At Freischwimmer – 11.09.2010
Our friend Markus Rathgeb invited us to give a talk at the final show of his bachelor students in Media Design of the Duale Hochschule Baden Wüttenberg
on the 11th September.

Our friend Markus Rathgeb invited us to give a talk at the final show of his bachelor students in Media Design of the Duale Hochschule Baden Wüttenberg
on the 11th September.

Recently Alvaro Benalcazar invited us together with Polly Hunter (who was heavily involved in Department 21) to lead a workshop in the context of the exhibition Dreams
, which he is co-organising together with a group of students from Central Saint Martins College in London. We’ll be there on the 3rd September.

Finally also Department 21 has its well deserved page here.
Our friend Luisa
from the collective Millepiani
invited us to participate in the project Zoning Ordinance, on the commercialisation of Florence’s historical centre, which will take place from 27th September to 10th October in Florence at the Villa Romana
.


We are taking part in the project Angolazioni Urbane
, which will take place in Mestre (Venice) from September 13th to 18th. We will produce an intervention in via Piave
, one of Mestre’s most central streets, which is undergoing an important moment of deep social reconfiguration.
We finally graduated from our two year MA at the RCA. We are back in Italy for the summer. There are a few new projects we will soon start working on. But first we need a couple of days off. We’ll be back soon for a general website update.

Next Monday Francesco Jodice
will present a few of our projects in Milan at Careof DOCVA
(Documentation Center for Visual Arts) in the context of a series of events titled Photography? Encounters with young authors from photography schools, by Careof DOCVA and Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, curated by Chiara Agnello and Matteo Balduzzi.
Monday, 5 July, 6.30pm
Careof Docva
Fabbrica del Vapore, via Procaccini 4 Milan
Come and visit us at the Royal College of Art degree show in our Department 21 space. Or check the daily updates about our activities on www.department21.net 

But the end is in sight. The book comes together and will go to print on th 2nd July; the Installation for the final show has been planned and will soon be built; a long list of guests for different events at the show has been compiled and the first invitations have been sent out. For more information and updates: www.department21.net 
On the 27th April at 8pm we’ll be present at Metahaven’s
Uncorporate Identity book launch at Club Trouw in Amsterdam. The event includes a mini-symposium in which different people will hold a short lecture in response to a specific chapter of the book. We got the 3rd one, on terrorism, encryption and black metal – all kinds of dark stuff.


Here a few thoughts instigated by the book, which we pinned down while formulating our contribution:
The search and selection process is now completed and the new Head of Communication Art & Design at the RCA is Neville Brody. Here the official announcement that today went out to the press:
For Immediate Release:
Neville Brody: Royal College of Art “de facto natural home for all visual communications” as he accepts position as Head of Communication Art & Design
LONDON, 22 March, 2010 — Neville Brody has been named as the new Head of the Department of Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art, taking up the position on 1 January 2011. He will be succeeding Professor Dan Fern, who retires at the end of the academic year.
read more ›


On the 10th of March 2010, after the presentations of the short-listed candidates for the position of new Head of Department of Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art, 44 students (51% of CA&D MA students) gathered in order to expressed their voice and preference.
To every candidate each of the present students assigned a number from one to seven. One represents the preferred candidate, seven the least. Summing up the results, these are the avarage points each candidate was assigned and the avarage ‘mark’ he got.

These results were forwarded to the selection committee together with a document which explained in more detail what was discussed in the group. Students were assured that their opinions would be taken into consideration.
Our contribution is small and in black&white but we are proud of it anyway. The picture of the Israeli settlement Ma’ale Adumim is part of Decode Jerusalem. A Wall in Palestine
by René Backmann is a brilliant book and we definitely recommend it.
From the organisers: “Please have your minds open for a very different way of looking into design practice.” Thanks Joana and Paul.
After 6 weeks, the actual ‘physical’ part of the project is over and the second floor of the Stevens Building at the RCA is empty again. We’ll continue working back in our studios on the different elements which should permit the discussions which emerged in and around 21 to continue also in the future: a publication with a critical review and a proposal for a future interdisciplinary space at the college, an installation for the final shows, a symposium to happen in the same occasion and different possible future reincarnations of the initiative. 21 set different wheels in motion so check the blog
from time to time for updates.

Department 21
, the project we’re currently spending all our time and energies on, will be running for 2 more weeks. There will be less events and more time to do work, interact and collaborate. We also thought about reconfiguring the space for the time left. We started putting together some thoughts for the publication which will result from the experiment. Working on this might end up absorbing the few months we still have left at the RCA.
Apologies for not posting this before the actual events took place. Anyway, just for the record, here the posters for 2 more File Under events we recently organised. As the other ones, they were designed by Mark El-khatib and Ray O’Meara.


A few days after Christmas we left for L’Aquila. For now, we wrote a post in Italian and German about our experience. Pretty soon also the English version of it should be ready.
Join us today, Friday the 4th of December 2009 at 1pm for a roundtable discussion about interdisciplinary practice led by Andreas Lang from public works
with guests Celine Condorelli
(London-based architect and author of support structures
), Sarah Teasley
(design historian and tutor at History of Design, RCA) and Richard Wentworth
(Head of Sculpture, RCA)
The roundtable discussion will look at the nature of initiatives originating from within institutional settings and the potential of interdisciplinary collaborations within educational institutions such as the RCA.
The event will run from 1pm this Friday the 4th of December 2009 in Lecture Theater 2 at the RCA. Visitors to the RCA can enter from the main entrance, which looks onto the Royal Albert Hall and follow the signs guiding visitors to Lecture Theater 2.

FILE UNDER:
Design monographs
Otl Aicher
Jan van Toorn
Anthony Froshaug
MARKUS RATHGEB
RICK POYNOR
ROBIN KINROSS
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Performing Arts Lab
Stevens Building – 1st floor
3.30pm
Poster by Ray O’Meara and Mark El-khatib.
A few days ago we canceled the webspace for decodejerusalem.net. The domain is still active but all its content is now living on our main webspace.
According to the data transfer volume, in 2 years about 1800 copies of the pdf guide have been downloaded.