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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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p155 Ghosts

The Manifesto of the Communist Party was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. It calls for the abolition of capitalism—the overthrow of the bourgeoisie—and the liberation of the proletariat from exploitation and oppression. It also names powerful tools: the ongoing class struggle and the international solidarity of the working class. “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism”. Marx and Engels wanted to make this specter tangible for the workers by explaining capitalism as an economic and social order. They aimed to lay the foundations for a class consciousness with which all workers in the world could unite and confront the internationally active bourgeoisie. At the beginning of the 18th century, America was discovered, and half the world was colonized. The previous production methods were no longer sufficient to meet the growing demand for goods in the developing world markets. The invention of the steam engine, which maximized productivity in almost all areas of production, triggered an industrial revolution. However, the high acquisition costs for the new machines could only be afforded by large capitalists who, in addition to owning the machines (means of production), also claimed ownership of the products. For the new factories, the big capitalists bought up farmland, made farmers dispossessed and homeless, and pushed them onto the assembly lines in the cities. As workers, they themselves became products—they lost all their possessions and exchanged their labor for low wages. So far, not much has changed. We sell our labor power and capital multiplies by itself. It is important to create an awareness of this. Capital has more power today than ever before, and we, as creators, operate within this system.