Elisava Masters Beyond

Master in Data Design

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Master Data Design Elisava

Global narratives, journalism and truth, have been undermined by fake news and info-overflow. This is not a master of data science, this is a master on how to use data as raw material to research and explain the truth behind ideas. We need to go beyond numbers and data; we are here to bring up experts that can challenge and redefine the standards of the information design discipline.

For that we need to build new tools for research, evaluation and communication that bring us closer to truth and empathy.

 

Direction
Pau Garcia
Paadín
Marc Panero
ECTS credits
60 ECTS (400 hours)
Duration
September – July
Schedule
Three afternoons/week

The Master in Data Design is backed up by Elisava, Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, an institution with 60 years of experience sharing knowledge to design and transform the world. The school develops projects to generate and transfer knowledge, address present and future challenges and foster change.

Elisava is a space to become a professional with the skills needed to design products, services, and environments to create a more environmentally responsible, inclusive, and community-focused society.

Master Data Design Elisava

Pau Garcia
Co-Founder (Domestic Data Streamers)
 

Pau is partner and head director of Domestic Data Streamers. He collaborates with the REcall European Conflict Archeological Landscape Reappropriation in Berlin and Norway. His focus of work is based on the areas of new media design and data languages. He has worked in research and communication projects for cultural institutions and companies such as California Academy of Sciences, Western Digital, UNICEF, Nike or the Mobile World Congress.  

Paadín
Founder (CCCC)

Paadín is a designer specialized in the field of multimedia design. Having graduated in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Cuenca (UCLM), he joined Lamosca as a graphic designer and later as a studio partner. He publishes the column “Data” in the weekly section Cultura/s (La Vanguardia) receiving the recognition of the Malofiej Awards and the Premio Gràffica. As a freelance editor, he collaborated with MACBA’S archive “Negro Rojos” and he also founded the scenic company serrucho.org 

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Olga Subirós
Architect and Curator (Olga Subirós Studio)

Olga is an architect, exhibition designer and creative director. She designed the exhibition on chef Ferran Adrià’s creative process and ElBulli restaurant held at Somerset House in London, Boston Science Museum, and Fundación Telefónica in Madrid. Her proposal AIR/ARIA/AIRE won the competition for the participation of Catalonia at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale 2021. She is a PhD candidate in Architecture and Design at RMIT. 

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Pablo Aragón
Research Scientist (Wikimedia Foundation)

Pablo is a researcher focused on computational social science through interdisciplinary and participatory approaches to characterize and facilitate collaboration in online platforms. He is Professor of Information and Communication Technologies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra and also a Board Member at Decidim. He was awarded with the mention Cum Laude for his PhD “Characterizing Online Participation in Civic Technologies.  

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Andreu Belsunces
Co-founder (Becoming Studio)

Andreu is a researcher, teacher and consultant who uses sociology glasses to look at design, technology and digital culture. He currently works as a researcher at Becoming Studio, an activity he combines working for the private, public and third sector. He has experience in various areas (international cooperation, cultural project management, journalism, social innovation, communication, technology prototyping).  

Master Data Design Elisava

Ane Guerra García de Albéniz
Journalist, editor, screenwriter, storyteller and broadcaster (Agencia Letra Herida)

She has been telling stories for more than ten years (professionally, that is; as a child, she drove everyone crazy in the process) and working for clients such as the United Nations and TED, doing radio, creating magazines, writing scripts, exhibitions and content of all kinds.

Master Data Design Elisava

Carla Molins
Professor and Phd Candidate (Elisava)

Creative technologist, experience designer, researcher and educator working in the intersection of art, technology, and science to bring a tangible instance to complex scientific concepts. Currently, Marie Curie fellow researcher at Elisava Research (ChromDesign project), doctoral researcher (GRECC & OCC, UPF) in science communication; Design & Technology MFA ’19 Parsons, The New School (USA).

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Bani Brusadin
Founder (The Influencers)

Bani is a curator, educator and researcher. Since the late 1990s he has been working on the feedback loops between critical technologies, artistic methodologies, user cultures, grassroots politics, and the utopias and dystopias of the networked society. Bani is also working in Freeport and collaborates with the Tentacular Festival at Matadero Madrid since its beginnings in 2018. 

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Ricard Sunyol
Founder and
Creative Director (Codea) 

Ricard is a creative director and writer graduated from Cinema and Television at BlanquernaURL and also expanded his education at Bloom School. He currently works at Codea, a Barcelona based studio which he founded. Ricard was awarded with the Mercè Rodoreda Award for his bookDeclaració d’Invecions  

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Eloi Maduell
Founder (Playmodes)

Eloi is a computer engineer by training and an audiovisual creative by passion. He has been experimenting and developing projects around creativity and new audiovisual technologies for 20 years. He is passionate about human perception, creative programming, mathematics, physics and abstraction. 

Matteo Moretti
Co-founder (Sheldon.studio)

Mateo is an award-winning designer founder of the first studio that focuses on immersive information-experience-design. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Design of the Free University of Bolzano, at the University of San Marino, at the University of Florence and at the SPD Milan. His design research projects, presented in many academic conferences and events such as TEDx and Visualized.io received the Data Journalism Award 2015, the European Design Award 2016 and 2017.  

Master Data Design Elisava

Gemma Busquets
Graphic Design and Art Director (Gemma Busquets Studio)

She helps transform ideas, needs, and goals into purpose-driven brands, digital experiences, and clean information design. In her professional career, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with clients such as Dell, Novartis, Nike, San Miguel, HuffPost, Coca Cola, Peugeot, or Puig among others. She has created a system of infographics that explain complex scientific concepts for CosmoCaixa, the Barcelona Science Museum.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Santi Vilanova
CEO and Sound Research (Playmodes)

Santi graduated as graphic designer and now develops art projects based on software programming, interactive design and sound research, putting a special interest in the intersection between music, light and movement. Co-Founder of Playmodes studio and a member of the Telenoika Audioviusal Open Creative Community, he has managed to combine digital algorithms and sonification engines with classical staves and acoustic ensembles, focusing on the idea of a visual music. He was awarded by the Prix Ars Electronica Festival for his collaboration with Playmodes and MID on the work Blaus. 

Data can be a tool for creation and analysis and a dangerously manipulable weapon. Being indifferent to it is no longer an option since nearly everything we’ve come to rely on for our daily lives uses data collection and use. We are consumers of information, and the news we get feeds on our preferences, which data has previously put together. This infinite loop might be unstoppable, but we can make it work to our society’s advantage.

730 hours of Violence by Domestic Data Streamers

This is the first of a series of self-initiated research projects that want to discuss important topics for our society through exhibition-based displays. Violence has always been a part of human history, but today it presents itself in ways we could never have imagined. It evolves with us, taking up new spaces wherever we go. If we want to tackle the challenges these recent acts of violence present, we first need to understand how they have normalised.

So, now that we’ve access to almost everything, anywhere, anytime. Do we know the world any better? We’ve generated, collected and stored more data last year than in the five previous millennia of recorded human history. True: we didn’t have the technology to register all that reality (or for as much as a selfie, for that matter), but now we do. And we are suckers for it.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that our societies are better informed. 

Data alone masks the reality it describes, blurs meaning and dumbs down emotions. How can we truly grasp the importance of an average two-degree temperature rise or a transmission rate of 1.5 or one million deaths?

The hidden link – Networks, Pablo Aragón

Social networking has come to change the way we relate to each other in a previously unforeseeable – and quite frankly, traumatic– way. Not only that: social platforms are capable of storing heaps of information about us and our interactions. The availability of such big data makes it possible to investigate new social phenomena. We will look into the theory and methods of network science and digital method tools to develop a project based on social network analysis techniques.

Master Data Design Elisava
Thesis, Paula López-Nuño

Thesis, Paula López Nuño

Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) feed on neurotypical databases. The data they use and the behaviours they copy exclude groups with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or autism. Thinal Final Master Project “Thesis” is an IVA with Asperger’s Syndrome which, by shedding light on a specific problem that affects a particular group of people (that is, the lack of data on Asperger’s Syndrome in women), opens the debate on a highly relevant topic that affects us all (AI and its behaviours) as well as on the responsibility the designers of these tools ultimately have towards society.

Soy cámara, Felix Pérez Hita, Andrés Hispano

The virtual interface of the screens has become a world with progressive autonomy. There, we can build our identity, project our deepest desires, and socialise, but it is also a place where we let our violence roam free and surrender our authentic self. As the virtual world becomes more accurate, how will we navigate the two worlds? How can we surf the uncanny internet realm without losing touch with the physical one?

Soon seven out of ten people on the planet will live in cities. Small worlds made out of concrete and glass… and cardboard and discarded plastics. 

We inhabit complex ecosystems that we share with other beings and things in relationships of interdependence. This interdependence grounds the exchange of information, so how this information flows from one agent to another, who they are and what they share, shapes our future. We need to design tools to make these complex systems work for the common good. 

AIRE/ARIA/AIR” by Olga Subirós (Sónar+D CCCB 2020)

AIRE/ARIA/AIR  speaks about the study of the city through the application of digital technologies to analyse big data, viewed as an invaluable tool for empowering citizens and enabling architects to design more sustainable, healthier, fairer cities.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava
War Owned, Jordi Farreras

War Owned, Jordi Farreras

War data compilation is as problematic as the concept of war itself. We see numbers, but we can’t fully grasp the extent of the tragedy and violence hidden behind it, nor can we understand a thing about the people living it. This Final Master Thesis is an Augmented Reality exhibit, and the three books accompanying it, want to explain the war in a way that we can understand better.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava
CosmoCaixa, Gemma Busquets

CosmoCaixa by Gemma Busquets

Illustrations and infographics for the +150 interactive experiences in the permanent room at the museum. Completing scientific concepts into visuals makes complex subjects more accessible for visitors.

We live in a world where fake news is a political weapon, cryptocurrency threatens traditional finance, and climate change is an opinion. We need to work to generate transcendent information through visual language. 

Workshop by Matteo Moretti: Data Journalism.

ffw2, Playmodes

→ Data Beyond Screens by Eloi Maduell (Playmodes Studio)

Based on the digital manipulation of data, we will explore the possibilities of designing multimedia environments that allow us to experience data with all our senses.

→ Data & Sound by Santi Vilanova (Playmodes Studio)

We will approach “Data sonification”, “sound spatialisation”, data sets, real-time inputs and generative sound systems to create sound pieces and the development of synthesis engines that allow us to shape sound flexibly and innovatively; in a learning-by-doing way, we will develop our software in a visual programming environment.

Lecture “From Screen To Space” by Playmodes Studio

In recent years, creative digital media have undergone a profound transformation. For starters, viewers are no longer a passive subject but integrated into the creative canvas. Light and its interaction with engineering, music, design and art are giving rise to innovative approaches in immersive installations. 

→ Edgar Pons: Who is afraid of technology?

Technology is essential in understanding how our contemporary society works. Technology plays a critical role in improving (or not) our daily lives and gathering, analysing, and visualising almost all kinds of information. You will learn the basics of programming in Arduino and Raspberry, how to choose the best platform to solve a technological project and the basics of hacking an analogue automatism.

→ Esteban Piacentino: Data as Raw Material — Statistics

Data analysis is the first step of our work. Extracting meaning from cold facts, recognising patterns, drawing informed conclusions, and representing it most appropriately is essential in an open yet rigorous approach to data.

Things don’t just happen; the information we live surrounded by has been meddled with and cherry-picked; it has context and purpose. So, how can we be good designers without questioning the world we live in? We firmly believe in the value of being critical, always trying to find the reasons behind our certainties and constantly looking for improvement.       

Barcelona’s MUTUO Art Gallery became part of the student’s Final Master Thesis and a showcase for critical thinking, research, data design narratives, and interaction for a month.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

#01: Nationalities. An Exploration on Border Mystification by Pedro Vallejo

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

#02: Body Builders. An exploration of body cult society by Carla de la Torre

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

 #03: Behind the Fear. An exploration of gynaecological violence by Maria Moreso

 #04: The Origin, the Unknown. A Walk Through the Invisibilities of Menstrual Cycles by Joana Bisbe. 

→ Critical Media by Andreu Belsunces

The past meets the future. Through sociology and philosophy, we can understand and exercise a critique of our complex present, as well as of connected technologies and digital media; we want you to become a more aware (and potentially responsible) citizen and professional and to articulate discourses and practices capable of positively affecting the world at large. 

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava
Forensic Architecture Helps Widen Architecture’s Mission, Michael Kimmelman

Forensic Architecture Helps Widen Architecture’s Mission, by Michael Kimmelman (The New York Times)

“Forensic Architecture relies on computer programs and digital animation software that model exotic building shapes to reconstitute bombed-out ruins, identify debris patterns from drone strikes and document tragedies like the fire. And of course, Mr Masterton scours the Web for images”.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava
Data Humanism, the revolution will be visualized, Giorgia Lupi

Data Humanism, the Revolution will be Visualized, by Giorgia Lupi (Medium)

“In its second wave, data visualisation will inevitably be all about personalisation. The more ubiquitous data becomes, the more we need to experiment with making it unique, contextual, intimate. The way we visualise it is crucial because it is the key to translating numbers into concepts we can relate to”.

New Extractivism in Elisava Exhibition, Vladan Joler

New Extractivism, Vladan Joler

New Extractivism captures the contemporary forms of exploitation related to connectivity and networked infrastructures. It consists of a map and a manual followed by footnotes that depict and describe different concepts and allegories linking old to new forms of colonialism.

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava
All Light, Everywhere, Theo Anthony

All Light, Everywhere by Theo Anthony (Documentary)

“Fascinating, Fraught and Sinister Essay on the Unreliability of the Image. Surveillance, policing, and spy pigeons figure into a chillingly insightful doc on the ethics of looking and the incompleteness of seeing.” Variety

Master Beyond Data Design Elisava

Subject to Review (Short Film Documentary) by Theo Anthony

“His meticulous onscreen analysis of Hawk-Eye technology, and his examination of its links between video and software, recording and programming, visual specificity and algorithmic interpolation, begins with considerations of the practicalities of sports (concerning particular events) and becomes a potent philosophical reflection on epistemology, indeterminacy, and the legitimacy of authority.”, The New Yorker

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