Design & Critical Inquiry
Situated within practice-led teaching, this ongoing exhibition series explores artistic research methods that aim to combine critical thinking and design transformations.- Time
- Location
- Berlin, Germany
In a state of ontological crisis, all boundaries between human and machine, nature and culture, and the organic and inorganic have been severely blurred. We find ourselves exhaustively tackling the turmoil of our own designed circumstances, as we emerge to become extensions of the extensions that we built. These are times of curious contrivances, novel natures, inescapable automation and posthuman performances – where human and nonhuman find themselves being entwined, meshed and muddled into new unwitting entanglements. But from biased machine-learning to surveillance capitalism and digital colonisation – what power structures are implicitly and covertly being embedded into these technologies? Do we have to raise a discussion about political systems of things – about ubiquitous capitalism, algorithmic aristocracy or object-mediated democracy?
In dialogue with Michelle Christensen (Berlin University of the Arts & Weizenbaum Institute). Project-based talks and workshops on open-source microelectronics and coding by Ines Weigand (UdK Berlin) and Friedrich Schmidgall (ECDF).
Volume #1 / Politics of Design – Per/forming Critique / July 2025 – February 2026
Critical and performantive design works by students from the Freie Universität Berlin (M.A. Culture and Media Management), Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin University of the Arts and Humboldt Universität of Berlin.
With contributions from: Willi Beeskow, Rosa Carlotta Burr, Gina Chamizer, Lukas Helling, Johannes Hofmeister, Natalia Iberra, Pauline Jacob, Inka Jehs, Ann-Marie La Vitola, Nastasia Last, Yunseo Lee, Seyed Amir Naghavialhosseini, Eva Rziha, Rebekka Schmitt, Sophie Scholl, Natalie Stadtkowski, Sophie Stein, Emma Steiniger, Viktoria Adolf, Sophie Borgmeyer, Rebekka Schmitt, Valentina Weinreich, Hümeyra Demırcıoğ̆lu, Marlina Metz, Clara Isakowitsch, Kallum Robinson, Grace Zang, Annabelle Riechert, Philipp Proff, Laura Bouget, Maulana Fawwaz, Phillip Büchner, Robert Lange, Jessica Kakmeni, Levi Puig and Anna Job.
Volume #2 / Politics of Design – Per/forming Critique No. 2 / February 2025 – June 2026
Critical and performantive design works by students from the Freie Universität Berlin (M.A. Culture and Media Management). With contributions from: Nelli Abdullaeva / Josephine Kantara / Felix Armbruster / Alma Baute / Henning Berg / Ishraq Al Saadi / Marie Luka Wild / Yannik Berger / Maria Lenz / Alessia Brügger / Janine Heinrich / Lara Makena Arnhold.
Volume #3 / A.I. ±÷›˚ò∆Sѱˆ–A. Ambiguous Intelligence / February 2025 – June 2026
Critical and performantive design works by students from the Freie Universität Berlin (M.A. Culture and Media Management). With contributions from: Johanna Linhoff / Ann-Marie La Vitola / Eva Rziha / Anna Seel / Mona Hartel / Josephine Barner / Nastasia Last / Mia Clara Ostern / Nelli Abdullaeva / Inka Jehs / Johannes Hofmeister / Mirjam Lehner / Viktoria Adolf / Rosa Burr / Jan Lettau
