Pedagogy of Design in Reference to the Anthropocene

Abstract

This chapter has three developmental aspects: the first is to historically locate a fundamental tension between art & design in relation to the economic impact of monopoly capitalism, which has today evolved into global capitalism. The second aspect is then to develop how design pedagogy is hegemonically dominated by the “designer industries,” which abet and further what I call “designer capitalism” through the transformation of art schools and universities, as supported by the Bologna Process. The third aspect is to develop a pedagogical orientation that addresses a position that supplants the initial tension between art & design in relation to the Anthropocene, where the sixth extinction of our species is predicted as life continues to become more and more precarious as the survival of the human species is threatened. This last development rethinks art & design as a “distributed subjectivity” based on a renewed vitalist materialism, which overturns hylomorphic thought.