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Job title:

Lecturer in Social Design

Office:

K.03-K.04, North-East Studio Building

Research interests

  • Experimental sociality, conviviality, critiques of individuation
  • Cultures and practices of use; improvisation and playfulness in use
  • Prefiguration, direct action, collective organising
  • Experimental modes of study and pedagogy, critical university studies

Teaching

MA Design for Change (PGT)

  • Course Organiser and Lecturer: dLab(5): Design for Political Change (Semester 2); Designing for Change: Projects & Practices (Semester 2)
  • Lecturer/Tutor: Dissertation: Design for Social, Technical or Environmental Change (Summer Term)

Other Courses (Lecturer and Tutor)

  • Design & Screen Cultures 4: Dissertation (UG Year 4, Semester 1 and 2)
  • Design and Society (UG Year 3, Semester 2)
  • Disseminating Design Practices (PGT, Semester 2)
  • Revolutionising Design for the Climate Emergency (UG Year 1, Semester 1)

Research

Key areas of research:

Social, cultural, and political dimensions of use; design-led approaches to prefiguration, direct action, collective organising, and diversity of tactics; social critiques of individualism and processes of individuation; speculative and critical design methods; experimental somatic practices, modes of study, and pedagogies; traditions of Black radicalism; affect studies; globalisation, critical logistics, and border studies.

Published work: 

  • Marmont, G. (2025). A Studious Use: Designing from the undercommons. New York, Wivenhoe: Autonomedia / Minor Compositions.
  • Chapman, J. and G. Marmont. (2024, with a new Preface). ‘The Temporal Fallacy: Design and Emotional Obsolescence’, in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, 2nd Edition, ed. R.B. Egenhoefer. New York: Routledge.
  • Martin, C., and G. Marmont (2023). ‘Global Commodity Circuits’, in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Globalization, eds. D. Hofäcker and C. Karner, 45-59. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
  • Marmont, G. (2022). ‘Another Use, Another Sociality: Some reflections on Giorgio Agamben’s radicalisation of use’, Design and Culture 14, Issue 2 (June 2022): 185-203.
  • Marmont, G. and G.E. Primera (2020). ‘Propositions for Inoperative Life’, Journal of Italian Philosophy 3: 9-21.
  • Marmont, G. and G.E. Primera, eds. (2020). ‘The Politics, Ethics, and Aesthetics of Inoperativity’, Journal of Italian Philosophy 3 (December 2020).
  • Chapman, J. and G. Marmont. (2018). ‘The Temporal Fallacy: Design and Emotional Obsolescence’, in The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, ed. R.B. Egenhoefer, 348-56. New York: Routledge.
  • Marmont, G. (2017). ‘Acts of Use From Gestell to Gelassenheit: Calculative thinking and exploratory doing’, in Sociotechnical Environments, eds. S. Crabu, P. Giardullo, F. Miele, M. Turrini, 743-54. Trento: STS Italia
    Publishing.

Practice-based work and exhibition:

  • COLLECT Project Space – Crafts Council England (9-12.05.2014) Saatchi Gallery, London [exhibition]
  • Project Space in Conversation with Grant Gibson (Crafts Magazine) (12.05.2014) Saatchi Gallery, London [interview / public talk]
  • Material Narratives at Convoi Exceptionnel (19-27.10.2013) Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven (NL) [exhibition]
  • Designersblock 16th Edition (19-22.09.2013) Southbank Centre, London [exhibition]
  • ‘Wave Form, Soundscapes Materialised’ at Supersonix Conference (22.06.2012) V&A Museum, London [exhibition and public presentation]

Current PhD students

Lisa Elzey Mercer

Developing a Situated Sense of Ethics in Design: An Empirical Investigation to Contextualize the Plurality of Ethics in Design

PhD Supervision Topics

  • Cultures and practices of use, improvisation and playfulness in design and use
  • Social Design, Participatory Design, Design Politics and Design Activism
  • Prefiguration and direct action
  • Experimental sociality and conviviality, critiques of individuality and individuation, collective and autonomous organising
  • Critical and speculative design methods
  • Modes of study, somatic pedagogies, and Affect Studies

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