California College of the Arts presents four events during San Francisco Design Week’s 2020 virtual festival (June 15–25)
CCA and the Royal College of Art co-present two Designing the Future of Music events, June 23 and 24, moderated by Lawrence Azerrad and featuring hip-hop pioneers Ishmael Butler (of Shabazz Palaces) and clipping. and indie rock innovators Frankie Cosmos and Spencer Tweedy
As part of this year’s San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) virtual festival, June 15–25, California College of the Arts presents four events within the festival’s theme, “Intentional Distortions,” which challenges the design community to address familiarity, bias, and what we know of reality.
CCA’s SFDW events feature discussions exploring long-term design thinking, designing the future of music, and what matters now in design and architecture education. Two events on June 23 and 24 will focus on Designing the Future of Music and are co-presented with the Royal College of Art, with Grammy Award–winning creative director and CCA alum Lawrence Azerrad as moderator.
Housed in the Design division, the Design Futures Lab is a platform dedicated to amplifying speculative design research and prototyping at CCA. This cross-disciplinary work includes investigations into the future of form, material, technology, and society.
The 14th Annual San Francisco Design Week, which attracts 60,000 visitors annually from around the world, returns this year as the first regional virtual design festival. All-Access Passes ($39) can be purchased at sfdesignweek.org.
CCA’s SFDW events are free to CCA students and faculty. Email Kimberly Macdonald ([email protected]) for registration details.
CCA/San Francisco Design Week event details
Tuesday, June 16, 1–2 p.m.
Prompts, Strategies, and Tactics to Help You Think Beyond the Now
Presented by CCA’s Design Futures Lab
Learn new ways to start/spark/transform your creative process and your capacity to “future-think.”
Four leading practitioners and CCA educators working in futures, design, and foresight will each present a design prompt, strategy, or tactic they have used to move beyond a near-term mentality. These presentations will be followed by a short and lively conversation about building mental flexibility, moderated by Helen Maria Nugent, Dean of design at CCA.
Presenters include:
- Scott Minneman (inventive technologist + experiential futures designer)
- Nathan Shedroff (strategic designer + serial entrepreneur)
- Forest Young (global principal at Wolff Olins + afrofuturist)
- Sara Dean (head of CCA’s Design Futures Lab + social architect)
- Helen Maria Nugent (dean of Design at CCA + speculative designer)
Monday, June 22, 11 a.m–12 p.m.
What Matters Now in Architecture & Design Education?
Co-presented by California College of the Arts’ Architecture and Design divisions
Our common cause as architects and designers is to imagine how things “might be,” to consider where we are and how we got here, and to chart a path to where we want to be—in other words, to make work that matters. Join leading voices in architecture and design education as they reflect on the question: If a just future is our goal, then what matters now in architecture and design education?
Respondents include:
- Prasad Boradker (Arizona State University and Google ATAP)
- Joseph Grima (Design Academy Eindhoven)
- Lily Huang + Professor Tony Brown (Central Academy of Fine Arts)
- Marcia Lausen (University of Illinois at Chicago)
- Jesse LeCavalier (University of Toronto)
- Lesley Lokko (City College of New York)
- Ana Miljački (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Lisa Norton (New School/Parsons)
- Ramon Tejada (Rhode Island School of Design)
This event will be moderated by CCA’s Dean of Architecture Keith Krumwiede and Dean of Design Helen Maria Nugent.
Tuesday, June 23, 12–2 p.m.
Designing the Future of Music Presents: The look, sound, and feel of expression, artistry, and connection
This program is part of the Designing The Future of Music Initiative developed by Grammy award-winning creative director, designer and author Lawrence Azerrad in partnership with California College of the Arts Division of Design, and the Royal College of Art.
Four exceptional guests examine the capacity of design to open doors and enhance connection to a diverse spectrum of human experiences through radically different paths and disciplines.
Grammy Award Winning rapper, producer and creative force, Ishmael Butler of Digable Planets and Shabazz Palaces is joined in conversation by artist, designer, and member of Black Constellation, Nep Sidhu.
Their conversation will be followed by Ivy Ross, vice president of hardware design and user experience at Google, and Dr. Leila Sheldrick, dean of the Global Innovation Design program at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College of London, in a look at facilitating access to empathy, discovery, and understanding through future formative design. Moderated by Lawrence Azerrad.
This event is part of a shared design futures initiative between the Royal College of Art and California College of the Arts to foster deeper connections to music through innovation.
Wednesday, June 24, 11 a.m–1 p.m.
Designing the Future of Music Presents: New bridges to music and each other through reimagination
This program is part of the Designing The Future of Music Initiative developed by Grammy Award–winning creative director, designer, and author Lawrence Azerrad in partnership with California College of the Arts Design division, the CCA Design Futures Lab, and the Royal College of Art.
Join pioneering recording artists Frankie Cosmos and Spencer Tweedy, followed by experimental hip-hop group clipping. (Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Snipes, William Hutson), in an examination of their independent paths through risk, creative process, and discovery; where individual agency in adaptive methodology can engender new possibilities in uncovering musical connections, unlocking individual creativity, sensory experiences, and emotional and cultural engagement. Moderated by Lawrence Azerrad.
This event is part of a shared design futures initiative between the Royal College of Art and California College of the Arts to foster deeper connections to music through innovation.
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