Prof. Dr. Michelle Christensen & Prof. Dr. Florian Conradi
Design + Crisis – Pluriversal Pathways to a Post-Anthropocene
Seminar, English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS, 5 places
Course Duration: 24.-28.07.2023, 10-17 h, Introduction: 24.07.2023 at 10 h
Room: Berlin Open Lab, Universität der Künste Berlin, Einsteinufer 43, 10587 Berlin
Registration: Please register beforehand to michelle.christensen_ @tu-berlin.de and florian.conradi_ @tu-berlin.de!

Deeply entangled in a crisis of the Anthropocene, the need to radically reassemble relationships of ecologies and technologies is more vital than ever – to re/think socio-technical practices and re/design modes of convening with our companion species and environments. Within the framework of this block-seminar, we will discuss critical perspectives on western-centric paradigms of understanding nature and technology, exploring pluriversal approaches to interspecies sustainability. We will explore concepts of beyond-western-centric cosmologies and cosmogonies, speculating on organic technologies and the symbioscene. And drawing on the approaches of speculative design and critical making, we will debate and prototype alternative human-nonhuman relationships (with an open source soft and hard attitude), integrating critical thinking with designing.

Literature:
– Haraway, D. (2003). The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, People and Significant Otherness. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press.
– Braidotti, R. (2006). ‘Posthuman, All Too Human. Towards a New Process Ontology’, Theory, Culture & Society. London/Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Vol. 23 (7–8), pp. 197–208.
– Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
– Chukwudi Eze, E. (Eds.) (1997): Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Michelle Christensen is a visiting professor for Open Science/Critical Culture at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future, as well as co-heading the research group Design, Diversity and New Commons at the Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute. She wrote her Ph.D. in the field of Design Research, prior to which she studied political sociology, conflict studies, gender studies and integrated design. She has worked at the Crisis Department of Amnesty International USA, was a Humanity in Action Fellow, and a Congressional Fellow in the United States Congress in Washington DC. As a researcher she has worked for the Design Research Lab and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Berlin. She has taught courses in gender studies, conflict analysis and design methods at universities in the Netherlands and Germany, most recently as a visiting professor at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau. Her work focuses on decolonial, queer/feminist and sustainable approaches to design and free/open technologies.

Florian Conradi is a designer and researcher combining critical theory and design as an approach to critical practice. He studied design and art at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, the KISD in Cologne, and wrote his Ph.D. in the field of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 2008 he has been initiating sociopolitical design projects with institutions in the field of critical media and political advocacy, carrying out field research in the Middle East, East and West Africa. He has taught critical approaches to design and design methods at amongst other places the Köln International School of Design, the UdK Berlin, and as a visiting professor at the international Master program in Integrated Design at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau. Currently, he is a visiting professor for Open Science/Critical Design at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future, as well as co-heading the research group Design, Diversity and New Commons at the Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute.