Make/Sense

The MAKE/SENSE PhD programme promotes practice-based research in art and design. Operating within three future-facing areas of concern: Planetarity, Materiality and Response-ability, our programme focuses on the relevance and potentials of practice-based research in art and design for just sociocultural, political, and ecological transformations. We encourage transversal work and aim at collectively developing life-affirming practices and infrastructures.

The MAKE/SENSE programme is hosted at the Critical Media Lab, Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, offered in partnership with the University of the Arts Linz, and supported by swissuniversities. We provide a structured 3-year study curriculum in research methods, contemporary theory, and generic skills relevant to practice-based research. We foster a dynamic group of PhD candidates who meet four weeks/year for project discussions, reading groups, workshops, and casual hangouts. We maintain a flexible programme structure to allow students to keep up with current work commitments and aim to provide a space for collectivity and exchange that offers respite and joy.

The programme integrates the expertise of faculty from the institutes Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), Contemporary Design Practices (ICDP), Digital Communication Environments (IDCE), Art Gender Nature (IAGN) and Arts and Design Education (IADE). The activities of the programme further draw on an outstanding network of international partners, including the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK), Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity at Humboldt-University of Berlin, SciencesPo Media Lab Paris and metaLAB (at) Harvard.

Our group typically consists of 18 PhD candidates. Spots in the programme are offered on a rolling basis and include free participation in the programme, supervision by one faculty from Basel and Linz, and support in mastering the challenges of a practice-based PhD project.

Find out more:
https://makesensephd.ch/

Public Discussion

Technologies of Transmission (Amid the Moving Image)

Thursday, 28 November 2024, 10:00–13:00 at Critical Media Lab.

Quinn Latimer and Mariana Tilly in conversation with Ute Holl and Evelyn Kreutzer.

From the field, to paper, and back

Tuesday, 15 October 2024, 19:00–20:30

In conversation with Marisol de la Cadena.

MESH Festival

Talks & Panels

Thu 17 – Sat 19 October 2024
HGK Basel & Freilager-Platz
Free Entry!

The public Talks & Panels program of MESH Festival, co-curated by members of IXDM Research, the Critical Media Lab and HyperWerk, revolves around the approaches to “(Re)Tooling the Future”. Tracing the (broken) links between early net cultures, metaverses, and the xtended realities of current geopolitics, the speakers and panelists revisit memory as a site of utopian futurity and potential “operating systems of a larger order” (Tara McPherson).

With keynotes and talks by Ruha Benjamin, Shaka McGlotten, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, Clemens Apprich, Paco Calvo and many more. All free and open to all.

https://meshfestival.ch/

Call for Contributions

Imagination as a site of struggle

MAKE/SENSE and MESH Festival are seeking contributions of practice-based research writing for a workshop as part of the festival’s discourse programme in October.

IXDM Research at EASST-4S 2024 in Amsterdam

Public Discussion

Practicing Radical Fashion

Thursday, 6 June 2024

Lecture, discussion and workshop with Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran & Laura Gardner, hosted by MAKE/SENSE members Charleen Elberskirch & Evelyne Roth.

Public Discussion

Queer AI

Friday, 15 March 2024, 10:00–12:30

Join the MAKE/SENSE PhD program for a discussion on Gender Stereotypes and Inclusivity in Artificial Intelligence.

With Mona Hedayati and Vagrant Gautam. Chaired by Johannes Bruder and Qingyi Ren.

Public Discussion

All That Remains

Tuesday, 12 March 2024, 18:00–20:00

Join us for a conversation on concepts of space, land use, materiality, and culture that often inscribe and reiterate colonial techniques through the extractivist infrastructures that they mobilize.