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DSI Infrastructures & Labs are shareable infrastructures or structural vessels for creating collaborative research environments related to digital transformation. Dr. Hiloko Kato briefly introduces the MEEET Lab, one of the projects in this series.
What is the MEEET Lab?
The MEEET Lab (Media Existential Encounters and Evolving Technology Lab) is located in the heart of the University of Zurich campus and offers researchers, students and the interested public a place where technologies – from original writing instruments to the latest gaming equipment – can be used «hands-on». It is a place that enables collaborative work, for example on projects, encourages the acquisition of technological and content-related knowledge for teaching at all educational levels as well as the development of innovative forms of teaching, and serves as a meeting and exchange place with the interested public on the numerous topics of the digitalization of our society.
What are specific examples of the technologies on offer?
The equipment in the MEEET Lab is diverse. On the one hand, there is tangible equipment such as a video studio, a 3D printer, Lego Mindstorms or prototyping boxes, which encourage people to try out new forms of appropriation, for example in teaching. In addition, a collection of writing instruments is currently being set up to enable hands-on media archeology. The centerpiece of the MEEET Lab is the collection of different gaming technology, ranging from older gaming devices to high-end gaming PCs and the latest generation of consoles to easy-to-use VR goggles and a Citizen Science arcade machine.
What benefits does the MEEET Lab have for research?
In science and university teaching, work is carried out on and with numerous technologies and their interfaces to specific topics. These analyze and reflect the implications of the digital transformation. The aim here is to provide easy access to these technologies and a place to try them out so that individual and collaborative research on these diverse topics can be facilitated. The fundamental task of the MEEET Lab is to bring these technologies and the diverse and exciting research on them closer to our students and the interested public.
Learn more about the MEEET Lab here.
All projects of the series «DSI Infrastructures & Labs» can be found here.
Dr. Hiloko Kato is Chair of the DSI Community Gaming, works as a substitute teacher for Prof. Heiko Hausendorf at the Chair of German Linguistics of the University of Zurich, as visiting lecturer at the German Department of the University of Basel and at the ZHdK in the subject area of Game Design. In recent years, her research interests have shifted significantly towards game studies, human-nonhuman interaction and the agency of digital beings (game characters, animals), with pragmatic linguistics remaining the main methodological approach.
