Apologies for X-posting. Dear Colleagues, Following upon the success of last year’s digitalSTS event at the 4S Annual Meeting in Copenhagen, we invite your participation in a second workshop. Over the course of two days this summer (June 27-28, 2013) we will use design methods to explore new hybrid forms of materiality in technoscience. This is an opportunity to learn new skills or lead others in making visualizations, maps, models, and data documentaries. Across domains of science and technology studies, increased attention is being focused on the material dimensions of digital media. Indeed, scholars convened around social studies of materiality are seeking out new methods to study the stuff of “big data,” “information infrastructures,” and the “internet of things.” Moreover, these new phenomena are understood as hybrids, merging digital and non-digital practices that resist simple analysis. We see productive means of engaging with hybrid forms of materiality in the interpretive, collaborative, and interventionist approaches pioneered by designers including codesign, participatory design, design fiction, speculative design, and critical making. Design is particularly relevant to digital studies; through making, it is possible to become a participant in the otherwise opaque technical work of constructing data and other digital artifacts. The workshop will be staged at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, one of the most comprehensive and best-documented living collections of trees, shrubs, and vines in the world. The Arboretum is equal parts urban forest, museum, and open laboratory. It is a venerable and sprawling site for the public display of scientific objects and knowledge. Workshop participants will take part in hands-on, team-based design projects that leverage the collection’s digital data as well as their woody referents in the landscape. Please join us at this second digitalSTS workshop to explore new tools for taking apart technoscience. To apply for a spot in the digitalSTS Workshop, please submit the following materials to digitalsts@zoho.com 1. A 1-paragraph biography 2. A 1-2 paragraph statement of interest in design methods and digital STS 3. A link to your online presence The application deadline is APRIL 8th, 2013. Participants will be notified soon after the deadline as to the status of their application. We encourage submissions by anyone engaged in digital studies of science and technology. Support for travel and accommodations may be available to graduate students. This workshop is hosted in cooperation with metaLAB(at)Harvard and the Arnold Arboretum, and supported by funds and in-kind contributions from metaLAB, the Arboretum, NSF’s Office for Cyberinfrastructure, and Microsoft Research. More information is available at: http://digitalsts.wordpress.com. Please feel free to pass this e-mail on to other scholars, designers, scientists, writers, bloggers, museum curators, researchers, journalists, filmmakers, colleagues, graduate students, faculty administrators, departments, and other professionals who might be interested. Kind regards, Yanni Loukissas, metaLAB/Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Laura Forlano, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology David Ribes, Communication, Culture and Technology, Georgetown University Janet Vertesi, Sociology, Princeton University