Tag Archives: apps

class, elective, f24, grad, special topic

DM-GY 9103 Speculative Networks

This course focuses on the ethical, political and socio-cultural dimensions of digital platforms and social media. Course readings will explore the implications of digital design practices, and creative workshops will provide a means to creatively reimagine digital platforms through experimentation with networking techniques and platform affordances. Through a combination of seminar discussions, in-class workshops and experimental design projects, students will critically examine and remediate social media and other digital platforms.

In the course, we will explore the following questions:
• How do social media and digital platforms shape our social world?
• How can we apply digital design methods to reimagine social media and digital platforms?

Speculative Networks is a concept-driven, project-based course that explores theories of digital communication through the creation of three projects around the following themes:

  • Emotion and Affect
    What are the emotional impacts of digital media? How can we creatively reimagine “doomscrolling” and other forms of negative affect towards more empathetic technologies?
  • Attention Economies
    How do digital platforms exploit their users’ attention? What possibilities exist to use digital technologies to refocus attention away from the screen and towards new horizons?
  • Inverse Metaverse
    What are the limitations and possibilities of digital objects and commodities? What alternative forms of value might be embedded in 3D digital assets?

Additionally, we will be exploring design topics such as speculative design, affordance theory, values-oriented design, and user studies.
This course is medium-agnostic – you are welcome to use whatever media you are comfortable working in to create your projects. We will, however, be exploring techniques in gestural interface design, locative media, AR/XR, and machine learning. This is a useful course for students looking to expand the conceptual and critical depth of their interactive digital media projects through intensive thematic assignments.

Instructor: Craig Fahner