RISD

As people increasingly turn to computers and smartphones to run their lives, tech firms and other businesses create a seemingly endless array of tools designed to streamline digital activity. And although we benefit from these innovations, there is much about them that runs counter to the artistic imagination. Recognizing the growing desire of artists and designers to exploit the creative potential of new technologies, this spring RISD launched Computation, Technology and Culture (CTC), an undergraduate concentration that invites students to experiment with digital devices, programs and languages, and integrate them into their diverse studio practices.

Experimental and Foundation Studies (EFS) Programs Head Shawn Greenlee 96 PR, who administers the new concentration, says a central goal is to foster more versatile makers by limiting dependence on proprietary hardware and software. “We want students to resist using technology the way creators think they’re supposed to use it,” the electronic media and sound artist explains. Through the new 15-credit undergraduate concentration (which is like a minor at other colleges), students learn to write code, develop software and build programmable machines while also coming to better understand how these things are transforming art, design and the world at large.

Greenlee began leading efforts to establish a CTC concentration once the interest and need became increasingly apparent in recent years. In co-teaching a course called Experimental Data Visualization, he realized that students were searching for ways “to engage with [digital] code as a medium and material.” Soon he and fellow faculty members Carl Lostritto and Clement Valla MFA 09 DM began applying for various grants and other sources of funding to plan a cutting-edge curriculum suited to the needs of emerging artists and designers.

CTC “creates pathways for students to specialize” in many areas of digital art and technologically-informed making, says Greenlee – from programming for music and sound design to creating virtual-reality and immersive environments. Concentrators can also take related courses in diverse departments – from Sculpture studios on robotics to Liberal Arts courses on the history of technology – to build a highly individualized, interdisciplinary experience. Designed for those at all levels of experience with programming and code, the concentration is expected to attract roughly 50 students a year as it continues to grow.

Initial courses
In addition to the core Introduction to Computation studio, this year’s innovative CTC courses explored various aspects of our increasingly programmed world, from internet-age art and architecture to sonic sculpture and, in a Wintersession travel course to Argentina, the intersection of digital and artisanal cultures. Through spring studios like Ambient Interfaces: Activated Objects, taught by Assistant Professor Alejandro Borsani, students made use of conceptual approaches and learned practical strategies for integrating electronics into their work.

Click to read more…

As the high-tech breakthroughs and entertainment emanating from Silicon Valley and Hollywood cross increasingly more international borders, so does a prevailingly western vision of progress – of how globalization will reshape our shared world. “We discount the fact that there are other visions of the future that come from different cultures,” notes Associate Professor of Industrial Design Paolo Cardini. In recognition of this, the Italian designer is spearheading a RISD-supported project called the Global Futures Lab, a series of international workshops aimed at articulating alternative versions of what’s to come – both utopian and dystopian – and that reflect local realities of non-western communities.

As the second recipient of RISD’s Global Faculty Fellowship (GFF), Cardini has already led workshops at the Art University of Isfahan in Iran and the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, with others forthcoming at Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru in Lima and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. In these four-day workshops the designer works with local students in developing “souvenirs from the futures” – artifacts inspired by student-written speculative fiction and then fabricated in cooperation with local artisans. Cardini plays the role of catalyst: he introduces a structure that allows participants to generate ideas and then encourages their realization in the form of tangible objects informed by students’ own cultural conditions and traditions.

“Projects like Paolo’s are taking RISD to places in the world where we have not typically worked in a sustained way,” says RISD Global Director Gwen Farrelly, who works with Academic Affairs to co-sponsor the GFF. Last year, as the program’s inaugural fellow, Assistant Professor of Literary Arts and Studies Avishek Ganguly conducted research into translation in global contexts and next year, as RISD’s 2017/18 fellow, Assistant Professor of Architecture Emanuel Admassu will launch a project titled Where is Africa? that engages architects, designers and artists across that continent in a series of dialogues.

Click to read more…

HI-SEAS crew member Andrzej Stewart tries on a modular space suit designed by students Erica Kim 18 AP/ID (center) and Kasia Matlak MID 17 (right). | photo by Jo Sittenfeld MFA 08 PH

Grad student Kasia Matlak MID 17 and undergraduate Erica Kim 18 AP/ID took advantage of a rare opportunity to consult with “virtual astronauts” on a space suit they designed and made for a simulated mission to Mars. Working closely with RISD’s longtime NASA Coordinator Michael Lye 96 ID – a senior critic in the Industrial Design department – Matlak and Kim helped to develop the suit during a yearlong independent research project. In January they plan to ship it across the Pacific for the next Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission, an extended stay inside a solar-powered dome that simulates long-duration space exploration.

On Monday, December 5, the team unveiled the suit and helped HI-SEAS Chief Engineering Officer Andrzej Stewart try it on for comfort. “Are you feeling claustrophobic in there?” Lye asked via a two-way radio system. “No, but I’m an ice hockey goalie in my free time, so I’m used to wearing a lot of gear,” Stewart quipped in response.

Weighing in at approximately 50 pounds, the suit feels a little bit lighter than what an actual (heavier) space suit would feel like on Mars, where the gravitational force is weaker than Earth’s. It’s also much easier to get in and out of than typical space suits now in use, taking about 15 minutes and requiring the help of just one person.

Click to read more…

Senior Suzanne Alward 17 CR uses a model to consider how best to present her work in a gallery setting.

As every RISD student knows, there’s a lot more to earning a degree in the arts than mastering technical skills and developing a strong aesthetic point of view. Ceramics majors and MFAs enrolled in a fall seminar co-taught by thriving Brooklyn-based sculptor Nicole Cherubini 93 CR and historian/curator/studio potter Sequoia Miller are developing strategies for cultivating ideas in the studio and presenting their work to the wider world.

The seminar has two principal goals, says Miller. The first is to teach students research methods and provide other tools for advancing their studio practice. The second is to build a greater awareness of the context in which artists operate – to consider ways of shaping the public’s experience of their work by writing a meaningful artist’s statement, for example, or thoughtfully presenting their work in a gallery setting.

“It’s challenging to translate abstract ideas into a known language without narrowing them down too much,” Cherubini explains. She organized field trips to NYC and Boston, where students toured clay-based exhibitions, garnered ideas and discussed real-world practices with gallerists and museum curators at the Museum of Art + Design in NYC and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Click to read more…