Laboratory 2011

Throughout the entire festival the Laboratory is a pulsating centre for interdisciplinary and process-oriented works situated between graphic design and product design. Invited
designers work exclusively in situ during their guest visits of varied length; they react with one another, possibly collaborate, and also present the results in this public area for
experiment – so that by the end of the festival the exhibition space becomes more and more close packed. Visitors are heartily invited to take a look over the designers’ shoulders, to ask questions, and to follow the design process live. In addition, all guests in the laboratory present themselves and their work individually in a lecture as part of the programme of “Laboratory Talks”. The laboratory is moreover the festival information centre, the Meeting Point. Both are located this year in the stilwerk Wien, a new design location in the Jean Nouvel Tower, opened at the end of last autumn.

The Theme: Copyright, Copyleft

The work theme of this year’s Laboratory is more topical than ever. It concerns the multifaceted associations of the “copy” – as a counterpart and derivative of the original, as an act of more or less deliberate copying, which practically every day questions the autonomy of nearly every creative worker’s achievements. But it also broaches the issue of intellectual property and how we are to respond to a situation in which the reproduction media are omnipresent (key phrase “creative commons”). Naturally the Laboratory also
asks: when and how can the copy become a form of artistic expression and its tools a means of innovation?

Curators: Neigungsgruppe Design and Erwin K. Bauer

Interior design: Robert Rüf (at)

The Laboratory is supported by Absolut