Matthijs Kouw is a researcher at the Rathenau Instituut in The Hague (The Netherlands), where he works on technology assessment of ‘smart’ innovations and data. Previously, Matthijs was employed as a post-doctoral researcher at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Matthijs obtained his PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Maastricht University.
Everyday life is increasingly permeated by ‘smart’ technologies, which establish a more and more data-driven society. In order to counter the techno-optimism that often accompanies smart technologies, agendas underlying the implementation of such technologies need to be rendered explicit. This calls for recalibrations of civic engagement, governance, and epistemologies used to study the impact of technology on everyday life. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, research on future everyday life can articulate the agendas underlying smart technologies and their ramifications, and thereby equip policymakers and the general public with a view of smartness that prepares them for the near future.
Lenneke Kuijer is an assistant professor based in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. She has previously worked at Delft University of Technology, where she obtained her PhD degree in Industrial Design, and as part of the DEMAND Centre at the Geography Department of the University of Sheffield.
In her research she has engaged with everyday futures from the perspective of consumer product design, interaction design, housing design, domestic energy consumption and historic change. In this work she has drawn on design theory, social practice theory and philosophy of technology, and used various ethnographic and research through design methodologies. Together with the other members in the network she hopes to gain further understanding of how everyday futures are made in various realms of society and to develop new methodologies that are better capable of understanding and addressing issues of inequality and sustainability in everyday life.
Angella Mackey has been specializing in wearable-technology experience design for a decade in art, research and commercial contexts. She has designed functional garments in a wide range of industries, from medical to space flight, and lectures on the design challenges of wearable electronics.She is currently pursuing a PhD with the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology and Philips Lighting in the Netherlands.
Concepts and proto types for wearable technologies and smart garments have been growing stronger alongside innovations for smart textiles. How might smart functionalities embedded in our clothing disrupt fashion systems and daily usage patterns of clothes? Mackey’s research focuses on explorations of current everyday experiences of clothing as a means of experimenting within, speculating upon and gaining insight into future smart garment systems, with the goal of informing design processes that seek to combine these technologies with clothing.