course of study at the University of Applied Sciences in Basel, and this led to the founding of HyperWerk in 1999. This is also the moment that marks an important shift for us: the shift from designing interactive media products to the design of comprehensive interactive processes. Interaction in the student team HyperWerk is set up to be completely interdisciplinary; it was not a regular course of study that was expanded to become interdisciplinary, which is something that has become common today in reaction to the increasingly distinct borders between specialized fields of knowledge. It was obvious to us from the beginning that we did not want to lay any claims to economy, design, or technology, but that we wanted to look for the mediating qualities in between, that open ground between the pre-existing camps. However, HyperWerk doesn’t see itself as being without a clear stand of its own. Instead, it gathers the classical disciplines around itself as a source of enrichment. We are the solid core, the center that combines the rest. But we are not just a turntable or hub; we have our own unique position. We are the only Mischa Schaub
course of study in Switzerland that regards its students as the most
Head of the Department
diverse team possible and chooses new students with this in mind.
HyperWerk FHBB
This team grows out of diverse yet complementary cultures, areas of experience, and disciplines that are as different from each other as possible. All of these differences come together to create a whole that
University of Applied Sciences FHBB
is both productive and capable.
Department HyperWerk
Interaction as a core competence In our opinion, design is only useful if it is also economically and technologically valid. Economy is only justified if it does not pursue certain interests that may distort or even damage the general interest. It must always keep an eye on the design of the whole structure. Solutions for the future cannot be established without an integra-
Interaction as a universal principle
tive design for technology and economy as a whole. An institute of
In the debate surrounding interactive media, HyperWerk belongs
higher education does not make sense if it does not strive to integrate
to the first generation, at least in Switzerland. It all started in 1992, different forms of knowledge and points of view and thereby dare to when a financially independent media workshop was founded at
achieve what is unimaginable today. HyperWerk provides the ideal
the engineering school in Basel for the purpose of pursuing further framework for such a comprehensive approach. Its assessment of education, research, and production. Fundamental aspects of how the overall point of view as a form of knowledge in its own right diawe understand interaction in real life can be seen in the economic
metrically opposes the usual model of specialized knowledge, and
models we chose at the time. We chose to operate our joint stock this opposition is liberating. company – which despite the fact that it was not profit-oriented was still operating quite profitably – as an economically and legally Interaction in the context of social development independent structure, yet with ties to an engineering school. This
Salm2 is the name of HyperWerk’s largest project. It started two
basis still exists today. We wanted to hire as few employees as pos- years ago and is to continue at least until 2015. The project started sible. Instead we supported our inquisitive, enthusiastic students with work scholarships. We wanted to work professionally without becoming a commercial agency. We wanted to research in peace and quiet without isolating ourselves. This means that we have experienced interaction intensely from the beginning. We have deliberately become involved in content-related, economic, social areas of tension and have used these experiences as impulses for our work. We soon recognized at HyperStudio the need to re-educate most of our team workers for the open experience with and the handling of the potential of interactive media. We proposed the creation of a new FHBB / Department HyperWerk
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