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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Play the System Projects /

p154 Generated Reality

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Every day, we operate in a generated reality—a reality created and sorted by algorithms that try to interpret and manipulate us. With every click, the programs learn more about our interests, preferences, and feelings. How we behave online defines who we are. This project deals with the discrepancies between real and generated life. Are you the person the algorithm thinks you are? The student has the feeling of losing contact with himself, because he operates in a world in which it is decided for him what he wants to see and what he likes. He has lost control. Instead of demonizing the internet and its algorithms in general, the aim is to raise awareness of the fact that they influence how we think and perceive. It should motivate us to maintain a healthy distance from the digital world in order to find our way back to our own personal feelings and decisions.