This thesis aims to introduce new methods within the field of experience design, an emergent interdisciplinary design discipline, using these methods as tools for debate and for the communication of new design concepts. An important part of the methods come from trendspotting practice and future studies methodology. The backbone of the final project is a “meta-method” which incorporates common methods surveyed so far: the “for/from” method. The first part of the “for/from” method is about designing prototypes and creating fictional narratives to project current trends into the future, the second part is perhaps less structured, but more ambitious, carrying fictional futures to the daily lives, to test and evaluate the scenarios created. Staging experiments and experiences around these proposed methodologies and testing the concepts through workshops forms the core of the proposed design practice. Since the domain of futures thinking is not populated by designers, it is of special importance to me as how designers might find a place in such interdisciplinary teams and how the organizational levels of these so-called complex experiential structures could allow designers to participate. I argue that experience designers not only design customer experiences to please and aestheticize products but they have the power to change people’s (rather than customers’) opinions, using the same tools the field of marketing and exhibition design offers them.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur medier, så som TV, tidningar och Internet påverkar kroppsuppfattningen bland eleverna på designprogrammet. Samt att se om, och i så fall hur, lärarna arbetar med att förebygga den konstlade bild av kropp och kön som media visar upp. Som grund till detta arbete ligger en enkätstudie gjord med 54 elever på ett designprogram. Baserat på resultatet från enkätundersökningen genomfördes gruppintervjuer med lärare och elever på designprogrammets textila inriktning. Resultatet visade att trots att eleverna i väldigt liten utsträckning led av övervikt så eftersträvade de ständigt en slankare och mer vältränad kropp. Vidare framkom att visst påverkades eleverna av medias bild av hur man bör se ut, men att det fanns en ännu större influens, och det var vänner. Slutligen kunde jag konstatera att lärarna i väldigt liten utsträckning arbetade med att förebyga mediers värderingar kring hur kroppen bör se ut.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka samverkan mellan slöjd och andra skolämnen. För att få svar på detta utgick jag ifrån fem frågeställningar. De berörde samverkan, och om det förekommer i dagens skola, vilka ämnesområden som är vanligast, vad samverkan tillför de olika ämnena, om elevernas åldrar har betydelse för förekomsten av samverkan samt om lärares skyldighet, enligt Lpo-94, att samverka är känt hos lärare. Den metod jag har använt mig av är strukturerad intervju. De som intervjuats är klasslärare, resurslärare, drama/bild/musiklärare, och slöjdlärare. Alla informanterna är utbildade lärare i det ämne de undervisar i och studien har begränsats från år tre till år sex. Alla har intervjuats på sin arbetsplats. Av studien har framkommit att samverkan förekommer i dagens skola, nästan alla har någon gång varit med och samverkat men i nuläget är det endast tre lärare som samverkar. Det sker i år tre-sex och i år fyra. Följaktligen är alla åldrar representerade i nulägets samverkan. Som svar på varför inte alla deltar i samverkan har olika anledningar framkommit, exempelvis brist på gemensam planeringstid, att organisationen är ett hinder och kollegors brist på intresse. De som samverkar tycker att det har berikat respektive ämne genom att ämnena har blivit mer konkreta för eleverna och att arbetsglädjen har ökat. Det har även gett eleverna möjlighet att se sammanhang mellan skolans alla ämnen.

AIM: To analyze staining properties of aesthetic brackets. MATERIAL & METHODS: A total of 400 tooth-coloured brackets from 10 brands 5 ceramic and 5 plastic) were investigated. Cumulative effects of staining agents were analyzed at simulated light and heavy consumption levels. Study groups were immersed in the staining agents consecutively at 37°C. The control group was exposed to artificial saliva. Samples were analyzed digitally to obtain the L*, a*, and b* (lightness, red-green, and yellow-blue) colour readings. Using these values total colour change (ΔE*) was also calculated. A general linear model (ANOVA) test was used for statistical comparisons. RESULTS: Significant differences were observed in L*, and b* values of ceramic brackets at all consumption levels (p≤.0001). All values had significant differences amongst the plastic brackets (p≤.0001), except for L* with heavy exposure. Total ΔE* values for ceramic and plastic brackets were 11 and 26, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Both plastic and ceramic brackets showed changes in colour when exposed to staining agents, with plastic brackets being the most affected.

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This thesis is an examination of the concept and the term "superflat" as it is elaborated by the Japanese artist Murakami Takashi in his writings, in the exhibition he curated under the same name, and in his own art. / Its aim is to contextualize Murakami's project on one hand in terms of a similar attempt to define a Japanese national aesthetic in the early 20 th century, and on the other in terms of the 1990's tendency to return to Edo Japan to find the "origins" of Japan's postmodernity. / Murakami's own art is then turned to in order to both elaborate on and test the aesthetic of Japanese art he calls the superflat. This examination of Murakami's art permits the formulation of an aesthetics of Japanese contemporary art and animation even as it will afford an understanding of the "cultural logic" of the digital age that informs Murakami's argument. / Questions important to this project are: Is the articulation of a local aesthetics possible in this globalizing age? What are the aesthetic traits of the digital age? How should the superflat---as both idea and project---be interpreted?

This is a practice-based research project that explores a new aesthetic perspective and approach in the Western medium of photography, through the application and interpretation of contemporary Chinese master artist Qi Baishi’s philosophical notion of between likeness and unlikeness. Rooted in Chinese ink painting tradition, Qi Baishi [齊白石] (1864-1957) developed and created his theory of achieving likeness in spirit and unlikeness in form as the ultimate goal of painting aesthetics. Adapting Qi’s aesthetics and design approaches to inform the research, and through theoretical explorations and photographic practices, a series of works will be developed that manifests the fusion of Chinese aesthetics with Western photography, to propose a confluent cross-cultural aesthetic thought. The aspiration of drawing upon Qi’s aesthetics at a philosophical level, which is unfamiliar in the context of Western photography, has posed a challenge to the creative exploration. The final outcome is intended to trigger aesthetic resonance in the viewers to further dialectic discussion. The outcome of this research project is presented through a series of photographic works and displayed in a gallery environment.

<p>The topic for my thesis is sustainable design in the light of critical design. The only simple thing about sustainability is to pronounce it, which is one of the vital results that this project displays. Wearing my critical goggles while digging into the discourse of sustainable design I saw the many factors that play a role in this complex system of networks. Creating reflections rather than fulfilling a new commercial need, posed as a spotlight on the whole design process and also on the context to appreciate this. My artifact is an attempt to visualize the complexity around sustainable development and by pointing out the importance of having a holistic approach to this; my aim is to encourage a new way of looking at products. Seeing them from their entire life, from birth to death, and metaphorically speaking how we, the human species, keep on affecting a products ecological footprint all through its time here on earth. The mediator of my message is a game and by apostrophizing a part of the complexity, my aim is to reach routine-like actions and aknowledging by letting the visitors play an active part in the exhibition, since active actions lead to consciousness.</p>

nÃo hà / RESUMO As reflexÃes filosÃficas e estÃticas lanÃadas por Walter Benjamin no perÃodo compreendido entre as Grandes Guerras foram seminais para a interpretaÃÃo do papel das artes e da comunicaÃÃo tanto no sÃculo 20, como no atual. O carÃter prognÃstico de suas idÃias permitiu fazer uma prospecÃÃo futura do ambiente tecnolÃgico que viria a surgir nos tempos de economia de mercado e ainda nos faz refletir nas possibilidades de a tecnologia ser incorporada ao cotidiano dos mais humildes. A partir da identificaÃÃo do advento da reprodutibilidade, ele enxergou novos horizontes para as artes, lanÃou luz sobre a recepÃÃo democrÃtica da atividade artÃstica, cuja realizaÃÃo deve ser dada para o consumo das massas. O que proponho à investigar a intromissÃo do universo digital nas prÃticas culturais e na produÃÃo imagÃtica advindas do interior de comunidades da periferia urbana da Fortaleza de hoje, tempo onde a tecnologia domina todas as Ãreas de sua produÃÃo, a fim de comprovar criticamente o Ãxito do empreendimento benjaminiano e entender atà que ponto a tecnologia toca esta produÃÃo e suas prÃticas simbÃlicas, favorecendo-a ou nÃo. Para isso, procurando atualizar conceitos, investigo a produÃÃo imagÃtica digital de adolescentes da periferia, vendo e ouvindo o que os jovens estÃo âdizendoâ ou ânarrandoâ atravÃs da imagem digital.

The last half of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, in the West, has been referred to as postmodern. Postmodernity represents a stage in a society after having passed through a nihilism, itself produced by the universal commodification inherent in late stage capitalism. Here we explore the progress of devaluation through Adorno’s negative dialects to ascertain the potential for truth and authenticity in the object. Informing Adorno’s negative dialectics, were Kant, Hegel, and Marx. Through their dialectics, Adorno postulated the effect of commodities, as objects, within the first part of the 20th century, and how the lack of potential for truth and freedom in these objects anticipated the nihilism of both the late capitalism period, into the postmodern period. This nihilism itself, was anticipated by Nietzsche. Further, this entire focus on and influence of commodities on the individual, from the early twentieth century to the present is referred to as the commodity structure and itself can be equated to Heidegger’s falling prey. Once the subject has had the valuation or meaning of their lives stripped via this universal commodification of the commodity structure, this paper will argue through the works of Heidegger and Nietzsche and the role of the aesthetic, only then can the subject in the postmodern period reclaim qua participation in one’s own becoming towards both truth and authenticity, as well as freedom.