Doctoral
Student
E-mail: robert.collins@umu.se
Background
I am a curious
Irishman who comes from a not-so-academic background in
music, art technology and travel.
I inherited a very hands-on approach to life from my parents and
grandparents. Always taking things apart and sometimes putting them
back together again, and an overarching desire to deeply understand
the function of things and my own orientation towards them.
My origins are in DIY and self-organisation. Beginning with
playing music in bands, to running a recording studio and then
moving through art scenes and event production. I have had a
variety of careers and non-careers. More recently, I have run my
own business in interactive art installation, production and
mentoring and have spent many years producing exhibitions for the
Science Gallery and others across the world.
I am happiest fabricating with wood, metal and electronics and
trying to imagine and share better futures and better
community.
What
I do at UID
I am a member of DCODE, a European network and PhD Program that
collaborates with various associated and academic partners -of
which UID is part. We will be collectively rethinking the role of
design in response to the digitalisation of society.
Research
As part of the DCODE research project, I am working on Designing for
Contestable Systems, within the Trusted Interactions
programme.
This project is about the challenges involved in making it
possible for people to contextualise and negotiate a data-driven
system's response to users' actions ("response-ability") in and
through use. In this project we explore what features, mechanisms
and techniques need to be designed and implemented in the front-end
for users to understand, contest and possibly repair inappropriate
actions by a system.
Talk
to me about
