LETTER no. 78Week no.12: Road to Nowhere. MondayDesign 101 MOOC, Abadir for iversity

Greetings from the Lascaux caves, France.

One of those places where people some thousand years ago were busy doing the same things we are doing now. They were busy working (their work was to hunt to get food), building tools, eating altogether, having fun, drawing stuff, sleeping and making love.

We found ourselves lost in this fascinating and mysterious world with prehistoric people and graffitis.

Boyoboy oboyoboy oboyoboyoboyoboyoboyoboy... echoes within the cave.

At the other end of the tunnel, Marshall McLuhan is discussing the Tribal Age. According to him, it marks the beginning of Media History. It was a time of community where the ear was the guiding sense organ.

Hear and believe.

Now with Marshall McLuhan as our tour-guide, how could we make this day better?

Now, go out and build something cool. Out in the woods. Chinese Proverb

This week, we will sure do.

Question of the day: Are you ready for more?

We start the week from the comfort and humidity of this natural underground chamber.Soon, it will be time to reach the surface, to explore the outdoors. Are you ready?

Traveling has always been synonymous to knowing. This applies to all disciplines, all ages and all countries. It applies to anyone who wants to design in the globalized world.

Traveling is essential to see new places, to learn about (and meet) unexpected people, to see the world you come from with new glasses of interpretation.

To better understand other cultures (something quite difficult to do...).

Homework no. 78Last week, we learned to tell stories through very simple materials. This week, you will build a house for yourself.A simple house. Well call it a shelter.

But first, today, you will completing the quiz and preparing yourself for the following days. From the cave to the outside breeze, this will be our schedule:

on Tuesday: you will plan your own shelter, your own tent. You will carefully fabricate its components.

on Wednesday: you will assemble your tents components. The ones that you fabricated on Tuesday.

on Thursday: you will bring your tent outside. In a park or into the wild.

on Friday: you will bring your tent outside at night time, and you will make it glow.

on Saturday: you will relax and catch up on the weeks homework.

on Sunday: you will relax and catch up.

What will I learn today? To plan a trip.

We strongly suggest you to dedicate an entire notebook (or a series of notebooks) to this trip of yours. For notes, drawings, things you pick up on the way to find materials, train tickets etcetc. At the end of the week, you should have a wonderful notebook to remember all the stories you will have encountered.

Why do we do this? To prepare a trip is a little more complex than to prepare an one-day exploration of your own city

Here the theme is to organize a trip of a couple of days. Once you get how to organize a trip of a few days, then you will be able to organize a trip of a few weeks, and then, of a whole life!

Something to remember: Design is to plan trips and making them happen.

Further inspiration Lascaux is a mesmerizing place. Look at these images. Read about these drawings and these people. There was a day when these things were the most stunning examples of contemporary art and contemporary design. Everything done in the last 10.000 years has once been contemporary. It was outrageous, it was difficult to understand. It was like this in Lascaux and it still is today in the global world.

A long run that started thousands of years ago and still goes on. With new characters adding their passion, energy and intelligence along the way.

Designers, intellectuals, thinkers. People who wake up in the morning and start inventing new questions. People like Paul Klee (can you find his drawings in the cave?), people like Marshall McLuhan (the one who famously stated: the medium is the message.

Check Klees art. Check McLuhans thoughts. They arent designers, but they feed our imagination.

Our ancestors used sections of the caves as palaeolithic cathedrals, decorated with paint and accompanied by singing. says Iegor Reznikoff.

Isnt this cool? You can listen to him here.

More about these points of resonance?

> http://www.livescience.com/2647-cave-men-loved-sing.html> http://www.abc.net.au/sci.../articles/2008/07/03/2293114.htm> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/.../080702-cave...

And now...Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.

Keith Haring

You should definitely visit and browse this website dedicated to the graffiti artist:

http://www.haring.com/

One last song?Its one you already know!Were on a road to nowhere... ...come on inside.Takin that ride to nowhere... ...well take that ride.Im feelin okay this mornin... ...and you know.Were on the road to paradise... ...here we go... ...here we go.

:-)

Design 101. A How-To.We know we have some late-comers, here are a few instructions on how the whole thing functions...

A typical Design 101 day:

We send you an email around 9 in the morning (Berlin time) with the link to our daily unit + some news, updates, cool Design 101 things we found etc.etc.

Note: you can find all of our previous emails in the Announcements section of Design 101 on iversity.

Once you land on the units page, you find our shipment (which consists of a video-postcard + a letter). You watch the video, read our letter, get to work and complete the assignment (or relax if its a weekend day). For even more fun, you can always refer to the Design 101 encyclopedia, which is updated every week.

Dont forget to take part in the conversations of the Discussions forum!

Now, going beyond the iversity platform, we have setup other places for us to meet and spread things we do.

On Facebook:the Design 101 page: to follow whats going on (in general terms)the Design 101 Exercises page: to check out picks (things that fascinate us the most)the Design 101 Arena group: to post your pictures, share your thoughts, emotions, references, lalala (as a complement to the discussions happening on the platform).

On Twitter,@design1o1: to follow whats going on + discuss with each other.#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.

On YouTube:the Design 101 channel: to view + share our video postcards (which is not possible to do from the iversity platform)

On Instagram:#design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.

Regarding the hashtag, make sure to use #design1o1 with an o and not a 0...

:-)

PS Uploading your homework to the iversity platform is very important in terms of archiving. It is the only way we can collect all the things we do in one same place. Once the course ends, it might turn out to be reorganized into a wonderful book and/or exhibition

Stonehenge

A sextant

Todays postcard

Lascaux CavesMarshall McLuhan