Systems are ubiquitous. There are technological, social, economic, political and cultural systems, to name a few. This course aims to engage students with DIY/Hacker/Maker culture centered around the concept of Systems Thinking. Students will learn how to identify and critically interact with the systems around them, design their own systems to disrupt these systems, and engage with these systems through fieldwork implementation and testing of their proposed hack.

Tactical systems thinking allows artists and designers to break free from limitations of representational constraints and instead engage with embodied relations, feedback processes, and aesthetics distributed across mediating systems.

You will learn to apply different thinking strategies to explore ideas around information, interactive exchange, feedback loops, participation and systemic relationships. In conjunction with these aims, you will develop your knowledge of methods and approaches, encouraging you to confront ideas and traditions, to challenge existing systems through disruption and interference, and redefine environments, relationships and concepts.