Thursday, November 12, 2026
14:30 Warm-Up, Arrival
15:15–16:00 Faculty (+ Impuls)
16:30–17:30 David Bennewith
18:00–19:00 Lotte Effinger
Bread & Wine & Dinner & Music

Friday, November 13, 2026
11:00 – 12:00 Boy Vereecken
12:30 – 13:30 Tereza Ruller
Lunch Break
15:00 – 16:30 Gruppo Due
17:00 – 18:00 Rosen Eveleigh

The phrase is based on the “Law of the Instrument” theory, which states: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail,” and is attributed to the psychologist Abraham Maslow and has since become an idiom in English.

It describes the cognitive tendency to rely excessively on a familiar tool or method and to apply it (sometimes compulsively) to any problem.*

This tendency can run counter to a design-based, research-oriented approach, as it often leads to similar results. Against the backdrop of the growing power of technology companies**, interdisciplinary, conceptual, and thus research-based design is becoming increasingly important – with regard to a cohabitation that is increasingly characterized by (visual) communication and language.

All speakers represent positions that dissolve the distinction between the three worlds—research, design, and art—since they consist, as it were, of elements from all three. As such, they can represent a future of communication design.

—

1 “I remember seeing an elaborate and complicated automatic washing machine for automobiles that did a beautiful job of washing them. But it could do only that, and everything else that got into its clutches was treated as if it were an automobile to be washed. I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Vgl.: Maslow, Abraham Harold (1966). The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. Harper & Row. p. 15-16. ISBN 978-0-8092-6130-7.

2 “Blackboxing: [...] This term from the sociology of science refers to the process by which scientific and technical work becomes invisible as a result of its own success. When a machine runs smoothly, when a fact is established, attention is focused only on the input and output, and no longer on its internal complexity. Hence the paradox: the more successful science and technology are, the more opaque and obscure they become.” Vgl.: Latour, Bruno (1999). Pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.†