Designing Controversies and Their Publics Unavailable

Tommaso Venturini is professeur associé [associate professor] and coordinator of the research activities at the Sciences Po médialab. His research activities focus on digital methods, environmental debates and social modernization. He is leading scientist of the projects EMAPS and MEDEA and teaches courses in Controversy Mapping, Digital Methods, Data Journalism and STS at graduate and undergraduate level.

Donato Ricci is a Communication designer and a researcher in the area of data & information visualization. Currently, he is a PostDoc researcher and design lead at SciencesPo|médialab, where he conducts researches about the use of visualization in human and social sciences. Since 2005 he has been involved in the development of the DensityDesign Lab, where he started and deepened his interest in exploring the role of visual languages to increase public engagement in complex social issues by using digital data available on the net.

Michele Mauri is a PhD student in Design at Politecnico di Milano. He collaborates with Density-Design Lab on data visualization and information design projects. Previously, he worked as research dfellow at CRISP, a statistics research lab. His research focuses on the design role in the process of data gathering, analysis and dissemination.

Lucy Kimbell is associate fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford and principal research fellow at the University of Brighton. She has published on design thinking and design for service. Lucy's work appeared in the interdisciplinary exhibition Making Things Public (2005) curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. The research discussed in this paper took place while she was head of social design at The Young Foundation, London.

Axel Meunier is the project manager of the EMAPS project. After a Master's degree in Science and Technology Studies at EHESS, Paris, he has participated in a research project on the history of low doses of radiation as a public health issue at the University of Strasbourg, and worked as manager of several European projects. In parallel, he is a member of several art collectives (i.e., Save As Draft, Quartier Général) which address public issues from the angle of representation, and create collective experiences of our attachments to non-humans.