We’re here for every Machine
Prof. Dr. Berit Greinke &  Tonia Welter (Wearable Computing & Berlin Open Lab)
Deutsch/English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Starts: 6.1.2025, 10 Uhr

Registration on Moodle starts 2.12.2024 / Anmeldung auf Moodle beginnt am 2.12.2024:
https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2598
Moodle Enrollment Key / Einschreibeschlüssel: machine

A supercentenarian sewing machine fitted with a wrong motor. A 5-axes milling machine that never hits its target. A welding machine for plastic pipes, too heavy in weight and energy consumption to use responsibly.
Join us on our mission to discover new uses for the forgotten, the obsolete, the overlooked, and the underappreciated machines in UdK’s Werkstätten. No matter the circumstances, we aim to never turn away a machine, getting to know their individual quirks, and do everything we can to bring out their potential suitable for their specific skillset.*

Our campus collision unfolds in three stages:
1. Giving a Machine up for adoption – we are currently identifying potential candidates across UdK’s workshops. Help us by reaching out to the technicians in your departments to suggest machines in need of a second chance.
2. Meet the Machines – we will do our best to match you with your perfect machine.
3. Adopt a Machine – you will work in groups with one machine over the course of three days to produce an artefact or a performance.

* We may have borrowed some wording from the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home website https://www.battersea.org.uk for the above description.  

Berit Greinke is a professor in Wearable Computing at Berlin University of the Arts and Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). Her research focuses on engineering design methods and fabrication techniques for electronic textiles and smart materials, combining crafts with novel manufacturing technologies. 

Tonia Welter heads the Berlin Open Lab, an interdisciplinary research platform for postgraduates from UdK and TU. After graduating in Product Design at UdK Berlin, she founded betahaus in Kreuzberg, one of the largest coworking spaces in Europe. As a consultant and planner, she deals with the future of work: with progressive workspaces, creativity and serendipity, with digital-analog interfaces in the working world or the development and perpetuation of networks.