INFORM. The Prize for conceptual design is annually awarded since 2007 and has its basis in the interface of graphic design and art .The prize worth 5.000 Euro is donated by Dr. Arend Oetker, Berlin. The Prize is associated with an exhibition in the GfZK.
2019s award winner Yin Aiwen is a Chinese designer in the field of system design. She presents her research and artistic projects in the form of installations, APPs and publications. The presentation of this year’s award winner Yin Aiwen is planned for 2021.
Yin Aiwen is a designer, theorist and project developer. Her speculative/artistic research projects aim to create networks that facilitate self-determined and reliable relationships between people and (digital) systems. For Yin, design is thus first and foremost a way to (continually re)design the relationship between technology and society. In 2017, she founded ReUnion Network, which explores relations of mutual care as a form of social currency.
At the GfZK, Yin presented two important works from her artistic career to date. The Massage is the Medium (2013) is both a performance and an installation. While being given a medical massage, visitors have been immersed in a visual narrative about the digitalised and globally interconnected world of work and the commodification of social relationships in times of mass consumption.
Liquid Dependencies: what does a decentralized caring society look like? (2021) is a live action role play (LARP), initiated by ReUnion Network, in which relationships are built on the basis of mutual care. In the game, players are assigned certain characters which they bring to life through their own experiences. During the course of a game lasting four to five hours, the players simulate spending 20 to 30 years together, and deal with a series of private and social situations and events.
The game has been created in collaboration with the Dinghaiqiao Mutual-aid Society and was first tested at the 13th Shanghai Biennale. At the GfZK, a Leipzig version had been presented which was developed together with the artists’ collective Elli Kuruş.