Stories of technology and the worlds they make I (summer 23)

(interdisciplinary seminar and reading group for postgraduate and undergraduate students)

Dulmini Perera

Stories of our technologies have always been central to our ways of world making.
With the growing power of certain forms of hegemonic technologies (ex: processes of digitalization) many scholars have called for questions of technology within ecological transformation to be considered in terms of multiple ontologies, ‘a world where many worlds fit’. This framework presents a direct challenge to universalist ideas of technology perpetuated by modernity where certain faulty assumptions embedded in technologies are exported, internalized, and reproduced across contexts. Those of us operating in the fields of architecture, design, urbanism, media studies have yet to adequately reflect upon the ways in which we are implicated in cultivating or suppressing alternative kinds of technological thought, practices, stories. In this Reading group  we collectively read and explored ten key texts emerging from diverse fields of philosophy, media studies, computational studies, cybernetics, transformations research, decolonial studies, design and architecture that explore the relationships between stories, technologies and worldmaking in different ways. It is hoped that these readings would provide the participants with a conceptual toolbox to think through some of the most pressing questions related to technology and ecology of our times. As a part of the assignment the participants will get to design a framework for exchanging stories about alternative technological futures.

Living systems: Stories of technology and the worlds they make II (winter 23)

(seminar + workshop)

Dulmini Perera, Stefanie Huthöfer

“Our own survival depends on understanding that not only are we coupled to our own conceptualisation of ecosystems and ecological order, but also to embodiments of our own ways of thinking about them and acting on them”

Peter Harries-Jones, Recursive Vision: Ecological Understanding and Gregory Bateson, Pg. 8

Stories of our technologies have always been central to our ways of world-making. This semester, we turned to a different set of stories of design and technology that emerged from the biological turn in systems theory beginning in the 1950s, where design disciplines were part of a broader conversation on what it means to work with the living qualities of ecological systems, whether they were environmental systems, social systems, or minds (human and other than human). This strand of inquiry presented a direct challenge to mechanistic ideas of technology perpetuated by modernity. It challenged faulty assumptions around information and energy feedback loops in living systems, notions of time and change, and models of learning, knowing and action.

In this seminar, we would engage in a critical reading and designerly inquiry, exploring ways this body of thought can enrich how you engage living systems in your design/ architecture / urban design/media design/ interaction design/ computation/ practices. The reading group introduces selected texts from several fields (systems theory, cybernetics, Gaia theory, computation, material studies, philosophy, and design) and would be supplemented by an immersive experience of working on a site in Erfurt (Lehmgrube) with a clay-bee insect habitat as part of an existing building wall that is soon to be demolished and relocated. This exercise would promote reflection on questions such as:

(1) How can we work with the clay-bee ecology in ways that are responsive to its living properties?

(2) Are their ways of researching such a living ecology that enable other ways of thinking about design and technology? In what ways does this experiment help ways of thinking about technology and ecology in relation to the multiple cosmologies of a ‘world where many worlds fit’?

(3) What are the ethical and political implications of such an approach? How does this contribute to current discussions on sustainability and transformation seeking to move away from problematic stories of modernity, technology, and progress?

Explorations on wholeness: Stories of technology and the worlds they make III (summer 24)

(interdisciplinary seminar and reading group for postgraduate and undergraduate students)

Dulmini Perera

Ecological thinkers have argued that what is required for such an ecological transformation is not simply a technological, economic, environmental, or social shift but rather a broader change in our ways of knowing and making sense of ourselves, our relationships, our practices, and life as a “whole”. This semester, we  collectively read and explored seven key texts emerging from transdisciplinary explorations that look into the relationships between the concept of wholeness and worldmaking in different ways. We will also examine how these ideas have already entered design/ architecture/ media practices in multiple contexts, from regenerative design, countercultural ecological experiments, the design of alternative media environments/technologies, and alternative organisation models. It is hoped that these readings would provide the participants with a conceptual toolbox to think through some of the most pressing questions related to technology, ecology and design of our times. In addition, we will also take time to reflect and experiment with our reading practices and how they affect our practices of making.

Toying with Ecological ideas (Winter 24/25)

(seminar) 

This semester, we explored the history of ideas related to experiments of the short-lived reallabor Environmental Ecology Lab (EEL) and the predecessor organization Ecology, Tool, Toy, directed by Avery Johnson and Warren Brodey, who dared to ask: what does it mean to design environments (systems, technologies) that respond to living ecological relationships? As part of a broader history of systems explorations, they were inspired by ideas about environments emerging from systems sciences, such as an “ecology of mind”  (Gregory Bateson) or Radical software (Raindance Foundation), in order to understand change and response in a more nuanced way moving beyond limited linear views and clock-time.Their work helps expand notions of soft architecture, variety/diversity, coevolution, flexibility and prototyping and, in so doing, redefines how we can think about design ‘responses’ that consider the political responsibility of design practitioners working within the environmental crises.

The course focused on the following questions: what are the broader relationships between ecology and design practice? How does the past of such radical design experiments matter to the present politics of the environment? how mights the radical  form of a living lab (reallabor) inform presents practices and their  future? The group worked with archival material , films, and engaged  in reading and workshop sessions. By the end of the semester, they produced an interactive output (a game) to make ecological ideas about “responsive environements” accessible to everyone. 

We thank all the participants