Storia delle cose - 东西的历史

Friday, October 18, 2013

Anatomy of Things

Some examples in the Web:

Disassemble Your Game

Todd McLellan - HUH

The Beauty in Ordinary Objects

Anatomy of an Electric Power Meter

October 3, 2013: Introduction. Some initial remarks. Why a blog ? (1.30 PM - 6 PM)
October 10, 2013: Taxonomy, at the origin of a new science. Natural Sciences vs Artifact Sciences.
How to organize the homework: anatomy of an object. (1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
October 17, 2013: Catalogues, the first steps of a comparative study. A primer: ABC.
History vs Science. The Hyperblog. How to describe an object.
The things in the literature. (1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
October 24, 2013: Anatomy of an object: the Case of the Sewing Machine. (1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
October 31, 2013: NO LECTURE
November 7, 2013: Matter and shape: the thing. and its figures. The Craftsman by Richard Sennett.
(1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
November 14, 2013: The Italian story: from the craftsman society to the technician one.
(1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
November 21, 2013: The context of the innovation: society, culture and patents. (1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
November 28, 2013: L'Italia non è un paese povero, di Joris Ivens. After WWII the economic miracle.
(1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
December 5, 2013: Things on the Walls: the material culture in advs. The Baroque Emblems
(1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
December 12, 2013: Things at Home: The Kitchen & the Living Room. (1.30 PM - 6.30 PM)
December 12, 2013: Pi and the Sewing Machine. Anatomy Lecture on the Pi Number
(9 PM - 10.30 PM)
December 19, 2013: Things at Work: Tools & Machines. The Engine History (1.30 PM - 7.00 PM)
January 9, 2014: Critical review of the Blog activities. Stop to the email correspondence. (12 AM - 1.30 PM)
January 13, 2014: Critical review of the Blog activities. (1.30 PM - 7.00 PM)
January 16, 2014: Final evaluation. (1.30 PM - 7.30 PM)

Instructions #3

Once the object of the group has been selected (see Instruction #1) a "primer" (an alfabetic list of nouns) has to be prepared. Each noun must be associated to a picture.

E.g. if the selected object is a clock, the primer (in Italian "abbecedario") will be:

Instructions #2

1) The textbook of the course is:

Richard Sennett, L'uomo artigiano, Milano : Feltrinelli, 2004

also available in English:

Look for references and reviews of this book in the Web.

The book has to be read and studied in order to drive the personal research activities in preparing the blog. In addition during the final exam some questions about the matter of the book will be asked. The students that do not prepare a blog shall be examined on the entire argument of the book.

2) In addition each student must read a novel (free choice of the title and of the language) and find all the citations of things (small objects, capable to be handled, discard complex machines, devices and systems) present in the text. Further analysis and organization of the obtained results will later indicated.