Thursday 14th of April
10.00-11.am including ‘fat’ breakfast
We believe it is critical that designers contemplate how to become involved with new scientific, technological and societal developments. Using design as cultural probes, designing prototypes, making comprehensible visualisations, and presenting imaginable scenarios, designers act - by making things tangible- as the perfect bridge for popularisation, but they can also design tools drawing the public into the process, involving them in defining potential outcomes. We believe this is essential, especially for highly complicated topics where experts define the brief for later exploration with the public.
With the conversation "Chewing The Fat" we aim to gain a better understanding of the ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ of fat and potentially reframe its current notion as a waste product. This conversation will dive into the design project FATBERG of designers Mike Thompson and Arne Hendriks, an ongoing critical design research project focused on the construction and growth of a floating island of fat. Fat performs a unique and vital function as an energy reserve, stored within the body for times of scarcity. And yet, from a western perspective, fat has lost this function. It is stored and stored some more, but rarely used for its original purpose.
By conducting hands-on experiences with fat we hope during this talk, together with the participants, to develop innovative ways to approach, discuss and create with fat, generating valuable scenarios and ideas for products that provide us with tools for a sustainable future.
Conversation/ (modelling) workshop moderated by Danielle with:
Mike Thompson
Critical designer Studio Tought Collider; an experimental, critical art/design research practice based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, comprising the work of Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret. The work of Thompson focuses on the exploration of the meanings and values that can be derived from alternative ways of experiencing built and mediated environments, motivated by emerging technologies.
Arne Hendriks
Artist, designer & artist in residence at Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW) onThe Incredible Shrinking Man project), Arne Hendriks is an artist and exhibition maker based in Amsterdam. He’s almost 2 meters tall but not too happy about it. Especially when he found out that every centimeter above 152 cm takes about 6 months of your life expectation. Arne Hendriks is a Master of Art (University of Amsterdam, 2001) and works passionately in the field of open-design, hacking, speculative research, education and the fine culture of repair.
Angelique Spaninks
Curator MU exhibition