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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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Virtual Colloquium: Art & Design as an Early Warning System
Virtual Colloquium / Designmethoden 1
WiSe 2025/26, Berlin University of the Arts
Art & Design as an Early Warning System
”I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”.
– Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964
This semester’s series of Virtual Colloquium lectures and practical design experiments will examine the role of art & design as a political and cultural mirror to society: confronting the dominant cultures with complex topics, standing up for the underrepresented, as well as bringing attention to new or radical ideas. Invited artists, researchers and activists will discuss their research and practice in our lectures and bring examples of works from the field. In our practical sessions, we will learn about the radical and critical approaches to design and produce rapid prototypes that materialize our speculative reflections on the topics discussed in class. We will also visit art exhibitions to get inspired and start dialogues.
In collaboration with Goethe-Institut Toronto. To register for the sessions, please send your details to Žarko Dumičić at .
Co-chairs: Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost & Žarko Dumičić
Start date: Thursday, 23.10.2025, 9:00-10:30h, in-person at Design Research Lab (R 215, 2nd floor, Einsteinufer 43)
Colloquium time: Thursdays, 9:00-10:30h
Colloquium venue: Zoom (online classes) & Design Research Lab at UdK (in-person classes) + 2 museum visits
More info will follow on the website about this semester’s guests!