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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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p307 Rythm-of-nothing

In his text Lecture on Nothing, John Cage uses repetition and seemingly meaningless passages, among other things, as a means of making ‘nothing’ tangible. The text can be understood as a composed dialogue in which the same rhythmic structures are used as in Cage's musical compositions. This work makes the repetitive structures within the text visible. The original formatting of the text is discarded, and the text is left-aligned to fill the format. The text is then categorised into forty word groups. The first group contains all words that occur five times, the second group all words that occur six times, the third all words that occur seven times, and so on. The volume of the sounds determines which word groups become visible. The louder it gets, the more word groups overlap. The monospace font supports the visual impression of a rhythmic pattern and is reminiscent of Cage's mesostics.