SESSION #1 – HOW MUCH AND WHAT KIND OF SOIL IS INVOLVED IN THIS VIDEO CONFERENCE

06.04.2021 – Halle

In Session #1 we examined anthropogenic extraction and deposition in relation to their use in everyday life. For this purpose, we used the question: How much and what kind of soil is directly or indirectly involved in this video conference?
Diverse presentations by various soil experts, including the German Lithium Society, the K+S company, two geoscientists from MLU and an expert from the Federal Environment Agency, as well as a virtual tour of Ferropolis gave us insights into our past, present and future influences on the soil system.
Afterwards, with the support of Henning Frančik from SustainLab, we familiarised ourselves with life cycle assessments based on a study by the Ökoinstitut commissioned by the Federal Environment Agency on the ecological effects of laptop monitors and asked ourselves how we can use them as designers. Beyond understanding and grasping the complex interrelationships, the final task was to develop our own questions regarding the environmental impacts of laptop monitors (as an excerpt of the entire video conference) and to make them comprehensible through an animation with the software Blender – supported by the Blender expert Tom Witschel. On the one hand, the results visualise information contained (in)directly in a life cycle assessment and make it accessible to everyone. On the other hand, they also establish new references that can form the basis for a design concept.