Practice-based art PhD

Transart Institute, in cooperation with the School of Art & Media and the Graduate School at University of Plymouth is offering a low-residency PhD degree for advanced studio art.

The PhD program at Transart Institute aims to create a space for students of all disciplines to interact with a wide range of artists, scientists, theorists, media practitioners and visionaries. Candidates investigate their work independently in a cultural and studio context. PhD projects are expected to contribute to the current creative cultural dialogue through informed, published, exhibited or performed work and documentation thereof.

http://www.transart.org/studio-phd/

School of Missing Studies

The School of Missing Studies takes its title from an ongoing project initiated by Bik Van der Pol in 2003, in collaboration with artists, thinkers, and architects. Since its initiation, The School of Missing Studies (SMS) has functioned as a nomadic, collaborative platform for experimental study and research of the public environment (public space, public time, public good) marked by, or currently undergoing, abrupt transition.

SMS strongly believes in the intrinsic qualities of artistic practice as a means to disclose—make public—what is at stake in public space. As a platform for experimental learning, SMS considers education as a site of experience and encounter, a strategy for emancipation, and a potential response to public issues. While functioning as a collective space of discourse, analysis, and experimentation, SMS also turns to itself—the space of education—as a model and manifestation of ‘publicness,’ taking the paradoxical but necessary form of a ‘closed’ study program.

http://www.sandberg.nl/http://www.schoolofmissingstudies.net/

MIT creative learning course

Learning Creative Learning is a course offered at the MIT Media Lab, which is entirely accessible online. It introduces ideas and strategies for designing technologies to support creative learning.

http://learn.media.mit.edu/index.html

Deschooling – Joi Ito lecture

lecture about deschooling and an interesting case-study about how a group of scientists, designers and other stakeholders got together and initiated a bottom-up movement to measure and share levels of radiation in Japan after the tsunami, something the Japanese government failed to accomplish.

Riwaq

Riwaq: an amazing design project, restoring 50 Palestinian cities, repairing war damage, revitalizing public spaces and addressing issues of identity, using 100% sustainable design methods.

Design Thinking

A blog by Tim Brown, author of the fantastic book Change by Design. Interesting thoughts, examples, methods, tips etc.

http://designthinking.ideo.com/

Service design

and a fantastic overview of service design tools:
http://www.servicedesigntools.org/

One Laptop Per Child experiment

An interesting article at MIT Technology Review about a One Laptop Per Child experiment:
“With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per Child organization is trying something new in two remote Ethiopian villages—simply dropping off tablet computers with preloaded programs and seeing what happens.

The goal: to see if illiterate kids with no previous exposure to written words can learn how to read all by themselves, by experimenting with the tablet and its preloaded alphabet-training games, e-books, movies, cartoons, paintings, and other programs.”

Read the article

Master of Fine Art in Art and Social Practice

Within the Art and Social Practice MFA at Portland State University students explore the history of socially engaged art activity while developing their own artistic skills to engage in society themselves. Currently under the direction of artists Jen Delos Reyes and Harrell Fletcher, the program gives students the opportunity to shape the direction of their own education. The program focuses on local contexts, community collaborations, and engagement with visiting artists and faculty to blend critical and professional activity with social participation on both a global and local scale.

PSU’s Art and Social Practice MFA is composed of a unique combination of individual research, group work, and experiential learning. The program’s blend of critical and professional practice, collaborative social engagement, and transdisciplinary exploration produces an immersive educational environment. Based in Portland, Oregon. the program operates out of Field Work, a downtown storefront classroom and event space. A weekly student organized visiting artist leture series promotes the understanding of a wide range of approaches and methodologies.  An annual conference on socially engaged art practice brings together an international group of artists, curators, scholars and members of the public.

http://www.pdx.edu/art/graduate-programs

MFA Design Criticism

Working alongside New York’s best-respected editors, authors, critics, curators, and historians, SVA MFA Design Criticism students learn how to build an argument, develop a critical stance, and hone a writerly voice. Instructed by such faculty members as MoMA’s senior curator of Design and Architecture Paola Antonelli, urban design critic Karrie Jacobs, and online media maven Elizabeth Spiers, students communicate their unique perspectives through a range of media, including radio podcasts, exhibitions, video essays, events, syllabi, online media, and books.

http://dcrit.sva.edu/