The Reciprocal Studio: Imagining Otherwise

Earlier in the year, we were very pleased and thankful to welcome Haunted Machines, Evening Class, Adaptive Capacity and Paul Elliman to join us for The Reciprocal Studio: Imagining Otherwise workshop series. Drawing on…

Drawing on Carl DiSalvo’s notion of using design to ‘foster knowledge through engagement’, What if Our World is Their Heaven? led by Haunted Machines (Natalie Kane and Tobias Revell) introduced a mixture of critical media and design techniques to identify and speculate on the implications of automated visual culture. Documentation and resources from the workshop are available via Haunted Machines.

Quale, Song led by Paul Elliman intended to raise questions regarding the production of language, and to reconsider communication as a direct feature and function of the body. It set out to remind us that language is reciprocal; the product of a response to something or someone. The workshop considered these values and properties by using song as the productive form. Listen to tracks produced/sourced in the workshop over on Innommable Radio*.

Evening Class guided the participants through a series of exercises, excursions and actions concerned with workers’ inquiries. Driven by an investigation into conditions in education and work Collective Inquiry set out to alleviate the pressures of navigating precarity and provide insights into prototyping alternatives for practice/s.

Climate Conversations hosted by Adaptive Capacity set out to explore the discourse surrounding climate change with a view to developing a range of tools that help (re)position ourselves as communicators, to evolve our own theories, advance/contest the opinions of others and promote successful action on the current climate crisis.

Whilst the workshop period has now concluded, the conversations and actions persist, and are finding form within the participants emergent research projects.

* WITH GREAT THANKS TO ALEXANDRU BALGIU AND THE BA GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDENTS AT ENSBA, LYON FOR THE INVITATION TO JOIN THIS GREAT PROJECT: MORE INFO

Announcements

MA GMD: Out & About

Laura Dirzyte and Bruna Osthoff share insights into their project ‘Notes on Dynamic interventions’ in a recent interview by Collide 24: Publishing in Times of Information Crisis Laura…

Laura Dirzyte and Bruna Osthoff share insights into their project ‘Notes on Dynamic interventions’ in a recent interview by Collide 24: Publishing in Times of Information Crisis

Laura Dirzyte has also recently become an editorial contributor at Femme Type – a platform celebrating the work of womxn who are part of the type and typography industry. Features include Jessica Hische, Margot Lévêque and most recently Eleni Beveratou.

Jaya Modi, shares insights on her graduate research project E.A.T (Evolution. Aesthetics. Technology) in a recent feature by The Earth Issue.

Daphne Tsang’s ‘poignant graphic design that highlights deeply rooted socio-cultural issues’ is featured by Intern Magazine.

Francisca Roseiro, Masumi Ishii and Antony Price have contributed to €uro-vision, a research project initiated by course correspondents and friends FRAUD. €uro-vision explores the extractivist gaze of the EU’s migration policy and its inscriptive operations on territories and bodies at its peripheries. Further information about the project and opportunities to contribute to the archive here.

Events

On A Clear Day You Can See The Revolution From Here

MA GMD course leader Paul Bailey recently worked with artists Ben Evan James and Emma Charles on the film titles for ‘On A Clear Day You Can See…

MA GMD course leader Paul Bailey recently worked with artists Ben Evan James and Emma Charles on the film titles for ‘On A Clear Day You Can See The Revolution From Here’.

View trailer here

The film brings into focus Kazakhstan’s search for a post-Soviet identity and a state-sponsored programme of cultural production that on the one hand connects back to the ancient folklore and belief systems of the Silk Road, while on the other, seeks to embrace the values of Western capitalism. Shot on 16mm, the camera is drawn across the landscape taking in locations that include mineral mines, the Eurasian Steppe, the STS decommissioned nuclear site and the newly constructed city of Nur-Sultan.

‘On A Clear Day…’ provides a meditative faux observational film about the continual process of construction involved in nationhood and national identity. A film whose facts are always based on fictions – the ancient myths and folklore of Kazakhstan itself.

The film selected by Visions du Reel Festival in Switzerland will be premiered online 25 April – 2 May.

Announcements, Projects

A Line Which Forms A Volume 3

MA Graphic Media Design (MA GMD) is proud to share the third edition of A Line Which Forms a Volume: a critical reader of graphic design-led research that…

MA Graphic Media Design (MA GMD) is proud to share the third edition of A Line Which Forms a Volume: a critical reader of graphic design-led research that is authored, edited, designed and published by MA GMD course participants.

This edition launched with a (sold-out!) symposium on 5 December 2019 at London College of Communication, UAL featuring contributions from Andrew Brash, Evening Class, Qiming Ding, Legrand Jäger, Oliver Jennings, Naomi Strinati and Yuxin Zhou.

Extracts and extensions of these contributions are available to read in the edition, alongside further interviews with Paul Soulellis, Anja Kaiser, Rebecca Stephany and visual essays, poems and critical texts from this years graduating MA GMD participants.

‘The roundabout is a place where an unknowing, or “performative” act is being derived from the continuous, mundane acts of users both inside and outside of the space. These users are engaged in satisfying an ideal – learning the rules and norms of the roundabout – and we suggest that over time the day-to-day activities will eventually result in the creation of practices that resemble more cooperative interaction and a sharing of power, unlike what emulates from the traffic light and four-way stop.’ *

A LINE WHICH FORMS A VOLUME 3 embodies this space, framing the critical nature of design research through the metaphor of the roundabout, once a landmark of Elephant and Castle (where London College of Communication sits). The volume fosters collaboration between emergent and established research practices in design, cultivating a network of interdependence where new relationships are created and maintained, enabling the development of community rooted in the MA Graphic Media Design course.

*Sullivan, T. and Livingston, C. (2017). Round and Round We Go! The Performative Nature of the Roundabout. Space and Culture, 21(4), pp.455-468.

With great thanks to the editorial, design, symposium and communication teams involved; to editorial advisor Billie Muraben, sponsors GF Smith, Jealous Printing Studio, and The Design School LCC; and to those who joined us on the evening also.

The publication will be available to read online, to order via email (p.bailey@lcc.arts.ac.uk) and to buy in selected stockists internationally in early 2020.

EDITORS: MARGARIDA MORAIS, RICARDO GONÇALVES
DESIGN: JAIME DEL CORRO, PALOMA MONIZ, ROXY ZEIHER
SYMPOSIUM COORDINATORS: FRANCISCA ROSEIRO, RICARDO GONÇALVES

Events

MA GMD Class of 2019

Many thanks to all that joined us for the MAGMD Graduate Show, Landscapes of Research, earlier in the month: an exhibition that set out to explore the use…

Many thanks to all that joined us for the MAGMD Graduate Show, Landscapes of Research, earlier in the month: an exhibition that set out to explore the use of graphic design as a critical tool to investigate the complexities of contemporary culture.

We wish this very talented bunch of critical, thoughtful graduates the very best as they move onwards with their practices.

Extracts and trailers of the participants research is available to read/view via the MAGMD website and MAGMD Instagram.

CURATION: QIMING DONG, NORA LUNDWALL, FRANCISCA ROSEIRO, JIA XIAO
DESIGN & PRODUCTION: FANGXINRAN GUO, YATONG LI, RONG LIAN, LISA LICHTBLAU, ANTONY PRICE, MANDY SOU, NAOMI STRINATI, SHUTING WEN, YUXIN ZHOU
CO-ORDINATION: CARLOS ROMO-MELGAR

Announcements, Projects

The Reciprocal Studio: Imagining Otherwise

Each year, The Reciprocal Studio takes form through a series of commissioned collaborative workshops authored and led by guest practitioners in response to a negotiated socio-political concern of…

Each year, The Reciprocal Studio takes form through a series of commissioned collaborative workshops authored and led by guest practitioners in response to a negotiated socio-political concern of the time. Our guests and participants are invited to work with a learning and teaching model based on reciprocity – to use this period to collectively investigate and to further their own, and one another’s, knowledge through the procedures of a research-oriented graphic design practice.

In January 2020, we are very pleased to welcome Haunted Machines, Evening Class, Adaptive Capacity and Paul Elliman. Each of our guest tutors will lead workshops concerned with ‘Imagining Otherwise’, taking on subjects such as the automation of visual culture, workers conditions and rights, the production of language (through/from/of the body) and the ecological crisis.

Join us via @magmdlcc to capture insights and observe progress.

IMAGE: PICTURES OF AN EXHIBITION WITH CONFUSION OF TONGUES, JANUARY 2019,
THE RECIPROCAL STUDIO: DISTRACTION

Events

Something or Other: Engaged Futures

Something or Other: Engaged Futures examines the notion of design for structural change in society. It asks how practitioners across a range of subject areas are using their…

Something or Other: Engaged Futures examines the notion of design for structural change in society. It asks how practitioners across a range of subject areas are using their skills and knowledge to push for more ambitious and sustained effects through their action; in the way they work, the way they organise or they topics they research.

We look forward to contributions from Dr. Danah Abdulla/Decolonising Design, The Rodina, Rick Poynor and many more throughout 2020. Further information and documentation of each contribution will be published at www.somethingorother.org

Something or Other is a series [of presentations, conversations, events] that sets out to enquire into the particularities of contemporary culture. It takes the form of staged lectures and framed debates intending to provoke dialogue, debate and curiosity. It is an opportunity for all members of the postgraduate community in the School of Design, LCC to look critically at and through their distinct territories. We imagine the different editions in the series as inserts [or excerpts] that supplement and challenge our understanding of emergent cultural codes, processes and assertions.

IMAGE: UNCERTAINTY SEMINARS, THE RODINA

Events

In Search of… 2019

As the year comes to an end, we look back upon another compelling series of In Search of… These sessions, co-ordinated by Sophie Demay and curated by the…

As the year comes to an end, we look back upon another compelling series of In Search of… These sessions, co-ordinated by Sophie Demay and curated by the MA GMD participants, socialise emergent interests and concerns of the group through conversation, studio/site visits and object-based enquiry. This year the group sought out perspectives on loneliness, independent publishing, digital/virtual/speculative realities, interactive storytelling and revival.

With great thanks to Louisa Bailey (Publication Studio London), Natalie Coe (The Wellcome Trust), Gonzalo Herrero Delicado (Royal Academy of Arts), Jimmy Fernandez (Hato Press), Oliver Knight & Rory McGrath (OK-RM), Ana Maria (Social Inclusion, Hope And Recovery Project Gallery), Yvan Martinez (Books From the Future), Eszter Steierhoffer (Design Museum), Visual Editions, Saatchi Gallery, and the team at Stephen Willat’s Archive, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.

Take a read/view of this years series via http://magmd.uk/category/in-search-of/

IMAGE: STEPHEN WILLATS ARCHIVE, CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ARTS

Announcements, Events

A Line Which Forms a Volume III — Launch & Symposium

Thursday 5 December 2019 7 – 9pm (registration from 6pm) London College of Communication Tickets MA Graphic Media Design (MA GMD) invites you to join us for the launch of…

Thursday 5 December 2019
7 – 9pm (registration from 6pm)
London College of Communication

Tickets

MA Graphic Media Design (MA GMD) invites you to join us for the launch of the third issue of A Line Which Forms a Volume. The symposium will present a critical reader of graphic design-led research that is authored, edited, designed and published by MA GMD course participants

We are excited to feature Paul Soulellis and Legrand Jager in the volume, whose work has informed participants’ routes of enquiry. Alongside, a select number of graduating participants, who have contributed to this edition, will present abstracts from their research. Further guests to be announced shortly.

The third issue of A Line Which Forms a Volume frames the act of publishing research through the metaphor of the roundabout, itself a landmark of Elephant and Castle at one time. As in publishing, the roundabout allows circulation and instigates cooperation and interdependence. Participants actively cooperate with each other, driving their research through parallel and intersecting lanes, developing in constant motion. Despite the established set of rules and conditioned access, its’ effectiveness depends mainly on the relation of the participants inside, using the space not only for circulation but also to be subverted for revolutionary and celebratory ends.

With great thanks to editorial advisor Billie Muraben.

Announcements, Events

MA GMD Postgraduate Show 2019

We invite you to join us for the MA GMD Postgraduate Show, which sets out to explore the use of graphic design as a critical tool to investigate the complexities of contemporary society. The graduates are keen to share the insights and propositions they have established through intensive and original design-oriented research — taking on subjects concerned with labour, eugenics, politics, language, identity and other prevailing topics that speak of our present and future times.

Visit @magmdlcc and www.magmd.uk for trailers and extracts of graduate work in the coming weeks.

RSVP

PREVIEW BREAKFAST
Wednesday 4 December, 8.30 – 11am

LAUNCH NIGHT
Wednesday 4 December, 6 – 9pm

SHOW OPEN
Thursday 5 December, 11am – 9pm
Friday 6 December, 11am – 9pm
Saturday 7 December, 11am – 9pm