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Future Talks

Series of guest lectures held by different professionals working on their own practize in the design field.

January 10th: Audrey Desjardines

Audrey is the director of Studio Tilt and assistant professor in interaction design at the University of Washington. With Studio Tilt Audrey worked on consumer electronics and textiles. All of which from a viewpoint of asking questions and engaging/provoking its users. Audrey lived in a van for over a year and experienced first-person-perspective in first-person-perspective. She published her documentation of this as 'Living in a prototype'

January 24th: Laura Forlano

Laura is a social scientist and design researcher focused on aesthetics, ethics and politics of socio-technical systems. In her lecture Laura explained to us that she calls herself a cyborg since - as being diabetic type 1 - she is dependent on a insulin pump to keep her bloodvalues leveled. "Collapse of the boundaries between researcher and the researched."

February 7th: Sergio Urueña

Sergio is a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He describes himself as interdisciplinary scholar in philosophy and studies a variety of applied ethic- and philosophy- related topics. Sergio explained us how throughout history technology tended to be the driving force behind innovation and -moreso- social shiftings. One more clearly than the other but interesting and credible in their essence. Examples of technologies and large-scale impacts: the guillotine that led to the French revolution, the birthpill leading to the rise of feminism, the bookpress to worldwide literacy or the clock to 9-5 working rhytms. Technology-Determinism: "Science provides, society awaits."

One other - more refined - linear (design) approach on human development is Social Constructivism; how society drives technology, through cultural artifacts.

In contemporary settings the need for a crossworking arises in which direct, bi-directional play of society and technology go hand-in-hand. Relating this to our project Sergio confronted us with a set of questions:

Do you feel responsible for the actors of your project?
Where do you set the boundaries of your experiental community?
What do I know and what not about my project? (assumptions, interests, values..)
Am I commited enough?
In what sense am I corresponding to an interest, a need or an expectation of socio-technical contexts?
How do you promote diversity and inclusivisity and how adaptable is your project?

February 14th: Saúl Baeza

Saúlis the Director of DOES, a design and consultancy practice, as well as a researcher at TU Eindhoven and editor-in-chief at VISIONS BY, a material culture centered magazine. Saúl was kind enough to guide us through L'Hospitalet and explained bits about its history, character and structure. Before the tour I had been around the area on just a few occasions, one of which was the workshop 'Conversaciones Maduras'. The city (which it is apparantly) has some similar features as El Poblenou in terms of industry, wideness and diversity but seems to breathe a bit more rawness and is more unpolished, in a good way.

Saúl worked on quite a-typical design projects with his team at DOES. Their work revolves around the main theme of personal identity. Among its work were the reserach and development of masks that fooled facial recognition systems, a heat sensor videoclip, various wearables and installation art.

March 7th: Ron Wakkary

Ron is full professor in the Future Everyday cluster. In addition, he is full professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Canada where he is director of the Interaction Design Research Centre and founder of the Everyday Design Studio.
Extending on Ron's first talk on a 'More than human world' today's session focusses on what it means to be a designer in this more-than-human world. Ron gave some examples on how designers not solely design for themselves and others but for a larger - sometimes unexpected - context including artificial intelligences and animals. In a exemplary anecdote Ron explained how different agents (incl. raccoons, crow, gold fish) take a role in his case of trying to maintain a water lily 'pond' in a concrete sink.

Which non-human agents are involved in your project(s)?
What is their order of appearance? Were they not planned?
When will your project end and what will it leave behind?