Myriel Milicevic is an artist and interaction designer who holds a professorship in the Department of Design at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
With her Neighbourhood Satellites she explores the hidden connections between people and their natural, social, and technical environments. These explorations are mostly of a participatory nature and manifest in practical-utopian models, processes and stories: how can energy leaks in the city become power sources? How can we guide butterflies to new meadows in the Rocky Mountains? How would plants grow if they were cultivated in political systems? What can we learn from people in the hills of Thailand for our urban lives?
The projects are often realised in collaboration with other practitioners and in the context of workshops, classrooms, exhibitions, residencies and out in the field.
As an interaction designer she has worked during the founding years of design firms Experientia s.r.l and Interaction Design Studios (IXDS), engaged in projects for major clients. At IXDS she conducted a long-term research project on Gender Inspired Technology with Deutsche Telekom Innovation Laboratories / Design Research Lab, which resulted in a number of products. She has also been a researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, where she worked on the Consuming Energy project, which looks at using design and technology to encourage people to consume resources sustainably.
Myriel received her MA from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy and her diploma in Graphic Design from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Further, she studied at the Conceptual and Information Arts programme at San Francisco State University.
Group Exhibitions / Public Activities
- Stories from the Hills: Tales of the Lowland at La Fin des Cartes, Espace des Arts sans Frontières, Paris, France. 2015
- Out of Soil at the Bhoomi Maati Maa: the Festival of Living Soil, New Delhi, India. With Susanne Jaschko / prozessagenten. 2015
- Feather and Corn at Natural Affairs, QuadrArt Dornbirn, Austria. With Alex Toland. 2015
- Out of Soil at International Week of Justice, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Berlin. With Susanne Jaschko / prozessagenten. 2015
- Stories from the Hills: Tales of the Lowland at Dirt Dialogues, 20th World Congress of Soil Science, Jeju, Korea. 2014
- Stories from the Hills: Tales of the Lowland, Thailand. With Ruttikorn Vuttikorn. 2013
- Garden Registry at Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good at the Chicago Cultural Center. With Amy Franceschini and David Lu. 2013
- Ethnobotanical Station at ReGeneration, New York Hall Of Science. With Amy Franceschini as Futurefarmers. 2012-13
- Ethnobotanical Station at Art, Environment, Action! SJDC, Parsons The New School for Design. With Amy Franceschini as Futurefarmers. 2012
- U10 – from here to the imaginary and back again at metro station Neukölln, Berlin. Commissioned by NGBK/U10, 2011
- Initiative at ÜberLebenskunst, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, 2011
- Summercamp Electrified, Timelab, Ghent, Belgium, 2011
- ENERGIE = ARBEIT, Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Artists in Dialog, Art Laboratory, Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Radar, Building Green (as Futurefarmers) Loughbrough University, UK, 2010
- Smart Urban Stage, Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Urban Wilderness Action Center, Electrosmog Festival. Skulpturenpark KUNSTrePUBLIK e.V., Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Visual Voltage Amplified, Felleshuset, Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Energy, XI International festival for new media culture, RIXC, Riga, Latvia, 2009
- Banff New Media Institute, Interactive Screen 0.9, Banff, Canada, 2009
- Without You I am Nothing, the Green Lantern, Chicago, USA, 2009
- Ecomedia (as Free Soil). Sala Parpalló, Valencia, Spain, 2009
- Ecomedia: Ecological strategies in today’s art (as Free Soil). Plug-in, Basel, Switzerland, 2008
- Cité Sauvage, Streets of Berlin, Germany, 2008
- Ökomedien/ Ecomedia (as Free Soil). Edith Russ Site for New Media, Oldenburg, Germany, 2007
- Art, Traffic, Mobility. Art*Labs, Sibiu, Romania, 2007
- Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art (as Free Soil). Smart Museum, Chicago, USA, 2005
- Learning Trees, Midway Plaisance, Eaglewood, Woodlawn, Chicago, USA, 2005
- Exit, MA Show, Turin, Italy, 2005
- The Greenhouse Effect, Stadio San Siro, Milan, Italy, 2005
- Strangely Familiar: Unusual Objects in Everyday Life. Galerie AB+,
Turin, Italy, 2005 - Orange County Museum (as Futurefarmers), California Biennial, Santa Ana, USA, 2004
- Borderline/ BITE, Fondazione Sandretto di Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy, 2004
Residencies
- Colorado College, USA, 2012
- Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, USA. As Futurefarmers. 2012
- Summercamp Electrified at Timelab, Ghent, Belgium, 2011
- Art*Labs, Sibiu, Romania, 2007
- Luminous Green Retreat and Symposium on environmental sustainability, ethical living and eco-technology. FoAm, Belgium, 2007
- Futurefarmers, San Francisco, USA, 2004
Teaching/ Workshops
- Visiting lecturer at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Komplementärstudium, Course: Romancing the Anthropocene. Winter term 2016
- Visiting lecturer at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Design dept., Process + Design. Course: Shadows in the Technosphere. Spring term 2016
- Guest reviewer for Master in Interaction Design, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHDK). June 2016
- Seminar at the Anthropocene Campus: The Technosphere Issue. Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. April 2016
- Visiting lecturer at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Design dept., Process + Design. Course: Interfacing with Nature. Spring term 2015
- »Street Rights Map« – Workshop, Community Now? Symposium, DGTF, DRLab/UdK Berlin, Jewish Museum Berlin. 2015
- »Ideas from Nature« -Workshops with Biomimicry Germany e.V., Natural History Museum Berlin. 2014
- »Urban Nature Street Rights« – Workshop, Long Day of Urban Nature, Public Art Lab / Prinzessinnengarten, Berlin. 2014
- »Stories from the Hills: Tales of the Lowland«, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand. 2013
- Connect the Plots. Workshop at the Institute for Ecology, Berlin University of Technology. 2013
- Street Rights Map workshop at the Department of Urban and Regional Sociology, Institute for Social Sciences of Humboldt University Berlin. 2013
- Energy Harvests workshop as part of Shaking Science at Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven, NL, 2012
- Visiting lecturer at the department of Integral Studies, Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. Spring term 2012
- Mentor at the University for the Arts Bremen, Germany. October 2011 – October 2012
- BFA thesis class, spring term. Parsons the New School for Design. Co-teaching with Jon Cohrs. 2011
- Energy Harvests Workshop. Über Lebenskunst, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, 2011
- Energy Harvests Workshop. Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Visual Voltage Workshop, Felleshuset, Nordic Embassies Berlin, Germany, 2010
- Metabolic Toys, Naba Design School, Milano, Italy, 2009
- Metabolic Toys, School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand, 2008
- Towns R Us – Playing on Public Objects, Naba Design School, Milano, Italy, 2008
- Human Powered Objects. Higher Institute of Product Development, Antwerp, Belgium, 2007
- UNESCO toys workshop for children’s rehabilitation, Bielefeld, Germany, 2006
- Politics of Play, Pixelache, Paris, France, 2006
- Applied Dreams Toy Workshop, Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy, 2005
Lectures/ Conferences
- Thin Ice. Facing the Environment and Climate Change in Ethnological Museums. A workshop of the Humboldt Lab Dahlem. 2015
- SD Talk series, Media + Design dept., University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück. 2015
- Design Interaktiver Medien, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany. 2013
- Temporäre Räume, Luftschlösser und Rauchwolken, University of the Arts, Bremen, 2012
- Food in the City Research Group,Eyebeam, Art + Technology Center, NYC, 2011
- Transdigital Seminar 2011, Vooruit Ghent, 2011
- Radar Artist Talk Series, Loughborough University, UK, 2010
- Human-Environment Mobile-Based Interactions, MIT Media Lab, 2009
- Banff New Media Institute, Interactive Screen 0.9, Canada, 2009
- Sustainable Practices + Design Interventions , University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam, Germany, 2007
- Ubiquitous Sustainability Workshop: Technologies for Green, 2007
- Values Ubicomp 2007, Innsbruck, Austria, 2007
- UNESCO toys workshop for children’s rehabilitation, Bielefeld, Germany. Yerevan, Armenia, 2005
- PerGames 2005, Munich, Germany, 2005
- University of Washington, Seattle, Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media, 2004
Select Publications
- Chapter in Von ganz unten – Warum wir unsere Böden besser schützen müssen. Gerd Wessolek (editor). Oekom Verlag, 2015 ISBN 9783865817716
- Energy Harvests – Claiming Energy Leaks as Resource in Art and Ecology Now. Author: Andrew Brown. Thames & Hudson, 2014 ISBN 9780500239162
- Beneath the Pavement – A Garden. With Amy Franceschini.Published by Radar and developed from the Building Green programme at Loughborough University (UK). ISBN 978-1-907382-34-5, 2011
- Net Works: Case Studies of Web Art and Design (ed. Xtine Burrough, Routledge) Chapter on Garden Registry with Amy Franceschini and David Lu. ISBN-10: 0415882222, 2011
- Imaginary To Dos -Three initiatives for personal environmental explorations. Technologies for Green Values, Ubicomp, 2007
- Facing = Doing. Accepted paper for the CHI workshop About Face: Interface Creative Engagement in New Media Arts and HCI, 2006
- Interview Beyond Green — Towards a Sustainable Art with Free Soil, Smart Museum Chicago 10/2005 ISBN 0-935573-42-9, 2005
- Play Today – Current trends in electronic toys and games. For Experientia, 2005
