Again, a two day symposium will be an integral component of DESIGNMAI. In order to ensure a top-class interdisciplinary exchange of designers, architects, researchers, artists, and economists, Transform-Berlin e.V. are cooperating with the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, an open forum for intellectual debate across all disciplines. In a time when computer technologies permeate all realms of our everyday lives, the presence of this technology becomes a matter of course. Thus a change in the field of design has a democratizing effect: it orients itself less towards an end product, and instead turns more towards the processes and instruments, which enable every individual to exert influence. The aim of the DESIGNMAI Symposium is to highlight the ramifications of Technology on the role of the designer and revolutions in the entire industry. In doing so it should also discuss in what way modern technologies enable a sustainable contact with natural, material as well as immaterial resources.
How does the image and self-image of the designer change in response to the process of digital technology?
What are the newly designed tools that enable any creative individual to foster and display his/her talent?
Who is the author of the final creation: the computer program, the artist, the user or the consumer?
What structures of today’s design economy will survive the Revolution in digital technology?
How do means of digital communication change the marketing and distribution strategies of large companies?
What do these changes mean for the working world and, politically speaking, the general conditions of the production industry?
What new types of organisational structures and business models will emerge?

On the first day the symposium will be conducted in classic conference format with a concluding panel discussion at the end. The conference day consists of four dialogues which first will broach issues of future roles of designers, concerning novel tools as well as areas of conflict between client, customer, and societal responsibility, and second will underline new Technologies and subsequent changes in the working world.
On the second day the planned “unconference” format will adopt the specific parameters of digital forms of communication. Symposium participants are asked to deliver their own themes and contributions in varying forms to reflect the diversity of the factors that digital changes in the practice of art, design and entrepreneurship will bring about. The proceeding of the “unconference” will be explained in detail on the first day of the Symposium.
 
Concept: Atilano González, Berlin und Inga Wellmann, Potsdam
Participants: Assa Ashuach, London; Adrian Bowyer, Bath; Michael Braungart, Lüneburg/Hamburg; Regine Debatty, Berlin; Holm Friebe, Berlin; Stefan Heidenreich, Berlin; Helena Hyvönen, Helsinki; Björn Richter, Frankfurt (Main); Ned Rossiter, Ulster/Sydney; Joachim Sauter, Berlin/L.A.; Ursula Tischner, Cologne; Reto Wettach, Potsdam