Gionata Gatto

This course explores what it means to engage in dialogue with an AI prompting system, focusing on the design of multi-modal interfaces and their effects on both the quality of interaction and the creation of prototypes and artifacts. Students will experiment with different 'languages' for AI communication, such as voice (tone, cadence, emotion), bodily gestures, and environmental factors (light, sound, humidity), as ways to influence¿and be influenced by¿AI behaviors. Through a series of hands-on experiments, the course navigates the space between biological ('human') and cultural ('AI') processes, offering new perspectives on hybrid outcomes co-generated by these interactions. The aim is to foster a critical understanding of emerging AI systems, positioning students to engage with AI thoughtfully rather than as a mere technological tool.
The course builds on Cultural and Feminist Studies, as a way to depart from the dichotomy human/AI, and move towards their understanding as entities that collaborate and promt each other. References include Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, Langdon Winner's politics of artifacts, which addresses the ways in which technology embeds social and cultural values; Rosi Braidotti's work on Posthumanism. Theoretical foundations will be accompanied by the discussion of existing practices and past interactions, including the work of John Funge, Sherry Turkle, Meredith Broussard, and the study of other formats, linked to the design of bots for social media use.
Across the semester, there will be a range of assignment asking students to explore the impact of different non-normative `languages¿ -such as body, sight, the environment, on the crafting of new dialogic modes with AI.

This course explores what it means to engage in dialogue with an AI prompting system, focusing on the design of multi-modal interfaces and their effects on both the quality of interaction and the creation of prototypes and artifacts. Students will experiment with different 'languages' for AI communication, such as voice (tone, cadence, emotion), bodily gestures, and environmental factors (light, sound, humidity), as ways to influence¿and be influenced by¿AI behaviors. Through a series of hands-on experiments, the course navigates the space between biological ('human') and cultural ('AI') processes, offering new perspectives on hybrid outcomes co-generated by these interactions. The aim is to foster a critical understanding of emerging AI systems, positioning students to engage with AI thoughtfully rather than as a mere technological tool.
The course builds on Cultural and Feminist Studies, as a way to depart from the dichotomy human/AI, and move towards their understanding as entities that collaborate and promt each other. References include Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto, Langdon Winner's politics of artifacts, which addresses the ways in which technology embeds social and cultural values; Rosi Braidotti's work on Posthumanism. Theoretical foundations will be accompanied by the discussion of existing practices and past interactions, including the work of John Funge, Sherry Turkle, Meredith Broussard, and the study of other formats, linked to the design of bots for social media use.
Across the semester, there will be a range of assignment asking students to explore the impact of different non-normative `languages¿ -such as body, sight, the environment, on the crafting of new dialogic modes with AI.

The goal of this class is to design services, tools, and objects that will shape a new reality of human experience. The class will explore how long-term trends in urban migration, automation, AI, big data, climate change, food, and mixed experience will transform our day-to-day lives. Through research and experimentation, students will investigate the realities and possibilities of these conditions and consider how they will change what we eat, how we work and relax, what we wear, how we gather, and how we travel. As a living laboratory, students will use a variety of media, including digital fabrication, virtual reality, and physical storytelling, to create new design tools, scenarios, worlds, services, objects, and experiences. To accomplish this, students will research the historical, political, technological, ecological, and cultural trends of a particular topic.

Whatnot Studio is a year-long advanced studio in which students design, produce, and publicly present a collection for Whatnot, the school¿s in-house product brand. The course is structured around a complete design cycle, moving from concept development through small-batch production to a fully realized retail and exhibition environment.
Working from an annual theme, students develop individual products that contribute to a cohesive collection. Emphasis is placed on translating ideas into producible designs, with attention to material decisions, fabrication methods, and the constraints of small-batch manufacturing. Unlike most undergraduate studios, the course extends through production, requiring students to fabricate a pilot run of their work rather than a single prototype.
In parallel, students collaborate to define the identity of the collection and design a branded retail installation to showcase the work. This includes spatial design, display systems, and communication strategies that position the collection for a public audience. The studio culminates in a major external presentation, with the collection exhibited at a leading design fair or trade show.
Throughout the year, students develop an individual design voice while working collectively to produce a unified, high-quality outcome. The course emphasizes design as both authorship and collaboration, and as a process that extends beyond form-making to include production, context, and audience.
Enrollment is by portfolio review and is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Please submit a portfolio of work by the end of day on Monday, April 27 to this link: https://airtable.com/app10LexPLHEqM7mV/pagcVlilryi7Xn4Or/form
Accepted students will then be enrolled in the course.

For more information, contact Jim TerMeer (jterme@saic.edu) or Gionata Gatto (ggatt@saic.edu). This course is best taken in the final year of study, once students have developed confidence in their design process and are ready to carry a project through to production and public presentation.

Whatnot Studio is a year-long advanced studio in which students design, produce, and publicly present a collection for Whatnot, the school¿s in-house product brand. The course is structured around a complete design cycle, moving from concept development through small-batch production to a fully realized retail and exhibition environment.
Working from an annual theme, students develop individual products that contribute to a cohesive collection. Emphasis is placed on translating ideas into producible designs, with attention to material decisions, fabrication methods, and the constraints of small-batch manufacturing. Unlike most undergraduate studios, the course extends through production, requiring students to fabricate a pilot run of their work rather than a single prototype.
In parallel, students collaborate to define the identity of the collection and design a branded retail installation to showcase the work. This includes spatial design, display systems, and communication strategies that position the collection for a public audience. The studio culminates in a major external presentation, with the collection exhibited at a leading design fair or trade show.
Throughout the year, students develop an individual design voice while working collectively to produce a unified, high-quality outcome. The course emphasizes design as both authorship and collaboration, and as a process that extends beyond form-making to include production, context, and audience.
Enrollment is by portfolio review and is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Please submit a portfolio of work by the end of day on Monday, April 27 to this link: https://airtable.com/app10LexPLHEqM7mV/pagcVlilryi7Xn4Or/form
Accepted students will then be enrolled in the course.

For more information, contact Jim TerMeer (jterme@saic.edu) or Gionata Gatto (ggatt@saic.edu). This course is best taken in the final year of study, once students have developed confidence in their design process and are ready to carry a project through to production and public presentation.

This studio challenges students to reconsider standard models of design practice and process, and explore new modes of object making. The studio is conceived from the standpoint that the methods of the past are not necessarily appropriate for the future and that designers have a role to play in redefining their tools, as well as the outcomes of their work. It considers designers as autonomous agents able to lead by example and position themselves within the realms of cultural production, entrepreneurship and corporate business.

Throughout the semester, students will be exposed to the ideas, methods, and work from a variety of the most relevant designers and design thinkers practicing today. Particular focus will be towards practices of agency, autonomy and authorship.

Students are introduced to a range of design approaches which are dissected, critiqued and retaught. A series of exercises and projects encourage them to embark upon a rapid process of action and reflection across multiple contexts, promoting risk-taking and discovery.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

In the final thesis studio, students confirm and materialize their position and voice as designers by completing their self-selected thesis project initiated in DES OB 6150 -- Thesis Studio 1.Through an intensive period of seminar and tutorial discussion, prototyping, presentation and critique, students produce highly developed designed objects, systems, and experiences that critically engage specific areas of design, technology, and culture. Emphasis is given to determining potent vehicles through which the instance of the thesis is tested, exhibited and engages public consciousness. The course culminates in a thesis defense and the presentation of a final thesis project at the SAIC Design Show.


You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects Student to enroll in this course.