Guest Lectures

12 October 2021 
Gestaltung forscht: Symposium zum Potenzial von Designforschung für Gestalter*innen

Questions about the meaning of research in design, about its self-understanding and its methods were discussed from different perspectives. In three presentations, experts presented their view on the topic during the digital discourse, which was initiated by Rita Rentzsch, professor for interior architecture at BURG. Stephan Ott and Jessica Kreijci from the Institute for Design Research and Appliance (IfDRA) spoke with experts from companies, universities, and design agencies and asked them about their understanding of design research to find various definitions, methods, and perspectives on the general potential of design studies. Then, Anita Kaspar and Fynn-Morten Heyer from Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik reflected on their researching methods on the basis of a selection of their projects. Afterwards, Dr. Bianca Herold from the Design Research Lab of UdK in Berlin looked at the transdisciplinary processes in which actors from science, politics and civil society jointly generate new forms of knowledge production. Her work focuses on questions of social and digital participation and the role of design studies in the context of digital transformation. 

13 October 2021
Sunanda Sharma, PhD candidate in the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab

Sunanda Sharma was a research assistant and doctoral student in the Mediated Matter group after she graduated in biology with a focus in psychology and a master’s degree on media arts and sciences at MIT in 2016. Her research focuses on functional pigments which can be extracted from bacteria, fungi and even feathers. She explored melanin-producing bacteria that interact with chemical signals and 3D-printed them into a hydrogel. Apart from that, she cooperated with NASA and recently sent petri dishes with radioresistant and melanin producing fungi into space to find out more about their potentials. She also created her own database named color.bio, in which a pigment producing living organism can be selected based on the color of choice. Furthermore, she focuses on the question of how we, as humans, could learn empathy with microorganisms. Can color maybe lead a path for empathy?