Imagining Machines, the Maternal, Babies and Care

Robot nannies, maternal Alexas, cots with facial recognition, monitoring devices. Ideations about machines and technologies in spaces related to maternal and infant care have existed for a long time, and still feed into our imaginaries of care. This talk is part of Paulina Yurman’s research project Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care, funded by Wellcome, which interrogates imaginaries of care and aims to speculate, identify and visualise design opportunities leading to wellbeing.

About the speaker:

Paulina is a designer, researcher and lecturer in MA industrial design at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. She is the recipient of a Wellcome Research EC grant for her four-year research project Maternal Machines: Design Speculations about Fantasies of Care. Paulina’s work is informed by speculative and research through design approaches. She is interested in our ambivalent relationship with technology, often experienced as both empowering and intrusive, and feeding into users’ imaginaries, dreams, fantasies and fears. Her PhD was a design led research into the role of smartphones for mothers of young children who were their primary carers. She uses drawing and making as forms of research.