Open Lectures

On May 5th at 6 pm, our Faculty of Architecture will be happy to present architect and historian researching the history of architecture and urban technologies, Professor Antoine Picon with an open lecture titled “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Design” at the EKA Main Hall.

Will artificial intelligence really impact design practice? If such is the case, what role would be left to humans in a more and more machine-driven context? The lecture will explore some of the possible scenarios linked to the rise of artificial intelligence. Central to these scenarios will be the question of the distribution of agency between humans and machines.

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology and Director of Research at the Harvard GSD and Director of Research at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. Trained as an engineer, architect, and historian, Picon works on the history of architectural and urban technologies from the eighteenth century to the present. He has published extensively on this subject.

Open Lectures are open to all architecture and design students, professionals and general audience intrigued by spatial and design matters. The lecture is in English and free of charge.

The lecture is one of the subject pre-lectures of the Conference “Innovation and Digital Reality” which takes place 6th of September 2022 in EKA: https://www.artun.ee/…/conference-innovation-and…/

The lecture and conference are supported by Estonian Association of Architects, European Regional Development Fund and EKA.

EKA Student Council invites you to participate in the mental vitamine week! 

The goal of the week is to draw attention to your own health and find the best in every situation where we find ourselves.

THEMES

Monday: resting — online detox
Tuesday: therapy — stress relief
Wednesday: movement — yoga marathon
Thursday: positive emotions — positive vibes
Friday: good relations — party

WEEK’S SCHEDULE

Monday: resting — online detox
— challenge: give your phone away for the whole school day
— napping room (A501), 13:00—17:00

Tuesday: therapy — stress relief
— jumping therapy (courtyard), 09:00—17:00
— screaming room (student council, D600), 10:00—14:00
— power punch (C306), 14:00—20:00
— Bullet Journey notebooks (lobby)

Wednesday: movement — yoga marathon
— yoga the whole day (A501), 10:00—17:00

Thursday: positive emotions — positive vibes
— free huggers around the school
— positive notes appear
— mental lecture (A501), 17:00—19:00
— Argo Publishers books (lobby)

Friday: good relations — health party
— healthy shot bar
— piilu osakonda: product design, party (C301), 19:30—…

The event takes place at the Academy of Arts, for everybody, throughout the week and of course, totally free.

Mental Vitamine Week is supported by MyFitness, A. Le Coq, Medifum and Mattias Veller

OPEN LECTURE by Ariel Guersenzvaig
“The goods of design: towards professional ethics for designers”
Thursday, 14th of April at 4 p.m. (EKA, A-101)

SYNOPSIS

Despite its impact on society and on the world, the design profession lacks widespread ethical principles and frameworks for addressing ethical issues. Codes of ethics, however useful to prompt discussions, rarely go beyond generalities as preventing harms or respecting human rights. In this talk I will propose a different approach based on the cultivation of ethics from within the practice, and will explore the urgent need for a broad design professional ethics that viably enables designers to deal with the challenges they face in their profession.

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Ariel Guersenzvaig is a design and technology ethicist and a professor of design at ELISAVA, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. His main areas of research are, on the one hand, the ethical impact of machine intelligence on society, and, on the other hand, the ethics of professional design activity, which is the topic of his latest book ‘The Goods of Design: Professional Ethics for Designers’* (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), which is also available in EKA library. He holds a PhD in Design Theory from the University of Southampton (UK), and an MA in Ethics from the University of Birmingham (UK).

Monday, April 4, 16:30

EKA auditorium A101

Valentinas Klimašauskas will present his recent practice as an art researcher, curator, and writer while emphasising the critique of the art machinery in the age of manipulations.

Valentinas Klimašauskas is a curator and writer who is based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Together with João Laia he curated “The Endless Frontier”, the 14th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius (2021). With Inga Lāce he curated “Saules Suns”, a solo exhibition by Daiga Grantina for the Latvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019). He is a curator at large at Springs.video, a moving image streaming platform that also serves as an educational and curatorial archive. Currently, he is also continuing his doctoral research at Vilnius Art Academy titled “A (self)portrait of a young artist in the style of institutional critique”.

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Valentinas Klimašauskas is in Tallinn on the invitation of Graphic Design MA and Contemporary Art MA programmes. The lecture is additionally hosted by KUNO network and can be joined also via Zoom 

Meeting ID: 978 6104 0017

Passcode: 352620

Sara Kaaman OPEN LECTURE bodies, rooms, movements, fictions

Wednesday, 30 March
17:30h
Room A-501

The talk is held in English

Playing with temporality, history and storytelling, this performative lecture is a dramatised odyssey through, and deconstruction of, the professional identity we know as the “graphic designer”. Historical and speculative facts and fictions blend into infotainment, with Britney Spears in a supporting role.

Sara Kaaman is a graphic designer based in Stockholm, who is also teaching, writing, moving, and currently studying an MA in New Performative Practices. She is interested in the intersections of publishing technologies, bodies, politics, performance and poetry. Since 2012 she is the graphic designer and co-editor of Girls Like Us magazine. With Maryam Fanni and Matilda Flodmark she forms the research collective MMS, investigating labour histories of graphic design via feminist theory and practice. Their book Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography was published in 2020. With dancer and choreographer Klara Utke Acs, she works on performative investigations on the metaphors of digital and analogue publishing formats, most recently presented as ”The Book – An Interfacial Sitcom”.

Guided tours at the Jubilee Exhibition of the Department of Accessory Design “Perspectives” in the gallery of Põhjala Factory with Stella Runnel.

22.03 Tuesday 5.30–7 pm
24.03 Thursday 4.30–6 pm
25.03 Friday 5 –7 pm
30.03 Wednesday 6–7 pm
31.03 Thursday 5–7 pm

Please register first

Artists Sophie Thun and Karel Koplimets will hold an open artist talk at 17:00 on Tuesday, March 22, 2022 in Estonian Academy of Arts, room A-501. Karel Koplimets introduces his artistic practice; Sophie Thun will have a conversation with Marge Monko, professor of the department of photography in EKA.

On the same week, Sophie Thun and Karel Koplimets lead masterclasses in the department of photography.

Talk will be held in English.

Sophie Thun (b. 1985) works primarily with techniques of analogue photography, its spaces, processes as well as conditions of production and exhibition.

In her artistic practice, Thun is primarily concerned with the spaces and physicality of photography, more precisely with me as the technician and operator of the apparatus. The places and the process itself are made visible in the work, the work and exhibition space become part of each other. In her artistic work, Sophie pursues the question of how work can be created for a specific spatial situation, which decisions (can/must) be made regarding the location, format, process, and production.

https://www.sophietappeiner.com/artist/sophie-thun/

Raised in Warsaw, Sophie Thun lives and works in Vienna. She completed her master’s degrees at the Academies of Fine Art in Vienna (2017, Martin Guttmann and Daniel Richter) and Cracow (2010). Solo and duo exhibitions include: I Don’t Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Archive of Zenta Dzividzinska, Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga; Merge Layers at Galerie Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna (both 2021); Stolberggasse, Secession Vienna (2020). Group exhibitions include: FRIEDL KUBELKA VOM GRÖLLER Songs of Experience, Museo MACRO, Rome; Smart to the Core: Medium / Image, SMART Museum, Chicago; Homesick, Shivers Only, Paris (all 2021); Elisabeth Wild, curated by Adam Szymczyk, Karma International, Zurich; Borderlinking, High Art, Paris (both 2020).

Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Verbund Collection Vienna, the SMART Museum Chicago, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, and the OÖ Landesmuseum Linz.

Karel Koplimets (b. 1986) is a photo, video and installation artist based in Tallinn, Estonia. The main keywords in his artistic practice are urban space, fear, paranoia, prejudice and criminality. With his recent projects, Koplimets has been observing the themes related to traveling and migration under various economical and geopolitical conditions, including shopping tourism and commuting. One of the most common features in Koplimets’ artwork is the psychological aspect – his large-scale installations influence the viewers’ spatial experience and perception.

He has an MA degree in Photography (Estonian Academy of Arts, 2013) and has finished two year postgraduate programme at HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Belgium, 2021). He has received the Estonian Artist Laureate Salary (2020) and he was nominated for the main art prize in Estonia (Köler Prize, 2013). Koplimets has participated in various exhibitions in Estonia and abroad. Recent exhibition projects include: Belonging (Hunt Museum, Ireland, 2022), Art in the Comfort Zone? The 2000s in Estonian Art (Kumu Art Museum, Estonia, 2021) and Sonsbeek´s Conjunctions programme (Park Sonsbeek, Netherlands, 2021). His works are included in various collections in Europe, e.g., Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Musée de l’Elysée and Art Museum of Estonia. Koplimets has also participated in different art residency programmes, e.g., EIB Institute’s Artists Development Programme (Luxembourg, 2019) and Helsinki International Artist Programme (Finland, 2015).

www.karelkoplimets.com

EKA Accessory and Bookbinding Department is inviting all the footwear design lovers to an open lecture “The Aki Method: Surviving as a Designer in Today’s World” on Thursday, 3rd of March at 4-5 p.m. to EKA, room A-101.

The lecture is about how to live a successful design life in a world full of challenges through Aki Choklat’s prism. He will share his history, philosophy and experience in the design industries including education. 

Aki Choklat is a fashion and footwear design professional with experience in all levels of the industry, from design to production. He is a Royal College of Art graduate, and the Founding Chair of Fashion Design Department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. He has held numerous positions with top-tier, international fashion labels, such as designing a capsule footwear collection for London-based menswear Diverso and consulted with numerous brands, such as Finnish footwear heritage brand Lahtiset. In addition, he directs his own London-based label of shoes, handbags and accessories. He helped establish and lead the footwear and accessories master program at Polimoda, Italy’s leading fashion school with Ferruccio Ferragamo at the helm, and has taught at the London College of Fashion and De Montfort University. Choklat is also a celebrated author of many design books, one of which – “Footwear Design” – is considered the authority on shoe design.

Aki Choklat’ veeb

Aki Choklat Instagram

CCS Fashiondesign Instagram

College for Creative Studies

This lecture is part of the EKA Accessories and Bookbinding Department jubilee exhibition and other event series.

Exhibition “Perspectives” is open from 6- 31st of March at Põhjala tehas Sepikoja gallery (Marati 5, Tallinn). Information about rest of the events will be updated in web and social media continuously: 

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EKA aksessuaaridisain Instagram

The lecture is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment and the Baltic-American Freedom Foundation (BAFF).

Open lecture will be held in English without translation. 

The lecture will be recorded and it will be rerun on EKA TV.