#agesextech: Speculative Design for Intimate Encounters & Ageing—Britta Schulte (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany)

How would you feel about a camera in your bedroom? Are microphones a better solution? While many are taken aback by these suggestions at first glance, these are sometimes suggested as means of monitoring elderly people to support their health and independent living.

Through speculative design Britta Schulte explores in their practice why a medicalised approach to elderly care that focuses on minimising risk is problematic, and how alternative designs could inspire us to rethink how we understand care, intimacy and ageing. In their talk, they present examples of their work and pose the questions that have been derived through this work for future discussion and inspiration. 

Online Event

Registration and participation are free and open to the public.

About the Lecture Series

Technologies invade our everyday lives, take part in constructing our identity, classify (often violently) bodies, and, pushed by recent regulations on social distancing, play an expanding role in connecting families and friends. The effects of this rapid increase of technological dependency, though, further exacerbate existing inequalities, introduce new ones, and lead to previously less apparent pockets of freedom.

In the series “Critical Perspectives on Technology”, the project “Exceptional Norms,” part of the research unit Human Computer Interaction at TU Wien Informatics, invites interested audiences to participate in biweekly talks and critically engage with recent research on technology assessment.

Our speakers are trailblazing scholars and internationally renowned experts from a range of (inter)disciplinary standpoints in conversation with Austrian researchers as hosts.

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