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
Oliver Hangl
Artist, Vienna
Oliver Hangl, who originally started his career as actor and scenic designer in 1993, is just as active in performative disciplines and media spaces as in fine arts exhibition sites. His works mark a consistent confrontation between man and environment. Hangl pushes at the boundaries between physical and psychological spaces. With the public space as his stage he playfully embeds a site and context-responsive set of experiences and interactions for both planned and incidental audiences.
- Title / Function
- Visiting Artist / Winter Term 2019/20
- Field of Expertise
- Since 1999 various teaching engagements at Art Universities ---- Since 2008 Director of project space k48 – offensive for contemporary perception in Vienna ---- Since 2010 Artistic director of WIENER BESCHWERDECHOR
- Links
- http://www.oliverhangl.com/
Judith Haslöwer
,
Clara Hirschmanner
Philosopher, Artist, Vienna / Linz
Clara has studied philosophy in Vienna, focusing on socio-political questions. She is investigating how our society is generating a dog-eat-dog atmosphere, in which only the winner takes it all. As an artist Clara is experimenting with different playful interaction methods and interventions in public space.
- clara@playvienna.com
Barbara Holub
Artist / Architect , Vienna
Barbara Holub is an artist, architect and researcher based in Vienna. With Paul Rajakovics she founded transparadiso, a transdisciplinary practice for socially engaged urbanism: direct urbanism. Visiting artist at the Dept. Social Design (2015/2016), lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology.
- Title / Function
- Visiting Artist
- Summer Term 2014 - Summer Term 2016
- Field of Expertise
- Direct Urbanism
- Links
- www.transparadiso.com
- www.barbaraholub.com
Heidrun Holzfeind
Artist,
Holzfeind’s works address questions of the documentary mode in general, and the social function of architecture in particular. Based on extensive research and realized with poetic flair, her works probe the interrelations between society and identity, between individual histories and the political narratives of the present.
- Title / Function
- Visiting Artist 2019
- Links
- www.heidrunholzfeind.com
Project
The Staircase Choir
Project
Landprobe
Project
At Home in a Liminal World
Project
Right to the city
Magdalena Hubauer
Urban Sociologist, Vienna
Magdalena Hubauer is a Vienna-based sociologist. In the past years she worked on projects dealing with community building in new neighborhoods and knowledge transfer through multipliers. She is interested in discovering factors that shape and affect the everyday lifes and movements of people and in creative ways of questioning and playing with them.