Design Lecture Series: Federico Pérez Villoro

Wednesday, February 26, 10:00am–1:00pm
CSB 218C

Federico Pérez Villoro is an artist and researcher living between Mexico City and New York. Through texts, performances, and digital artifacts, Federico explores the materiality of language and the impact of technology in socio-political behavior. His work has been exhibited internationally and published by Printed Matter, C Magazine, Gato Negro Ediciones, and the Walker Art Center’s The Gradient. Federico has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the Rhode Island School of Design and California College of the Arts. He has lectured and acted as a visiting critic at schools such as CalArts, The New School, UNAM, and Hongik University. In addition, Federico has advanced a number of experimental educational initiatives. He recently founded Materia Abierta, a summer program on theory, art, and technology in Mexico City. Previously, Federico developed Second Thoughts, a series of lectures, workshops, and discussions on contemporary design at Fundación Alumnos and Museo Tamayo. Alongside Roxana Fabius, he is the co-founder of (human) learning, an itinerant study group that has been hosted in spaces such as P! in New York City, Art Center/South Florida in Miami, Florida, and ZONAMACO in Mexico City. In 2013, he received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

http://spring2020-seminar.designforthe.net/

Design Lecture Series: David Reinfurt

Wednesday, February 19, 10:00am–1:00pm
CSB 218C

An independent graphic designer in New York City, David Reinfurt introduced the study of graphic design at Princeton University in 2010. In late September 2019, Inventory Press and D.A.P. published a book based on his teaching, A New Program for Graphic Design, a do-it-yourself textbook that synthesizes the pragmatic with the experimental and builds on mid- to late-twentieth-century pedagogical models to convey advanced principles of contemporary design, rooted in three courses (Typography, Gestalt, and Interface).

As a co-founder of O-R-GDexter Sinister, and The Serving Library, Reinfurt has developed several models that have reimagined graphic design and publishing in the twenty-first century. He was 2016–17 Mark Hampton Rome Prize Fellow in Design at the American Academy in Rome and is the co-author of Muriel Cooper (MIT Press, 2017).

http://spring2020-seminar.designforthe.net/

Design Lecture Series: Yotam Hadar

Wednesday, February 12, 10:00am–1:00pm
CSB 218C

New York-based designer Yotam Hadar has over a decade of experience collaborating with studios, agencies, and clients in leading concept-driven projects in typography, print, branding, environ­mental and interactive media for clients in culture, retail, media, education, government, and tech. Past experience includes Nike NY, 2×4, Pentagram, Project Projects, Sagmeister & Walsh, Hugo & Marie, Mother Design, among others. A design educator since 2009, Yotam taught design and typography at Yale School of Art, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design and Rutgers University.

Design Lecture Series: Kristian Henson

Wednesday, February 5, 10:00am–1:00pm
CSB 218C

New York-based graphic designer Kristian Henson is part of the publishing imprint, Hardworking Goodlooking (with Dante Carlos, Czar Kristoff, Clara Balaguer). They recently spoke to the Walker about how cultural work can be used as a critical tool through various platforms, especially publishing, which they explore through a transnational collaboration: Henson works in New York; Carlos, in Portland; Kristoff and Balaguer in the Philippines.

Hardworking Goodlooking

http://spring2020-seminar.designforthe.net/

Rutgers Design Lecture Series: Neema Githere

Wednesday, January 29, 10:00am–1:00pm
CSB 218C

Neema Githere is a curator and guerrilla educator/performance artist based in the #digitaldiaspora. She is part of the collective Data Healing which seeks to illuminate + activate the intersections between nature, spirituality, and technology. Her new site Presentism2020 is a manifestation of her ongoing theories, projects and relationships: afropresentism, #healingimagery, radical love, #divestfrominstagram, and data healing.

“It may feel as if the internet is up in the clouds, but in actual fact it’s at the bottom of the ocean, in the form of 880,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cables. These cables make up the essential infrastructure for sending all our emails, websites, photos, films and of course emoticons. Beneath the waves, our wireless life is very bound up with physical wires—it’s the virtual made physical. Among the submerged cities, drowned sailors and hidden histories, the ocean is home to a complex communications network. Here, the technologies controlled by the West expand along the old colonial routes, so in a way the cables are the hardware of a new, electronic imperialism. Deep Down Tidal is a video essay in typical net.art style, weaving together cosmological, spiritual, political and technological narratives about water and its role in communication, then and now. It’s about how this cable network can facilitate the retention and expansion of power. It also reminds us that water doesn’t forget.”

This session will be a reflection-based workshop around the concept of data healing. Terms of interest: data trauma, data healing, cyber doula. As students read the assigned text, I encourage them to reflect upon & attempt to self-define the above terms, which will frame our conversation in class.

http://spring2020-seminar.designforthe.net/

Spring 2020 Design Lecture Series

Design Seminar: Contemporary Practice invites designers to share their practice, methods, and references. When asked to describe themselves, these practitioners often list multiple titles—creative directors, art directors, book designers, web designers, interaction designers, industrial designers, programmers, writers, researchers, technologists, ethicists, educators—reflecting the multidisciplinarity in the field today. Their subjects of study range include publishing, materiality, machine learning, sensing, data healing, and more… Through presentations, reading discussions, writing, and weekly engagements with different designers, this semester-length seminar will introduce students to a variety of contemporary practices.

We invite you to join these lectures, held in CSB 218C on Wednesdays from 9:50–12:50. For more information, please visit: http://spring2020-seminar.designforthe.net/