Given the two massive traumas that hit the world in 2020, students taking this course were given two options in the choice of Bauhaus project.
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  • COVID-19 pandemic 
Students were asked to reflect on how Information and Communication theories were mobilised to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. They were to think of how propaganda, fake news and the race to find therapies and vaccines resulted in rushed often inconclusive clinical trials, cacophonous communications and misleading information that often left the public confused and governments floundering on how to enact Covid containment strategies. They were to showcase the major role played by information and communication theories in the speeches, campaigns and programmes put in place by different governments and institutions across the globe that influenced public attitudes and beliefs. 
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  • Systemic racism
​Following the brutal and racist murder of George Floyd on 25th May 2020 in the United States by a White police officer who knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and the shock and disgust the captured image generated all over the world and the prominence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, students were invited to showcase how Information and Communication theories were mobilised in the media treatment of racism seen from the viewpoints of various stakeholders (governments, associations, agencies, churches, celebrities, etc.), the changes that  massive wave of Black Lives Matter protests engendered worldwide and the subsequent debates and controversies that ensued.

About a hundred student participated in this year's Bauhaus projects, leading to 22 groups and projects each involving about 5-6 students. Students of this year had an added difficulty to contend with in that due to Covid19 restrictions, France was in virtual lockdown at the beginning of autumn 2020 and all the classes had been shifted online from one week to the next. Students and instructors alike were thrust into Zoomland without any prior training on online teaching. Thus, students could not meet physically to work together on their projects. They had to devise innovative ways of creating and showing artworks through digital means. Students worked collaboratively but remotely, creating Whatsapp and Messenger groups, doing zoom sessions and using various platforms to assemble their artworks.
The results are rather spectacular! Below you will find a selection of some of the most impressive projects, others will be presented briefly in a slide show at the bottom of the page
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 Read on! 

Hashtag power: #Black Lives Matter
The rise to prominence of the BlackLivesMatter Movement in the US, the persecution of the Roma people in Europe or of the Uyghurs in China, the racist and systemic police violence in France, to name only a few examples, have heightened social and political awareness all over the world in recent years. Although many resolutions and constitutions from countries and organisations all over the world condemn this evil, systemic and everyday racism still persist in our societies.

Mythomaniavirus

This very well researched project evocatively entitled "Mythomaniavirus" not only retraced how Covid19 emerged and spread all over the world but it went into much scientific depth in explaining how living organisms and the society are communication systems whose equilibrium depend on feedback, regulation and homeostasis. They sought to show that the propagation of fake news and of conspiracy theories around Covid 19 can be explained through Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics (decidedly a favourite of my students!) and is akin to the manner in which the coronavirus has been mutating and spreading in human cells. As one of the students was fluent in English, the video was presented in English. Enjoy!

Boycott power
This exhibit is built around the campaign and pressure brought to bear on corporate brands whose past and present are linked to the colonial and the slavery era. In this artwork, the students showcased how international pressure and boycott campaign by influencers forced Uncle Ben's to change its name and logo to Ben's original in June 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing and following similar moves made by other big corporate names like Quaker/Pepsico.

The wheels of systemic racism

This artwork used Wiener's cybernetics theory and the Palo Alto's five axioms of communication to illustrate the dysfunctional communication between the American state and law enforcement agents, and the protesters of systemic racism following the brutal murder  of George  Floyd.
Drawing upon Gregory Bateson’s (Palo Alto School) theories on interpersonal communication and in particular his five axioms of interpersonal communication which posit that communication is unavoidable in all human interactions, the artwork sought to portray how the communications  between protesters and the authorities are shaped by the unhealthy nature of their relationship engendered by systemic racism in American society.

COVID-19 and the media: How did we get here?
The artwork drew upon Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication (MTC) and Wiener’s cybernetics to illustrate the way information was relayed by the authorities and by the media around Covid-19.
The video montage highlighted the high entropy engendered through the contradictory information surrounding the origin of the virus (animal cause, laboratory or other), its virulence and the efficacy of wearing masks which is a positive thing for Shannon's MTC but a negative thing  for Wiener's cybernetics.

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The systemic loops of systemic racism

The artwork is a large 3D puzzle honouring Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old African-American man shot and killed while unarmed on February 23, 2020 in Brunswick, Georgia. Secondly, the size of the puzzle (1.70 m by 1.50 m) bears the core message "Justice for Ahmaud". The artwork was displayed on a brick wall in a public place, which alludes to the urban aspect. Finally, the music heard in the background "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday was inspired by a 1937 poem by Abel Meeropol, is an artistic indictment of racism in the United States, and more particularly of the lynchings of African Americans which were at their peak in the segregated South.