“And what can I do here?” people ask me curiously one after another, eyeballing a mountain bike standing upright in front of a computer screen. I am in the lecture room of the Department for Science and Technology Studies (STS), University of Vienna, which is filled with people, technological objects, and further installations about RFID chips, artificial intelligence, and visions of reproductive medicine and self-driving cars. It is a Friday night in April 2016, the so-called “Lange Nacht der Forschung” (i.e. Long Night of Research). This nation-wide biannual science communication event invites diverse publics to interactively explore current research at more than 250 institutions. With its interactive installations, the STS department aimed to spark discussions about how technologies affect and shape society, bodies, everyday lives, and futures. While that only partially explains the bike standing in the room, read on to learn how challenges in planning my installation contributed to its realization.
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