Who is going to be there?

I am an interdisciplinary design researcher working at the intersection of crafts, data-driven tech, and critical and playful RtD approaches. I am curious to learn if, design research, conducted as a part of free/libre communities and grassroots innovation, can be generative towards contributing to a creative critique of the data society. Presently, I'm dabbling as a femhacker with a serious crochet affliction.

On RtD:

In my experience, I've seen that non-design innovators (makers/hackers in particular) engage in work practices that very closely resemble RtD, and yet we don't have the vocabulary to communicate between our practices and share value systems and material/craft knowledges. The biggest challenge, I think, is the need to develop vocabularies for creative bridges between RtD and practices outside design, because we simply cannot afford to not do it!

Arne Berger was born in the 70s in the Eastern Bloc. He is an interaction design researcher and left handed. His background is in media arts and design, with an interdisciplinary master from Bauhaus-University Weimar. Officially a computer scientist with a doctorate in engineering from a technical university, his research takes an inter- and transdisciplinary research-through-design approach at the intersection of participatory design and interaction design. Arne is a professor of Human-Computer-Interaction at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences (the second home of the Bauhaus). He is somewhat well travelled and takes local food a bit too serious.

On RtD:

I like people to be imaginative, it rarely happens, and if it does, it’s only innovation.

Heidi Biggs (they/she) is a second year PhD in Human Computer Interaction at Penn State University. Their research investigates how environmental data can be critiqued and understood through embodied knowledge and critical making for radical sustainability agendas.

On RtD:

I'm excited about RtD because it is a material epistemological practice. In my opinion (as of today, subject to change) RtD is allows one to probe ways of being in the world which are shaped by the objective world we are surrounded by. The objects and outcomes of RtD offer a material resistance that allows for additional things to come to light. They take on a life of their own. They are ways of expressing the contingent, material, and web-like infrastructures and influences design tangles itself up with. RtD is also often critical in nature, and pushes back on mainstream UX and industrial design narratives like use, usability, and efficiency, which is ethically important for many critical agendas in HCI and design research. I think the biggest challenge is that it is still unfolding in complexity and possibility -- and perhaps should not be to closely defined just yet and we are still 'figuring it out' and finding new applications.

Disclaimer: this was written at the bidding of the attendance form directly out of my brain!

Julian Bleecker is a futures designer, product innovator, engineer, entrepreneur, podcast host and creative team leader. He has a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz, and MS in Engineering from University of Washington, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Julian developed the practice of Design Fiction, which he outlined in the 2008 manifesto "A Short Essay on Design Fiction", and later described in depth in the forthcoming book "The Manual of Design Fiction." Design Fiction is now employed throughout many foresight, insight, and innovation agencies and teams.

https://julianbleecker.com

On RtD:

Thinking and doing / making simultaneously is one of the more exciting forms of knowledge production that exercises the intuition and imagination. I only see exciting things ahead for the practice. I think the challenge may be in communicating the value effectively so that the practice is "taken up" more broadly.

Dr. Spyros Bofylatos holds a doctorate in theory of Design from the Department of Products and System Design Engineering of the University of the Aegean. His research sprawls around Design for sustainability, craft, service design and social innovation. His work is based on creating meaningful dialogue between the theoretical framework and the sociotechnical propositional artifacts that embody different questions in a Research through Design approach. At the very core of this process lies the notion that we live in transitional times and fostering the discourse that leads to networks of artifacts that embody alternative systems of values is necessary to move away from today’s unsustainable society. My main research interests are:

• Design for sustainability

• Research through design

• Nature centered, indigenous design

• Values-Based Design

• Social Innovation

• Service Design

• Material Driven Design

• Design Fiction

• Material Design for the Circular Economy

• Autoethnography in Craft

• Plouriversal Ontologies

• Tacit Knowledge and Design

• Making and Digital Crafts

On RtD:

I love RtD because it is hands on and it complements theory making in a practical way complementing the blind spots of scientific methodologies. Because it is better at being future facing and inclusive of first person prespectives.

I would like to connect with more people who do this kind of work around the world and find ways to further this research programme.

I am an Associate Professor in Interaction Design and am based at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm Sweden. My design work focuses on the intimate body and intimate care. In recent years I have really enjoyed following a soma-design approach and drawing from first-person perspectives.

On RtD:

I love making things and putting these things out into the world to see the kinds of experiences that people have with them, and in particular how these things might change how people view their bodies, and their bodies within society. For me, the biggest challenge is understanding how to create theory through research through design in ways which will be useful and beneficial to other designers and so I would love to know more about how others approach this.

I am a Lecturer in Technology Law and Member of Design Informatics at Edinburgh; a Founding Member and Visiting Researcher at Horizon Digital Economy Research; a Turing Fellow, and Research Fellow at the University of Milan. I was a visiting scientist at Fraunhofer AICOS, Porto and Meiji University, Tokyo too. My background is in computer science (PhD) and law (LL.B; LL.M), working in HCI, IoT and privacy/security. I’ve been awarded research projects funding totalling over £6m and published over 40 interdisciplinary papers.

On RtD:

I am interested in the results of aligning RtD approaches with regulatory challenges posed by emerging technologies. Increasingly the law is looking to design to solve hard socio-technical problems. I am excited about how different RtD practices can enable practical engagement with regulatory issues to realise human centred and societally beneficial human machine interactions.

From the week, I hope to learn from other attendees about the distinctive ways they are approaching wider societal problems of living with technologies through design.

I think the biggest challenge, beyond finding common vocabulary, is expectation management around the outcomes for the week, and finding mechanisms to support longer term connections and network building for participants.

Tom Jenkins is Associate Professor of Interaction Design in the Digital Design department at the IT University of Copenhagen, and is affiliated with the IxD Lab and Center for Digital Welfare. His RtD-driven community-based research produces speculative devices that engage critically with contemporary smart products and systems.

I am a Lecturer in Urban Futures at ImaginationLancaster (Lancaster University). Through my practice-based research I explore ways to design with transspecies interactions and other more-than-human dimensions of place, mostly in coastal areas threatened by environmental change. I experiment with maps, tools, visualisation processes. I tinker, draw, and knit.

On RtD:

As a designer, the way in which I engage in difficult challenges is by drawing, mapping, and making things. I use RtD as a way of producing and communicating knowledge developed through these practices.

After years of remote work (which does not suit me at all!) I am excited to spend some time with other design researchers, and share experiences, challenges, and ideas.

Markéta Dolejšová is a design researcher experimenting with embodied, relational ways of knowing and doing, often in multi-species settings. She currently serves as a postdoctoral research fellow in the CreaTures project; Aalto University and co-leads creative and research activities at the Uroboros festival and the Feeding Food Futures collective.

On RtD:

A consistent and consistently enjoyable element of my co-creative RtD work is the everyday spontaneity. I like my RtD to be humble and on-the-ground as well as feral, experimental and sensory-rich. For most of my academe time, I’ve been RtDing with & around various food elements (cultures, practices, materials). In the past years, I’ve moved my practice and research into a forest, following the pathways proposed by various experienced forest-guides, including my dog companion Chewie, the trees and the mycelium as well as forest scientists and data managers. I’m always happy when I realise that this work has changed something for someone in a profound, nourishing and inspiring way. The challenge here is to be patient enough to let these changes sprout and reveal themselves, which often requires slow attunements to the local surroundings and their creaturely (human or not) inhabitants. Those five days in The Lake District seem to be a good occasion to explore some of these things more in depth.

Ron Wakkary is Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Canada where he founded the Everyday Design Studio. He is also Professor and Chair of Design for More Than Human-Centred Worlds in Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.

On RtD:

Design research is a unique and material way to investigate the world. The main benefit will be to meet and discuss with others engaged in design research. Challenges include proceeding with diversity and generosity of thought and pursuit.

Paulina Yurman is an industrial designer, researcher and design lecturer. She is interested in the ambivalent relationship with designed artefacts and technologies and her work adopts critical, speculative and experimental design approaches. She uses making and drawing with watercolour and other fluid materials as forms of speculative research. Her work can be seen at www.yurman.co.uk

On RtD:

Design research is a critical, visual and materially engaged practice aiming to give form to ideas, make sense of them and communicate them to others. It is often ongoing, open ended and full of potential.

I look forward to meeting and discussing with others engaged in design research and to sharing experiences and ideas.

Laura Dudek is a design strategist, researcher, and futurist based in London. She works in the emerging field of Futures Design, combining UX, critical, and speculative design practices with strategy, communication, and visualization techniques. Laura is currently a designer and researcher with the Royal College of Art, conducting an interdisciplinary research program that explores game-based collaboration and speculative design processes to inform discussions on net-zero energy policies.

On RtD:

RtD presents new ways of thinking about the relationship between design and research by positioning design as a social as well as a material practice. This approach emphasises the social consequences of design decisions as well as the importance of the efficient functioning of a design.

I’m personally interested in themes of resilience, creativity, emergence, and communication. Some questions: How might RtD help us build capacity for uncertainty? How might RtD lead to frameworks that enable more inclusive engagement with complexity? How might the notion of praxis influence approaches to RtD? If the systems upon which our future(s) depends are fundamentally unpredictable, how do we learn to participate in them appropriately? How might RtD help us facilitate the emergence of positive, salutogenic systems properties?

I am an architect, photographer, and PhD researcher in urban design at Lancaster University. I have worked internationally as an architect and photo-journalist in a range of projects, collaborating with journalists, scientists, artists and architects. My research explores the notion of darkness in visual cultures, through artworks, through my own photographs of places after dark, and through the eyes of experts in light-design and theater disciplines. It aims to develop an emerging practice of urban “Night Design,” or “Dark Design.” I am currently designing an “Atlas of Darkness” that will serve as a guide and toolkit for the design of public spaces at night.