Michaela Büsse

- PhD, Art and Design (distinction) 2017-2023

Title: Reclamations. On the Making and Remaking of Sand as a Medium for Design

Supervision: Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis, Prof. Dr. Karin Harrasser, Prof. Dr. Adam Nocek

MAKE/SENSE PhD Programme

Basel Academy of Art and Design/ University of Art and Design Linz

- MA, Design Research (distinction) 2013-2014

Title: Applied Fiction. An Object-Based Exploration of Possible Futures

Zurich University of the Arts

- BSc, Media and Communications, 2007-2010

University of Europe for Applied Sciences

London Metropolitan University (exchange)

Research fellowship, Goethe Institute Japan, 10.000€ (2024).

Research fellowship, Research Institute for Sustainability, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, 45.000€ (2023-25).

Mobility Grant, TU Delft, Swiss National Science Foundation, 16.000CHF (2020/21).

Swiss Design Network Grant for early-career researchers, 2.000CHF (2020).

With Migrant Journal, nomination Swiss Design Awards/ Mediation, 2020 (deferred because of Covid-19).

Research fellowship, “Acts of Life” - On Nature & Urbanity, an interdisciplinary collaboration between

NTU CCA Singapore, MCAD Manila, Goethe Institute, 10.000€ (2018).

PhD grant, Swiss National Science Foundation, PI Shintaro Miyazaki [SNFS No. 175913], (2018-2021).

Research fellowship, Strelka Institute for Media, Design and Architecture, Moscow (2017).

Nomination Design Prize Switzerland Rado Star Prize, Young Talent Design Research (2015).

Zurich University of the Arts Prize of Distinction, 2.000CHF (2014).

• Postnatural Landscapes
• Design and Material Cultures
• Critical Infrastructure Studies 
• Anthropology of the Built Environment
• Human Geography
• Political Ecology
• Energy Anthropology
• Experimental Documentary Film

• DGTF – German Society for Design Theory and Research, Member of the board
• 4S – Society for Social Studies of Science
• Stsing – Science and Technology Studies in and through Germany
• SIEF – International Society for Ethnology and Folklore
• SARN – Swiss Artistic Research Network

05/2023 - ongoing Chair of Digital Cultures, Technical University Dresden

Fellow 09/2023 - 02/2025, Research Institute for Sustainability, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Associated Investigator

06/2021 - ongoing, Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material”, Humboldt University of Berlin

Lecturer – adjunct, 09/2022 - 03/2023, Master Transformation Design, Braunschweig University of Art

Research Associate, 06/2021 - 03/2023, Institute of Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin

Visiting Researcher, 09/2020 - 05/2021, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Urbanism/Section Urban Design

TU Delft, Junior Researcher, 11/2017- 05/2021, Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures, FHNW Basel

Lecturer – adjunct, 09/2014-06/2021, Master Design, Zurich University of the Arts

Editor, 07/2017- 12/2020, Migrant Journal, migrantjournal.com, Lecturer

01/2017-06/2019, Master Futures Design, Prague College

Fellow, 01-07/2017, Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Moscow, Research Associate

09/2015-12/2016, Institute Design Research, Zurich University of the Arts,

Book projects

Granular Configurations. Sand, Materiality, and Planetary

Urbanization. Anthology, forthcoming in 2025, K. Verlag.

Reclamations: Experimentation, Speculation, and the

Engineering of Territory. Monograph, in preparation.

Plantery Experimentation: Environments by Design. Anthology,

in preparation, Meson press.

Peer-reviewed journal publications

with Jerome Whitington, Zeynep Oguz and Orit Halpern “‘From Brownfields into Brightfields’: Reclaiming Late Industrial Landscapes for the Renewable Energy Transition.” Environment and Society (accepted).

“The Sandiness of Late Capitalism: Eroding Visions in Malacca’s Model Island City.” Environmental Humanities (accepted).

“Built on Sand. Situating Extractive Economies in the Mekong Delta.” Postmodern Culture, 33(1), 2023.

“(Re)thinking Design with New Materialism - Towards a Critical Anthropology of Design.” Somatechnics: Journal of Bodies – Technologies – Power, 10(3), 2020: pp. 355-373 with Selena Savic, Viktor Bedö, Yann Martins, and Shintaro Miyazaki “Toys for Conviviality. Situating Commoning, Computation and Modelling”, Open Cultural Studies 4(1), 2020:143-153.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov “Interface Creep”. Antennae, Issue 45, 2018: 72-78.

with Nick Aikens, Denise Bertschi, Lucas Cantori, Paola Alvarez, Doreen Mende, Camilla Paolino, Hélène Soumaré, Melissa Tun, and Elena Yaichnikova, “Situating our Experiences. A proposal for Doctoral Research as a Network of Practices.” #Re-visiones, 8, 2018.

Contributions to books

with Konstantin Mitrokhov “Designed to Disappear: Dynamic Coastal Engineering as an Intra-Active Event” In: Majaca, Antonia. Incomputable Earth—Digital Technologies and the Anthropocene. London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025.

“Castles Made of Sand” In: Turpin, Etienne and Springer, Anna-Sophie, Intercalations 5: Decapitated Economies. K Verlag: Berlin, forthcoming 2025.

“Reclaiming Nature and Identity: Extractive Legacies in Singapore’s Development History,” in Robert Zhao Renhui: Seeing Forest (eds. Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin), K.Verlag & Singapore Art Museum: 2025.

“Critical Standpoints that are Careful” In: Claudia Mareis, Léa Perraudin, and Clemens Winkler (eds.) Material Trajectories. Designing with Care, Lüneburg: meson press, 2023.

“What are the politics of ontological design? A critical reflection on the mutual becoming of ‘the human’ and ‘the world’” In: Claudia Mareis, Moritz Greiner-Petter, and Michael Renner (eds.). Critical By Design? Cultures, Epistemologies, Practices, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022, pp- 80-92.

with Jamie Allen, Viktor Bedö, Merle Ibach, Felix Gerloff, and Shintaro Miyzaki, “Unmaking – Against General Applicability” In: Loes Bogers and Letizia Chiappini (eds.), Critical Makers Reader, Amsterdam: Institute of Networked Cultures, 2019, pp. 47-60.

Edited Publications

with Kristiane Fehrs and Johanna Mehl, Energy Transition Inventory, 2024, Dresden: Technical University Dresden.

with Amanda Winberg and Helen Pinto, Material Legacies, exhibition catalogue, 2022, Berlin: Humboldt University.

with Justinien Tribillon and Dámaso Randulfe, “Flowing Grounds”, Migrant Journal 3, 2017, London: Migrant Journal Press.

with Justinien Tribillon and Dámaso Randulfe, “Dark Matters”, Migrant Journal 4, 2018, London: Migrant Journal Press. with Justinien Tribillon and Dámaso Randulfe, “Micro Odysseys”, Migrant Journal 5, 2018, London: Migrant Journal Press.

with Justinien Tribillon and Dámaso Randulfe, “Foreign Agents”, Migrant Journal 6, 2019, London: Migrant Journal Press.

Intermedia Publications

“Granular Power: The Gritty Politics of Sand.” e-flux Intensification, March 2025. (http://tiny.cc/5yqj001)

Asia’s Reconfigured Ecologies. koozArch, November 2024. (https://tinyurl.com/mpnn5tmv)

“Exploring Rotterdam’s Dependence on Sand.” Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019. (https://tinyurl.com/y8lvnh9g)

Ghost Mines—Sensing Pasts, Casting Futures, interdisciplinary summer school for PhDs and artist, Technical University Dresden, 2025.

Extractive Pasts, Sustainable Futures?, interdisciplinary spring school for PhDs and artist, Technical University Dresden, 2024.

Building (with) Nature. Field Explorations on Markerwadden,i nterdisciplinary MA workshop, Studio for Immediate Spaces, Sandberg Institute, 2023.

Introduction to Environmental Humanties. BA Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022/23.

Politics and Poetics of Sand. Project seminar. BA Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022/23.

Contemporary Discourses in Design & Anthropology, MA Transformation Design, Braunschweig University of Arts, 2022/23,

Introduction to Design Research, MA Transformation Design, Braunschweig University of Arts, 2022/23,

Design Research Methods, MA Transformation Design, Braunschweig University of Arts, 2022/23,

With Claudia Mareis, Léa Perraudin and Anke Gründel, Dis/ Entangling Material Futures, MA lecture series, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022.

Ecological Design: (Re)making Environments, BA Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022.

Material Legacies. On the Geo-Bio-Politics of Material Transformation, MA Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022. Lines of Flight #3, interdisciplinary PhD seminar, TU Delft, 2021.

with Claudia Mareis, Léa Perraudin and Anke Gründel, Dis/ Entangling Perspectives in Material Research, MA lecture series, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2021/22.

Boundary Objects: On Experimental Ethnography, BA Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2021/22.

Lines of Flight #1 and #2. Interdisciplinary PhD seminar, TU Delft, 2021.

Introduction to Speculative Design, MA Design, Zurich University of the Arts, 2015-2021.

with Jamie Allen, Migration, Media and Ecology: Advanced Practices as part of of the COST Action European Forum for Advanced Practices (CA18136), 2020.

with Isabel Seiffert, The Creative Potential of Borders and Bordering”, MA Design, Academy of Art and Design Basel, 2020.

Sandlab, workshop as part of Neuhaus programme, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019.

with Flavia Caviezel, Lebenszyklus eines Smartphones, interdisciplinary BA seminar, Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures, 2019.

Unsettling Design, MA Media Design, Haute école d’art et de design – Intra-Action Design, workshop during Research Through Design Conference, Technical University Delft, 2019.

with Selena Savic and Shintaro Miyazaki, Utopia Reshuffled, workshop during OTHERWISE festival, Zurich, 2019.

Design and Futuring, MA Future Design. Prague College, 2017-2019.

with Jamie Allen and Lucie Kolb, Soft Encounters. Infrastructures of Care, interdisciplinary BA seminar, Institute for Experimental Design and Media Culture, 2018.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, Science Fiction Storytelling, MA Design, Bern University of the Arts, 2018.

with May Ee Wong “The Energy Island as Incomposite Techno- Utopia “, Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, remote, 2025.

with Sandra Jasper “Blasted Landscapes”, STSHub Berlin— Diffracting the Critical, 2025. with Jenny Chio “Subaltern Currents in the Eco-City: Screening and Discussion of Overcast”, Asian Studies Conference, Columbus, Ohio, 2025.

“Granular Configurations: Land Reclamation and Resistance”, Architectural Association, London, 2024.

with May Ee Wong “Energy Resource as Proposition: Making Green Hydrogen with the Energy Island”, Social Studies of Energy and the Making and Unmaking of Energy Resources, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 2024.

“Suspended Futures at Forest City”, Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures, ICI Berlin, 2024. “Granular Configurations: Thinking Critically with/through Sand“, Hafencity University Hamburg, 2024.

with Joanna Moll and Diego Rybski, “Obstructed Weather”, Literaturforum im Brechthaus, Berlin, 2024.

“Building (with) Nature”, Environmental Media and Aesthetics Research Programme, Aarhus University, 2024.

with Gökce Günel, “Design X Environmental Anthropology”, Worlds by Design. Mapping the Interdisciplinary Field of Design Studies, Humboldt University Berlin, 2024.

“Granular Configuration, Thinking Critically with and through Sand”, Critically Fit. Structures and Methodologies of Doctoral Research, EPFL, Geneva, 2023.

“The Malacca Dilemma: Reclaiming Futures Built on Sand”, Transitions, The American Anthropological Association and The Canadian Anthropology

“From Military Base to Solar Park. The Role of Conversion Sites for Germany’s Energy Transition”, An Unwell World? Anthropology in a Speculative Mode, Association of Social Anthropologists Annual Conference, SOAS London, 2023.

“Design as Infrastructuring Practice: Speculative Urbanism and Material Transformation in Southeast Asia”, Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, 2023.

“From Military Site to Solar Park. The Role of Conversion Sites for Renewable Energy Futures”, Reunion, Recuperation, Reconfiguration. Knowledges and Technosciences for Living Together. Annual Conference Society of the Social Studies of the Science, Cholula, Mexico. 2022.

with Johannes Bruder, Asia Bazdyrieva, and Anastasia Kubrack, “Zones of Sustainability. A Conversation on Situating the Politics of Global Energy Transitions”, Situiert im Globalen: Konflikte, Kosten, Atmosphären, International Research Center for Cultural Studies & Academcy of Art and Design Linz, 2022.

“Building with Nature”, Lecture Performance during Shifting Sands, Sonic Acts Night Air Series, Amsterdam, 2022.

with Mahmoud Keshavarz and Ali Musleh, “Designing in Real Worlds - Weaving Shared Histories through Design Anthropology”. Memory Full? Reimagining the Relations Between Design and History, Design History Society, Basel Academy of Art and Design, 2021.

“Granular Grammar”, Toward an Elemental Anthropology: Working through Sand, Breaking the Rules? Power, Participation and Transgression, International Society for Ethnology and Folklore, University of Helsinki, 2021.

“Gestaltete Umwelt als Gegenstand von Designforschung”, Lecture Series BA Design, Zurich University of the Arts, 2021.

“Analysing Design Through the Lens of Human-Material Entanglements”, COOP Design Research, Bauhaus Dessau/ Hochschule Anhalt, 2021.

“Speculating on the Nation-State Scale”, Logictical Power Infrastructures and State Formation Beyond the Nation State, Munich Center for Technology in Society, 2020.

“From Design on the Planetary Scale to Planetary Design”, Co-Working Materials, International Research Center for Cultural Studies and University of Art and Design Linz, 2020.

“Cheap, Precious, Risky. Singapore’s Nation-Building and its Relation to Sand”, Transdisciplinary Lecture Series, TU Delft, 2020.

“Land Reclamation as a Speculative Material Practice“, Radical Flows. FIBER Festival/Instability. Amsteram/online, 2020.

“Speculation on the Nation-State Scale”, EASST/4S joint conference Society of the Social Studies of the Science, 2020.

“Granular Grounds”, Architectures of Nature, VI PER Gallery Prague, 2020.

“Sand Stories.” After Agency, HAT Research Centre, Poznan, Poland 2019.

“Alternative Cartographies.” Cartographies of the Vanishing Now, New Narratives for Earth, FIBER Festival, Amsterdam, 2019.

“Questioning the Foundations. Anti-hylomorphism and the Politics of Design.” DilemmaDilemma, Bern Academy of the Arts, 2019.

with Shintaro Miyazaki, “Fictionalising Commoning as Co- Design.” Designing Community, École normale supérieure Paris, 2019.

with Bernhard Garnicnig and Karolina Sobecka, “A Collapseological Colloquium.” Without Computers, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 2019.

“Unsettling Design. Material Encounters and Relational Practices.” Leverage Points, Leuphana University Lüneburg, 2019.

with Viktor Bedö, Yann Martins, Shinataro Miyazaki, Selena Savic, John Evans, and Cade Diehm, “Phantasms of Decentralization? Conversations About Commoning With Coming Media.” Transmediale, Berlin, 2019.

“Towards Xeno-Design Cultures.” Avoiding Ecocidal Smart Cities, Particapatory Design Conference, Genk/Hasselt, 2018.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov “The Common Task of a More- Than-Human-Centred Design.” Beyond Change, Swiss Design Network Conference, Basel Academy of Art and Design 2018.

“Energiø” Hole of Fame, Dresden, 12 June 2025.

“Building with Nature”, Data Detours: Or What Happens When You Follow Instructions, FH Potsdam, 2 April 2025.

“Building with Nature”, STSHub Berlin–Diffracting the Critical, March 11-14, 2025.

“Building with Nature”, Berlin Science Week Campus, November 3 2023.

“Building with Nature”, Maritime Frictions, Sonic Acts and FieldARTS. Ruigoord Amsterdam, May 19 2023.

“Whilte Elephant”, Deep Material Futures. Silent Green, Berlin, 2022.

“Assembling the Coast”, Material Legacies. Design Lab #13. Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, Oct 2022 - Feb 2023.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, “Common Task”, Plotka TV, Amsterdam, 2021.

“In the middle of it”, MAKE/SENSE FHNW Academy of Art and Design Basel, 2019. with Sarah Hermanutz and Andreas Rau, “Give and Take.” Critical Media Lab, FHNW Basel, 2019.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, “Common Task”, Modern Body Festival, The Hague, 2018. with Tena Kelemen and Yann Martins, “Planetary Investigations”, Oslo Night, Haus der Elektronischen Künste, Basel, 2018.

“Designing as Becoming.” The Politics of Design, Act 1, Z33, Hasselt, 2018.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, “Common Task”, Festival de Film Invisible, Geneva, 2017.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, “Common Task”, On and Off the Grid, Hackers & Designers, Amsterdam, 2017.

with Konstantin Mitrokhov, “Common Task” The New Normal Showcase, Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Moscow, 2017.

“Applied Fiction”, Design Prize Switzerland, Connecting Spaces, Hong Kong, 2016.

“Applied Fiction”, Swiss Pavilion, Design Week London, 2016. “Applied Fiction”, Design Prize Switzerland, Langenthal, 2015.

“Applied Fiction”, Design denkt Zukunft, Zurich University of the Arts in collaboration with the W.I.R.E., Museum Bärengasse, Zurich, 2014. “Applied Fiction”,

“Planetary Experiments: Environments by Design”, annual conference of the German Society for Design Research and Theory, Technical University Dresden, 2025.

“Leakage”, inaugural conference stsing e.V., conference organisation, Technical University Dresden, 2024.

Workshop organisation “Poetics and Politics of Sand”, Cluster of Excellence. “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material”, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2023.

Exhibition curation with Emile de Visscher “Material Legacies”, Design Lab #13, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, 2022/23.

Panel Moderation “Deep Material Futures”, Annual Conference, Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material”, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2022

Panel Moderation “Meshworks: Design Research as Reconfiguring Natureculture Constellations”, Bauhaus Study Rooms 2022: Engaging with Dirt. Thinking Design beyond Cleanliness, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, 2022.

Exhibition curation with Benjamin Burger “OTHERWISE - Polymorphic Futures”, Gessnerallee Zurich, 2022.

Panel Moderation “Material Trajectories. Designing with Care”, DGTF Annual Conference, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2021.

Panel Moderation “Times of Waste”, Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Humboldt University of Berlin/Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, 2021; 

Festival curation with Benjamin Burger, “OTHERWISE”, Gessnerallee Zurich, 2019.

Exhibition curation with Dámaso Randulfe for Migrant Journal, “Parallel Crossings”, STUK, Leuven, 2019.

Workshop organisation and panel moderation “Re-Imagining AI”, a collaboration between IXDM and House of Electronic Media Arts, Basel, 2019.

Conference organisation Strelka Institute’s Alumni Unconference, Moscow, 2019

Workshop organisation “Sandlab” in collaboration with Neuhaus, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019.

Workshop organisation “Intra-Action Design”, Research Through Design Conference, TU Delft, 2019.

With Selena Savic and Shintaro Miyazaki workshop organisation “Utopia Reshuffled.” OTHERWISE festival, Zurich, 2019.

With Michael Rottmann workshop organisation “Artistic Research Workshop”, IXDM, Basel, 2018.

With Tena Kelemen workshop organisation “Exploring Alien Subjectivities”, FHNW Basel, 2018.

With Selena Savic, Viktor Bedö and Shintaro Miyazaki workshop organisation “Masquerade for Commoning”, Transmediale, Berlin, 2018.

Panel Moderation “Critical by Design. Potentials and Limitations of Materialised Critique”, Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel, 2018.