Manus et Machina

2025 (Spring)

In this offering of the "Manus et Machina" Core Course in Art, Technolgy, and Design, students developed concepts and projects around the theme "Adapt, Augment, Survive".

This Core course (whose title is Latin for "hands and machine") explores how design in influences our life and investigates the fundamentals of "good design." We take a look at the status quo of the use of design in media, objects, and architecture, and observe its influence on art and technology from past to present. Design tools and processes will be highlighted.

Based on the fusion of readings, study, discussion, and experiences, over the course of the semester students will develop an understanding of how mutually reinforcing and beneficiary a mix of Arts, Design, and Technology can be. Lecture and discussion will help development the design of a bricolage: Every student will realize a product prototype of an Audio-Device to be displayed in an exhibition and a personal philosophy of about Arts, Design, and Technology.

What's in my bag?

Week 2

Ispired by Matt Mullenweg, of WordPress fame, and the concept of "Knolling", present the contents of your "bag" and discuss which items can be interpreted as Adaptability, Augmentation, Survival. Which items could you remove? Would you add anything? Upload your bag contents to your online portfolio.

Share the link to your bag contents here: Manus et Machina Assignments

How does it all fit together?

Week 3

Using BBC Connections (1978) as a source, present and comment on the chain of connections that Jame Burke presents in a chosen episode. Upload your presentation and commentary to your online portfolio.

Sign up for a Connections episode: Manus et Machina Assignments

Why is humanity so predictably skeptical?

Week 4

The Luddites are famous for being opposed to mechanization of textile production, but they have not been alone in their attitudes towards technological adoption. Humanity has been oddly predictable in viewing new technoligies with sketicism and further claiming its ability to unravel society. Present and comment on one of the inventions discussed in the Pessimist's Archive and put your documentation online.

Select an invention form the Pessimists Archive which also has a podcast episode associated with it.

Sign up for an invention: Manus et Machina Assignments

We have never been Golden?

Week 5

Inspired by the human desire to connect with and celebrate eras in history during which members of our kinship groups or DNA relatives were apparenly at the center of the universe, present and comment on a chosen "Golden Age". Work hard to dissect claims of how ideas or technologies from a particular age led to life in the 21st century.

For Example: modern, accurate naval navigation emerged when humans invented the first reliable portable time-keeping devices and the nautical sextant; earlier time-keeping knowledge, star charts, compasses, and astrolabes were helpful elements, but they, through all possible recombinations, could not measure Longitude during ocean crossings. The gap between the first time humans catalogued the stars and developed tools for measuring their relative positions demonstrates that those early technologies were necessary but DID NOT directly lead to solving the full modern problem.

Consider and Discuss the Following:

1. Succinctly discuss the basic details of the "Age". When was it? Who is involved? What came before? What came after? Why is it considered "Golden"? How did it begin? How did it end? What contributions to humanity were made?
2. "Golden" Ages have typically been experienced in a finite locality, time period, and by a group of people. While the time may be "Golden" for those who experienced it, how "Golden" was it, relative to what else was happening on Earth at the moment? Was it a "Golden" time for all of humanity? Were others already "Golden"? Was this a "Golden" Era for a people catching up with their neighbors?
3. Humans who have a close DNA relation to the humans credited as being responsible for a "Golden" Age will often over-state the importance of contributions from that age as a way of glorifying fragments of history identifiable with DNA relatives from their kinship group. How strong is this effect?
4. Choose one or two contributions from the particular "Golden" Age that are broadly credited to have enabled the way humans live today. Try to dismantle that argumentation by investigating the timeline from both sides. Trace the current situation backwards and follow the contribution forwards; there is often an additional contribution or a leap in logic required to make the "Connection".

Sign up for a Golden Age: Manus et Machina Assignments

References from Class:

1. Knocker-upper
2. David Foster Wallace, This is Water