SYNOPSIS

When confronting difficult problems or challenges, people often opt for the path of least resistance, choosing the easiest and least energy-intensive solution. Dealing with the complications, pain, effort, and troubles associated with a difficult solution is not an option. However, others like it difficult and more challenging, they seems to be finding pleasure in suffering. The right amount of pain apparently brings meaning into their lives (Bloom, 2021.) Psychologists disagree on why this is the case. Still, they notice that people who consciously seek painful experiences and overcome hardship often score higher in happiness, become more resilient and antifragile (Taleb, 2012), and feel more prepared to confront future challenges that life might throw them (Ben-Shahar, 2021.)

Broadly understood, designers aim to make things and experiences feel effortless, more accessible, more social, better, and more enjoyable, to name a few. However, because of the reasons stated above, in a world where people often lack meaning, it might make sense to explore what happens when designers design in the opposite direction, intentionally making things and experiences more complicated and exacerbating problems and pains.

In this course, students will develop experiments, design interventions, and experiences addressing the topic of hardship and antifragility.

This class has a particular focus on deepening visual communication skills. However, the design results will not be limited to visual communication, form, media, or format. Speculative and critical design theories will provide a broad compass for moving forward.

NOTE: No physical or psychological harm will take place during this course.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Principles of resilience and antifragility

• Pain and pleasure psychology theory.

• Principles of chosen and unchosen suffering

• Master visual communication principles

• Ability to design and test user experiences

• Ability to work with agile work principles

• Ability to take design decisions based on both, intuition as well as on evidence, and critical thinking.

• Ability to re-frame problems, infer meaning, build design hypotheses and insightful thinking.

• Ability to use design as an agile and fast-paced method for understanding problems, people and society.

• Ability to infer meaning, and discover valuable insights.

• Ability to move forward while facing uncertainty.

LITERATURE

ANTIFRAGILE: Things That Gain from Disorder

by Nassim Nicholas Nicholas Taleb

THE SWEET SPOT. The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning

by Paul Bloom

HAPPIER, NO MATTER WHAT: Cultivating Hope, Resilience, and Purpose

inHard Times

by Tal Ben-Shahar