Open Source Review Report

During the session, we took turns explaining what the potential of open design and/or open source meant to us, providing examples of various mediums - past projects, aspiring projects, videos, websites, books, etc. The conversation that ensued revolved around developing a collective definition of “Open Source” that built off of each individual experience. Seeing the variety of different fields juxtaposed within the context of Open Source exposed virtues that would have otherwise easily stayed unnoticed.

Keywords were noted down during the conversation and after having had the time to digest some of the information we could see that some of the values were grounded in the same philosophy. The idea of adaptability was a recurring theme in the conversation. In a manufacturing context, using globally standardised resources would allow manufacturing to become more easily decentralised and adapted with fewer infrastructure constraints. This proved critical in the implementation within a disaster context. Designing with the intention of easy application at a global scale can speed up production and distribution where it is most needed and allow materials to be sourced locally. Another noted theme was empowerment. We saw that open source projects had the ability for people to gain what they need, whether it be tools, products, or knowledge. This allowed many to break free from the dependencies of conventionally produced entities. The final theme was the idea of building on what is already there. Why would one reinvent the wheel? Sharing ideas freely is prohibited because it diminishes the chance of capitalising on the idea. However, an idea can become much more powerful once it is shared and open to be developed upon. Many of the shared projects existed in a context that afforded improvement as they were academic or funded art projects.

On Wednesday the 9th of February we started off with our first Open Source Review session. There were two main objectives in this session: to have an introduction of the people who wanted to be involved and to create a shared understanding of the concept.

Even though we condensed the session down to 3 values, what was truly evident is that there are far more different perspectives on the concept than one might think. Surely, this short piece of text will not do justice to everything that has been said. In the spirit of sharing information, we prepared a Miro board with the sources that were shared during the first session. We hope that this source will grow as our conception of the idea grows.

Post-Grad Interest Groups

UAL’s Post-Grad Community supports a growing number of issue-specific, cross-disciplinary interest groups led by postgraduate students and academics.

​These groups connect creatives with shared research/practice interests across different specialisms and subject areas.

PhD students have launched interest groups in the past to coincide with exhibitions and symposiums that they have organised under the same theme. Students have also used Interest Groups as a working group towards research or a standalone event or series.

​Want to start an Interest Group?

Visit the Post-Grad Interest Group Directory