Studio Class: Critical Making - Politics of Things

Do things just help us to organise ourselves, or do they ‘help’ us to judge and feel? When are we still at the centre of the social algorithm, and when do we become extensions of the extensions that we built? Do we have to raise a discussion about political systems of technology?

Do things practice politics? In these times of technological entanglement, where hashtags tell us when to care about what, algorithms culturally reproduce us based on what we search for and ‘like’, and sensors and chips find their homes in our sneakers and coffee machines advising us on our personal behaviour – things are knowing, learning, evaluating, predicting – and even collaborating amongst each other.

In this studio class critical perspectives on the politics of things had been explored, practiced and formulated. They discovered phenomena on the topic and shadow the material regimes of power that we ourselves live within – hindering and compromising our own personal devices and thus our own conducts, in order to uncover latent power structures embedded in everyday life. Furthermore, drawing on the approach of ‘critical making’, they prototyped possibilities and provocations, integrating critical thinking with critical fabrication (no prior experience with design or technology necessary).

Along the way, this course offered input talks and workshops from critical makers – feminist hackers, decolonial makers and open technology activists.

Teachers:
Prof. Dr. des. Michelle Christensen & Prof. Dr. des. Florian Conradi

Technische Universität Berlin
Fakultät I Geistes- und Bildungswissenschaften
Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte