When looking at the last nine months of MDEF it shows clearly that this master enabled me in a host of new ways and will continue to do so for many years. In the last three terms I was introduced to a myriad of new skills, technologies and paradigms, ranging from agriculture to open source, from decentralization to biomaterials, from computer-aided design to curation, from machine-learning to community engagement. In a neck-breaking pace I peeked into the routines of disciplines I had previously no contact points with. By doing so, I broadened my understanding of what design and technology are, can be and should be. It allowed me to start cultivating a curious but critical view on technology and it’s interplay with science, society and nature. This is a very profound evolution in my professional understanding and it would be an understatement not to call this a career-changing paradigm shift.
However, I strongly believe that the program would benefit from a additional time to exercise and experiment. It is in the very nature of the program, and I assume it is designed as such with intention, to give only but a brief introduction into all these topics, however small or expansive they might be. This serves only as a appetizer for what is in most cases truly a vast professional cosmos in its own right. Combined with the rapid-fire pacing of the curriculum and its deliverables, further investigation of these fields was only possible in the most restrictive fashion. Therefore I think about this program as more of a showcase of these metaphorical tools, than an actual workshop on how to use them. This includes the MDEF FabAcademy program, which despite involving real and non-metaphorical tools, allocated not nearly enough time to become proficient with them.
This is why I would characterize the last months as an introduction to a lot of new skills, technologies and paradigms in a horizontal fashion, without giving meaningful time and space to explore them further vertically. Comparable with a painter showing you the color palette, but not allowing you to paint, or hungrily browsing a buffet of comically small appetizers, this one-year master program shifts the professional heavy lifting onto the students after they finish. Only after the graduation there is time for a further pursuit of these inspirations and a deeper investigation of the technologies shown. Despite clearly understanding why the curriculum has been structured this way, I think this is problematic in twofold ways.
First off, it leaves students with the newly learned skills and worldviews in a fragile state, when they, without having had the chance to solidify new mental and professional routines, enter the market and they encounter the full might of the capitalist system and the incredible conformist forces it exercises. We are expected to face this fight woefully underprepared. I refuse to believe that one is be able to defend more than a fraction, if any, of the ideals learned in the academic shelter of MDEF out there on the market, where professional and personal financial pressure mounts high.
The second problematic aspect is characterized by the fact that if alumni succeed in defying the current market to continue in the spirit of MDEF, this critical professional maturing process happens outside of IAAC, outside of the Fab Lab Barcelona and outside ELISAVA. This is suboptimal for a host of obvious reasons, the principal being that potential synergies with these ecosystems are much weaker than if these students were still embedded in a research position, just to name one example. Further, a more gradual transition would help ease what I can only imagine – and anticipate – being a paralyzing shock when confronted with the free market realities.
Mastering these two very challenges will be my primary objectives for the coming year. I plan to keep close to the Fab Lab/IAAC and ELISAVA ecosystem (as I did with my former university in Berlin) in order to ease the transition from the unique world of academics to the market. This, together with my existing freelance business, will hopefully allow me to purposefully and with time craft my professional identity, test it, implement it, exercise it and scale it. Additionally, I plan to continue to teach in Berlin (as I did before the master) and possibly in Barcelona, too – so it only makes sense to stay close to the people that helped me to profoundly evolve personally and professionally these last nine months. In that sense, MDEF felt less like a journey and more akin to being catapulted into a new professional dimension. I can’t wait to find out where I’ll land.
Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash