Lecture 12: Chronologies 10: Synthesis

Just a recap of sorts for the entire module itself.

• Praxis = Reflection -> Theory -> Action ->
• Isn't art and design just about the visual? While ultimately it is, the more academic side finds ways in developing your practice and advancing it further. It isn't acceptable to blindly create away without a true concept behind it.
• And so the aims of this module is to provoke you into thinking about design, rather just 'doing it'.
• To encourage you to pursue issues in more depth.
• To form your own conclusions independently of practitioners and academics. Take what is out there in the world, and use them to position yourself to make your particular opinion on your area of interest.
• To experiment with ideas to see if they work in practice.
• What is wanted is a body work that investigates thinking, reflects deep thought, in-depth research.
• Learning Outcome 1: Knowledge and Understanding (Demonstrating a deep awareness of the subject), PEST: political, economic, social, technological.
• Some thoughts to consider: How is what I do affected by the money made from it, the social attitude, the way people think or feel about themselves, affected or limited by the resources I have?
• David Hoffman's "Dead End Streets: Photography, Protest and Social Control" is an example of what CoP hopes to represent. It is a meditation of the medium of photography and how it is used, how images are rejected, forgotten or prioritized, projecting the history  of photography in a way. Photography being used by the states as a form of control, the camera lens in a way symbolizes how heavily controlled and watched over we the people are, photography can be used to document the documenter themselves.
• Learning Outcome 2: Cognitive Skills (Demonstrating an awareness of the relationship between theory and practice)
• Learning Outcome 3: Practical and Professional Skills (To analyze and evaluate ideas from sources)
• Learning Outcome 4: Key Transferrable Skills (Research that demonstrates an awareness of critical, effective and testable processes)
• Learning Outcome 5: Synthesis (A complex, dynamic process where all the pieces come together, leading to an even bigger part of the puzzle, okay…)
• Informed Engagement: Taking a step back and just thinking things over, why you are doing what you are doing
• The realization of the theory, and through practice, through the making, you have come to realize the message behind it, what it means and how it affects the world.
• "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it" ~ Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
• Change the woooorrrrrrrrlllllddddddddd
• PRAXIS is about bringing theory and action together
• Research for(New skills)/behind (What is to be learnt to reach that aim)/in through (The acting of doing and making as the primary action)/ in front of (Target Audience)-> Creative Practice
• Kolb's Experimental Learning Theory is essential, that learning is a lot deeper that doing mildly different replications on what is being taught

• Practitioners are right to worry that academic study of what is essentially a hands on subject removes it from the reality of practice. Think about your research process that allows maximizing of your potential, do what you love at a better level.
• Designers often work intuitively, without knowingly applying theory. This module aims to get you to reflect on that process.