Project
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All Disciplines (4)
Architecture and Social urban science |
Keywords (11)
Design Thinking; Urban Planning; Governing ; Infrastructures; Smartness; Resilience; Recursive Publics; Wicked Problems; Ecology; Decolonization ; Planning
Lay Summary (German)
Lead
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Internationale Institutionen wie die UNO versuchen sich mittels Design Thinking neu aufzustellen; infrastrukturelle Planung firmiert unter dem Begriff urbanes Design; und ökologisches Handeln wird zunehmend zu einer Frage adäquater Programmierung. Das vorliegende Projekt untersucht, inwiefern Methoden und Praktiken aus Gestaltung und Design politisches Denken und Handeln in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts beeinflusst und verändert haben und widmet sich aktuellen Formen des Regierens durch Gestaltung. Die Forschenden erweitern das Feld der Designforschung damit um eine interdisziplinäre Perspektive und beleuchten gleichzeitig die zunehmende Politisierung von Design.
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Lay summary
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Inhalt und Ziel des Forschungsprojekts Eine interdisziplinäre Gruppe von Forschenden der Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (Institut für Experimentelle Design- und Medienkulturen), der Universität Basel (Fachbereich Urban Studies) und der Concordia University Montréal (Department of Sociology and Anthropology) widmet sich der Untersuchung von Designstrategien in der Gestaltung von internationalen Institutionen und Entscheidungsprozessen, in der infrastrukturellen Umgestaltung von urbanen Zentren und ländlichen Räumen, sowie im computergesteuerten Management von sozialen und ökologischen Prozessen. Zentral für das Projekt ist eine bottom-up Perspektive: anstatt von global einheitlichen Designpolitiken auszugehen, kombinieren die Forschenden Feldstudien und Archivaufenthalte in Afrika, Asien, Europa, und Nordamerika um lokal spezifische Verbindungen von Design, infrastruktureller Planung, und politischer Steuerung zu untersuchen. Ziel des Projekts ist es, ein neues Feld der interdisziplinären Designforschung zu etablieren und aktiv an gesellschaftlichen Debatten teilzunehmen. Wissenschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Kontext ‘Governing through Design’ verbindet Perspektiven und Methoden aus Designwissenschaft, Urban Studies, Medienwissenschaft, Anthropologie, Soziologie, Politikwissenschaft und Wissenschaftsforschung um zeitgenössische Verschränkungen von Design und Politik zu untersuchen. Das Projekt greift damit aktiv in aktuelle Debatten um Handlungsmöglichkeiten im Zeitalter des Anthropozän ein und sucht die zumeist global gedachten Lösungsansätze mit Untersuchungen lokaler Zusammenhänge zu konfrontieren.
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Responsible applicant and co-applicants
Employees
Project partner
Publications
Paim Nina, Mareis Claudia (ed.) (2021),
Design Struggles. Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives, Valiz, Amsterdam.
BruderJohannes (2021), Alexa's Body. What the Interface Obscures and How Design Could Help Us See, in Paim Nina, Mareis Claudia (ed.), Valiz, Amsterdam, 283-297.
Weitzel Michelle D. (2020), Common sense politics: religion and belonging in French public space, in
French Politics, 18(4), 380-404.
HalpernOrit (2020), Resilient Natures, in
Social Text, November, 1-13.
Santo Raychel E., Kim Brent F., Goldman Sarah E., Dutkiewicz Jan, Biehl Erin M. B., Bloem Martin W., Neff Roni A., Nachman Keeve E. (2020), Considering Plant-Based Meat Substitutes and Cell-Based Meats: A Public Health and Food Systems Perspective, in
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 4, 1-12.
BruderJohannes, Donkey Kong's Legacy. About microprocessors as model organisms and the behavioral politics of video games in AI, in
Tsantsa, (26).
Halpern Orit, Bruder Johannes, Optimal Brain Damage: Theorizing the Nervous Present, in
CultureMachine.
Collaboration
African Center for Cities |
South Africa (Africa) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Exchange of personnel |
Kunstuniversität Linz / IFK Linz |
Austria (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Western Syndey University |
Australia (Oceania) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Exzellenzcluster ›Matters of Activity. Image Space Material‹, HU Berlin |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Research Infrastructure |
Scientific events
Active participation
Title |
Type of contribution |
Title of article or contribution |
Date |
Place |
Persons involved |
Lunchtime Lecture Design University St. Pölten
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Individual talk
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Design Matters. Designforschung im Zusammenspiel mit den Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften
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14.01.2021
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Design University St. Pölten, Austria
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Mareis Claudia;
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Association for Political Theory Annual Conference
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Talk given at a conference
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Drones, Sirens and Prayer Calls
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12.11.2020
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University of Massachusetts Amherst (virtual), United States of America
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Weitzel Michelle;
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Jahrestagung des Exzellenzcluster ›Matters of Activity. Image Space Material‹: ›The Analog in the Digital‹
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Talk given at a conference
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Truth to Materials: Entangled histories of design and material politics
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11.11.2020
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Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
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Mareis Claudia;
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Co-Working Materials. Für einen aktiven Materialismus
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Talk given at a conference
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Vom ›richtigen‹ Gebrauch des Materials. Materialdebatten Mitte des 19. Jh. revisited
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08.10.2020
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IFK Wien und Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria
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Mareis Claudia;
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The Global Architect
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Individual talk
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Infrastructural Inheritance in the Colonial Moment
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07.10.2020
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Milan, Italy
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Cupers Kenny;
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Transitions politiques et sociales contemporaines en Afrique et en Asie
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Talk given at a conference
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Infrastructural Inheritance and Transnational Mobility in an East African Corridor
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23.09.2020
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Pavia, Italy
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Cupers Kenny;
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American Political Science Association
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Talk given at a conference
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Sense-based Reactions and National Security: The Gaza Conflict
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13.09.2020
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Virtual (pandemic), United States of America
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Weitzel Michelle;
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Contested Connections: Infrastructures, Capitalism and Geopolitics (European Workshops in International Studies EWIS)
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Talk given at a conference
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Infrastructural Inheritance and the Futurity of an East African Corridor
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07.07.2020
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online, Belgium
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Cupers Kenny;
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COOP-Design Research Programme Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
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Individual talk
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The Design Turn – Historical experiments into an epistemology of practice
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09.06.2020
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Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau , Germany
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Mareis Claudia;
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Vorlesungsreihe ›Schnittstellen‹
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Individual talk
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Design als dritte Wissenskultur
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19.05.2020
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Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria
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Mareis Claudia;
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Urban Futures Lab, Torino
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Individual talk
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Planetary Experiments
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10.05.2020
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Torino, Italy
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Halpern Orit;
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Politics of the Ordinary: Political Theory Conference
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Talk given at a conference
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Everyday Sounds of Political Violence
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25.04.2020
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University of Chicago (virtual), United States of America
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Weitzel Michelle;
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POMEPS Middle East North Africa Junior Scholar Workshop
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Talk given at a conference
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National Listening: Strains of Trauma and Resilience
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27.03.2020
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George Washington University (Virtual), United States of America
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Weitzel Michelle;
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Self-organised
Workshop: Humanitarian Design & Testbed Urbanism
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04.02.2021
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Zoom, Switzerland
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Questions and Methods at the Intersection of Infrastructure, Design, Capitalism, and Coloniality.
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14.12.2020
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online zoom, Switzerland
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Knowledge transfer events
Active participation
Title |
Type of contribution |
Date |
Place |
Persons involved |
Self-organised
Communication with the public
Communication |
Title |
Media |
Place |
Year |
Talks/events/exhibitions
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Podiumsdiskussion HKB Bern: Arts in Context – Kunst Forschung Gesellschaft (Live-Streaming)
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German-speaking Switzerland
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2020
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Awards
Honorable Mention: Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award (Social Science)
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2020
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Abstract
The central question of this grant is: How does design govern today? We ask what work design - as an interdisciplinary approach to solving social, political and environmental problems - has done throughout the second half of the twentieth century to transform governmentality, and how the values of design continue to define governmental strategies in the 21st century. Since the postwar period, “design” has been increasingly called upon to solve problems caused by economic restructuring, political instability, and environmental disaster. Against this background, we do not take design simply as a product-oriented discipline but suggest that through its becoming central to governmentality, it requires a wider definition today. “Governing through Design” will be the first global and interdisciplinary study of how design governs in the 21st century. Such a study requires expertise from design studies, urban studies, architectural history, media studies, cultural anthropology, political science, and science and technology studies. Our team brings these disciplinary perspectives together in order to be able to examine the interdisciplinary nature of design today. Our research consortium consists of the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design Basel, the faculty of Urban Studies at the University of Basel and the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology at Concordia University, Montréal. In order to grasp design as an interdisciplinary phenomenon, we have identified three major trajectories through which we can observe the modalities and effects of this new governmentality from the mid-twentieth century to today. We will concentrate on three exemplary cases where design has come to govern: 1) by turning publics and the public domain recursive, 2) by rendering territories and their populations resilient, and 3) by augmenting environments with smart computational technologies. We have organized our research into three main research clusters and twelve subprojects, each cluster led by one of the PIs. Cluster A) recursive publics examines design as a site for a new kind of political practice and vice versa, where technocratic ideas of progress and the desire for a new, “non-foundational” politics are reciprocally articulated. Cluster B) resilient territories revolves around the question about how territories and their populations are reorganized around specific infrastructures, to enforce resilience on a planetary scale. Cluster C) smart environments focuses on how infrastructure, design, and computing are increasingly integrated to manage the environment and urbanization. Drawing on the concept of “global assemblages” (Ong/Collier 2005) we want to situate contemporary approaches to governing social, political, and environmental risks and uncertainties through design by assembling a set of intersectional and temporally distributed case studies, situated in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Our methods include archival research, qualitative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and contemporary mapping techniques. In order to strengthen the interdisciplinary collaboration and explore novel ways of disseminating research, we will cooperate with a group of renowned architects and designers throughout the project. It is thus unique in producing reflexive feedback between scholarship, design research and pedagogy, and public engagement.The projected outcomes of our research will include: 1) two PhD theses, 2) individual peer-reviewed articles, 3) a co-authored publication by the PIs, postdocs and advanced researchers on the topic of the grant, 4) a concluding international conference, and 5) a web based publica-tion of the project’s results in cooperation with designers of Marshall Brown Projects, Lateral Of-fice, and M-A-D. All research outputs and publications will be published open access.
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