Play the System

Play the System
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is a platform for parametric design in graphic design. It documents the work of students and teachers at the Department of Design at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), who are investigating the significance of the system as a conceptual model and design method under the title “Parametric Design in Graphic Design.”

Design is less about intuitive, even ingenious “strokes of genius” and more about a holistic and rule-based (systemic and systematic) process of gaining knowledge and shaping form. It is becoming increasingly important to be able to design dynamic systems that both guide and inspire the design process.

Parametric design refers to this design in and of systems—with rules, their modes of operation, and systematic manipulability. The research project, led by Prof. Heike Grebin, is an integral part of teaching and aims to raise awareness of design as a performative process.

Play the System brings together selected study projects in which the system plays an important role as a design method – whether analog or digital. The works are created in a fruitful symbiosis of theory, design, and technology. Socially relevant issues and positions from philosophy, art, and avant-garde design from around 1900 to the present day are repeatedly discussed.

Play the System is an invitation to become aware of the systemic competence of graphic design and to gain the maturity to use the tools of digital design critically.

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The poster series For Anna deals with the Dadaist poem To Anna Blume by Kurt Schwitters. It is a love poem that uses many paradoxes to describe the person of Anna Blume. Kurt Schwitters' self-proclaimed art genre Merz defines not only his work, but also his attitude to life and person. With Merz, Schwitters wants to call upon us to create something new and not to obey the old conventions once again. Through his unusual juxtapositions, he gives banalities a new value, as can be clearly seen in the poem To Anna Blume. Schwitters himself says that art is nothing other than creation with any material. Schwitters describes the material of poetry as follows: “The elements of poetry are letters, syllables, words, sentences. Poetry is created through the valorization of these elements against each other.”[*] Each poster in the series visualizes a verse of the poem and is intended to make the poem's unique character clear.