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The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
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Exhibition Opening: Digital Colonialism — The Dark Side of Fortschritt
Digital Colonialism — The Dark Side of Fortschritt
Student Exhibition (05.11.2024, 19h)
We are excited to invite you to the opening of the UdK student exhibition “Digital Colonialism — The Dark Side of Fortschritt” at the Einstein Center Digital Future! Join us on Tuesday, Nov 5 at 19h for an exploration of the digital colonialism topics and themes through engaging design work.
DATE: Tuesday, November 5th 2024
TIME: 19:00h
PLACE: Einstein Center Digital Future, Wilhelmstraße 67, 10117 Berlin
To register for the event, please follow this link.
In the exhibition at the Einstein Center Digital Future (www.digital-future.berlin), Berlin University of the Arts design students explore, critique, and reflect on the practices of data extraction, surveillance, and neo-colonial power struggles as part of the digital age. The exhibition consists of student-generated A.I. imagery as well as their designs of “critical machines” prototypes.
The A.I. images are based on prompts inspired by the themes and topics discussed in lectures and reflect on how technology can shape our worldview through visual patterns, stereotypes and biases generated by the algorithms. Students have also designed “critical machines” as conceptual rapid prototypes out of inexpensive materials with speculative, imaginary, and satirical functions that critique procedures of digital colonialism in contemporary society.
We look forward to seeing you there!