Making as Research: An Interview with Kristina Andersen

Kristina Andersen designs objects and experiences to explore ideas and notions of the unknown. A central element of her practise is workshop-like experiences that expose everyday desires as drivers for ideas. They employ familiar, mundane materials—such as candy and cardboard—through which several planes collide: the possible, the unknown, the feared and the desired. These processes are aimed at allowing a broad range of knowledge to materialise as interdisciplinary knowledge, which belongs to no one. The outcomes range from requirement engineering, technology prototyping, to the making of work about technology, rather than of technology. She holds degrees in Industrial Design, Virtual Environments, and wrote her Ph.D. on “magic machines”. She was a researcher at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam for 15 years, and now works in the Future Everyday group at Industrial Design at TU Eindhoven as well as maintaining her own practice.