I find it interesting how passionatly he talks about the radio and his enthusiastic opinion on how he sees the importance of radios to engage, interact and reach people.
