Sophie Landwehr Sydow

I have been teaching in the media technology department at Södertörn University since 2015. Here I have mostly taken on an assisting role by conducting seminars and workshops. But occasionally I also take the lead in giving lectures as well as different hands-on labs and workshops as well as the additional correcting and grading. Additionally I have supervised 30+ students on bachelors level during their thesis work as well as their final exam projects. 

During the past five years I was recurrently involved in the following courses:

•  Innovation, creativity and design, 7,5 ects (preparation, lecturing, workshops, grading)
•  Interaction Design I and II (Media technology B), 30 ects (lecturing and seminars)
• Media technology research, 7,5 ects (lecturing and workshops)
•  Theory of Science (Media technology C), 30 ects (grading)
•  Theme week (coordination, organising speakers, workshops and lecturing for 200+ students)
•  Practical exams projects, 7,5 ects  (supervising)
•  Practical experience in industry, 7,5 ects (supervising)
•  Bachelor Thesis, 15 ects (supervising), here 22 students successfully defended so far
• UX Experience and Interactive Media Design & UX prototyping (Master course), 7,5 ects 
(seminars, lectures, workshops)

As part of my own preparation for teaching, I have successfully visited and taken a course on “Teaching for Higher Education” 7,5 ECTS. Additionally I have been involved with boards and committee work within the university at Södertörn.  

My thesis work revolves around the maker movement, experiences of ‘making’ in practice and the literacies and sensibilities when making use of technology in this domain. In the past five years I have been actively observing various maker initiatives in the Nordic countries. Making and its DIY practices, is a fascinating topic that challenges the boundaries between hobby-based activities, entrepreneurship and manufacturing processes. My thesis aims to critically examine and understand the value of makerspaces as a place that opens for creativity, self-expression and innovation. I explore how maker culture is reflected upon in academia (more specifically the HCI discourse), and the impact of maker practice for the wider society.

In various publications I have, together with collaborators, introduced concepts of 'material literacy' which contibutes to the discussion on the interplay between computational materials and experience, and 'machine sensibility' that highlights the embodied and situated dimensions of 3D printing. Theoretically, my work explores human technology relationships that are impacted by the material turn in HCI. Current activities involve papers that come to terms with maker practice and ultimately ‘kappa’ writing - that is - threading a consistent narrative and theoretical framing around this empirically driven, qualitative research endevour.