B-Sides

International short-term Project with students from
Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota
Communication Design HTW, Berlin

Teachers
Annelie Franke (Universidad de Los Andes)
Alexander Müller-Rakow (HTW Berlin)
Miguel Navarro Sanint (Universidad de Los Andes)
Jaime Patarroyo (Universidad de Los Andes)
Moritz Schell (HTW Berlin)

Project description
The transatlantic workshop was realized by the HTW Berlin, university of applied sciences and the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota. The basic idea of the 4 days workshop was to work in international teams even if the team members are located in different continents and time-zones:

Technology connects people. Due to modern technology it seems that the world is moving closer together. People all over the world are connecting in real-time via video chats, messenger apps and social networks. Nevertheless we constantly encounter communication barriers. There are language barriers, cultural hurdles, religious differences, technical insufficiencies and other reasons for misunderstandings.

During the conjunct transatlantic workshop we discovered possibilities to form new ways of communication and interaction over a long distance. We came up with various ideas and experiments to explore and build new prototypes: From digital agents which enable us to explore the environment of distant places to ingenious communication machines which allows us to close acquaintances.

B-Sides – A window to another B – is an exciting experiment, taking place synchronously at the HTW University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany and the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia – two places that are locally separated by almost 10.000 kilometers and time-shifted by seven hours. Students of both universities are grouped into internationally mixed teams working and interchanging their ideas and evaluate the outcome and prototypes together.