it visions
5 ECTS

IT products can be seen as small parts of large visions; as partial implementations of how the world could ideally be. In much work these visions on the world are implicit. Yet it is interesting to uncover the thinking behind our past, present and future products as these visions have significant social and cultural impact. What kind of society are we (as designers of technology) actually aiming for? Visions come and go, moving in and out of vogue as they become outdated, are surpassed or re-interpreted.

In this course, we ask you to familiarise yourself with visions on information technology. What visions are our current IT products based on? Are there voices that suggest we look at technology in a different way? What are the major controversies? We ask you to critically compare these visions and perhaps even form your own.

This course has two principal goals: Socio-cultural awareness of technology and the development of academic writing skills.

Course coordinators: Sara Eriksén and Ben Matthews

IT Visions is held every wednesday afternoon in the Co-Lab.

For information about potential sources you can use for this course, see the filmlist and booklist.

Your final, four-page paper should conform to the slightly modified version of the ACM SIGCHI template, which is downloadable here as a word document.