加州大学人文研究所实验批评理论研讨会（SECT）

 

加州大学人文研究所实验批评理论研讨会（SECT）

主题：设计在中国

时间：2009年夏

组织人：阿克巴•阿巴斯    大卫•西奥•戈德伯格

    本届实验批评理论研讨会（SECT）是一个为期两周的密集暑期学术项目，该项目由加州大学人文研究所组织。届时，SECT将有齐集知名教授以及来自60多个国家的教师，研究生，独力学者以及其他知识界人士。本届研讨会既不是初级的介绍性会议，也不是高层学术研究会，而是一个“实验室”，为不同层次的与会者与前卫理论界的学者之间的切磋提供了一个平台。本研讨会的特征是当代的“纯批评理论”与“应用批评理论”并行不悖，没有厚此薄彼。

    加州大学人文研究所已经在加州尔湾分校举办了数届SECT。2009年八月，第四届SECT将在上海举行，为期两周，主题为“设计在中国”。

    设计不仅仅是美学与实用如何结合的问题， 尤其在今天的社会里，设计的影响至关重大，每每触发迫切的政治、经济、社会乃至哲学方面的问题，在日新月异的当代中国空间，设计与其语境的关系也愈发彰显。

    不论在中国城市和私人空间的变迁中，还是在特异的中国“市场经济”的形成中，包括在面向国内和国际消费的商品生产过程中，总而言之，在缔造“新中国”的过程中，设计发挥着越来越重要的作用。

    本届研讨会以中国为焦点，不是因为中国在设计领域领先于世界，而是因为当今中国设计中出现的问题最棘手，最有挑衅性。因此研讨会既不是中国设计概论课，也不教授设计原理，甚至讨论内容不局限于中国的设计，只是以中国为个案，本着“实验批评理论”的精神，来探索在全球化的世界里怎样思考设计中的宏观问题。

    本届研讨会将最大程度的在广义上探讨设计问题，议题包括以下各个方面：商品化文化与文化的商品化；设计对于当今资本的重要性；建筑与城市设计；室内设计或私秘空间的回复与致幻型室内设计；在书籍设计和网络设计的地盘不断变化中新媒体和数码技术的作用；冒牌货、时尚和全球商品；品牌打造和包装；电影对情感和影响效应的解读；音乐和文化记忆；视觉艺术与视觉文化；审查制度以及其他对于设计的制约。

    贯穿这些议题的中心轴线不是“什么才是好的设计？”而是“什么是设计文化？”简而言之，就是“设计是在什么样的条件下产生、传播和消费的？”美国，意大利，斯堪的纳维亚，或者日本为什么能够在历史上的特定时刻一跃成为设计领域的领路人？

    研讨会授课人员除了有批评家和理论家以外，还邀请了艺术家，设计师和文化工作者展出他们的作品，这些作品对于“设计在中国”以及人们对当今一些迫切问题的思考所发生的影响也将在会上得到深入的探讨。此外，研讨会举办城市上海是一个层面多，设计意识强的城市，研讨会将尽力使其成为会议不可或缺的一部分。在会议协办单位复旦大学新闻学院和上海社会科学研究院的大力支持下，研讨会在探讨设计的前景和涵义的同时，将安排与会者参观上海多样化的社会及文化空间，并和当地文化名人及文化工作者进行访谈。

 

 

 

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HUMANITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE
SEMINAR IN EXPERIMENTAL CRITICAL THEORY (SECT)

DESIGNING CHINA
SUMMER 2009

ACKBAR ABBAS AND DAVID THEO GOLDBERG
CONVENERS

The Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory (SECT) is an intensive two-week summer program offered by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). SECT convenes distinguished instructors with a group of approximately 60 faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, and public intellectuals from across the international community. Neither an introductory survey nor an advanced research seminar, SECT functions as a ‘laboratory’ where participants at all levels of experience can study with scholars at the leading edge of creative theoretical thought. The hallmark of SECT is its attention to both ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ modes of contemporary critical theory.

To date, SECT sessions have been conducted at UCHRI’s facilities in Irvine, California.  In August 2009, SECT VI will travel to Shanghai to hold an intensive two week summer institute on “Designing China.”

Design is more than just a matter of combining aesthetics and functionality. Today, more than ever, the stakes of design are very high, raising at every turn urgent economic, political, social, and philosophical issues. The relation between design and its context is particularly salient in a rapidly transforming space like contemporary China.

Whether we think in terms of the transformation of China’s cities and private spaces, or of the transition to an eccentric kind of “market economy” and the production of commodities for local and global consumption that accompanies it, design plays an increasingly important role in the creation of the “new China.”

This seminar proposes to focus on China, not because China leads the world in the field of design, but because China is where design issues are raised in perhaps their most problematic and provocative form today. The seminar is neither a survey of design in China nor is it a training course on design fundamentals; it is not even exclusively about China. Rather, China will be taken as a case study to explore, in the spirit of “experimental critical theory,” the larger issues that thinking about design in a globalizing world conjures.

In this seminar, design will be approached in the widest possible sense. Topics presented will include: cultures of commodification an commodification of cultures; the importance of design to capital today; architecture and the design of cities; interior design or the re-emergence of privacy and phantasmagorias of the interior; new media and digital technologies in the shifting terrain between book and web design; fakes, fashion, and global commodities; branding and packaging; cinema as critique of space and affectivity; music and cultural memory; visual arts and visual culture; censorship and other constraints on design.

One thread that runs through these topics is not so much the question “What is good design?” but the question “What is design culture?” In short, what are the conditions under which design is produced, circulated, and consumed?”; why was it that at certain historical junctures, the USA, or Italy, or Scandinavia, or Japan became innovators in design?

The teaching faculty will consist not only of critics and theorists; artists, designers and cultural practitioners will also be invited to present their work, whose implications for “designing China” and for thinking through these pressing issues of our time will be taken up and teased out by participants. Furthermore, our location, Shanghai, is a multi-faceted city, one very conscious about design . The seminar will seek to make the city itself be an integral part of the seminar. Exploration of the city’s divergent social and cultural spaces (with the help of our Shanghai co-sponsors, the School of Journalism at Fudan University and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and) and local public intellectuals and cultural producers will proceed in tandem with our inquiry into the possibilities and implications of design.