City Sets

City Sets was a collaborative design education and research project initiated in 2010 by Marja Seliger and Mika ‘Lumi’ Tuomola with Aalto Media Factory funding. City Sets project aimed to produce and exhibit art and design work and to publish research outcomes especially during the World Design Capital year 2012 Helsinki. City Sets uses to the metaphor ‘city as stage’ in order to investigate critically the design elements, visual languages and narratives embedded in cities. Narratives define people by defining their roles on stage. Design has multidimensional impact and it can help to inform people about their space and rules (e.g. street and traffic signs), to identify places and events (e.g. shops, restaurants, exhibitions), to persuade people to change their behaviour (e.g. advertisements and promotions) and to tell stories about past, present and future (e.g. monuments, building plots and people’s interaction in an urban space). These dimensions together with architecture create the identity of a city, it’s ‘big story’. City Sets project activities combined multidisciplinary workshops, international seminars, art and design productions, exhibitions and building an on-line media-player. The project time schedule and activities were divided into two phases: Phase 1: City Sets – Visual Urban Identities, August 2010 – May 2011 Phase 2: City Sets – Discover the Design, WDC 2012 Helsinki project, June 2011 – December 2012