4.370/4.371 Interrogative Design Workshop - Give Me Shelter: Body Wear

The workshop’s objective is to develop a transformable piece of work that relates to the physical appearance of body and its social construct, the second skin.

(Body) Wear, as for example cloth, accessories, scents, body paint, lies at the margins of the body and marks the boundary between self and other, self and space. Which messages are signaled to our surroundings, environments via our body wear appearances? What relation is and can be constructed between textiles, cloth and social political environment? What is the embedded meaning of second skin – protection, masquerade, mutation, camouflage, etc.? How can Body Wear be transformed to shelter? These are just some of the questions raised in order to develop a product or maybe even prototype which is transformable or in multifunctional use, and challenges the boundaries between body and space.

Workshop participants will focus on development of design concepts and the projects should be finalized or at least finalized as proposals that can be experimented and experienced. There will be a mid-term project and a final review. Projects may be either individual or collective.

This workshop will be taught in two parts. Monday nights@VAP fall 07 lecture series “Give me Shelter” is considered as lab time of the course and is co-organized by Prof. Ute Meta Bauer
(course 4.366 Give me shelter – Conditions of Living in Unstable Times) and Regina Moeller.
A final presentation for the public is scheduled.

Class limit: 10, requires permission of the instructor.

Fall 2007
Instructor: Regina Moeller
Meets Thurs 10-1
Lab Mon 6-9
Graduate Level Subject
Prereq: Permission of instructor
Units: 3-3-6