Summer School is an open creative research event over three days
with presentations, workshops, discussions, networking and creative
events.
MOVEMENTS in HUMAN-CENTEREDNESS
During the last decades the focus on the human as active subject has
increased within research in art, design and architecture. On the one
hand it has meant a change in the field of design and its development
process from production-centred to human-centred. On the other hand
it is connected with wider philosophical processes, moving from
objective descriptions of the world to the passive object becoming an
experiential subject in several disciplines, like hermeneutics,
phenomenology or social constructionism. Legitimising the uniqueness
and singularity of the human experience has also validated the
author’s singular viewpoint in writing, research or interpreting
artwork through subjective experience.
Focussing on the human subject leads us to other questions: how is it possible
to share and generalise experience?
How is the growing tendency to engage communities and the ideals of participation shifting the focus
from singular to the shared?
How can we treat multiple users as one
bigger entity or a person as a fragment of the universe?
Today we can admire the totally networked and globalised world, but it is
distinguished by social, environmental and economic problems. These
problems are interconnected and complex and have more than direct
impact on people’s well-being; these are characteristics of the wider
society and ecosystems. By trying to solve wicked problems we
recognise that focussing on the singular human may be too narrow and
that we haven’t given enough focus to humans, plural.
Therefore it is important to ask where the human-centred paradigm is moving?
How can we grasp the huge system, the bigger picture and still keep
the personal dimension in focus?
By sharing experience what happens to the subject’s singularity?