Pierre Lévy

Matter of Transformation

/ Résumé / How the interweaving between design, philosophy and human & social sciences impacts practices, societies and individuals

Course taught in English for the master degree (5ects) at TU/e, The Netherlands by Pierre Lévy and Caroline Hummels.

Krishnaa Seck Stijn Oude Lenferink Yael van Engelen Frederique de Jongh Frederique de Jongh Rosa van der Veen Sam van der Horst Loes Voermans Randi Nuij MoT Exhibition MoT Exhibition MoT Exhibition MoT Exhibition MoT Exhibition

This elective invites students to consider and deepen (both hands-on and through reflection) their understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and various concepts from human sciences that are at stake in the design process for transformation, including philosophy, psychology, sociology and economics. For this aim, three frameworks are introduced and discussed (examples):

  • complex thinking,
  • learning,
  • lenses & perspectives,
  • embodied theories,
  • post-phenomenology,
  • transition theories.

Throughout the elective, students analyse the implication of these frameworks on the designs they create (as aesthetics propositions), and of designs on these frameworks. To reflect on their practice based on the three frameworks, students visualise all noticeable shifts in their designs, in their processes and in relations between and within these frameworks.

This reflection will be supported by a frequential redesign of an everyday design, seen as an embodied experience of an aesthetical and ethical proposition.

/ Learning objectives /
  • Identify, structure and illustrate relations between design (as aesthetical propositions) and other disciplinary fields within human and social sciences,
  • Reflect on the impact of design on society and on oneself.