»How to Design a Revolution« Interview Eden Medina

Interview, camera & editing: Lennart Vincent Schmidt

How do politics, technology, and design intersect in moments of revolutionary change? And what can the history of Chile under Salvador Allende teach us about the role of infrastructures in shaping alternative futures? In conversation with Eden Medina, we explore digital governance, political infrastructures, and the global entanglements of technology and power.

In the summer of 2025, historian and STS scholar Eden Medina from MIT joined the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam as a Summer Fellow. As part of the Digital Inequalities project, we discussed questions of digital governance, political infrastructures, and the complex global entanglements of technology and power.

In her research and current exhibition project, How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Road to Design (MIT News), Medina explores the intersections of politics, design, and technology during the Allende era in Chile. The exhibition, originally presented in Santiago, Chile, is now on view in Barcelona. It examines how socialist visions of economic democracy were translated into technical systems, and how design became a crucial part of revolutionary practice.

In the interview, Medina reflects on her ongoing work, the legacy of the Project Cybersyn operations room, and the broader role of design in shaping revolutionary futures. Her work demonstrates how historical experiences of technological experimentation can shed light on present-day debates about digital governance, state power, and alternative models of technological development.