School for Designing a Society

Fall 2008 School for Designing a Society

in Urbana, IL
September 2 - December 12, 2008

SCHOOL MATERIALS

Readings
Paradigms: The Inertia of Language (.pdf) by Marianne Brün
This essay outlines some of the foundational concepts of our school, from one of its foundational thinkers.

Cybernetics of Cybernetics (500 page book - available in the School library, or you can purchase a copy for $50)
The Cybernetics of Cybernetics is both the name of an interdisciplinary, team-taught course offered for several semesters at UIUC in the 1970s, and the title of a book created by the students and instructors of that course. Both have explicitly and implicitly influenced the formation and development of the School for Designing a Society. The book includes canonical articles (including ones authored by the instructors) from the relatively brief history of the field, some responses to assignments by the students, a multi-vocal dictionary of cybernetic terms cross-referenced by author in "entailment meshes" diagramming each author's collection of definitions ... and other ways in which the composition of the book enacts the ideas presented in the book. This course will focus on reading the entire book together, with an eye toward the relevance to us thinking about designing society in 2008 of late-20th-century reflections on early-20th-century conundrums.

Instructors
Full Time: Susan Parenti, Rob Scott, Mark Enslin, Danielle Chynoweth, Michael Brun
Visiting: Patch Adams MD (October visit?)
Visiting: Almah Lavon Rice (Guest-in-Residence) Nov. 12-25, 2008
Visiting: Ryan Strandjord (Guest-in-Residence) Oct. 12-25, 2008
Visiting: Elizabeth Adams (Artist-in-Residence) Nov. 2-15, 2008
Visiting: Thomas Fischer (Artist-in-Residence) Nov. 2-15, 2008
Visiting: Larry Richards (Cybernetics Nug) Dec. 3-6, 2008

Schedule

Opening night - September 1, 2008 - 7pm to 8:30pm On the 2nd floor of the IMC at 202 S. Broadway in Urbana.

This is a sketch and should be considered a proposal. (updated August 24, 2008)

    

Fundamentals of Designing a Society (everyone)
Course proposal initially formulated by Herbert Brün, in response to the question "What do you consider fundamental to designing a society?" The fundamentals course offers deliberately stipulated premises in nine areas, including: freedom - the number of alternatives for choice; criteria; the establishment of connections; temporary truth; ethics. The fundamentals were formulated to enable people to speak language, rather than be spoken by language. The point is to change premises.

Seminar for Experimental Composition (Susan Parenti and Mark Enslin, co-hosts)
Note: for second and third year students of School for Designing a Society.
This seminar aims at enabling participants to compose. The bi-weekly meetings will generate seminar discussions that inspire, constrain, and teach composition. A portion of the seminar will be spent in learning tools towards discussion: argumentation, logic/logical fallacies, language games, levels/domains/ boundaries, schools of thought, drawing distinctions, assumption-divining, etc. Another portion will expand our reference pool by studying already existent compositions (string quartets, theater, poetry, painting) and probing ways to bring language to our study without damaging either. A third portion will 'teach' composition by presenting compositional ideas and focussing on participants' compositional attempts. Class work consists of responding to two composition assignments, and of reading/listening to five texts/compositions.

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HOUSING

The School for Designing a Society does not own a campus. The map to the right is from Fall 2007, and is included here to give a sense of how the housing situation works out in Urbana during a session of the School for Designing a Society.

NOTE: The houses on this map are not necessarily looking for renters/tenants/housemates. Please check back on this website for updates on housing alternatives in Urbana this summer.

Leads on Housing (updated August 24, 2008):

This section is now closed. All of the new participants appear to be lodging at La Casa and a Victorian six bedroom Main Street House.

Many of the returning participants are at houses on this map to the right.

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TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS

AIR: You can fly directly to the Urbana-Champaign area by arriving at the Willard Airport (CMI) in Savoy (listed as "Champaign, IL"). Just tell us your flight time and arrival date, and we will pick you up.

You can probably save $100 to $150 by flying to Chicago O'Hare (ORD) or Chicago Midway (MDW) and then taking a 3 hour ride on the Lincolnland or Suburban Express transportaion service. Your final destination would be the "Illinois Terminal" in Champaign, and we will pick you up from there.

TRAIN: The Amtrak arrives and departs from Champaign-Urbana, IL (CHM) on a route that connects Chicago and New Orleans. Use www.amtrak.com to make a connection from your point of departure. Your final destination will be "Champaign-Urbana and we will pick you up at the train station.

CAR: Urbana and Champaign are located at the intersection of Interstate 57 (north/south) and Interstate 74 (east/west). Almost all School for Designing a Society activities occur in Urbana, not Champaign. There are three exits for Urbana off of Route 74: Lincoln Avenue, Cunningham, and University. They all eventually deliver you to University Avenue. If you are coming by car, please let us know and we will coordinate a final destination.

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ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES

CAR - August 4: Elizabeth Nall arrived in Urbana on this day
CAR - August 22: Andrew Heathwaite's triumphant arrival!
CAR - August 28: Dongseon will drive down (after being picked up at Chicago airport by a friend)
CAR - August 30: Steven Sparkman arrives this day
CAR - August 30: Kelsey coming from Minneapolis.

TRAIN - nobody is taking the train

AIR - August 26: Jisu Won will arrive at Champaign Airport 9:46am on NW 3103
AIR - August 26-7: Danhi arriving Chicago (transporter to Champaign?)
AIR - August 27: Ju Yeon arrive in Chicago

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