2021 UCSB Summer Session B: MAT 80XU (E)Utopian Design Tools
Channel: Alexis Crawshaw
Date: 2021-07-09

IMAGES: Alexis Story Crawshaw and Diarmid Flatley
SOUND: Alexis Story Crawshaw

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

How would you make the world a better place?
This summer at UCSB, come join a special Media Arts and Technology class, (E)Utopian Design Tools.

We’ll leverage digital tools like Blender to explore creative problem-solving across THEMAS: Technologies, Humanities, Engineering, Mathematics, Arts, and Sciences.

You’ll design your own project, for example via: 
— interactive learning systems that guide behavior and ethical actions, or
— speculative design models of real-world objects and physical solutions for fabrication, or
—fictional worldbuilding and storytelling as a thinking tool to drive social and technological change, including dystopian cautionary tales.

So sign up on GOLD today to learn how to imagine and make a better tomorrow. 

Check the comments for more information. 



DATES + PRACTICAL INFO: 

UCSB Summer Session B starts Aug. 2 and runs through Sept. 11, 2021.
MAT 80XU meets synchronously on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3–4:40pm PST and has some supplementary asynchronous materials. Sections meet Mondays, with a choice between 3pm and 4pm PST starting times. 
UPDATE: Some scholarships are available. Primary scholarship consideration is by July 11 and late submissions may be considered on a case-by-case basis thereafter. See information here https://www.summer.ucsb.edu/courses/course-spotlight/creative-computing and send your application to info@summer.ucsb.edu.

Open to all majors, levels
No pre-requisites


COURSE DESCRIPTION:

MAT 80XU (E)Utopian Design Tools (Mediated Worlds: THEMAS Special Topics)
Instructor: Alexis Story Crawshaw
Session B

What does it mean to "make the world a better place"? How do we enact eutopias (good, possible places) rather than merely imagine utopias (ideal, impossible places)? (E)Utopian Design Tools is a creative-computing and project-based class that operationalizes positive and innovative change. Working with the 3D graphics program Blender and connected platforms, we leverage digital tools as the arm of our imaginations, addressing contemporary problems as creative opportunities. We engage worldmaking, immersive art, and speculative design through the transdisciplinary pedagogical model of THEMAS (STEM+Arts+creative Humanities) to impart a holistic thinking and making toolbox. Additionally, we train a making reflex to problem-solving through iteration and prototyping. Strategies for designing with impact, ingenuity, and empathy are further refined via concepts from cognitive science, user-centered design, engineering ethics, and information aesthetics, among other areas. A selective survey of the literature of utopias also contextualizes this undertaking. In these ways, we empower students to meet challenges holistically, effectively, imaginatively, and compassionately, with a cutting-edge toolkit supercharged with computation. The “real world” is not fixed but music in motion: we are its composers and performers. In this unique, historical moment, how will you create the future?