paper:drive

This course is part of the Coding IxD Series and occurred during the winter term 2024/25. It was developed and realised in cooperation with the research group Human-Centered Computing at Freie Universität Berlin and the Product-Design Department at weißensee kunsthochschule Berlin.

The Project was on display in February 2025 at Modulor.

paper:Drive

Exploring interactions through the materiality of paper

No other medium has shaped human culture as fundamentally as paper. For over 2,000 years, it has played a crucial in preserving, organizing, and disseminating knowledge, information, and thoughts. However, since the advent of computers around 1940, paper has been increasingly displaced, particularly by the Internet, which revolutionized electronic data processing as well as the rapid dissemination, search, aggregation, and reconfiguration of information. Despite this, paper continues to demonstrate its uniqueness in terms of usability and long-term information preservation. Studies by the BASE (Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management) indicate that even standard recycled office paper and office printer (dry toner) can easily last 500 years.

In this year's studio project „paper:drive“ we explored paper as a medium for storing and interacting with digital data. We investigated how paper, as a physical information carrier, can integrate with digital processes to enable output, transmission, interaction, storage, and reading in innovative applications.

The framework for this studio project is provided by the collaboration format „Coding IxD,“ where students of product design from the weißensee academy of art berlin and computer science from the Freie Universität Berlin work together in interdisciplinary teams to develop novel interaction concepts utilizing paper as a digital information carrier and mediator. The primary goal of „Coding IxD“ is the collective and interdisciplinary development of neo-analog artifacts that combine and make the digital and physical interplay of data and information interactively accessible.

To facilitate this interplay, iterative modeling of prototypes is essential, from simple paper models to functional and product prototypes, which are now being exhibited here. The focus is on interdisciplinary exchange between design and computer science and the acquisition of collaborative working methods.

participants: Akhil Amer, Fatima Azham, Volodymyr Bilotserkivskyi, Aaron E, David Harwardt, Laura Jürgensmeier, Svetlana Okhlupina, Marc Oprisiu, Claudia Plascencia, Zinayida Rotgauz, Caroline Sasse, Elias Schaper, Lennard Seggewies, weiyu Shih, Mike Wegele

Supervised by Prof. Thomas Ness (Product-Design, weißensee) Peter Sörries (Computer Science, FU Berlin), and Hanna Wiesener (Product-Design, weißensee)

Workshops and Support by Simon von Schmude (eLAB, weißensee), Prof. Mark-Jan Bludau (eLAB, weißensee), Rike Glaser, Yolanda Leask, Felix Rasehorn & Robin Hoske, Benjamin Offen & Dr. Karsten Leopold (BASE)

»paper:drive« was executed as part of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«

thanks to our exhibition partner modulor

---