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About the Lab

The design culture laboratory conducts critical investigations and interventions into the social, spatial and material implications of wireless and mobile technologies.

We take a strong ethnographic approach to design research—forging new relations between people, places and things through explorations in material, visual and discursive culture.

You can visit us in the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, or contact Dr. Anne Galloway for more information.

Counting Sheep: Tracing the Production and Consumption of NZ Wool

As the NZ merino wool industry explores new means of tracing globally distributed products back to their local sources, we're investigating the social and cultural implications of GPS and RFID-enabled product traceability, including potential changes to relationships between farmers, livestock and technology.

• Project Overview
• Producing and Consuming "Ethical Wool"
• Companion Species Meet the Internet of Things
• Designing Ethnographic Fictions of Near Future Sheep Stations

The Internet of Things: Culture & Practice

More broadly, we're interested in how locational and sensor technologies associated with the Internet of Things shape, and are shaped by, cultural practices and values.

• Future Scenarios, Promises and Expectations
• RFID and Consumer Culture

Touch: Interaction with RFID & NFC

Between 2007-2009 we collaborated with the Touch project, led by Timo Arnall at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, to research applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices.

• re/touch: An Encyclopaedia of Touch-Based Interactions
• Understanding RFID Material Culture

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