This year, the Design Research Society organized their biennial conference in Sheffield, England. Its title was „Undisciplined“. Parts of the Design Research Lab in Berlin have been there, so here is a report of how it went.
The place
Sheffield is a small, wallace-and-gromitish english working-class town with some cute brick houses and less cute concrete tower blocks. The wood panelling of the pubs and shops give you some dollhouse feeling. An airport just doesn’t fit in, I guess. That makes it more challenging to get there.
At least everything is clearly arranged. Dropping out of the train station, you can’t miss the university campus. They like huge water fountains (there are severals in the town centre). People have a pretty accent. You get endeared by perfect strangers. There was a Vivienne-Westwood exhibition. We should have stolen one of the dresses as a souvenir. Unfortunately, nobody dared to.
The organization
Nothing to complain about. Everything was in time, it was amazing. Hopping between different panels was easy. I barely got lost. The most exciting thing was a false fire alarm, chasing us from the 10th floor to the building’s creepy backyard, and finding the way back to the entrance. No, seriously, the whole conference was so much on time it was almost creepy.
The presentations
The presentations’ topics were diverse. Still it was sometimes difficult to pick one among the six parallel tracks, each dealing with very specialized topics that I just couldn’t relate to. I am sure that my own presentation was also one of those that were a little too special, because of a hundred conference attendees, only five showed up. Two of them were presenting in the same panel. In front of such a small audience, at least you don’t have to be nervous, even as a newbie.
My experience was also that people were friendly and polite even when being critical. There were usually some complaisant comments and questions at the end of each talk, and sometimes nice short discussions. However, the questions after my own presentation were more related to the work of the questioners than to my own. No wonder I had trouble finding a satisfying answer.
In the end, there were just a few presentations that I found exciting and challenging (among which one was dealing with a high-speed composting machine). It was just such a big conference that it is hard to be focused. In such cases, the social aspect becomes more important. As for me, I am just bad at networking for the sake of it. I prefer to have some substance to talk about. And a seat sometimes. So both the lack of sofas in the courtyard and the potpourri of different themes was disturbing for me. Neither did I carry home a stack of new friends, nor the amazing feeling of having been intellectually overcharged. This is a pity, because I had the impression that there could have been a productive exchange among participants if everyone just would have been more prepared.
The keynote speakers
Unfortunately, there were no role models among the two keynote speakers that I saw (I missed the first one). However, they were reasonably exotic and therefore approximately matched the conference theme. But still I want to be impressed, or inspired, when listening to a keynote, and leave with the feeling of having learned something new. Maybe I asked too much. So I was somehow dissatisfied after the talks, not having been fed with controverse and radical ideas. What is it worth being young anyway, if there is no superbrain to intimdate you? Is the design research world so small that they have run out of impressing speakers? If they borrow one then from another discipline, why not some philosophical big shot?
The food
I wish I could tell that the food was amazing. Probably I am just not used to English meals. Still the lunch seemed somehow modest considering the importance of the lunch breaks. After having spent the whole day starving and gasping for air in small rooms taxing one’s brain, it’s frustrating when all you get as a reward is a floppy sandwich. And pubs stop serving food at 7 p.m., so you better hurry or schedule some more time finding an affordable restaurant.
Ok, enough weeping. I'll be positive and try again, next time.
Katharina.