This is the information site of the Redesign of Society 2015 Study Project.
UPDATE 8.9.2015: For the Redesign of Society 2016 Minor Subject, please see http://redesignofsociety.org
Application form
The application period is now closed, thanks to all the applicants 
!
Practical details
The course will be organized in two parts: 1) an intensive workshop between Sept 10th and 24th and 2) a study project running from October 2014 to May 2015.
The workshop will be arranged in the Media Lab, Miestentie 3, Otaniemi, at the lecture room 414 on the 4th floor.
Application, deadline, selection
To be considered for participation, YOU MUST SEND YOUR APPLICATION BY September 3rd USING OUR WEB FORM above, at the top of this column.
Students will be selected based on their experience, motivation letter and commitment to full participation. We will strive to gather a balanced, multidisciplinary and multicultural group.
The selection will be made as soon as possible after the deadline, and the results will be sent by email to applicants.
JOO credits
If you are accepted to this course, Aalto will accept you as a JOO student. However, please note that in order to include the credits from the course in your degree, you need to secure the acceptance of the course in your JOO studies with your home department.
Design of Society
What is the design of society? We are developing a design oriented way to analyze and understand society and societal change. As society is changing all the time, a redesign of society is taking place, whether we participate in it actively or not. In the face of extremely serious challenges for humanity and the world, the Redesign of Society initiative at the Aalto ARTS Media Lab aims to develop ideas of what kinds of design directions could take us towards a sustainable and fair global future society and how we could take a role in the ongoing redesign as citizens and as professional experts.
Utopia 2040
In the initiative, we will use utopia as a method, and develop a utopia about the global society in the year 2040. The idea of the method is to reimagine society in order to develop our ideas of what kind of a society is desirable, so that this understanding can help us in designing ways to get there - and help to eventually evolve a utopia that we feel can be feasible as well as achievable.
Design Fiction
Together with an overall vision, we will develop specific design fiction narratives to explore specific characteristics and phenomena of everyday life in 2040, to develop insights about the design of technology, institutions, social systems and practices for a better and sustainable society. These fictions will help us to think about the details and complexities that take place when everyday life meets politics, systems, technologies, and abstract high level ideas.
Transdisciplinary
Within the course, we will work with topics and knowledge that is traditionally dispersed across many disciplines, such as design, engineering and social sciences, and engage with visiting experts from many areas. The course is open to all MA and DA/PhD students from any discipline, based on the JOO Flexible Study Rights Agreement (see https://confluence.csc.fi/display/JOO/In+English+Flexible+Study+Rights). Students will work together in multidisciplinary teams and transcend the boundaries of their own areas of expertise.
Intensive Workshop: September 10th–24th 2014
The intensive workshop (3-4 ECTS) consists of lectures, interactions with visitors, discussion and group work assignments and a final group production. The students are strongly encouraged to reserve the whole period, including evenings and weekends for intensive interactions and group work.
Study Project: October 2014 - May 2015
After the intensive workshop, we invite motivated students to continue the work as a more focused, deeper study project (3-12 ECTS), which will run from October 2014 to May 2015. Students can decide whether they want to continue after the workshop is completed. The study project will be introduced during the workshop, and according to our current plan will finish in May 2015 with a seminar and exhibition. In addition, we are developing future research activities around the initiative which students participating in the project may be able to join.
Organizers
The study project is organized by the Arki research group (http://arki.mlog.taik.fi/) of Aalto ARTS Media Lab (http://medialab.aalto.fi/). The course is led by Kari-Hans Kommonen, the director of the Arki group.
We will publish more details of the programme later.
For more info, contact Kari-Hans Kommonen at kari-hans.kommonen@aalto.fi.
Latest News
We are still working on the detailed schedule of the intensive 2 week workshop, but we are glad to share with you all our current list of confirmed visitors - all distinguished experts and scholars in extremely relevant themes for our work: Jack Whalen, Risto Linturi, Ilkka Tuomi, Lauri Holappa, Teivo Teivainen, Ville Oksanen, Thomas Elfgren and Martti Koskenniemi. Exciting discussions ahead!
We have now opened the form for submitting applications for the Redesign of Society course, on the front page of our website: http://wiki.aalto.fi/display/redesignofsociety2015. We will continue to accept applications until midnight, September 3rd.
We have now a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/redesignofsociety2015 and we will try to post new information about topics related to the study project there. So liking the page is an easy way to follow us !