This course is about anticipating and speculating the advantages and disadvantages of future technological and societal change, using creative and artistic methods such as design fiction and speculative design. These speculations about possible futures will be firmly grounded in contemporary research, and critiqued and analyzed through ethical frameworks. The project will be done together with students from Konstfack, the arts and design school in Stockholm, and one week of the course takes place in Stockholm.
General information
The course provides tools, methods and mindsets to explore potential futures and their impacts on society, both beneficial and problematic. The aim is not to predict the future, but to consider possible futures, and have technical, ethical and societal discussions about how we build towards the future we prefer. Fundamentally the aim is to see futures that we don’t even know could exist.
The course runs partially in collaboration and overlaps with a design course at Konstfack art and design university in Stockholm. The course requires one trip to Stockholm, 3-4 days each. Travel expenses and accommodation are covered by Chalmers. Students will need to pay for other expenses such as breakfast, lunch and dinner themselves.
The course starts with a joint introduction together with Konstfack.
Then follows five weekly modules with each week having a particular focus. Each week consists of theory (lecture and literature seminar), practice (half-day workshops and exercises), and supervision. During this module, the students also work on a design fiction project, gathering research, brainstorming ideas and planning for the production phase at the end of the course.
At the end of the course there will be a two-week module with focused production of the design fiction project result. The Fuse environment (Johanneberg) is available for this hands-on work, as well as the media production facilities at Kuggen Medialab (Lindholmen). One of these weeks, Chalmers students will go to Stockholm, and the other week the Konstfack students will come to Gothenburg.
Prerequisites
All master’s students and PhD candidates with an interest in future studies and the ethics of technology are welcome.
How to apply
Apply to all Tracks courses at antagning.se / universityadmissions.se
Search for the course code TRA550.
To assess your application, please provide us with a short motivation letter (max. 1 page). The letter of motivation requested is an opportunity for each student to express specific interests and experience that cannot be seen from transcripts only. The purpose of the motivation letter is to assist the teachers in grouping students with respect to background and interests. Please don’t use generative AI to write the letter, we want to know who YOU are.
Upload the letter of motivation on your account at universityadmissions.se.
More information on how to select courses.
Details
Teacher (s): Thommy Eriksson (examiner), Negin Hashmati, Ann-Sofie Axelsson, Oskar Rexfelt, Bettina Schwalm (Konstfack), Martin Avila (Konstfack)
Course dates: Study period 3
Credits: 7.5
Level: A
Course code: TRA550