Theory

IN TUNE understands design as a relational, processual act that unfolds between body, material, technology, and context. It draws on New Materialism and New Dramaturgy, complemented by feminist and ecological design perspectives. Central to the approach is the concept of attunement—a design practice based on responsiveness, negotiation, and presence in the process.

New Materialism—as explored by thinkers like Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, and Rosi Braidotti—understands material not as a passive carrier of meaning, but as an active agent in the web of design. Concepts such as “vibrant matter” (Bennett) or “intra-action” (Barad) emphasize that form and meaning do not pre-exist but emerge through the process—through interactions between things, bodies, and atmospheres. This perspective calls for an attitude of listening, responsiveness, and collaborative creation: matter speaks, and it demands resonance, not control.

New Dramaturgy, inspired by the work of Maaike Bleeker, Christel Stalpaert, and Hans-Thies Lehmann, moves away from linear narrative and instead understands dramaturgy as a spatial, bodily composition. In design, this offers a model that keeps processes open, creates interstitial spaces, and allows meaning to emerge rather than represent it.

This approach is closely linked to performative practices, where design does not dictate but arises from action, material interaction, and bodily situatedness.

Feminist theories—such as those of Donna Haraway, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, and Lucy Suchman—shape our understanding of design as a practice of care. This perspective asks how forms can emerge without dominating others. It places care, responsibility, and relationality at the center—including our relationships with objects, archives, materials, and stories.

When combined with ecological and posthumanist ideas, this fosters a design attitude that dismantles hierarchies, opens processes, and rethinks the relationship between humans and the world.

At the same time, we enter into a productive dialogue with the history of the Bauhaus—especially its early Weimar phase, characterized by material experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and societal shifts. Historical objects from the Bauhaus Archive and Museum in Weimar serve as a starting point for a re-fabrication that does not reproduce the past, but instead reconstructs, questions, and transforms it.