The Arts of Making Social Science and Politics (ArMSS)

Description

Graffiti has sparked revolutions and civil wars and consolidated stability and peace. Photography and drones have revealed and furthered gross human rights abuses haunting the development of humanitarian and human rights law. Every aspect of a mobile app is meticulously designed to monopolize your attention and harvest your data for commercial use and to make it possible for you to act and do things. As each of these examples suggests, art, design and affects are central to world politics. They may generate radical change or a continuation of the status quo, forms of extreme violence or paths to conflict resolution, they may perpetuate or contest gendered and racial violence and much more. Aesthetics is a modality of power as Achille Mbembe insists. As such art, design and mundane aesthetics are pivotal for the questions social sciences ask. They also (therefore) figure increasingly centrally the theoretical, methodological and communicative work done in the social sciences. Analogously, in professional life, organizations whether companies, international organizations or NGOs constantly work with art, design and affects. Their websites, their buildings and offices spaces, their uniforms and dresscodes, their conferences and conventions, their communication systems and their practices are replete with arts, design and affects. To further better, critical reflexive, work with them in the social sciences and associated careers is the aim of this course. To that end, the course focuses on the Arts of Making Social Science and Politics. Its core objective of is to offer participants a hands-on, practical, understanding of what art, design, and mundane affects do to/in world politics, and how to work with them in the social sciences. To this end, the course is organized around three elements: 1) seminars with professional guest speakers who connect the arts and social the social sciences. 2) workshops with the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) focused on how such visions are put into practice in the scenography for the exhibition on humanitarian design (realized within the frame of the HUD project) at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. 3) Work on independent student projects working with the ArMSS. The project will focus on the humanitarian design exhibition and potentially also become part of this exhibition. The assessment is based on seminar participation, contributions to the workshops co-organized with the HEAD, and the final projects.