Excerpt from the work by Utkarsh Pathak, for his graduating thesis project.
4-YEAR UG Professional Program
Information Arts and Information Design Practices
Course Overview
Art and design can stimulate meaningful action on social, cultural, political, and environmental issues through the power of storytelling. This power can transform information into impactful experiences and empower people to bring about change. The Information Arts and Information Design Practise (IAIDP) course enables students to harness art and design practices to create stories, spark dialogue, and inspire action. By exploring diverse media and data, from the artistic to the technological, students will seek to find unique forms of communication and curation. You will be challenged to grapple with complex and nuanced issues such as poverty and inequality, gender, culture and heritage, and the environment, and to use your skills to create work that has the power to inspire social change. As you train in the IAIDP program, you will be able to perceive and interpret information to communicate effectively and responsibly, poised to make a difference in the world through your creativity.
Vision
Art and design are critical to stimulating meaningful action around the world’s social, cultural, political, and environmental issues. From poverty and inequality, and gender issues to climate change, artists and designers wield a powerful tool in their ability to tell stories to impact life around them, to enable change and to empower people.
Through powerful stories, cultures dream, grow and transform. Storytelling has the power to transform information into meaningful experiences. Information (and disinformation) is ubiquitous and omnipresent. We relentlessly use mobile phones to record our life stories constantly; posters inform, educate and make aware; illustrated books of every kind make a narrative come alive; we use our bodies as powerful instruments to tell stories through performance, dance, and theatre; we watch films that transport us to fictional or real worlds.
All of this is information…overwhelming, persuasive and constantly evolving.
The Information Arts and Information Design Practices (IAIDP) looks at the processes by which information is gathered and for whom this information is intended. Emphasis is on developing, through a design or artistic process, the appropriate media for disseminating and delivering this information.
The aim is to nurture reflective practitioners who enquire into and interpret the world through storytelling. Using tools that record change, be it memories, cultures, personal narratives or vast amounts of data, students are encouraged to explore newer and imaginative ways to construct and craft knowledge, tell stories and responsibly create communication.
While the course helps acquire media and communication design skills, social design is the primary focus. Work in diverse fields that range from conservation, gender, social communication, culture and heritage is encouraged. The core aim is to aspire to create work that creates social change in some way. The goal is to train oneself in diverse media, which include but are not limited to – drawing, painting, photography, film, creative writing, graphic design, multimodal design, storytelling, computer graphics, interaction design and other art and design practices. Research, design processes and methods, artistic processes and methods and ethical ways of working closely with communities while collaborating with them are given special importance.
This course invites young people seeking to make a difference in the world with their work.
LEVEL
Undergraduate Degree
AWARD
Bachelors of Design (B.Des)
DURATION
4 Years / Full-time
Course Structure
The curriculum comprises of different ways of learning as follows:
- Foundation introduces students to basic principles and tools of Art, Design and Technology as methods, tools and processes.
Disciplinary Studios are learning spaces where students develop core disciplinary capabilities, while navigating a trans-disciplinary environment - General Studies is a common and compulsory programme of study that integrates Humanities, Sciences, Maths, business and finance. Development and Policy Studies and also offers Languages (Spanish, French and German)
- Interim is an immersive introduction to practice in new and emerging areas of art and design and environmental exposure
- Electives are of three kinds – this program allows students to expand their skills, develop the interests as well as provide opportunities for travel exchange
- Internship/Apprenticeship is compulsory work experience done over the summer-break between the 6th and 7th semester
- Project based learning involves the application and synthesis of capabilities acquired. Two projects, pre-thesis and thesis, is culmination of the 4-year undergraduate program, which allows for demonstration of an integration of values, positions, capabilities and practice.
Learning Approach
In the IAIDP course, you will develop skills in leadership, context sensitivity, and self-reflexivity. Through lively debates, dialogue, ethical questioning, and participatory research into communities and contexts, you will learn to use data analysis, visualisation tools, and artistic expression to create communication. You will explore hands-on ways of crafting, designing, and developing for traditional and digital platforms. You will also learn to strategically intervene and innovate towards change communication to emerge as a reflective practitioner with a deep understanding of interdependence and symbiosis in social transformation.
Capabilities
Upon successful completion of this course graduates will have developed the following capabilities:
- Experiment, choose context-sensitive media and create meaningful work
- Use multiple lenses to extract, interpret and engage with information
- Engage with communities using varied art and design tools and methodologies
- Emerge self-identity through ethical dilemmas, limitations and challenges
- Strategically intervene and innovate towards change communication
- Emerge practice with reflections on interdependence and symbiosis
FAQs
The Information Arts and Information Design Practices (IAIDP) field empowers practitioners to use diverse media and data to communicate for social change while fostering leadership, context sensitivity, and self-reflexivity. This emerging field offers a unique opportunity for practitioners to grapple with complex issues and develop their skills in communication and interpretation.
The IAIDP course is ideal for individuals with a natural curiosity and willingness to engage with diverse media and communities at the forefront of contemporary approaches to art and communication. If you have the inclination to explore different ways of storytelling to create new ways to engage people, then this course is for you.
The above capability sets equip and prepare the student for a wide range of career opportunities with:
- Employment in Design Studios, Advertising Agencies and the Publishing Industry
- Employment in the New Media and Software industry
- Employment in Media and Television Industry
- Employment in startups, small and medium enterprises, NGOs, and social and educational enterprises.
- You can become a contemporary art practitioner, entrepreneur, or design consultant.
- You can actively engage in emerging domains such as digital arts and new technology storytelling in new formats.
- Pursue your research and continue to do a PhD.
- Develop your projects and apply for grants.
- Some job profiles could be
Design Strategist, Project Manager – Community Programme Services, Entrepreneur- Visual Designer. Artist. Arts Manager, Design consultant, Educator, Social justice Coordinator, Multicultural program coordinator, Cultural Design Practitioner, Creative Director, Program Manager, Creative and Cultural Researcher, Storyteller, Systems designer/ Consultant, Design Consultant, Educational designer, Eco-artist/ Eco –Designer