Design Incubation

The Spectacle of Violence: Illustrating Surpanakha’s Mutilation

Research on the history of Amar Chitra Katha comics

Shreyas R Krishnan
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Washington University in St.Louis

The mutilation of Surpanakha is a well known plot point in the Hindu epic Ramayana. Cast as a demoness and the female abject in this narrative, Surpanakha serves as a crucial turning point in the larger epic. When her nose and ears are cut off as punishment for perceived sexual transgressions, it sets in motion a chain of events that form the remainder of the Ramayana’s storyline.

This paper examines visuals of this particular scene as illustrated in comics on the Ramayana story published by Amar Chitra Katha. This examination references existing research on the history of Amar Chitra Katha comics and their representation of women characters, while additionally applying the lenses of gender and film theory in its approach. Three issues of Amar Chitra Katha are first compared for their illustrations and narration of this moment of violence, before moving on to juxtapositions with the same scene in other contemporary long-form illustrated Ramayanas, and with photographer Jodi Bieber’s Time magazine cover image of Aisha Bibi who was similarly mutilated by the Taliban.

By analogizing these visuals of gendered violence, and interrogating the relationship between text and image in each of them, this paper analyzes how Surpanakha’s mutilation is illustrated for public consumption.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Forensic Abstraction in Israel/Palestine: the Graphic Representations of Bodies in Citizen Media

The forensic visual investigations, from a design research perspective, using B’Tselem video in Israel/Palestine

Liat Berdugo
Assistant Professor
University of San Francisco

What kinds of images spark social change? What kinds of images demand justice? Since 2013, Berdugo has been researching in the video archives of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that distributes cameras to Palestinians living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and gathers the footage. A camera is given to a Palestinian with the conviction that “seeing is believing,” or that visual recordings will cause change to the sociopolitical order. Yet, in recent years, citizen media have been elevated not as visual evidence in and of themselves, but as material for advanced “visual” or “forensic” investigations by firms like Forensic Architecture, Bellingcat, and New York Times Visual Investigations. Such investigations amalgamate numerous citizen-recorded videos to create a final, forensically abstracted result that “proves” a human rights violation occurred.

This talk studies the forensic visual investigations using B’Tselem video in Israel/Palestine from a design research perspective, and specifically interrogates the graphic representation of Palestinian bodies in such investigations. For instance, Forensic Architecture frequently abstracts and instrumentalizes the images of Palestinian bodies for the task of synchronizing videos. Such visual abstractions both homogenize and erase Palestinian bodies from view — two key tactics utilized by the Israeli occupation to discredit and dehumanize Palestinians at large. However, such forensic abstractions also support the Palestinian appeal to the concept of a “pre-social body”—a body that exists before gender, nationality, ethnicity, race, class, age, or other social categories have marked it—as a means of access to human rights. In sum, this talk asks whether forensically abstracted images demand justice more vehemently than raw media.

This talk draws from Berdugo’s new book, The Weaponized Camera In the Middle East (Bloombsury/I.B.Tauris, 2021), for which a proposal was originally developed at a Design Incubation Fellowship in 2018.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Design Incubation Writing Fellowship 2021

A three-day virtual workshop facilitating academic writing and publishing for designers.

Day 1
Thursday, June 3, 2021

10:00am–11:00am	Introductions + Icebreaker
11:00am–12:00pm	Live Q&A: Submitting a Book Proposal/Manuscript with Louise Baird-Smith
12:00pm–12:15pm	Mini Break
12:15pm–1:30pm	Exercise: What, Why, and How We Write
1:30pm–2:30pm	Lunch (on your own)
2:30pm–3:15pm	Presentation: Where Writing Meets Publishing Aaris Sherin
3:15pm – 3:30pm	Mini Break
3:30pm – 6:30pm	Workshop: How to Think and Talk About Writing Maggie Taft

Day 2
Friday, June 4, 2021

10:00am–10:30am	Part 2 of How to Think and Talk About Writing Maggie Taft
10:30am–12:45pm	Group Sessions
12:45pm–1:45pm	Lunch (on your own)
1:45pm–3:30pm	Group Sessions
3:30pm–3:45pm	Mini Break
3:45pm–4:30pm	Writing for Journals with Visible Language
4:30pm –5:30pm	Presentation: Public and Academic Scholarship Liat Berdugo
5:30pm –6:30pm	Writing for Journals with Design and Culture

Day 3
Saturday, June 5, 2021

10:00am–11:00am	Presentation: A Life in Writing: Contracts, Agents and Monetary Consideration Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor, Kean University Author over twenty books
11:00am–1:30pm	Group Sessions
1:30pm–2:30pm	Lunch (on your own)
2:30pm–4:30pm	Group Sessions
4:30pm–6:00pm	Sharing Session / Wrap Up

Please note: This schedule is tentative and is subject to change

2021 Design Incubation Fellows

Articles Track

Arlene Brit, Associate Professor, Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Minneapolis, Minnesota

Lisa Elzey Mercer Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

Katie Krcmarik, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Lincoln, Nebraska

Shreyas Krishnan, Assistant Professor, Washington University. St. Louis, Missouri

Gurkan Maruf Mihci, Assistant Professor, Indiana University–Purdue University. Indianapolis, Indiana and Ph.D. student, Ozyegin University, Istanbul

Omar Sosa-Tzec, Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University. San Francisco, California

Lisa Jayne Willard, Assistant Professor, The University of Tampa. Tampa, Florida

Neil Ward, Associate Professor, Drake University. Des Moines, Iowa

Books Track

Dennis Cheatham, Assistant Professor,Miami University. Oxford, Ohio

Meaghan Dee, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech University. Blacksburg, Virginia

Jessica Jacobs, Associate Professor, Columbia College. Chicago, Illinois

Kyuha Shim, Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Ann McDonald, Associate Professor, Northeastern University. Boston, Massachusetts

Reviews Track

Tasheka Arceneaux Sutton, Associate Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University and Vermont College of Fine Arts

Breuna Baine, Associate Professor, Auburn University. Montgomery, Alabama

Maria Smith Bohannon, Assistant Professor, Oakland University. Rochester, Michigan

Erica Holeman, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas. Denton, Texas

Dan Vlahos, Assistant Professor, Merrimack College. North Andover, Massachusetts

Liat Berdugo, author of The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East, joins the 2021 Design Incubation Fellowship

Please join us in welcoming Liat Berdugo in her role as a fellowship facilitator for the 2021 Design Incubation Fellowship. As a Design Incubation Fellow in 2018, Liat worked on a proposal for her recently published book The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East (Bloomsbury/I.B.Tauris, 2021). Liat brings experience as both a public and academic scholar and has published widely in journals, magazines and other venues. During the 2021 Fellowship, Liat will work with participants who are working on writing and publishing articles.

Liat Berdugo is an assistant professor of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco where she investigates embodiment, labor, and militarization in relation to capitalism, technological utopianism, and the Middle East. Her writing appears in Rhizome, Temporary Art Review, Real Life, Places, and The Institute for Network Cultures, among others. Bergudo’s latest book is The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East (Bloomsbury/I.B.Tauris, 2021). She is one half of the art collective, Anxious to Make, and is the co-founder of the Living Room Light Exchange, a monthly new media art series.

More on The Weaponized Camera in the Middle East

Drawing on unprecedented access to the video archives of B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO that distributes cameras to Palestinians living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, Liat Berdugo lays out an argument for a visual studies approach to videographic evidence in Israel/Palestine. Using video stills as core material, it discusses the politics of videographic evidence in Israel/Palestine by demonstrating that the conflict is one that has produced an inequality of visual rights. The book highlights visual surveillance and counter-surveillance at the citizen level, how Palestinians originally filmed to “shoot back” at Israelis, who were armed with shooting power via weapons as the occupying force. It also traces how Israeli private citizens began filming back at Palestinians with their own cameras, including personal cell phone cameras, thus creating a simultaneous, echoing counter-surveillance.

Complicating the notion that visual evidence alone can secure justice, the Weaponized Camera in The Middle East asks how what is seen, but also who is seeing, affects how conflicts are visually recorded. Drawing on over 5,000 hours of footage, only a fraction of which is easily accessible to the public domain, this book offers a unique perspective on the strategies and battlegrounds of the Israel/Palestine conflict. More information about Berdugo’s work can be found at www.liatberdugo.com

Design Incubation Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University

A Virtual Conference Saturday, April 10, 2021, 1PM EST.

Presentations will be published on the Design Incubation YouTube Channel after April 3, 2021. Virtual Conference will be held online on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 1pm EST.

Colloquium 7.3: Florida Atlantic University (#DI2021apr) will be held online. Registration for this event below.

Virtually hosted by Camila Afanador-Llach, Assistant Professor + Graduate Coordinator, Graphic Design, the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University. This event is open to all interested in Communication Design research.

Please view research presentations before attending the moderated discussion on Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Presentations

Forensic Abstraction in Israel/Palestine: the Graphic Representations of Bodies in Citizen Media
Liat Berdugo
Assistant Professor
University of San Francisco

The Spectacle of Violence: Illustrating Surpanakha’s Mutilation
Shreyas R Krishnan
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Washington University in St.Louis

Visual and Verbal Communication on Sustainable Packaging As a Vehicle for Public Education and Awareness
Hyena Nam
Adjunct Professor
Visual Communication Department
Kent State University

Stories from the Mchafukoge: Kanga as a Form of Visual Communication
Ziddi Msangi
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Vermont College of Fine Arts

Addressing Opportunity: The Landscape of Inequality
Mia Cinelli
Assistant Professor
The University of Kentucky

Shoshana Shapiro
PhD Candidate
University of Michigan

Understanding Racial And Gender Bias In Ai And How To Avoid It In Your Designs And Design Education
Sarah Pagliaccio
Adjunct Professor
Lesley University
College of Art and Design
Brandeis University

Designing Products of the Future Through Speculative Design
Mehrdad Sedaghat-Baghbani
Assistant Professor
Florida Atlantic University

Design Writing 101: Becoming a Design Writer

An AIGA DEC + Design Incubation Workshop with Robin Landa and Aaris Sherin

Wednesday, March 24, 2021
3:00 pm EST
ZOOM: https://aiga.zoom.us/my/aiga.educators?pwd=bS83N09GTFVodWIzK210Qi9BYWFnQT09

Authors Robin Landa and Aaris Sherin will share their motivation for writing, talk about the importance of precedence and literature reviews, discuss different approaches to design writing, answer questions, and offer advice for new design writers. This event is for design educators who want to incorporate writing into their research agenda. Participants will identify the challenges they face approaching their writing projects.

Robin and Aaris will cite publishers for submissions. Join Robin and Aaris for this workshop as we kick off the first in a series dealing with writing, research and getting published.

Robin Landa, Distinguished Professor in the Michael Graves College at Kean University, facilitates the Design Incubation Fellowship book group and is the author of numerous books, including Graphic Design Solutions, 6e, Advertising by Design, 4e, and Nimble: Thinking Creatively in the Digital Age.

Aaris Sherin, Professor of Graphic Design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, Director of Fellowships at Design Incubation and is the author of a number of books including her most recent publications Introduction to Graphic Design and Sustainable Thinking: Ethical Approaches to Design and Design Management.

Teaching Communications Design History Beyond the Canon

How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude?

Carey Gibbons
Visiting Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute

The publication of Martha Scotford’s “Is There a Canon of Graphic Design History?” (1991), and the broader questioning of the idea of the canon across design history, art history, and other disciplines in recent years, has resulted in a closer examination of the study of communications design history. The need to move beyond the canon of communications design, which tends to emphasize the accomplishments of white male designers and dismisses the potential importance of anonymous works, feels particularly urgent following the Black Lives Matter protests and in light of the increasing attention being given to racial injustice. This presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with designing a communications design history course. How do we avoid a “value this, discard that” attitude while still acknowledging figures whose philosophies or works had a seminal or pivotal impact upon the evolution of the field? How do we cover both mainstream and marginal forms of communications design? Additionally, are we going beyond artistic or formal qualities, and examining communications design as a history of ideas, as advocated by Tibor Kalman, J. Abbott Miller, and Karrie Jacobs in their influential 1991 Print magazine article, “Good History/Bad History”? After examining these questions, I will discuss my recent experience teaching communications design history at the Pratt Institute, where I have increasingly attempted to show that individuals from a variety of races, ethnicities, gender expressions, geographic backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic groups have contributed to the field of communications design. I will focus on my students’ experience participating in a class Instagram account (@beyondthecommdesigncanon), which aims to unearth and examine the people and stories of communications design that have been traditionally overlooked and not part of the commonly-taught “canon” of design history.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Feminine Archetypes on Women’s Suffrage Postcards as Agents of Propaganda

Insight into the prevailing beliefs of the early twentieth century

Andrea Hempstead
Assistant Professor
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Archetypes have been used as a successful marketing tool for years as the “collective unconscious,” so the use of feminine archetypes on suffrage postcards at the turn of the century should not be surprising. Both pro and anti-suffrage cards visualize the conformity to, as well as the divergence from, the mother, the maiden, the lover and the huntress to further their cause. The social importance of postcards during this time can be compared to the power and proliferation of the modern-day meme on social media, as billions of private visual messages were made public. Today, memes are used as a cultural practice of belonging for conversation, community and identification.

As consumerism grew in America at the turn of the twentieth century, so did the need to communicate to sub-cultures within America. By studying the styles, methods and modalities of the illustration of women as feminine archetypes on suffrage postcards, we gain insight into the prevailing beliefs of the early twentieth century surrounding gender roles, sex and power, gender and nationalism, and how these postcards were used as agents of propaganda using feminine archetypes.

Context and an understanding of audience are integral to meme generation. By examining the use of feminine tropes and archetypes in memes as situational understanding, we can see how the power of the narrative has shifted. The female narrator can use gendered assumptions to further her message through the common experience with the messaging of a meme.

Building off of historical analysis, sub-cultural beliefs and motives can be contextualized to gain an understanding of the use of archetypal imagery and messaging present on suffrage postcards and memes. By comparing and contrasting the use of the feminine archetype on suffrage postcards and memes, we can see how the feminine ideal and experience are tools for message making.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Adaptation in Design Research: Combatting Social Isolation in Older Adults

Our need to socially connect is the strongest evidence of our shared humanity.

Christine Lhowe
Assistant Professor
Seton Hall University

At the core of human-centered design are people. Grounded in empathy and driven by human needs, HCD has the power to improve quality of life for individuals and society. As our communities, environments, and global structures change, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic, design must adapt to serve people within new contexts.

Our need to socially connect is the strongest evidence of our shared humanity. We are so highly interdependent on each other that isolation not only affects mental well-being but contributes to physical decline. In older adults, a population largely affected by loneliness, social isolation is associated with a 50% increased rate for dementia and other serious medical conditions.¹

As a design practitioner and educator, my research focuses on cultivating meaningful connections through experiential design. With Me, an intergenerational toolkit was created to integrate older adults deeper into the fabric of society. As an analog kit, the fundamental purpose is to encourage people to spend time with one another.

In February 2020, With Me was in the last stages of production before implementation at a non-profit serving older adults across New York City. Social distancing requirements in mid-March put it indefinitely on hold. Caregivers were no longer able to do home visits. Family members were strongly recommended against visiting their loved ones. Loneliness in one of the most vulnerable populations to COVID-19 was magnified. When connection was needed most, With Me had to transition to a virtual solution.

This presentation is a case study on adaptation in an ongoing research project. It asks if we can replicate the benefits of physical time together while in a virtual world. It experiments with technology in a population that is often hesitant with using it. It explores how experiences may be designed for meaningful interactions across varying communication channels.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions. https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older-adults.html

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 7.2: 109th CAA Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) | Design Incubation Affiliated Society Meeting

Friday, February 12, 2021
12:30 PM Eastern Time (the US and Canada)
Online ZOOM Event

This is the Affiliated Society meeting of the 109th CAA Annual Conference. The meeting is open to non-conference attendees as well. Please register in advance for this event.

Overview:

Please join us at The College Art Association (CAA) Design Incubation Affiliated Society meeting | Connecting Scholars, Building Community, Design Research Network(ing) virtually on Friday, February 12, from 12:30-1:30 pm (EST).

Design Incubation is a volunteer academic organization whose focus and mission are facilitating research and scholarship in design. We aim to foster discussion and collaboration among academics and industry professionals. We are a resource for those working and studying within the field.

This open forum will have design scholars and researchers discuss various research topics, offer their ideas, discuss opportunities for contributors/participants/collaborators, and open dialog regarding multiple challenges within the design research field. Design Incubation will also be discussing some of their ongoing work with the mission/focus of supporting design research.

Some of the questions we will discuss with panelists include:

How did you determine your research agenda?
How do your dept and institution define and support the work you do?
How would you describe/categorize your dept and institution?
If you were going to position your research within a category, would you say your work addresses: design theory,
design history, design practice, design research (traditional graphic design, speculative design, UXUI, typography, AR, VR, creative computing, design solutions, etc.), design pedagogy, something else?

MODERATOR:

Dan Wong
Associate Professor, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Co-founder/Executive Director, Design Incubation

Dan’s research considers the forms and methodologies of communication design research and innovates through the practice of communication design.

PANELISTS:

Heather Snyder Quinn
Assistant Professor, DePaul University’s School of Design
Director of Design Futures, Design Incubation

Heather’s research uses design fiction and speculative design to question the ethics of emerging technologies, challenge technocratic power, and imagine possible futures.

Jessica Barness
Associate Professor, School of Visual Communication Design, Kent State University
Director of Research Initiatives, Design Incubation

Jessica’s research focuses on social media, publication practices, and the design of scholarship, and how these relate to issues of power and representation.

Ayako Takase
Assistant Professor of Industrial Design, Rhode Island School of Design
Director of Master Program
Co-Founder, Observatory Design

Ayako’s design research focuses on evolving relationships between people, objects, and technology in the context of work.

Penina Acayo Laker
Assistant Professor, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University St. Louis
Co-Principal Investigator, Mobility for All by All

Penina’s research centers around topics that utilize a human-centered approach to solving social problems.

Registration required. Please use your institutional email to register.

Author: Design Incubation

The Spectacle of Violence: Illustrating Surpanakha’s Mutilation

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