Seminar Program

Have you ever had your creative idea rejected because it does not fit? Did you ever experience coming up with a brilliant solution to a complex problem, only to be told that the solution will not work?

Did you ever see others’ ideas being rejected, not because they were not good but because they did not fit into existing settings? Then we want to hear from you!

Many of our most serious societal challenges – climate change, aging populations, polarization – will require creative and radical solutions. In fact, many of us might already have designed such solutions through design thinking, brainstorming, and other creative processes.

But often, when such creative solutions are presented, they are immediately rejected because they don’t fit the existing world, the infrastructure. Yes, your idea is excellent but impossible to implement!

Often, the problem lies in the infrastructure. Infrastructures develop over years and decades, and become harder to change as they get older. An infrastructure of gas stations will make it impossible to come up with a creative climate-friendly transportation solution. A forty-year-old IT platform will make it impossible to transform an organization digitally with new and better solutions.

The problem can also lie with the creative solution. The solution may not be as brilliant as we think. It might not be sustainable because of a faulty business model. It might have severe side effects.

So, how do we use creativity to improve our infrastructures and solve big problems? This is the question we ask in this one-day seminar.

We look forward to your participation; you can tell us about:

  • Your experience of meeting a rigid infrastructure not susceptible to creative solutions.
  • Your studies on the role of physical space in fostering creativity.
  • Your investigations on digital infrastructures, change and innovation.
  • Your considerations about the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and human creativity.
  • Your success story of how you creatively transferred an infrastructure.
  • Your case studies and best practices for cross-disciplinary creative projects.
  • Your showcase examples of creative placemaking initiatives that use art and culture to transform public spaces.
  • Your explorations of innovative approaches to education that emphasize creativity and creative problem-solving.
  • What you have learned to be the best method to work creatively with infrastructures.
  • How you have been teaching about the tensions between creativity and infrastructuring.
  • What teaching and research literature you would suggest to newcomers to this field.

The interactive seminar will consist of short presentations and group discussions. The outcome of the seminar will be a list of lessons learned and an agenda for future collaborative research.

How to participate

Feel welcome to join our seminar! To register, simply send us an email with your name and contact information.

Event Infos

  • Date: Thursday November 30, 2023.
  • Time: 09:00-17:00 CET
  • Place: TU Wien: "Sitzungszimmer" (Meeting room) Rectorate, 1040 Vienna, Karlsplatz 13, Staircase 2, 1st floor (Room Number AA0106)
  • Language: English

Organizers

Hilda Tellioğlu (TU Wien, CTS), Monica Divitini (NTNU), Babak Farshchian (NTNU).