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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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p415 Work Songs

A manifesto is characterised by the public declaration of goals, intentions, values, wishes, and thoughts. There are countless manifestos; they have been written down, read out, spoken, proclaimed, and often enough archived. The student set out on a search. He wanted to read the manifestos of those who, as black people, experienced slavery during and after the colonial era, were deprived of their freedom, and lived under inhumane conditions. How were they able to preserve their dignity? Their manifestos could give new strength to black people who are still suffering from the consequences of slavery and colonization today. Despite an intensive search, he was unable to find any manifestos that corresponded to his ideas. It seemed as if the question of the goals, values, wishes, and thoughts of enslaved people remained unanswered for him. A great emptiness. But then he discovered the Worksongs that fill this emptiness with their unique sound. It is the absence of something that was once there, but seems invisible and unattainable. With the help of the Worksongs, the project aims to show this absence and make it accessible. Designing to create space. Because absence draws attention to its existence, in which it persists.