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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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Nameless Object #2: The Wavecap
Is this a mixture of a hood and a shawl, or rather a purse? But the details of the Wavecap also allow the user to manipulate the radio that is integrated into its lining. Knotting the ends of the shawl turns the radio on and off. There are speakers hidden in small pockets next to the hood. A string in a hem can be pulled to increase and decrease the volume. And a bell on top of the hood serves as a control to change the sender and browse through the frequencies. The exotic look of the knitted radio entirely follows practical considerations, but it also reminds us of distant countries and ritualistic garments. Besides, all the functional elements that serve as the interface for the radio are borrowed from clothing.
