Wenzel Mehnert | Dr. Sabine Ammon
Visions and Values in Design and Technology – Journal Club Integrative Science and Technology Studies
Seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Tuesdays, 14-16 h, weekly, starts 9.4.2019
Hardenbergstr. 33, room 150

Visions, values, and imaginaries play a fundamental role in technology development. Visions of technological futures become driving forces of today’s technology development. At the same time, values embedded in technological products turn into co-shapers of societal development. With new and emerging technologies on the threshold to markets, it is not only important to reflect the underly sociotechnical imaginaries. It is also essential to investigate the complex interrelations of visions and values in design and technology critically in order to uncover the hopes and fears related to technology’s future as well as to develop alternative ideas of preferable futures when needed.
Our Journal Club “Visions and Values in Design and Technology“ will bring together perspectives from technology of philosophy, technology assessment as well as artistic and designerly practices. We will analyse in close reading recent research positions, which deal with the assessment of technological visions and values, such as Vision Assessment, Value Sensitive Design, Speculative Design or Design Fictions. We will dive into the literature to better understand how visions and values interact with the development of new technologies and how art and design can steer the process of “visioneering“ and stimulate discourses about new and emerging technologies.

This class is an interdisciplinary cooperation between TU Berlin and UdK Berlin.

Desirable prerequisites for participation in the course are higher semesters (BA 5+ or MA), a routine in working with texts by close reading, and an interest in integrating theoretical or empirical research into the artistic practice.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credit: regular and active participation in the seminar, audio recording of a reflection on one of the texts, moderation of a text discussion in one session.

Schwerpunkte:
Ausrichtung der Veranstaltung: orientierend, vorwärtsgewandt
Kompetenz/Aktivität der Teilnehmenden: aneignen, transformieren

Wenzel Mehnert works as an assistant researcher at the University of the Arts in Berlin. His research interest includes experimental formats of future studies, techno-cultural foresight and the cultural shared imaginaries of the future. He writes his PhD about “the practice of speculation“ in literature, design and foresight. At the UdK he is teaching at the Studium Generale and in the GWK (Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftskommunikation) at the professorship of Prof. Timothee Ingen-Housz, where his focus is on the intersection between empirical research and audiovisual practice.

Sabine Ammon ist Sprecherin der interdisziplinären Forschungsgruppe Wissensdynamik in den Technikwissenschaften und leitet das DFG-geförderte Teilprojekt Von Artefakten zu Wissenfakten. Sie studierte Architektur und Philosophie an der TU Berlin, Studien- und Forschungsaufenthalte führten sie an die University of London, Harvard University, ETH Zürich, Univsität Basel sowie das Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover. Ihre Dissertation, die sie 2008 an der TU Berlin abschloss, entwickelte eine erkenntnistheoretische Grundlage für einen prozessualen und pluralen Wissensbegriff. Von 2011 bis 2013 war sie Co-Leiterin der Forschungsgruppe „Bild und Entwurf“ am Nationalen Forschungsschwerpunkt eikones/Bildkritik an der Universität Basel, von 2013 bis 2014 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an der BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg und von 2014 bis 2017 an der TU Darmstadt. Sie leitete von 2014 bis 2016 als Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow (IPODI-Programm) an der TU Berlin das Forschungsprojekt Epistemology of Designing. Gegenwärtig arbeitet sie zu epistemischen, ethischen und ästhetischen Aspekten des Entwerfens und Modellierens in Architektur und Ingenieurwesen.