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The University of Southampton
Archaeologies of Media and Technology Research group

Radicality in Contemporary Graphic Design Event

56 Broken Kindle Screens
Time:
16:00 - 17:30
Date:
26 October 2017
Venue:
Communication Design studio T1001, South Building, WSA

For more information regarding this event, please email Dr Alessandro Ludovico at a.ludovico@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

AMT Symposium with Michael Dieter and Silvio Lorusso.

Graphic design has experienced a rapid and radical evolution over the last two decades, re-inventing itself to adapt to deeply and progressively ‘new’ media and systems. The strategic and social consequences of this evolution are investigated by only few researchers, focusing on dynamic changes in production and perception processes, instead of tracking the mainstream aesthetic trends. Among them there are our two guest speakers.

Silvio Lorusso (Institute of Network Cultures) in his “The Designer without Qualities” will examine how technical and social transformations have affected the professional and cultural value of the graphic designer. Looking at the impact of automation, visual relativism and intellectualisation, he’ll focus on the professional and cultural dilution of graphic design into online customisation and meme-making. He proposes to conceive design schools as ‘temporary autonomous elites’ that celebrate the marginality of the designer without qualities and serve as a basis for an emotional counterculture.

Michael Dieter (University of Warwick) in his "What Does Meta-Design Mean?” will discuss aspects of design practice through the idea of ‘meta-design’ - a mode of practice that goes beyond the modernist-based logos of the grid to ‘the moving ratio’ of twenty-first century information processing. He’ll discuss a selection of projects by artists, developers and designers to consider what meta-design might mean for politics and collective subjectivities, while also speculating on its future development in an era of voice interfaces, chatbots and machine-learning algorithms.

The event will be moderated by Alessandro Ludovico as part of Archaeologies of Media and Technology research group.
Please contact a.ludovico@soton.ac.uk for any enquiries.

AMT: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/amt/

(Image: 56 Broken Kindle Screens, Book by Sebastian Schmieg and Silvio Lorusso)

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