Design Fiction and De-Computation

Schedule: Thu, 27th + Fri, 28th, 10:00 – 17:00
With: John Fass, Raphael de Courville, Andreas Rau, Javier Soto

Computers are anthropotechnology. So it isn´t really justified to speak about the “new machine overlords” without taking into account that  humans also act according to rules, which are comparable to algorithms. Culturally shaped behavior – a product of our intelligence – determines how we behave towards and interact with objects and provide us with analyzing tool for this endeavours.

These human algorithms even could be compared with receptors that react to environmental stimuli. Which brings us back to our festival topic: emotions and neuropsychological information processing.

Professor Kevin Walker developed the De-computation method at Royal College of Arts in London, that he coins in contrast to the well-known design thinking process.

Here, "making" is thinking, in four steps any arbitrary object or process is getting disassembled and reconstituted according to an anticipated research question: deconstruction, pattern recognition, abstraction and redesign.

Instead of starting from scratch, the Decomputation-Workshop takes on a design challenge on the intersection of humans, machines and emotions. What are the inscripted encodings here?

It is not a question of developing new products, but of reevaluating our technology-driven environment and our affects to this environment. This can be attained in many different ways- for example, by reiterates photosynthesis (see photo) or s room microphone, which reproduces ambient sounds in a time-delayed manner . The method is data-based and simultaneously responsive to all senses.


Montebelo MW