#rp14 speaker: Gesche Joost - Design research for the networked society

Design research is ongoing. In fact, the more artefacts and technofacts that make it out of the design studios and labs and to the open market, the more design research expands in scope. Design research is about building bridges between technological innovations and people’s real-world application. Too often, things materialise from the minds of inventors to then simply languish away between reluctance and incomprehension, despite their original intentions to facilitate and ease day-to-day tasks or - at the very least - to be an aesthetic enrichment.    

An entire research lab at the UdK Berlin is dedicated to fighting fears of the unknown. Gosche Joost is its Director and works on interface and interaction design, as well as audio-visual rhetoric. Some of the lead questions in her work include: How can people become involved in development in concert with their daily experiences? How do we want to communicate and interact with one another in the future?

One could say that the hallmark of design research is an elegant theory and participative praxis that factors in the person and thereby serves the networked society. “Networked society” is a good keyword to describe Gesche Joost. As well as being the Director of the Design Research Lab at UdK, she is also the German Federal Government’s Internet-ambassador to the EU Commission and advises on questions about the digital agenda.     

It could be said that Joost has specialised in mediating between spheres, which normally wouldn’t be very compatible, as varied as twining the elders of Euro-politics with fibre optic cables or bringing together slick surfaces with the daily grime from our hands. At re:publica, Gesche Joost will explain how she is able to work along these interfaces and what the future digital society can learn from the creative powers of the design lab.  

Das Wissenschaftsjahr 2014 – Die digitale Gesellschaft
The digital society is a society in change. Digital technologies permeate our daily lives and offer a variety of new possibilities. The Year of Science 2014 – the digital society shows how science and research drives these developments and dedicates itself to the outcomes of the digital revolution.
www.digital-ist.de

Foto: Design Research Lab @ UdK