in Teaching

Design for Machines

A project at Köln International School of Design.

Artificial Intelligence, neural networks and machine learning systems are material abstractions of perception. They seem to emulate our senses but may also be seen as redefining them. Since these systems are being rapidly deployed in the wild, we must assume that soon more images will be seen and more voices will be heard by machines than by humans. It therefore is time for a design practice that is aimed at machine perception.

In this project, we will look into how artificial intelligences perceive. We will critically investigate their theoretical and material foundations and gather hands-on experience with machine learning systems. We then will speculate about the new aesthetic they embody and we will design for a world made for machine senses: What will the streets for self-driving cars look like? What will YouTube be like once videos are made by machines, for machine viewers? How will we behave in public spaces filled with surveillance cameras that detect behavior?

The results of the project will be shown in a machine-curated exhibition.

Winter term 2018/2019.