Arden Stern and Ellen Huang, Mine Craft: New Design Histories of Mining

Our research seeks to generate new design histories and futures of mining that link the physical materials, labor, and geopolitics of resource extraction (e.g. cobalt mining) to seemingly more abstract forms of mining such as data mining, crypto mining, and Minecraft, alongside their attendant economies. Participating students will collaborate with us–two historians–to build prototypes and frameworks that consider resource extraction i n the context of designed objects, systems, and environments, with questions of material ethics at the forefront of our work together.