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WORKSHOP 1 – Introduction to Sciences of Protection, Safe Living and Design

The Launch Workshop of the New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe Living programme explores the 3 fundamental questions central to the programme:

• How is ‘safe living’ conceived of by designers, artist-writers, policy makers and regulators, scientist-engineers, social scientists and humanities scholars, and how do these conceptualisations of ‘safe living’ engage with sciences and technologies of protection?
• Is ‘safe living’ achievable?
• And if ‘safe living’ were achievable, would it be desirable – as a politics, as an ethics, as a day-to-day way of live – and would it make us ‘safe’?

It does so through a series of 4 panels:

• A introduction to the overall programme;
• An investigation of the conceptualisation of ‘Safe Living’ from the perspective of policy makers, design practitioners, and academics focusing on politics, on sociology and women’s studies, and on organisation, work and technology;
• A critical ‘science studies’ engagement with notion of ‘sciences of protection’; and
• A critical design engagement with the notion of design.

The workshop was organized by the Programme Year organizers – Cynthia Weber, Adrian MacKenzie, and Mark Lacy.

Thursday, October 4

Time	Event
14:00-15:00	Registration and coffee
15:00-15:10	Welcome – Ruth Wodak, Chair of the IAS Academic Board
15:10-15:45	Introductory Panel – Cynthia Weber, Adrian MacKenzie, Mark Lacy – Organisers of the IAS Annual Research Programme 2007-08
15:45-16:00	Break
16:00-17:45	‘Safe Living’ Roundtable James Wilsdon (Demos/Institute for Advanced Studies) Rachel Cooper (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts) Mick Dillon (Politics & International Relations) Suzanne Regan (Organisation, Work & Technology) Imogen Tyler (Sociology/Centre for Women’s Studies)
18:00-20:00	Wine Reception and Buffet Dinner, Café 21, InfoLab

Friday, October 5

Time	Event
10:00-10:30	Coffee
10:30-12:30	‘Sciences of Protection’ Keynote address: John Law (Sociology/Centre for Science Studies) Remarks by: Celia Roberts (Sociology/Centre for Women’s Studies/Centre for Science Studies) Rebecca Ellis & Claire Waterton(Sociology/Centre for the Study of Environmental Change) Greg Myers (Linguistics & English Language)
12:30-13:30	Lunch
13:30-15:30	‘Design’ Keynote address: Fiona Raby (Dunne & Raby/Royal College of Art, London) Remarks by: Sabine Junginger (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts) Gerd Kortuem (InfoLab) Brian Bloomfield (Organisation, Work & Technology)
15:30	Closing