Design as Contemplative Practice

Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Fifth-Year, Graduate Elective – 3 credits

Wintersession 2009

The course objectives are to explore the depth of perception and to understand design as a contemplative practice for the unfolding and enfolding of meaning. For this practice we will use semiotics as an intellectual method to probe the mechanisms of meaning; and mindfulness to go deeper into the subject of how meaning unfolds in the design process, and how to enfold meaning in the forms we produce. We will consider how the individual and consciousness play critical roles in the design process to form relationships in complexity, how mindfulness stimulates our intelligence and inner awareness, and how attention helps reveal the nature of authenticity.

Studio work is both assigned and open to individual project interests (dp, thesis, etc.) and the use of any medium. The course, studio based, includes lectures to cover historical, scientific and philosophical interests: theosophy (a modern secular representation of perennial wisdom that deeply inspired many individuals such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, TS Elliot, Scriabin, Einstein, Edison) to help us map out the ground and nature of being; Concretism (spawned by theosophy) in art, poetry, music, bookworks, and performance art; parallel inquiries by Duchamp, Cage, Fluxus, Viola; theories that go beyond the postmodern mind such as the implicate order of wholeness, systems theory, dissonance and indeterminacy. The course requires that students come with an eager intellect, prepared to work hard with a willingness to embark on a journey with open minds to carefully attend to whatever the experience unfolds as meaning enfolds into the work that serves as poetic pillows.

Taught by:   Thomas Ockerse      

Course #: GRAPH 3244