DEADLINE 31.3. 2017.
For further questions please contact:
Touch me, touch me now.
Affekt und Design
1 – CALL FOR APPLICATION
We live in a society in which the failure to understand complex relationships seems to find its way out in affects. Fear, enthusiasm, empathy. In echo chambers and the mutual reinforcement of opinions, in swarm-like movements within information networks, in references and links, in the Like and in the article headers in our News Feed, we act with affect. Joy, despair, anger. Is the world too big, to just think it? Contrary to Descartes‘ „cogito ergo sum“, we can assume that knowledge is based not only on cognitive processes, but also on our emotions. I feel therefore I am. Disgust, interest, shame.
Is the strong turn to the affects a result of an performance society which potentially suppresses affects What kind of attention should be paid to these affects? Should they be exposed, undermined, made use of? The ability to be affected and to affect others requires openness, needs movement and encounter. What are the consequences of mood, feeling, and emotion? Participation, impasse, corruption? Which personal emotional situations are triggered by prevalent structures? How do they motivate the designer? Unpleasant feelings can be opportunity spaces in which allies find each other. How does design act upon this? Sensuality, attraction, and provocation are aesthetically mediated — via points of contact, friction, or reaction. Their formability through surface, construction, materiality, and interaction requires the sensitivity of designers. In the coming Master programme, we want to go further and examine the inclusion of the affects in design, also with regard to their objectives, possibilities, and dangers.
In this one-year programme, rationality and emotion shall be considered in their interplay with design, personal feelings shall be examined with regards to their potential to produce radical changes, and the economy of attention is to be investigated in its relation to complex processes. A forum will be offered, for the experimental, conceptual, technical, and design development of objects, collections, products, processes, and scenarios. The Master thesis is developed in experimental studies and through various prototype stages, and is reflected both methodologically and theoretically. Observations and experiences in aesthetics, society, philosophy, technology, and economy offer orientation for the personal master project. In the submitted Master Proposal, the applicant’s self-understanding is to be made visible, and questions relevant to the applicant’s personal design practice, and the discourse around the concept of the affect, shall be introduced.
2 – PROGRAMM
Cooperative authorship
The Design Master Program University of the Arts aims to support students individually in their development of a creative and farsighted authorship. The competence for interdisciplinary cooperation shall be strengthened and tested, and qualities in the use of methods and tools shall be expanded and sharpened. Through a participation in the critical discourse of the Master program, the aim is to grow the ability to link fields of theory and of practice in project work in multifaceted and targeted ways.
The master theme as a starting point, discourse, connection, final chord
The annual theme master provides a common starting point, which can be interpreted individually through the conception of an own project: as an inspiration, as a question, programme, guide, objective. The master theme seeks an intensive exchange between theory and practice in order to stimulate the quality of the resulting projects and interactions through a tension between analytical and experimental, planned and speculative, scientific and artistic processes.
In the course of studying, the master theme is developed further through collective discussions and linked with the questions and experiences that are brought into play by the individual project plans. Enriched with these interactions and reflections the individual projects for the Master’s thesis shall be developed, and will eventually result in a joint final presentation and publication.
The individual project at the center of the programme of study
The personal creative development project is at the heart of the Master’s program. Starting with the original project draft, phases of content-related and procedural development are conceptualised, implemented, tested, and opened to debate. Depending on the individual topics, mentors and studios are allocated in order to allow for the best possible support and environment. The individual work will benefit from the studio communities, colloquia, and discourses on the contents and processes of the other participants, and enrich a multi-perspective exchange.
Teaching staff for design:
Prof. Carolin Lerch (fashion design)
Prof. Axel Kufus (product and process design)
Prof. Burkhard Schmitz (product and process design)
Lars Paschke, MA (fashion design)
Johanna Schmeer, MA (product and process design)
Dipl.Des. Hanna Wiesener (product and process design)
Teaching staff seminars:
Prof. Dr. Kathrin Busch (design theory),
Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Harms (fashion theory)
Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost (design methods)
Prof. Jozef Legrand (fine arts)
Prof. Holger Neumann (technology)
More information as well as the study handbook to download under: www.design.udk-berlin.de/studienberatung/
Schedule :
1st semester > October 2017 – February 2018
mid term presentation > Mid December 2017 und Mid February 2018
2nd semester > von March 2018 – September 2018
presentation during UdK open door day > July 2018
finishing the master thesis, working on the publication > July – September 2018 final examination > September 2018
3 – DETAILS
Students are being accepted to the MA design program after passing the entrance examination for winter semester 2017/18.
The Design Master starts in the winter term 2017/2018, lasts for 2 terms and will end September 2018.
The degree is Master of Arts (M.A.)
Dates to apply for the master program in design 2016/17: 02.02-31.03.2017
Please ensure your application arrives within that time frame. What counts is the arrival, not a postal stamp. It is not possible to apply via email or fax.
Entrance requirements
- 4-year Bachelor degree or similar in design, the arts, the humanities, social or engineering studies
- artistic talent
- for foreigners: knowledge of German language
The entrance examination is two-tiered:
- hand in of application (project proposal and portfolio)
- a select amount of applicants is invited to present their project in front of the master commission, followed by a personal interview After a successful entrance examination applicants with a BA degree below 210 ECTS (4-year BA) must attend up to two terms adjustment studies (30 ECTS per tem). The missing ECTS points can be gained in the BA projects offered.
The application (max DIN A3) should consist of the following:
- project proposal, introducing the individual artistic-scientific project draft relating to the MA Theme (Synopsis 2-3 DIN A4 pages)
- the portfolio should give an insight to the personal development and professional interest of the applicant (can consist of design, artistic and theoretical work)
- additional audiovisual work can be sent by CD/DVD in the following formats: .avi/.mp4/.mov (alternatively also on youtube/vimeo etc)
- CV
Formal application documents:
- approval application (online)
- CV
- copy of High School diploma
- copy BA diploma (must mention the gained ECTS points during studying)
- proof of German language (at point of application level B1, at point of immatriculation levelC1), foreign students with a degree in Germany do not have to shot this language proof
- applicants from the peoples republic of China please contact the academic services in the German embassy in Beijing before applying www.aps.org.cn
Attention! Two application addresses:
- please send portfolio, project proposal and CV to:
Universität der Künste Berlin
Masterstudiengang Design
Einsteinufer 43-53
10587 Berlin - please send formal application documents to:
Universität der Künste Berlin
Immatrikulations- und Prüfungsamt Masterstudiengang Design
Postfach 12 05 44
10595 Berlin
Alternatively the portfolio and project draft can be handed in personally on March 31st 2017 between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. here:
Universität der Künste Berlin
3D-Haus / Raum 110
Straße des 17. Juni 118
10623 Berlin