Eindhoven is TDK – Technology, Design and Knowledge. So no wonder that the Dutch Design Week is also packed with Technology. To find your way through all these wonderful events, manifestations and expositions, we made you a Top 10 Tips for Tech Meets Design.
1. Manifestations – Will the Future Design Us?
If technology and design are connected anywhere during this Dutch Design Week, then it is at Manifestations. Curator Viola van Alphen didn’t have an easy job. Her exhibition is a series of sub-exhibitions that tell the story of the future that, if we are not careful, will design us rather than the other way around. “We are the most critical part of DDW.”
Manifestations is a joint project of Van Alphen’s ViolaVirus and Eindhoven’s MADlab. “Manifesations shows the future: virtual realities, limitations in our human perceptions, the technological upgrading of our bodies, and how we can keep control.” The diversity within Manifestations is huge, but the common thread is also clear. Everything revolves around the question of where our data handling is heading to in our controlled and monitored world. What we experience? Getting lost in a virtual fairy tale desert, a psychiatric clinic for robots, Furbies with separation anxiety, exoskeletons, body heat sensors that mine bitcoins, Internet of Women-Things, implantable health trackers, Transform Your Future, Hyper Reality, Monochrom Hacker Culture, Social Artificial Intelligence, Dystopian movies, Invisible Boyfriend, Credit dating app, Nervous anti-terror Systems, Predictive Police, Tutorial for Terrorists… Viola van Alphen: “Manifestations shows the most innovative developments in the world of this year. With all this, a visitor ultimately is in better shape to design his own future. Regain Control of Your Devices, let’s make our future before the future makes us.”
More on Manifestations in E52’s interview with Viola van Alphen
Mind The Step is exhibition research, technology and design. It shows how design plays an essential role in society – thanks to research and technology. From wearables to complete city scapes, design inspires and invites for critical reflection. Mind The Step is a collaboration between the universities of Eindhoven, Delft and Twente.
“We are makers, designers and entrepreneurs using 3D Printing to make our ideas possible. During this 9-day long expo we give our Dutch 3D Printing community a place to show off their work. Ranging from fashion and jewelry to home deco to musical instruments. Some participants will be there for one day while others exhibit multiple days. This way, there is always something new to see every time you visit. The exhibiting community members design products that are either fully 3D printed by Shapeways or products that have a 3D printed component. Some designers even offer their work for sale during the EXPO. Daily from 13:00 – 15:00 our exhibiting community members will give short presentations about their work.”
4. Beyond…
Exhibition that shows the added value of Virtual and Augmented Reality techniques. In 2015, the DDW exhibition of the Hyperspace Collective was about social applications of virtual and augmented reality. For a lot of people this was the first time ever they got to know something about these techniques. This year it goes a big step further. The added value of these techniques is the motivation to compile this exhibition. The expo will not be restricted to VR and AR only. It will make crossovers between VR/AR and the usage of data and biofeedback (generate data during a VR experience).
The Hyperspace Collective is one of E52’s Hidden Gems. See E52.nl
More VR at Enversed. This is an interactive DDW Expo about virtual reality, emerging technologies and social design. The Expo is about new emerging technologies that will have a great impact in the way we socially interact, design, meet, speak and convey our emotions in the future. They create and change our perception of reality. It also provides new challenges and possibilities for designers and companies today as the development and integration of these new media solutions find their way into our daily life more rapidly.
More on Enversed Realities in E52’s interview with Tim van der Grinten
The third edition of Age of Wonderland researches the challenges around big and open data. How can big and open data be a tool for social innovation? Can it tackle the intricate global and local challenges our planet is facing? Where lies its potential, what are the limits and what are the pitfalls? Six artists, designers, and other creative thinkers and doers from Africa, Asia and Latin America are committed to investigate, develop and share their projects during their Age of Wonderland residency and public programme on the theme. This third edition of the international co-creation project Age of Wonderland is organised by Hivos and Baltan Laboratories. Watch the lectures as well!
7. From insights to innovations – Van Berlo
Design and innovation agency VanBerlo is one of Europe’s big players. Their clients include Jacobs Douwe Egberts, RB (known by the brands Durex, Dettol and Vanish) and Maxi-Cosi. In fact, it’s very likely that you’re already the proud owner of a ‘VanBerlo’. During Dutch Design Week the agency will give insights into the development of innovative products and services. The Auping Better Days app, for example, which focuses on the user. There is an interactive stand on Ketelhuisplein.
When your products communicate with each other based on your personal data, they are part of a giant network of connected ‘things’: the Internet of Things (IoT). Those things become ‘smart’ devices with the advantage of offering consumers new services, more efficiency. However, we first have to ask ourselves how do these objects work, and do they do so in a way that we’re comfortable with? IoT certainly opens the door to a lot of opportunities, but also to many design challenges like privacy, security and business-model issues. This exhibition guides you through the principles for responsible design within IoT products. We show you real-life best practices as well as newly commissioned speculative products illustrating how balanced and honest design can be done in this field.
9. HoloLens and C26 _ Volvo Cars
Experience a Volvo ride (autonomous if you like…) with Virtual Reality & project C26. Through Virtual Reality, it is possible to experience how your new Volvo looks in ‘real life’. Safety features are demonstrated and colors and equipment can be adjusted… This will all be possible in the future, thanks to Microsoft HoloLens. Hololens is the world’s first fully independent holographic computer. In collaboration with Microsoft, Volvo developed the first version of this Virtual Reality experience for application in the automotive industry, in which Volvo particularly is demonstrating its advanced safety features.
The Making of Your World shows the complicated world behind products we use. ‘We’ support animal welfare and oppose gene technology, yet we still consume massive amounts of products that are at odds with these views. We are against child labour and exploitation, yet we can’t resist buying a T-shirt for 5 euros. As users and consumers of the products that make our daily lives more comfortable, we simply find it difficult to consider their social impact. Sometimes we want to, but we don’t know how. More often, however, we have no idea whether products meet the standards that, in theory at least, we expect of them. And that is becoming increasingly difficult in a world where each and every product is the result of hundreds of processes: from mining raw materials to assembling all the separate components into a functioning product. The exhibition The Making of Your World shows how designers can help us better understand what’s at stake.
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