We are the Design Investigations Department (ID2) at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Our program has its roots in industrial and product design. But today, with the rise of technologies like artificial intelligence, spread in automation and digitisation, as well as the challenges of climate change and political unrest, the role of the designer is also changing. Our department educates young people to become designers for the 21st century by directly working with these changes. Our students design products, experiences, stories, and provocations that aim to create a more hopeful and humane future.
FUTURES OF DEMOCRACY? The shared political reality of democracy as we we know it in the Western world is being pro-actively challenged. Amplified by the rapid technological advances in digitalisation, development in AI and social media proliferation we witness an erosion of governmental sovereignty. What are the possible futures for our democracies? How will their
We are proud to see the positive responses to the After Abundance Exhibition in international and national media. Extensive coverage included, amongst others, the New York Times, Kurier and an appearance in the Zeit im Bild, while Metropolis Magazine and Abitare Magazine featured us in their Top Ten picks for the London Design Biennale. Follow
We are thrilled to announce that Design Investigations is representing Austria at the London Design Biennale 2018! Our installation ‘After Abundance’ at the Biennale will be open to the public from the 4th to 23rd September at Somerset House in London. We hope you can come by and see our work.
This three course menu and the dining experience around it serve as playful and experiential medium for a broad audience to participate in the discussion about global ecological changes and our human role within it. The special dining setup enables consumers to experience the balancing and regulating effect their eating habits have on our ecosystems.
Other self, the agency for outsourced life, deals with the future of work, with automation and with the constantly changing lifestyle from which new employment niches in the service sector will develop. The service industry is undergoing enormous change and the demand for more support and replacement in everyday life is increasing. More and more people cannot or do not want to spend the time to complete certain tasks and can afford to outsource. It is a sign of time prosperity to outsource and pass it on to a working person or machine.
UNSEEN EDIBLE imagines a society in which lichens are prevalent and commonly used. For the docu-fiction Julia Schwarz designed next to the entire scenario harvesting tools, the way lichen would be used and structures to multiply easier. First taste tests are already available.
A lyrical journey through Musikverein, the world’s first “fully objective concert hall”, where 32 golden statues observe, measure and analyse musical performance.
We love to hear news from our recent graduates and learn more about how they are developing their practice. Here are some recent highlights.
Wilderness Tools powered by humans eliminate, counter and reduce anthropogenic influences like the lack of predators or the loss of insects to preserve wilderness and extend it’s capacities.
Viewed as a woman’s fate and therefore taken for granted, women are still encouraged to become mothers despite all physical, social and financial risks. This project implements ectogenesis into everyday life, as a valid choice for everyone, exploring the impact on humankind: seeking for liberation from the injustice of unequal distribution of the burdens and limits of human procreation.
We were honoured to be invited to present a curated show of our projects at the prestigious MAK Museum, for the Vienna Biennale 2017. For this show, we presented a series of projects that emerged from a year long investigation titled ‘DESIGN FOR AGENCY’.
Sometimes you don’t need to build scenographies or invent fictions, sometimes it’s enough to stand still and look at where you are. Listen to some thoughts of somebody who is not around anymore or listen to the sounds that are inscribed into those spaces.
The open lobby is a mobile pop up stand, working independent on the street and proactively collecting ideas and wishes, to create a new platform for local political participation. Solving small problems and listening to every story.
What is the agenda behind social media? What can our roles as users be? Three machines that confuse the algorithm and break the filter bubble.
As social media became the logbook of people’s lives, we’ve entered an era of immense sharing. Though the straight-forward dangers of sharing is seemingly recognised; lately, we’re evidently on a road heading into a world of lives directly affected by social media. The experience provided by “Sociometric.me” aims at raising awareness on the subject by providing an individual risk analysis of the user’s Facebook profile.
OWN (Our Wireless Network) is an open source system to build an independent network infrastructure.
