Claudia Mareis

The presentation will focus on the role of design and designers in inter- and transdisciplinary research constellations and how different forms of action, reflection and critique manifest or contradict each other there. Claudia will report on two research projects in which she is currently involved. One is the Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity. Image Space Material’, in which designers and architects work closely together with humanists and scientists on questions of active materiality and a new culture of the material. The other is ‘Governing through Design’, which explores the impact of design on society, particularly in the areas of knowledge management, planning and policy-making. This project uses methods from history and ethnography to develop new narratives of how design practices and epistemologies reconfigure global politics and everyday life-worlds, and invests in pedagogies that seek to intervene in contemporary design practices. Both projects are not just about the potentials of design in the context of research, but also about the limits and blind spots of design and a negotiation of what, where, when and by whom design is understood and defined.