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Syllabus⇝

Fair Future(s) | Designing with Collective Intelligence

Hybrid four-day international collaborative event featuring talks, workshops, and self-organized working sessions.

In collaboration with the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, this seminar offers a dynamic exploration of emerging themes and hands-on experience in the evolving landscape of creative industries and decentralized governance. It introduces concepts such as Digital Commons and Governance in Distributed Autonomous Organizations within the context of creative industries.

Participants from MDEF and SODA will form international teams to actively discuss and craft future scenarios that reflect on the upholding perma / poly crisis. During the working sessions, the teams will develop innovative, new governance and economic models. The objectives of the teams are to collectively develop a digital and/or physical artifact that will make tangible alternative modes of operation and creative expression existing within in the co-developed speculative scenarios. The resulting projects will be presented on the online platform DAFNE+, an EU research project designed to assist digital content creators in discovering new potentials for creation, distribution, and monetization through blockchain technology.

Keywords:Future(s), alternative governance, crafting multimedia artefacts

Learning Objectives⇝

Conceptual Understanding: - Students will explore the concepts of commons and DAOs within the creative industries context through inspirational and theoretical lectures and real-world examples.

Speculative Workshop Participation: - Students will engage in a speculative workshop hosted by external collaborators to gain deeper insights and guidance around the introduced concepts. - Teams split into international working groups will collaboratively choose a future scenario theme, to systematically develop future scenarios for their ideal DAO governance model.

Artifact Development: - Identify and collaboratively develop an artifact using diverse multimedia format to create the final output for the creative jam.

Dafne + Platform: - Introduction to DAFNE+ platform's possibilities, learning the basic functions, with practical application in subsequent tasks such as the creation and uploading of the project into the platform.

Studio Visit Exhibition: - Each group will showcase their digital artifacts, contributing to the studio visit exhibition, emphasizing effective presentation and communication of ideas.

Methodological Strategies⇝

  • Workshops
  • Lectures
  • Project-based learning
  • Peer learning
  • Team-based learning

Schedule⇝

The event kicks off, taking place both online and in person at each location. Two inspirational talks by experts selected by Fab Lab Barcelona and SODA (School of Digital Arts of Manchester) will introduce the main theme of 'Fair Future(s)'.

Morning Session

  • Introduction to the concepts of commons and DAOs in the creative industries.
  • Workshop by expert AX Mina on "Fair Future(s)" covering wealth distribution, intellectual property rights, and inclusion in production.
  • Workshop format to make digital commons and governance model-related concepts tangible and interactive, contributing to defining the student's future scenario for the new governance model.

Afternoon Session

  • The students from both locations, organized into international team groups, begin working on and developing a multimedia medium artifact as the final output of the creative jam.
  • Presentation of future scenarios.

Morning Session

  • Dedicated to self-organized working sessions within interdisciplinary teams for further artifact development.

Afternoon Session

  • Introduction and setup of Dafne+ EU, where the developed artifact will be uploaded.
  • Creation of the project repository and final working session.
  • Studio visit, where each student group will showcase their speculative future and artidact through a collective presentation.

Deliverables⇝

Personal Account on Dafne+, Development of the team repository, submission of the collective artifact.

Evaluation Strategies⇝

The grading will be 0 or 10: 0 if the students do not come to class and 10 if the students come to the classes and participate.

European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)

2 ECTS

Additional Resources⇝

Faculty⇝

Jessica Guy

Jessica Guy

Distributed Design Expert

Jessica Guy is a designer and action researcher. Jessica’s work focuses on exploring participatory practices, community engagement and capacity-building activities in European research projects on a global and local scale. Jessica holds a Master degree in Design for Emergent Futures organised by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, in collaboration with the Fab Lab Barcelona and Fab Academy. In the past, Jessica successfully graduated as an Industrial Designer (BA) at the Munich University for Applied Sciences and participated in the acceleration programme X-Futures by Fab Lab Barcelona. At Fab Lab Barcelona, Jessica is leading the global activities of the Creative Europe project Distributed Design Platform and co-leading the Erasmus+ Project Makeademy educational programme. Furthermore, they are the Make Works worldwide coordinator and lead of Make Works Catalonia. Jessica has contributed as a researcher to the European-funded projects Pop-Machina, CENTRINNO and REFLOW.

Olga Trevisan

Olga Trevisan

EU Creative Action Researcher

Olga Trevisan is an Italian visual artist who graduated from I.U.A.V at the University in Venice and holds a Master’s Degree in Local Development from the University of Padua. Over the past ten years, she has been actively involved in European and international cross-disciplinary projects as an art and education facilitator and consultant, focusing on participatory practices and bottom-up strategies. One of her main focuses is to use arts and crafts to promote collaborative methodologies in local communities connecting them to global challenges. In 2022 she supported Centrinno EU project team and is now involved in Distributed Design and Dafne+ as EU Creative action researcher at IAAC | Fab Lab Barcelona.