Thoth distribution@thoth.pub Google 20260407T213105

urn:uuid:b194856c-33a3-442d-a913-3ac00088b02e 03 15 9783957962218 00 EB E107 10 10 02 00000001 01 02 Future Ecologies 01 01 Material Trajectories Designing With Care? 1 B01 Léa Perraudin Léa Perraudin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin. Her research is concerned with (media) infrastructures of the Anthropocene, experimental cultures in media, art and design, as well as practices of knowing, writing and making in the realm of environmental humanities and queer feminist technology studies. Léa is currently working on an extensive media theory of phase transitions, investigating the material ties of media infrastructures in contemporary technocapitalist environments through situated phenomena of transience, dispersal, abundance and solidification. Together with Martin Müller, Léa leads the experimental laboratory for knowledge exchange and speculative design “CollActive Materials,” funded by the Berlin University Alliance. 2 B01 Clemens Winkler Clemens Winkler is a postdoctoral design researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin. His work relates environmental concerns with social, scientific and technological development. By questioning atmospheric control with its epistemic foundations and institutional affiliations, he, for example, puts clouds into boxes to show what cannot be contained and therefore explores the human obsession with controlling the environment. Opening up participatory and playful frameworks through material transitions becoming intellectual and intimate markers led to his current position as visiting professor for the MA studio “Spiel und Objekt” at the University of Theatre Arts Ernst Busch Berlin.. 3 B01 Claudia Mareis Claudia Mareis is a design researcher and cultural historian. After initial training in Graphic Design, she studied Design, Art and Cultural Studies in Zurich, Berlin, and Linz. Since 2021, she has been professor of Design and History of Knowledge at the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she is also the co-director of the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material.” Besides, she is a lecturer at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, where from 2013 to 2021 she has built up an interdisciplinary research group converging design, media arts, anthropology, historical studies, and technology. Her research interests include history, theory and methodology of design in the 20th century, knowledge cultures in design, experimental design and media practices, cultural history of creativity, design and material politics. 4 B01 Matthias Held Matthias Held studied product design in Germany and in the US. After working as a design consultant for the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), including in Africa, he was a co-founder of the quintessence design studio in Stuttgart. In 2006, he was appointed professor at the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, heading research projects in the field of sustainability, regenerative energy and medical technology. He currently serves as prorector for research and transfer. Held is member of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), of the Design Research Society UK and jury member of the Bundespreis Ecodesign. 5 A01 Sename Koffi Agbodjinou Sename Koffi Agbodjinou is an author, tech activist, and awardwinning entrepreneur. With a background in industrial design, architecture, and anthropology, he now curates exhibitions and gives lectures and workshops worldwide. He is co-founder of Africaine d’architecture, a collaborative platform for experimentation and research on L’African architecture and urbanism, and of HubCity/ WoeLabs, a network of Togolese technology hubs. He works with concepts that incorporate indigenous elements into modern design, at the level of product, building, and urban planning. His work develops alternative visions around issues of holistic architecture, primitive computationalities, democracy in technology, and urban sustainability. 6 A01 Viola S. Ahrensfeld Viola S. Ahrensfeld, born and raised in Cologne, is a designer and design researcher currently pursuing her PhD at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Her research interests focus on how design practices help shape human existence and social worlds, and the related ethical issues of design as a practice of the everyday life. 7 A01 Joanna Boehnert Joanna Boehnert is senior lecturer at the Design School at Bath Spa University. She is currently working on two UKRI research projects on net zero transitions and Gregory Bateson’s ecological aesthetics. She is author of Design/Ecology/ Politics: Towards the Ecocene (2018) and a fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). She is originally from Canada and tweets @ecocene. 8 A01 Jessica Bulling Jessica Bulling studied Product Design (BA) and Strategic Design (MA) at HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd. Building upon her master’s thesis on “Vegetarianism and Veganism—Potentials for Design,” she is currently pursuing her PhD on “Materials as Carriers of Meaning—Perception and Impact in the Context of Leather Substitution” at TU Dresden and HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd. Her work focuses on material design, material semantics, and ecodesign. Additionally, Jessica Bulling serves as a lecturer at HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd. 9 A01 Michaela Büsse Michaela Büsse is a postdoctoral researcher at the chair of Digital Culture at Technische Universität Dresden and associated investigator at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In her research she focuses on sociomaterial transformations in the context of speculative urbanism, climate change mitigation, and energy transition. Drawing on elemental anthropology and feminist science and technology studies, she investigates how design practices and technologies govern environments and define who and what is being rendered inhuman. 10 A01 Emile De Visscher Emile De Visscher is an engineer, designer and researcher exploring new materials and manufacturing methods. Through this practicebased research, he questions the political role of technology and its underlying concepts like productivity, functionalism or efficiency in regards to current social and environmental changes. Emile De Visscher was a research associate at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity”, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 2019-23 and now holds the Chaire Professeur Junior “Design for ecological transitions” at ENS Paris Saclay. 11 A01 Roman Kirschner Roman Kirschner is a designer, artist, researcher, and teacher working across disciplines. After studies of philosophy, art history and audiovisual art, he completed a PhD on “the paradigm of material activity in the plastic arts.” He was the project leader of the arts-based research project “Liquid Things” (FWF, AT) and the editor of Raw Flows: Fluid Mattering in Arts and Research (2017). Currently he is the Co-PI of the research project “Interfacing the Ocean” (SNF, CH). His current research revolves around metabolism and ecologies, fluid material systems, spatial strategies, research methods and the mutual influence of material, imagination and epistemology. 12 A01 Manuel Kretzer Manuel Kretzer is professor for Material and Technology at the Dessau Department of Design, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and director of the Materiability Research Group. The group’s work focuses on exploring novel material properties in unison with digital design and fabrication processes. A particular emphasis is on adaptive or smart technologies as well as biological materials as sustainable alternatives to synthetic, petroleum-based resources. 13 A01 Anupama Kundoo Anupama Kundoo is an architect whose practice, established in 1990, focuses on environmentally conscious architecture suited to the socio-economic context. She is currently professor at FH Potsdam, Germany, and has taught in a variety of cultural contexts and institutions across the world. Her researchoriented work has been showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale twice, with installations in 2012 and 2016. Kundoo is the author of Roger Anger: Research on Beauty/Recherche sur la Beauté, Architecture 1958-2008 published in Berlin by Jovis Verlag in 2009 and has actively assisted chief architect Roger Anger with the development of the city plan of Auroville, an international city-inthe- making in South India founded in 1968 as a prototype for future cities. 14 A01 Martin Müller Martin Müller researches and teaches at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at the Department of Cultural History and Theory at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research is located at the intersection of cultural history and theory, media studies, history of knowledge and science, and design theory. Together with Léa Perraudin, he leads the experimental laboratory for knowledge exchange and speculative design “CollActive Materials”—a joint project of the Clusters “Matters of Activity” and “Science of Intelligence,” funded by the Berlin University Alliance. He has recently published Leben machen. Die Zoëpolitik der synthetischen Biologie (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023). 15 A01 Fara Peluso Fara Peluso is a Berlin based artist-designer which through a speculative methodology pursues a deep research on algae poetic and agency. Peluso, investigating possible closer relationships between human beings and algae organisms, wants to raise critical questions about human and more-than-human coexistence. In 2022 she was nine months in residency at Ars- Electronica, regional S+T+ARTS center in Linz, with the collaborative project “Circular Records” about LP bioplastic manufacturing. In March 2023 she showed the project “Tecuitlatl” at Weltmuseum Vienna, an algae sound installation in collaboration with the sound composer Hüma Utku and in research collaboration with Prof. María Antonia González Valerio. 16 A01 Wolfgang Schäffner Wolfgang Schäffner, a historian of science and media technologies, has been professor of the Cultural History of Knowledge at the Department of History and Theory of Culture at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since 2009 and is director of the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity.” His main research fields are the development of a Geistand Material Science / Material Humanties, with special focus on analog code, active matter, intercultural and transdisciplinary knowledge production (collaborative projects with Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Universidad de Costa Rica), and design as interdisciplinary practice-oriented research. He has also been permanent guest full professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires since 2005 and head of the Master’s degree program “Open Design” of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universidad de Buenos Aires. 17 A01 Lea Schmidt Lea Schmidt is a research associate at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and a doctoral candidate at TU Dresden’s chair of Industrial Design Engineering. Her research focuses on sustainability, design, and technology, with a particular interest in material circularity and its design implications. 18 A01 Maxie Schneider Maxie Schneider is an architectural design researcher and lecturer. Her work combines physical and digital prototyping to develop textile building techniques and fibre-based material systems. She has collaborated on various design-build projects and advanced material experiments into structural implementation. As a research associate and PhD candidate at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material,” Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and TU Berlin, she investigates adaptive textile structures and the functionalization of softness in architecture. 19 A01 Emilia Tikka Emilia Tikka is a designer and researcher working in the intersection of speculative design practices, feminist science and technology studies and novel bioscience research including genome-editing technologies and epigenetics. Her current research focuses on re-imaging humannature- technology relations through situated and collaborative practices of designing and storytelling. She is currently a PhD candidate at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, where she is a member of the research group Empirica. Emilia is also an associated member at the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin. 20 A01 Ebba Fransén Waldhör Ebba Fransén Waldhör is a designer and lecturer in the fields of spatial installation and textile research. As a design researcher she investigates adaptive materials in textiles and how they function in architectural contexts. In her independent practice, she develops experimental spatial concepts for artists and institutions. The materiality of textiles as soft barriers provides a material ground from which she explores questions of spatial boundaries and their permeability. 21 A01 Charlett Wenig Charlett Wenig is an industrial designer (MSc) who did a dissertation on tree bark in the discipline of materials sciences. She is a researcher with a keen interest in biomaterials and sustainable design practices. With her background in both science and design, she specializes in exploring the potential of natural materials and their applications in various fields. In the “Matters of Activity” research group “Adaptive Fibrous Materials” at the MPI for Colloids and Interfaces she aims to bridge the gap between science and design, promoting a research approach that considers material origins, processing methods, and environmental impact to create innovative and sustainable solutions. 22 A01 Susanne Witzgall Susanne Witzgall holds a PhD in art history and is senior lecturer for transdisciplinary studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, where she has directed the cx centrum for interdisciplinary studies since 2011. She is the author and editor of numerous books and essays on contemporary art, on the relationship between art and science, and on current interdisciplinary discourses. These include among others the anthologies Power of Material / Politics of Materiality (2014, with K. Stakemeier), Hybrid Ecologies (2019, with M. Kesting, M. Muhle, and J. Nachtigall) and Human after Man (2023, with M. Kesting). 01 eng 00 288 03 23 caretaking 12 JFD 04 P87-96 10 SOC052000 12 AK 10 DES000000 23 sustainability 23 ecology 12 PSAF 10 SCI020000 23 architecture 23 design 23 design 01 06 03 00 Material Trajectories: Designing With Care? turns towards material-driven design processes with the aim of relocating technoscientific trajectories. Concerned with new forms of caretaking, it combines positions from the extended fields of design research and humanities scholarship including practice-based approaches. The contributions explore current ecological conditions through multiple acts of making-with and seek to complicate questions of sustainability, livability, and cooperation. In reassessing the status quo in design and architecture as material practices, they provide outlines for a nuanced reading of these worldmaking processes and ask what different ways of designing with care and complicity might entail. meson press 01 meson press 04 01 20231229 02 WORLD 06 15 9783957962201 06 15 9783957962218 WORLD 09 meson press 20 01