Cities are our natural world, created by us and yet, in their constantly shifting complexity, almost beyond our grasp. Urbanization processes do not end at the city boundaries. Almost infinite networks, alienated communication, hasty consumption and conflicts of social marginalization or economic injustice determine our urban survival. Cities form contested spaces, whose present refers back to the past, whose power structures can be identified and also changed. It is important to predict the need for change well in advance but also to be able to react to acute crises great and small with fresh solutions.
Innovations are driven on a bottom-up basis. Not infrequently they arise at the margins of society, where established structures encounter influences from without, traditional responses no longer work, or safeguards apply to some but not to others.
The projects developed in the studio situation of our Social Design program show that societal innovation–meaning extraordinary results and unexpected approaches–becomes possible where different forms of knowledge and methods interact, where artistic acumen combines with creativity from the so-called hard sciences, where design, theory, architecture and the fine arts not only pool their strategies but also enter into confrontations and alliances that can be both risky and productive.
Innovative methods construct new meanings, strengthen responsibility and thus create the preconditions for identification with one’s own actions. Students who choose the Master’s in Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation signal their determination to play a critical and active part in influencing society and a refusal to discount the future!
Curriculum
The master programme Social Design Arts as Urban Innovation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna is oriented towards graduates from diverse fields of study, thereby stipulating work in transdisciplinary teams as the central teaching and learning approach in the programme. On the basis of professional competences acquired in their respective previous studies, students become acquainted with transcending disciplinary codes and thinking and working in greater interrelationships. Art in synergy with project-related scientific methods and knowledge is seen as a tool for urban innovation.
Duration and Scope:
4 semesters / 120 ECTS
Graduation: "Master of Arts" (MA)
People
Christoph Steininger
Social Sciences/ Artist, Vienna
Christoph Steininger is an alumni at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation). He completed his Bachelor degree in Social Sciences and Humanities and is an active volunteer in diverse grassroots movements. His main interest is the connection of art and social change.
- Title / Function
- Alumni
- Field of Expertise
- Film
- Telephone number
- +43650 450 11 05
- christoph.steininger@gmx.at
- Links
- www.christophsteininger.at
Carina Stella
Graphic Designer, Vienna
Vienna based graphic design student. Carina likes to explore the possibilities and potentials of using graphic design as a tool to question and voice current affairs. She is currently doing a guest semester to gain insight into the ways issues are tackled by other students and fields of expertise.
Elisabeth Stephan
Trendsetter, New York/ Vienna
Photographer with interest in analoge techniques, many-media artist and PhD student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Currently working on her dissertation on photography as a visual mode of communication in confluence with advertising and social media technology. Elisabeth often travels where her camera and love for foods takes her (she is a skilled chef in a variety of cuisines & cocktails).
- Title / Function
- Alumni
- Field of Expertise
- Photography/ Visual Communication
- Telephone number
- +43 69917611065
- elisabethstephan@mac.com
- Links
- elisabethstephan.com
Project
documenta 2017
Project
AZW Care & Repair
Project
Some Call Them Balkans
Project
TerPra calls PraTer
Enrico Tomassini
Architect, Florence
Rooted in Architecture and Cinema. His interests naturally broadened out to societal issues overtime. He studied film direction and screenplay in Florence and later on got engaged in documentary movie making.Throughout the last seven years he has been engaged in several associations, collectives and groups carrying out projects of different sorts that ranged from bottom-up editorial projects to workshops and self-made architectural installations in public spaces.
- Title / Function
- Alumni
- Field of Expertise
- Architecture, Film Making
- linkklimt@gmail.com
Que Chi Trinh
Industrial Designer, Vienna
Que Chi Trinh comes from the largest city of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city. She is an industrial designer worked in furniture design. On the other hand, she spends her time for researching psychology, philosophy and sociology. In 2012, she began to teach at the university and focused on the interaction between social change and design, human psyche/physiology and design, as well as on sustainable material and design.
- Title / Function
- Alumni
- Field of Expertise
- Urbanism/ Psychology
- quechi.trinh@gmail.com
Maria Tsaneva
Graphic Designer, Sofia
Interested in the process of investigating and experimenting, as well as concentrated on using design as a means of presenting social messages. Keen on creating and organizing projects for youths with the belief that artists have the skills and knowledge to be mediators in the process of investigation in order to reach even the youngest members of society.
- Title / Function
- Student
- Field of Expertise
- Layout, Photography
- Telephone number
- +43 650 5925961
- tsaneva_maria@yahoo.com