Project
(BA ab 3.Sem, MA Anpassungsstudierende)
Montag & Dienstag
Raum 402+403
Deutsch / English
Kick-Off
14 April. 2025 14.00 Raum 402/403
Lehrende
Prof. Aeneas Stankowski
Lukas Henneberger
The word „sabotage“ holds a compelling origin story. Derived from the French „sabot“—a wooden shoe worn by rural workers. When factory owners replaced striking workers with inexperienced rural laborers in wooden shoes, production naturally slowed. What began as simple inefficiency evolved into deliberate resistance, transforming the wooden shoe into a symbol of disruption.
Every design simultaneously establishes boundaries and possibilities for their subversion. When we design, we define parameters of proper use, intended function, and desired outcomes. Yet these same decisions create potential spaces for interference, reinterpretation, and revelation.
Strategic disruption can make visible what typically remains hidden. Systems operating smoothly fade from awareness, their underlying mechanisms becoming transparent through habitual use, and shaping our understanding of how things work and should work. Once interrupted we perceive the constructed nature of our environments in digital interfaces, social conventions, physical objects and structures, and the values embedded within them.
Your studio inquiry invites exploration of sabotage as methodology rather than mere opposition. How might strategic disruption reveal hidden structures and generate new possibilities? What measures can counter-sabotage malicious disruption. Can systems be designed to invite their own subversion? Create products or systems that strategically reveal, protect, or enhance our interactions with everyday technologies—whether through thoughtful disruption, protective measures, or clearer affordances—resulting in designs that transform how users experience and understand the world around them.
