Open Science / Critical Design

Florian Conradi is a designer and researcher, combining critical theory and design practice as an approach to critical making. Using the means and principles of free and open technologies, he explores the politics of design within the digital society. He currently heads the interdisciplinary research group ‘Design, Diversity and New Commons’  at the Berlin University of the Arts in the framework of the Weizenbaum Institute, as well as teaching as a visiting professor in the International Master's Programme in Integrated Design at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau. From 2019 - 2024 Florian Conradi was a visiting professor at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). Together with Michelle Christensen, he held the professorship for ‘Open Science / Critical Design – Critical Culture’.

Florian Conradi studied communication design at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz and art at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. He went on to complete an M.F.A. in design at the Sandberg Institute (Gerrit Rietveld Academie) in Amsterdam, an M.A. in integrated design at the Köln International School of Design in Cologne, and wrote his Ph.D. (Dr. phil.) in the field of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin). Since 2008 he has been initiating sociopolitical design projects with institutions in the field of critical media and political advocacy, carrying out field research in Europe, as well as in the Middle East, East and West Africa. As a research associate, he has worked for the University of Applied Sciences Mainz, the Design Research Lab at the UdK Berlin, and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence. From 2018-2022 he co-headed the research group ‘Critical Maker Culture’ at the UdK Berlin/Weizenbaum Institute together with Michelle Christensen – and since September 2022 he co-heads the research group ‘Design, Diversity and New Commons’. He has taught critical approaches to design and design methods at amongst other places the Köln International School of Design, the UdK Berlin, and most recently, as a visiting professor at the international Master program in Integrated Design at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau.

In the framework of their visiting professorships at the Einstein Center Digital Future and their research group at the Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute, Florian Conradi and Michelle Christensen explore the potential of research practiced within open labs. As a mode of exploration they initiated the project Critical Inquiry + Design – a transdisciplinary and trans-university terrain that attempts to exceed the boundaries of theory and practice, the political and the everyday, and academia and activism. This, with the aim to probe new modes of collaboration within research, in order to surface critical perspectives and practices. Located within the Berlin Open Lab (UdK / TU Berlin), their research, teaching and experimental design practice focuses on decolonial, feminist/queer theoretical and sustainable approaches to critical making and free/open technologies.