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Detroit

DI/DC/D Expedition
February 20–23, 2014, Detroit, MI

Detroit represents a city in constant flux like no other on the American landscape. The tectonic shift of the city’s economy has created deep chasms in which artists and designers have found success in rare creative ventures.

The DesignInquiry/DesignCity Detroit Winter Inquiry is a brief expedition by a small group of designers (in the broadest sense) into the design landscape. We will explore Detroit as a naturally emergent system of creative and cultural activities. Here design is both the system and cultural activity of study, and the method of exploration.

We see Detroit as a case study for learning more about sub-structures that emerge within larger structures that have failed and for observing and analyzing the ways that communities facilitate these new realities in response to change. All systems have balances of success and failure, ebbs and flows, positive and negative feedback loops that create equilibrium within their respective ecologies. Assuming we are all navigating the curve of a success/fail cycle, then what might we observe to be true for Detroit? How can we represent these findings and of what use are they to the ecology of the city itself?

The expedition will bring together participants whose perspectives and biases represent views from inside and outside the community. The expedition outcomes are exploratory and intentionally open-ended but will form a collection of work and findings to be be published. This publication will frame a theme and pose prompts for a second larger inquiry later in 2014 (or 2015.)

View Detroit Description and Call

Motor City/Brick City Comparative Ecologies, Part I: Geographies of Drinking
By: Gabrielle Esperdy
Different Data Wall Map
By: Dan McCafferty, Joshua Singer, Patricio Davila, Rachele Riley
DI@MOCAD:
City of Salt
By: Steve Bowden
Detroit Gold Record
By: Lincoln Hancock
DI at MOCAD—Update from the Detroit Phonographers Union
By: Ben Gaydos, Julia Yezbick
INTERRUPT = RISE/FALL
By: Rebecca Tegtmeyer
The Detroit Phonographers Union / Urban Acoustic Ecologies
By: Benjamin Gaydos, Julia Yezbick
DI at MOCAD—Update on Different Data
By: Rachele Riley
DI at MOCAD—Writing the Essay, Different Data
By: Rachele Riley
Poetic Flip
By: Emily Luce
Ypsitucky Mud
By: Bobby Campbell
Detroit / Food / Ephemera
By: Emily Luce, Libby Taggart
Good, Bad, Rebuild
By: Rachel Fishman
Good, Bad, Rebuild, 2014 Rachel Fishman, Detroit, Michigan Video Projection, found content Running time: 14 minutes, 17 seconds There are many different ways to tell a story. In this case, it’s mine, told through the mouths of others. Through found videos on YouTube, I tell the story of my relationship with a city that has […]
Writing the Essay
By: Ben Van Dyke, Bobby Campbell, Chris Fox, Emily Luce, Joshua Singer, Rachel Fishman, Rachele Riley, Rebecca Tegtmeyer
DI at MOCAD (Press Release)
By: DesignInquiry
The Expedition 2014
By: DesignInquiry
DI DC DETROIT (the expedition) Feb 2014
By: Rachele Riley
DI/DC/DETROIT
By: DesignInquiry
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