Thursday October 3, 2013
9:30-12:30pm (New) Public Goods: Design, Aesthetics and Politics

A conversation curated by Eduardo Staszowski, Vyjayanthi Rao, Scott Brown and Virginia Tassinari.
Location: Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall
The New School
55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor

This Fall’s Stephan Weiss Lecture considers the import of design practices concerned with the production and distribution of public goods, including public services and utilities, public policy, government institutions, and other organizations working within the public realm or subjected to broad public scrutiny. Increasingly, the focus of design is shifting from questions of form to questions of transformation. The Weiss Lecture will explore the challenges these design practices pose to the relationship between institutional infrastructure and regulative norms, as well as to emerging forms of commons and community. Configured as a Design Strategies Dialogue, this event brings together five leading figures from the world of design and the social sciences:

PELLE EHN: Professor at Malmö University’s School of Arts and Communication MARIA HELLSTRÖM REIMER: Professor at Malmö University School of Arts and Communication and Director of Studies for the Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education

CARL DISALVO: Associate Professor in the Digital Media program in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology

JOAN GREENBAUM: Professor Emerita at City University of New York and the New Media Lab at the CUNY Graduate Center

KEITH MURPHY: Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of California Irvine.

With discussants: Clive Dilnot, Victoria Hattam, and Jamer Hunt