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LETTER no. 50

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Week no.8: Zoom Out. Monday

Design 101 MOOC, Abadir for iversity

YOUNG GUYS, YOUNG GIRLS

Talent wanted for getting out of this and playing
No special qualifications
Whether youre beautiful or youre bright
History could be on your side
WITH THE SITUATIONISTS
No telephone. Write or turn up:
32, rue de la Montagne-Genevive, Paris 5e.
Greetings from Paris!
Did you recognize the little people from todays postcard?
We had with us: Guy Debord, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Raoul
Vaneigem, Asger Oluf Jorn and Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio.
All of them, very important members of the Situationist
International (SI), an organization of social revolutionaries
in Europe (between 1957 and 1972).
The wandered the streets of Paris,
stumbling upon stuff to transform
into situations (ecstatic experiences).
They
They
They
They

believed in agitation.
had faith in creating situations.
would go everywhere.
would choose anything.

SI was into constructing daily, continuously, spontaneously.

Moments of life. Play was a free and creative activity.
Psychogeography
They Produced films, published journals, held
exhibitions, distributed comics, made graffitis.
They were against the mass media and into the
mass media.

Question of the day:

A city?
Shops, houses, streets, museums
Visitors, dreams, childhoods, fantasies
Images, imaginings, diseases
Memories, archaeology, industries
Crimes, myths, legends
Private, public
In any given space or time, there are various levels and ways
of walking, thinking, visiting a city
If your citys levels and ways were to be decided by you...
Which way would you choose? To which level would you go?

Homework no. 50
Last week, we spent some cozy time inside our rooms.
This week, we will spend some time inside our cities
(if you dont have a city, you must surely live inside a town,
village, communeetcetc.). We will discover new dimensions.
Spaces, people, buildings, memories. We will transform the
ordinary into the extraordinary. Simple activities to put
ourselves to the test.
Today, you will complete the quiz and prepare yourself for the
week. Heres what well be doing:
on Tuesday: you will map your city
on Wednesday: you will create a box with (inside) objects
taken from your city
on Thursday: you will play with mirrors (and your city)
on Friday: you will make a pinhole camera and take and develop
(a real picture) with it

on Saturday: you will relax and sketch things up

on Sunday: you will watch some nice things we are preparing
for you

What will I learn today?

You will learn to boost your ability to see things and create
connections...
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man
sees. He whose face gives no light shall never
become a star. (William Blake)
Creating connections... Wandering, being
pulled or repulsed by attractions...
Drifting towards whatever will help
you see the (your) city in a new way.

Why do we do this?
To have you understand this simple fact that a city is an
accumulation of ecstatic microplaces (and spaces).
To have your start seeing your city into an immense series of
microplaces, events, moments, images, feelings and emotions.
To have you recognize that everything is there
Its about fragments, cut-ups, collages, fabrics.
Its about putting things together in a new way
to see them in a new way.
Its about phrases, soundtracks and speech bubbles.
To get you (started on) thinking about how you would like
to see the world.
:-)

Something to remember:
We are what we do.
Further inspiration
You could watch Guy Debords movie
The Society of the Spectacle, to get
into the mood of the early situationists
(from Debords original book The Society
of the Spectacle).
By the way, the print on the back of
our postcard comes from Jorn and Debords
Fin de Copenhague

And now
Get out of your houses, now!
:-)

Design 101. A How-To.

We know we have some late-comers, here are a few instructions
on how the whole thing functions...
A typical Design 101 day:
We send you an email around 9 in the morning (Berlin time) with
the link to our daily unit + some news, updates, cool Design
101 things we found etc.etc.
Note: you can find all of our previous emails in the
Announcements section of Design 101 on iversity.
Once you land on the units page, you find our shipment (which
consists of a video-postcard + a letter). You watch the video,
read our letter, get to work and complete the assignment
(or relax if its a weekend day). For even more fun, you can
always refer to the Design 101 encyclopedia, which is updated
every week.
Dont forget to take part in the conversations of the
Discussions forum!
Now, going beyond the iversity platform, we have setup other
places for us to meet and spread things we do.
On Facebook:
the Design 101 page: to follow whats going on (in general terms)
the Design 101 Exercises page: to check out picks
(things that fascinate us the most)
the Design 101 Arena group: to post your pictures, share your
thoughts, emotions, references, lalala
(as a complement to the discussions happening on the platform).
On Twitter,
@design1o1: to follow whats going on + discuss with each other.
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
On YouTube:
the Design 101 channel: to view + share our video postcards
(which is not possible to do from the iversity platform)

On Instagram:
#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
Regarding the hashtag, make sure to use #design1o1 with an o
and not a 0...
:-)

PS
Uploading your homework to the iversity platform is very
important in terms of archiving. It is the only way we can
collect all the things we do in one same place. Once the course
ends, it might turn out to be reorganized into a wonderful
book and/or exhibition

Todays postcard
Psychogeographic Guide of Paris, Guy Debord

The Situationists

Guy Debord

Fin de Copenhague