NERD 7th Heaven – New Experimental Research in Design (November 6–7, 2025, Berlin)

This year’s NERD Conference, organized by BIRD – the Board of International Research in Design will take place at New Practice / MA Design and Computation, Technische Universität Berlin & Berlin University of the Arts on November 6–7, 2025.

Conference Website: https://www.newpractice.net/nerd-7th-heaven
BIRD Website: https://www.bird-international-research-in-design.org

REGISTRATION: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/boardofinternationalresearchindesign/1786225

Venue
Alter Lesesaal / New Practice
TU Berlin Main Building
Straße des 17. Juni 135
10623 Berlin
Directions

PROGRAMME

Day 1 / 6 November 2025
10:00
Registration snf Coffee

10:30
Introduction
Welcome: Albert Lang (New Practice) & Marc Pfaff (BIRD / New Practice)
Opening Address: Wolfgang Jonas (BIRD)

11:00
INTELLIGENT IMAGINATIONS
Chair: t.b.d.

Co-Desirable AI Futures
Freyja van den Boom (University of Antwerp)

Real, False-Worlds: Using a Truth Hidden at the Centre of Generative AI Image-Making for Design and Speculative World-Building
David Normington (The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw)

12:30
Lunch Break

13:45
INSTITUTIONAL INTERVENTIONS
Chair: Tom Bieling (BIRD / HfG Offenbach)

Designing the Small Democracy of Rathlin Island
Brian Morgan (Belfast School of Art)

Institutional Disorientations: Spirallings of a Design Practice within Entrenched Infrastructures
Isabella Brandalise (Monash University, Australia)

15:15
Coffee Break

16:00
ECOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS Chair:
Michelle Christensen (BIRD / TU Berlin / UdK Berlin)

New Weather TV: Towards Ecological Imaginaries and Realities of the Mainstream Weather Report
Simone Fehlinger (Saint-Étienne School of Art and Design / University of Strasbourg / University of Potsdam)

Seed, Potato, Pixel: Exploring Interspecies Relations between Ants, Humans, and Algorithms
Lilli-Chiara Kurth / Alessandro Mac-Nelly / Mika Zoé Rosenberg / Max Baraitser Smith (Berlin University of the Arts / Technische Universität Berlin)

17:30
Short Break

17:45
BIRD Book Launch: ‘NERD III’ & ‘Nutzen statt Besitzen – revisited’

18:00
KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Manifesto Madness
Peter Friedrich Stephan (Academy of Media Arts Cologne)

Day 2 / 7 November 2025
09:30
Coffee

09:45
Short Introduction to the Day

10:00
POST/DIGITAL PARADIGMS
Session Host: Marc Pfaff (BIRD / New Practice)

Postdigital Neobaroque (PDNB): A Plurivocal Architectural Design Research Project
Marjan Colletti (University of Innsbruck)

What Even is Design(ed) in Generative World Models? Extending The Interactive Paradigm of Computation
Lars Pinkwart (University of Zurich / Zurich University of the Arts)

11:30
Coffee Break

12:00
EMBODIED ENCOUNTERS
Session Host: t.b.d.

Grasping Knowledge: Designing Tangible Devices for Gesture-Based Inquiry
Fabiana Marotta / Lorenzo Esposito (University of Naples Federico II)

12:45
Lunch Break

14:00
Decentered Discourses
Session Host: Uta Brandes (BIRD)

Democracy by Design? Exploring the Political Potentials of Design Theory for Democratic Innovation
Felix Kosok (German International University, Berlin)

Designs from Southwomen: Historicizing Ecuadorian Women’s Lifeworlds
Ana Belén Palacios (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW / University of Arts Linz)

Omitted Needless Words
Evija Krištopane (Synstitute, Amsterdam)

16:15 Closing Discussion

17:00 End of Conference

Admission to the conference will be free of charge.
Pre-registration (required for planning reasons): see above
The conference will be held in English.

We are pleased to present the books ‘NERD – New Experimental Research in Design III – Positions and Perspectives’ and ‘Nutzen statt Besitzen – revisited’ at the conference.

Conference Website: https://www.newpractice.net/nerd-7th-heaven
BIRD Website: https://www.bird-international-research-in-design.org