The Design Research Lab is a laboratory for experimental design and research reflecting on the digital society. Through playful interventions, critical making and collaborative reasoning we investigate possible futures. As a platform and network, we are deeply involved with the requirements and policies needed for an inclusive and sustainable development of the digital society from a design perspective.
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).
The symposium focuses on of bottom-up movements in an international context, especially in relation to current social developments in Germany and Israel.
Recently, questions concerning collaboration, alternative forms of political action, self-organization and participation – at local and global levels – have garnered much attention and are relevant for the academic environment, politics, the media, and for the general public. During the symposium we will explore how to foster processes of active participation and support sustainable community development, as well as the impact of these processes on policy making and our everyday life.
The program includes an opening evening with panel discussions and night-talks, followed by two days of keynote talks, presentations and workshops – accompanied by an exhibition around the Neighborhood Lab and a series of thematic walks.