More questions than answers – with the extraction and high-precision use of rare earths and critical technology metals, such as silicon, and the resulting aesthetics of technological artifacts, are we forgetting that technology also has a natural origin? Instead of hailing artificial intelligence, should it not rather be critically illuminated and seen as the result of extractive and exploitative human practices? What implications does it have on the human-extraction-relationship, when raw materials are generated from human bodies within moments?
After completing his master’s degree, the art director and designer Shahriar Assadi now works as a research assistant in the project Sustainability By Design at Folkwang University of the Arts and holds a teaching position in the university’s Design for Interaction and Inquiry department. His work is positioned at the intersection between product and conceptual design. Previously, he worked in various studios, among others as art director scenography at the design studio Meiré und Meiré in Cologne.