EVENTS

  • Health Cultures (Group BODY: Care)

    2018-01-01

    ‘Health Cultures - Healthcare and Multiculturalism’ is a 2-year ongoing design research project that looks at the health sector and how it is developing within the context of a growing multicultural society, the decreasing welfare state and the expanding digital culture. We collected visual data in different health-related contexts in Genk (BE) - sport infrastructure, professional football club, doctor’s residence and practice, hospital, healthcare logistics. This supported us to question whether caregivers and care receivers from different cultural backgrounds could better collaborate via the exchange of a richer diversity of health data for self-monitoring and to complement the official health records and interactions. Therefore, we highlighted the ‘interfaces’ - tools, data, codes and interactions - currently in use in these contexts to design possible scenarios for self-monitoring and we imagined how new health interfaces could be designed and integrated into existing collective infrastructures in Genk (cultural centers, associations, public infrastructures, etc.) To invite other people to think with us on how interfaces could allow for self-collecting and monitoring of health data in relation to existing collective infrastructures, we designed a screen-installation. The installation uses an algorithm to search for visual similarities between the data we as design researchers collected in the health field (on codes, tools, data, interactions and collective infrastructures) and triggers with questions the participants to imagine collective infrastructures that offer access to novel interfaces for self-monitoring of health (e.g. breast self-screening data collection, sleep patterns, etc.). Project by Teis De Greve, Daniela Dossi & Irma Földényi

  • Post-Labouratory (Group BODY: Care)

    2018-01-01

    The Post-Labouratory is an answer to the rapid automation of labour and the resulting cultural crisis. It liberates us from the idea of the necessity of labour and supports us in discovering our true desires. It offers participants the possibility to abolish their job by developing a robot that does their labour with the engineering help of post-labour companions. Through the abolition of their labour, the participants can explore a post-labour future. The post-labour companions assist the participants to reconsider their desires during individual sessions. The creative action of making and discussions about work, leisure and life enables this passage. The Post-Labouratory claims that the quality of automating technology increases if the specialists – people working in the job to be automated – take an active part in the development of the robot. During the development process the robot becomes the apprentice of the participant. The Post-Labouratory combines the skills of the participants and the post- labour companions that include design, engineering and social sciences. The Post-Labouratory supports the transition of workers into non-workers and the building of a post-labour future. Project by Ottonie von Roeder

  • ACTING THINGS. Black on White is White on Black (Group BODY: Work)

    2018-01-01

    The installation shows two perspectives on the ongoing project series ACTING THINGS, that investigates processes of production as socio-material ritual, play or choreographies of daily life. Till now six ACTING THINGS experiments have been staged that investigate the continuous negotiations between human and non-human bodies, social interactions and material structures and how they are mutually influencing and shaping each other. The video documentations give an overview of the past experiments. By choosing perspective and highlighting findings, each experiment is both reflected and analyzed as well as its narration defined. On the other hand, the installation addresses the processes and developments behind these experiments opening up as a possible approach for choreographic design practices. Project by Judith Seng

  • Co-production Teatime (Group BODY: Work)

    2018-01-01

    Co-production Teatime is a prototype developed to support inquiry processes in co-production – the close collaboration and co-creation of knowledge between academic researchers and partners from industry and municipalities. In an attempt to bridge gaps between stakeholders with different interests, expectations and knowledge horizons, the teatime explores the use of artefacts and ritual in dialogue-based inquiry. The purpose is to prompt playful interactions, the sharing of diverse perspectives, and to deepen understanding about ways of co-producing. Co-production Teatime is developed within Laura Gottlieb’s PhD project, which uses a design-oriented research approach to explore creative and experiential ways to prompt inquiry in co-production. In the situated action, participants from the conference are invited to partake in a short version of this teatime. The discussion will focus on challenges in co-production. The purpose is to share experiences with other researchers and to address areas for development and future research in co-production. The teatime will stimulate the senses as a means to trigger metaphors, reflection and discussions about this topic. Project by Laura Gottlieb and Jennie Schaffer

  • Office for Bureaucritic Imagination - State of Exception (Group Body: Work)

    2018-01-01

    The “Office for Bureaucritic Imagination – State of Exception” is a participatory speculative performance inspired by Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy on the potential of active participation in the process of law generation, thus questioning today’s ideas of democracy and participation in city life. The concept, “State of Exception” is influenced by Agamben’s notion of a space where the normal laws and regulations in society are suspended. This idea is borrowed for the performance, in which the status quo of laws is questioned and new laws are imagined. In a representative democracy, participation in politics is often understood as being reserved to politicians. Although politics affects the lives of every individual, the divide between public interests and private interests is becoming increasingly apparent. Participatory democracy bridges the divide between public and private interests in juxtaposition to bureaucratized and elitist form of politics. Hannah Arendt’s concept of participatory democracy encourages action, plurality and freedom – where human multiplicity and different standpoints can pave way for interesting debates and better political inclusivity. In order for political participation to take form, spaces for political action are required. The “Office for Bureaucritic Imagination” is a performance, speculative design and a stage where the coming together of a diversity of people to deliberate on public affairs allows for different voices to be heard and considered, especially those from the unrepresented segments of the population. The office provides a meeting point for politicians, civil servants, citizens and local associations to speculate on alternative futures through laws. Project by Virginia Lui & Virginia Tassinari

  • The Library of Engagements (Group COMMUNITY: Commons)

    2018-01-01

    The ‘Library of Engagements’ is a live installation. It is a participatory design tool for engaging citizens in the production of space, urban and architectural design in the city. This piece of work aims to bring the debate about community participation and public consultation in the built environment to as wide an audience as possible and hopes to contribute to the movement to obliterate the myth that space is produced by a single person. Most of all it is generous and connects to the individual participant to suggest a method that they could use in their own community or neighbourhood. The librarian, Emily, invites individuals, or small groups to share a collection of “methods of engagement” – which are inspirational ideas to transform where you live. Emily will personally present the methods in the form of a library catalogue and archive, which she will share through objects, artefacts and stories to suit each visitor. Emily is an architect and urban designer with a desire to involve as many people as possible in the design of spaces, buildings, neighbourhoods and cities. The Library of Engagements will take place on Tuesday 21 August at Fietsbar Cycle Shop, Minderbroedersstraat 54, 3500 Hasselt and it is open to the public - everyone is welcome to attend.

  • Everyone shares in Hasselt. A perspective on the political potential of Spatial commoning (Group COMMUNITY: Commons)

    2018-01-01

    Sustainability is an important topic on the agenda of many cities today, certainly since the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were officially launched in 2016. To further investigate this meaning of sustainability on the level of the city and its citizens, a group of local and international students, designers, artists and architects and the city of Hasselt worked together to see how people share (in) their city today and how this can advance the sustainable development goals. During PDC’18 we present an interactive exhibition that discusses the role of PD in contemplating on and articulating the political potential of spatial sharing in the city in addressing these sustainability challenges. On the one hand, we showcase how communities already organise and share their common concerns, goods or information (i.e. commoning) in Hasselt, often on a micro-level. On the other hand, we present design proposals that experiment with how spatial practitioners can give form to infrastructures to support these practices to relate to or act against various institutional frames on a meso- and macro-scale to disclose and enhance their political potential and gain impact on a supra-local level (i.e. institutioning). The situated action invites participants to reflect on different types of sharing detected in Hasselt (care-, value-, trade- and need-based sharing). Together they discuss what actions can contribute to the development of institutioning as a conscious practice by designers to develop infrastructures that can enhance the political potential of self-initiated and already existing sharing on different scale levels. Project by Teresa Palmieri, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Oswald Devisch and Roel De Ridder

  • WegenWerken - A design journey down the slow roads (Group COMMUNITY: Commons)

    2018-01-01

    The project ‘WegenWerken’ (RoadWorks) looks into the role of soft connections in the city of Genk to visualise and encourage their future as public spaces by contributing to community life, local economy and sustainability. We are interested in learning how a participatory design approach can help us understand, test and activate them as spaces of productive potential in city-making. We experimented with different participatory mapping tools leading to interactive design output including a slow road network map of Genk as well as a toolkit with actions to realise and activate this network. Both are framed and informed by an in-depth interaction between the scale of the city (the network) and the scale of the neighborhood (the path). We will exhibit the different mapping tools produced within this project and an interactive map which will engage the visitors to use or complete the toolkit of actions by looking into the space of connections between the cities of Hasselt and Genk. Here, we aim to explore the performative and political characteristics of the mapping tools in relation to the participatory framework. Project by Mela Zuljevic, Barbara Roosen and Liesbeth Huybrechts (De Andere Markt)

  • Master Plan for Duamdong, co-operative art project (Group COMMUNITY: Commons)

    2018-01-01

    The project Master Plan for Duamdong was presented as a suggestion for the local population, city planners and politicians to contemplate on, test and negotiate with each other the near future of the place they inhabit. It started as an art project initiated by Gwangju Biennial in South Korea. It started in spring 2016 in the Nuribom Community Centre in Duamdong in the outskirts of Gwangju and continued until spring 2018. The aim was to create a discursive platform for working on issues related to the neighborhood's near and possible futures, for instance, on resolving the problem of garbage collection and separation, parking issues, the regeneration of small street gardens and the development of a rooftop plant camp. The project was further contextualized by a series of open lectures which took place during the opening month of Gwangju Biennial in September 2016. The project was composed as an action research project with several parts: 1. Learning from Duamdong, several workshops with residents from Duamdong. 2. Project proposal; a video-documentary. 3. Public presentations and events; meeting between artists, residents, politicians and city officials. 4. Public lectures and discussions on the subject of gentrification, eco - community and self - organisation. Project by Apolonija Šušterši? with Dari Bae

  • Democratic Drinking Bar (Group COMMUNITY: Representation)

    2018-01-01

    The Democratic Drinking Bar is an interactive situated action by Ann De Keersmaecker that intervenes in the PDC2018 official reception bar. The drinks menu of the Democratic Drinking Bar is created together with the stakeholders of the conference; people that navigate in close proximity of the bar, from international workshop hosts to the local cleaner. Each stakeholder can make several decisions, from putting a drink on the menu and naming the price of that drink, to deciding where the profits of the selling of that drink go to. By inviting the stakeholders to shape the drinks menu, Ann De Keersmaecker co-acts as a bar owner, intervening in the existing bar. The democratic intention of the intervening action changes the selection of drinks, the financial model, and possibly even the decisions of the visitors of the bar. The Democratic Drinking Bar questions the semi-publicness of a bar, whether and how a bar represents the people that meet there and visit it. It attempts to visualise a small-scale locally embedded democratic system intertwined with the capitalist system. Ann De Keersmaecker believes that a bar, where a specific audience meets, may be shaped by that audience and its stakeholders. Project by Ann De Keersmaecker

  • De Eendagspartij (The One-day Party)(Group COMMUNITY: Representation)

    2018-01-01

    De Eendagspartij (The One-day Party) is an intervention that aims to give citizens, in light of the upcoming local elections in Belgium, a platform to voice their own views as opposed to having to conform to one of the existing party programs. The fictitious political party will invite residents of the city of Hasselt to join and shape their own program on the dedicated day. By stimulating the involvement of inhabitants in the shaping of their own environment the project questions the functioning of a purely representative democracy. Furthermore, the project discusses the issue of ownership in public space by letting the participants design and print their own posters and post them in the surrounding public space. It explores the use of vernacular (graphic) design as a way to connect more closely to the context and its actors. By opening up space for participants to create with their own skills and habits as a starting point the intervention investigates how the identity of the individual can not only be substantively present but also how they themselves can express this formally. De Eendagspartij will take place a few weeks prior to the conference. However, PDC attendees will be able to engage with the ‘traces’ of the intervention at the exhibition space in Z33, Hasselt. Visitors will be invited to join De Eendagspartij and use the artifacts from the installation to promote the party and its open programme during a brief public manifestation. Project by Niek Kosten

  • Towards Togetherness: Probing as a Decolonizing Approach (Group COMMUNITY: Representation)

    2018-01-01

    Probology is an approach that uses probes to encourage subjective engagement, empathetic interpretation and a pervasive sense of uncertainty. Some of the probes that were designed and used for the PhD project Towards Togetherness are shown and put in practice again during this Situated Action. However, we will not reenact (parts of) the project. For example, soup will be served from a Lada Niva pan and consumed on an embroidered blanket, to probe for responses on the use of food during participatory practices. The probing will focus on an artistic approach towards participation and is engaged with the topic of decoloniality. The participants will be invited to express their opinion about current decolonization processes, or to share their experiences in creating a temporary feeling of togetherness. GoPro cameras support the probing action and enable participants to record themselves and each other. Fragments of the recordings, as probing results, will become part of the main outcome of this PhD: an interactive road-movie that questions aspects of decolonization and gift-giving during a road-trip in a Lada Niva from Belgium to the Nenets people in Arctic Russia (the Niva to Nenets project). Project by Rosanne Van Klaveren

  • Play-Workshop-Space (Group CITY: Sustainability)

    2018-01-01

    Play-Workshop-Space is an installation that enables multiple activities to happen at Z33. These include presentations, workshops, talks and exhibition display. The underlying theme and goal of these activities is Play and the discussion, design and completion – with local children, parents, play specialists and designers – of two playgrounds in the city of Genk. This project takes up the threads of an unfinished initiative by Nils Norman that began in 2012 with the completion of two outdoor murals in Genk. Project by Nils Norman

  • More-than-Human Urban Futures: Walking towards speculative participatory design to avoid ecocidal smart cities (Group CITY (Sustainability)

    2018-01-01

    The turn to participation within smart cities has so far struggled to address a human-exceptionalist notion of cities, where urban space is designed for, and inhabited by, humans only. Within the age of the Anthropocene – a term used to refer to a new geological era in which human activity is transforming earth systems, accelerating climate change and causing mass extinctions – a human-centred perspective is increasingly seen as untenable. This presents opportunities to not only develop innovative participatory approaches in more-than-human worlds, as a way to overcome problematic narratives of human privilege and exceptionalism, but also to question what participation could mean in our existing and future urban cohabitation. We invite people for a speculative participatory walk to grapple and play with early outcomes of an associated workshop for more-than-human worlds, bringing together insights from an interdisciplinary group of designers, practitioners, and researchers to explore what it means to co-imagine sustainable smart cities. The walk is intended as an embodied and social exploration of how we might work towards environmentally and socially just post-anthropocentric smart cities. By taking into account the situated politics of multispecies interdependency we aim to surface alternative visions of inclusive sustainable democratic participation. Project by Rachel Clarke, Sara Heitlinger, Marcus Foth, Carl DiSalvo, Ann Light and Laura Forlano

  • mijnKool, Organic Photography as a Participatory Design Method (Group CITY: Sustainability)

    2018-01-01

    mijnKOOL is an artistic participatory research project in which photographer Kristof Vrancken and design studio SOCIAL MATTER examined the soil quality and composition in Genk by using red cabbage as a medium in an organic photographic process. Plants can play an important role in detecting soil structures and properties, for example, red cabbage works well as a bio-indicator. The participants created a photographic emulsion with their crop through anthotype process, which resulted in an image. Depending on the acidity and composition of the soil in which the cabbage grew, the colour quality of the print was differing from sample to sample. The use of red cabbage as a measuring instrument gives an understanding of the impact that soil properties may have on ecology and food-production. For the participatory design conference, I want to display the results of the project in an open atelier - lab format, as well as to launch a similar project in the public space of Hasselt. The participants of the conference are invited to join the experiments and think about future potentials of this methodology. Project by Kristof Vrancken

  • Cirkel Sector Lab: Sustaining Design Projects (Group City: Sustainability)

    2018-01-01

    For the situated action we focus on Cirkel Sector Genk. A mobile design studio on a mission to shape the circular economy in Genk based on local resources and knowledge. The design projects that are being developed in the framework of the Cirkel Sector Lab involve both technical and social design challenges; they require innovative design solutions and they include actors with conflicting perspectives. These challenges are not often resolved in the timeframe of one project. To sustain the knowledge developed throughout the project we look towards scenarios to document, archive and share design projects by using a storytelling format. Project by Ben Hagenaars

  • Data Objects for Hasselt and Genk (Group CITY: Data)

    2018-01-01

    Design-led activism seeks to create a counter-narrative to motivate social, institutional, environmental or economic change. At PDC 2018 we will perform design-led activism through the design and deployment of “Data Objects” (DO) for the cities of Hasselt and Genk. DO are functional objects whose form and function encode data. These everyday physical objects range from household devices to street furniture, wearable devices, educational materials, and interactive exhibits. DO are particularly appropriate for design activism by enabling people to physically access and make sense of information to assist open dialogue towards more informed and empathic choices. The DO presented at Z33 aim to support informed voter deliberation and decision making in the upcoming regional election by making relevant data available, usable, and understandable. Project by Victoria Gerrard and Ricardo Sosa

  • Designing for a City of Lies. How to Rethink Belgium’s Smartest City Through Engaging the Imaginaries of Its Local Citizens (Group CITY: Data)

    2018-01-01

    In order to meaningfully speculate on what a city could become, we need to first understand what a city currently is. Designing for a City of Lies is a project that sets out to answer this question, not through mapping what the city is, but what it is not. This is done by asking local citizens to tell lies about their city, and then feed these lies back to the city as designed urban interventions, prototyping new urban futures. Importantly, the project seeks to engage local citizens in new, more inclusive and playful ways throughout this process. The project took place in Hasselt, the smartest city in Belgium, across April 2017 - January 2018, and resulted in the collection of numerous lies and two designed interventions. Returning to Hasselt for PDC2018, the project invites conference participants to engage with lies as a viable data set for envisioning urban futures, pushing beyond the trite renderings of “smartness” so prevalent in current near futures. Project by Søren Rosenbak