okay, so I just post Simon's introductory statement here:
Critical Design is often encountered in a gallery setting (e.g. Blauvelt 2003, García-Antòn 2007). The outputs of Critical Design could then be, not the artefacts on show, but the reflection and debates they provoke in their audiences. But in what other formats besides exhibitions and publications can people encounter Critical Design, and what other ways besides intellectual reflection can people engage with critically-designed artefacts? What functions can Critical Design have outside the gallery? In exploring this topic, I would like us to consider these questions:
1. How do people engage with critically-designed artefacts as opposed to “traditionally” designed products?
2. Designers have a primary role in the debates that their critically-designed artefacts provoke, by suggesting alternative and challenging artefact functions and roles. How could others contribute their own perspectives, beyond their initial reactions, and counter the implicit assumption that the “designer knows best”?
3. Participatory Design suggests that people have a democratic right to be involved in the design of what they use (Ehn 1993). Where, then, is the middle ground between Critical Design and Participatory Design?
4. How can designers attend to the debates that their artefacts produce in their practice? What role is there for critically-design artefacts within prototyping?
5. And, if critically-designed “products” are only ever exhibited or published, what makes the practice that produced them design?
BLAUVELT, Andrew (2003). Strangely familar: Design and everyday life. 1st ed., New York, Distributed Art Publishers.
EHN, Pelle (1993). Scandinavian design: On participation and skill. In: SCHULER, Douglas and NAMIOKA, Aki (eds.). New Jersey, Erlbaum Associates, 41-77.
GARCÍA-ANTÒN, Katya, KING, Emily and BRÄNDLE, Christian (eds.) (2007). Wouldn't it be nice... wishful thinking in art and design. Switzerland, Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève.
Welcome everyone! Prior to this discussion beginning, my opening statement was as above (thanks Katharina).
I think that we have already begun to explore some of these questions, and I encourage you all to continue the previous discussions here. I’m thinking this topic has strong relevance to Tobie’s framing of (critical) design in the field and Tau’s spaces beyond the gallery.
My first question might be a good ju,ping off point as it raises some methodological issues. I think that we can all agree that people interact with critical artefacts differently in the field than in the gallery (in what sense, do we “use” designs in a gallery?) – but what impacts does this have for how these artefacts operate as critiques? As provoking reflection, debate, change, participation? What are the impacts for practice?
Question 5 might seem a little blunt and obvious. But if we are using critical artefacts outside the gallery, what makes this practice design?
Also, Simon asks "Participatory Design suggests that people have a democratic right to be involved in the design of what they use (Ehn 1993). Where, then, is the middle ground between Critical Design and Participatory Design?".
One way to unpack this might be to consider how 'people' are conceived in PD and CD. Arguably, PD conceived people via marx, heidegger and wittgenstein. CD, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a clear conception of 'people' other than subjects endowed with a psych - as opposed to cognitivist beings...
Thanks for raising this. Agreed attending to debates is important inside and outside the gallery. Perhaps we should refine this question to “how should designers attend to the affects of their practice?”, then it’s not just about explicit discussions and debates but includes more tacit conversations and interactions.
I’ve suggested that the designer’s participation in encounters with critical artefacts is part of this. And that developing a tacit understanding of others values and needs which is explored and expressed through further designing is one way.
'if critically-designed “products” are only ever exhibited or published, what makes the practice that produced them design?'
Surely it's the 'practice that produced them' which grants them the staus of design, in terms of the institutional setting, the provenance of the grant, the skills of the researcher/maker.
Are you asking if artefacts need to be manufactured products to be designs, and suggesting that critical designs aren't designs because they go into galleries?
Simon, the way I understood your last question was: What makes critical artefacts design if they are NOT used outside the gallery? Because there is an interesting difference if things look like design, but function as pieces of art. A radical and clear separation of both realms is probably pointless. However, the discussion evolved earlier about users, and the use of objects in an exhibition is quite different to that of an everyday product. So I wonder if the gallery is also a temptingly safe place for designers to put their stuff in, and if this is part of the attractiveness of critical design, and maybe even a step back from engaging with users.
Maybe Simon's point of a 'primer' object from the previous session can be useful again to look at how we can attend to the debate that (hopefully) follows exposure to a piece of critical design. In the instances where those primers (concept cars/planes, design probes...) are used in an industry context, they are presented (in addition to the public) to professional audiences and/or peers from the same organisation or different departments. This can present a very intimate and productive setting for a debate, where statements, views, opinions or even responding 'rival' objects can be harnessed and documented.
Katharina, perhaps if you want to put stuff in an exhibition you don't want to engage with the users of your products as 'conginitive beings' as described by Alex.
This is a choice relating to design concived as a partuclar form of prcatice, it's not a matter of stepping back from the responsibility of dealing with people.
However, if you then say that the role of that work is to create debate, and in this sense your users are those who come to the exhibition, then you have a responsibility to attend that situation, and treat those people respectfully.
another way to appreciate what artefacts do in such situations (and how design is being accomplished for want of a better word) is to look at the type of arrangements that are put into play. For example, what kind of institution-designer-artefact-audience-discourse are enacted in specific gallery-based contexts or institutional arrangements. Here, I would argue for close attention to the particular forms that are instituted.
I think this is something that Tobie is getting at as well...
rather than policing disciplinary boundaries, or asking questions about what 'counts' it might be about what gets put into play in very concrete and specific circumstances.
I intended Q5 to be provocative as, of course, there isn’t a black and white distinction to be made.
A related question is what the function of the critical artefact in the gallery is. Does it operate more like an art object? In which case, the practice is design (as Tobie points out) but the product is art. Henry Dreyfuss was one of the first designers to have their designs shown in a gallery, but in this respect something very different is happening. As Katherina notes, the fact that the designs are used outside the gallery affects how they are viewed inside the gallery – Dreyfuss’ work was exhibited as examples of good design.
I’m not suggesting that critical artefacts need to manufactured and sold to qualify as design. But I think that it’s important to unpack how people engage with them inside and outside the gallery. The former might be more of an intellectual reflection, the latter could be more interactive use.
Of course, the critical artefacts could be presented in the gallery as if they were products available for purchase and everyday use. Which is another interesting form of engagement, and raises questions about how it can be afforded and attended to.
Re Tobie: Exaclty (if I understand you correctly), there are instances when design can serve an intra-design discourse, and instances where it's meant for the public - just like a scientific paper intended at a conference audience is different from an article aimed at informed non-experts in the pop media...
Yes, it's about taking responsibility for your design, attending to the things that you say your design does.
Simon in your thesis you argue quite persuasively for a from of PD where a technical artefact is iteratively designed with a focus group of users.
You then seem to say, critical design is elitist because it does not do this. But I don't see where claims are made that critical design does a form of PD.
Why do you want to evealuate critical design in relation to PD?
I can think we can agree to step away from the design/art divide as you’ve all raised more interesting facets to unpack.
I wonder if Ramia’s outside in/inside out framing could be useful here in thinking about how designers attend to the affects of their practice.
For outside in (intra-design), as Tobie suggests, the user/audience is themselves or their peers in which case the discourse could be partially tacit – we design differently as a result.
For inside out, which could be inside or outside the gallery, how do we attend to affects? We might, from Tobie and Alex, may not be attending to users/audiences as cognitive beings. In which case, what are we attending to and how?
The flipside is then that we attend to users/audiences more directly. As cognitive beings or, perhaps, as political actors in their own right. And how do we do this?
Best regards,
Simon
______ http://www.simon-bowen.com/
There could be an interesting bridge here between Simon's well-formulated position statement and some of the comments in the previous session! An important question for critical practitioners is what happens when their 'critical objects' meet 'critical subjects' (borrowing terms from Brian Hatton) - ie., users, viewers, audiences, publics... Li made a very good point that the designer's intention or critique, embodied in a material/tangible form, is not necessarily perceived/interpreted in the same way by a user/viewer. Alex's point about 'reflexivities' is really useful here, because we might also want to talk about the kinds of criticality(ies) and reflexivity(ies) that happen within experiences/processes of using or viewing an artifact (whether or not the artifact has been designed to be 'critical').
Li also made the point about the 'temporal asymmetry' between designing and using (use comes after design) - which always gives the designer a head-start, ownership or authority. It is usually the case in participatory design that the designer still initiates/directs the process, framing the starting issue/problem, forming the group of participants, guiding the process, etc. For the participatory discussion, it would be interesting to think of how participatory design could happen that is not design-led? One of the premises of Scandinavian Participatory Design was that participants in such processes would gain awareness of their own knowledge/skills as well as gain power in situations in which they were otherwise disempowered/disadvantaged by articulating their perspective (in verbal or material form). Ie., PD would be an (personal+social+political) emancipatory practice, as well as a design practice. Of course, participant's articulations may also be critical... 'critical subjects' may also make (design?) 'critical objects'!
Katharina, your point might come in here too... The process of embodying an idea (or critique) in an object might be seen as an affirmative act, a material (rather than a hermeneutic/analytic/conceptual/reflexive) process. But in 'critical practice' (by designers or by users), the material and the critical can be intertwined... (Simon's reference to Schön is relevant here, and I find Stan Allen's discussion of material/hermeneutical practice to be useful, which is also related to interesting discussions of major/minor science and those implied power dynamics that you also raise!)
Hatton, Brian. "Exploring Architecture as a Critical Act, Questioning Relations between Design, Criticism, History and Theory." Architectural Research Quarterly 8, no. 2 (2004): 105-198.
Allen, Stan. "Its Exercise, Under Certain Conditions." Columbia Documents of Architecture and Theory 3 (1993): 89-113.
When I wrote the thesis I saw that most critical design practice were not participatory in the sense found in much PD (accepting the many nuanced forms in PD itself). So, I’m not suggesting CD is PD.
I want to evaluate critical design in relation to PD because I wonder if critical artefacts, or more particularly the affects that they have, can be used more instrumentally within a participatory design process. To put it another way, can designers use critical artefacts during a participatory design process to enable designers and “users”/others to explore broader possibilities and design something more innovative or radically different as a result?
This is not to denegrate the affects of critically-designed artefacts in themselves (be they inside or outside the gallery). Rather to ask whether such affects might directly inform further designing where others participation is a key part.
Hence all the questions about who designs, who reflects, on what, for who/what and how.
I wonder if critical design actually is a somewhat honest way of dealing with the agency and influence that designers can have in political discussions, a kind of avant-garde (and well, probably, elitist) practice: Because it enables them to make much more controversial statements and exploit their imaginative professional skills best? And then maybe the challenge is to provide appropriate ways to record the response to those critical artifacts in a way that influences the production of things, or the direction of scientific research, or the legislative process? After all, you want to achieve something by stimulating a debate, right?
Thank you for weaving these threads together so well, Ramia.
The notion of critical design as producing critiques is something I’ve also previously explored, and I wonder if it could provide some purchase here. I.e. critiques as alternate readings of “how the world is”, critical theories in the sense of offering alternatives that seek to both explain and change the social world. So, critical artefacts could be seen as embodied critiques.
Who creates these artefacts then has a say in what these critiques/theories/social changes are. One route would then be to involve “users” in the creation of critiques, which could then serve both the political (emancipatory) and technical aims (as Ehn put them). Of course, as others have noted here, this needn’t be restricted to critical design.
To pick up on Katharina’s and Li’s points. If design comes before use, and designers produce critical artefacts, it Critical Design in this sense is an honest way of dealing with designer’s agency. But, where others are involved in co-creation and use is the basis for design, another form of Critical Design practice is offered that demonstrates different agencies and is, perhaps, less susceptible to being elitist?
Thanks everyone for an interesting and stimulating discussion. A couple of points that came out for me during the session (feel free to add your own):
How do critical design and participatory design each construct the others involved or affected by their practice? We might consider them as critical subjects, cognitive beings or political actors. Each has implications for how we attend to the affects of our practice.
Attending to the affects of our design practice has an ethical dimension. We have a responsibility to attend to the values and needs of the users/audiences etc.
Considering the design and application of critical artefacts within a participatory design process raises other issues. It may diffuse the view of the designer as promoting their own views of what is “high” if design follows use and participants co-create what is designed.
There is value in (non-participatory) critical design, in giving the designer a political voice and the means to influence change.
Simon's introductory statement and questions
okay, so I just post Simon's introductory statement here:
Critical Design is often encountered in a gallery setting (e.g. Blauvelt 2003, García-Antòn 2007). The outputs of Critical Design could then be, not the artefacts on show, but the reflection and debates they provoke in their audiences. But in what other formats besides exhibitions and publications can people encounter Critical Design, and what other ways besides intellectual reflection can people engage with critically-designed artefacts? What functions can Critical Design have outside the gallery? In exploring this topic, I would like us to consider these questions:
1. How do people engage with critically-designed artefacts as opposed to “traditionally” designed products?
2. Designers have a primary role in the debates that their critically-designed artefacts provoke, by suggesting alternative and challenging artefact functions and roles. How could others contribute their own perspectives, beyond their initial reactions, and counter the implicit assumption that the “designer knows best”?
3. Participatory Design suggests that people have a democratic right to be involved in the design of what they use (Ehn 1993). Where, then, is the middle ground between Critical Design and Participatory Design?
4. How can designers attend to the debates that their artefacts produce in their practice? What role is there for critically-design artefacts within prototyping?
5. And, if critically-designed “products” are only ever exhibited or published, what makes the practice that produced them design?
BLAUVELT, Andrew (2003). Strangely familar: Design and everyday life. 1st ed., New York, Distributed Art Publishers.
EHN, Pelle (1993). Scandinavian design: On participation and skill. In: SCHULER, Douglas and NAMIOKA, Aki (eds.). New Jersey, Erlbaum Associates, 41-77.
GARCÍA-ANTÒN, Katya, KING, Emily and BRÄNDLE, Christian (eds.) (2007). Wouldn't it be nice... wishful thinking in art and design. Switzerland, Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève.
hi Simon, "How can designers
hi Simon,
"How can designers attend to the debates that their artefacts produce in their practice?"
This seems to be important even when the stuff stays in the gallery.
You suggest some approaches in your thesis, interviews for example. Are there others methods?
Welcome, here we go...
Welcome everyone! Prior to this discussion beginning, my opening statement was as above (thanks Katharina).
I think that we have already begun to explore some of these questions, and I encourage you all to continue the previous discussions here. I’m thinking this topic has strong relevance to Tobie’s framing of (critical) design in the field and Tau’s spaces beyond the gallery.
My first question might be a good ju,ping off point as it raises some methodological issues. I think that we can all agree that people interact with critical artefacts differently in the field than in the gallery (in what sense, do we “use” designs in a gallery?) – but what impacts does this have for how these artefacts operate as critiques? As provoking reflection, debate, change, participation? What are the impacts for practice?
Question 5 might seem a little blunt and obvious. But if we are using critical artefacts outside the gallery, what makes this practice design?
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
Models of people
Also, Simon asks "Participatory Design suggests that people have a democratic right to be involved in the design of what they use (Ehn 1993). Where, then, is the middle ground between Critical Design and Participatory Design?".
One way to unpack this might be to consider how 'people' are conceived in PD and CD. Arguably, PD conceived people via marx, heidegger and wittgenstein. CD, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a clear conception of 'people' other than subjects endowed with a psych - as opposed to cognitivist beings...
Attending to affects
Hi Tobie,
Thanks for raising this. Agreed attending to debates is important inside and outside the gallery. Perhaps we should refine this question to “how should designers attend to the affects of their practice?”, then it’s not just about explicit discussions and debates but includes more tacit conversations and interactions.
I’ve suggested that the designer’s participation in encounters with critical artefacts is part of this. And that developing a tacit understanding of others values and needs which is explored and expressed through further designing is one way.
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
About Q5 'if
About Q5
'if critically-designed “products” are only ever exhibited or published, what makes the practice that produced them design?'
Surely it's the 'practice that produced them' which grants them the staus of design, in terms of the institutional setting, the provenance of the grant, the skills of the researcher/maker.
Are you asking if artefacts need to be manufactured products to be designs, and suggesting that critical designs aren't designs because they go into galleries?
Safe inside the gallery
Simon, the way I understood your last question was: What makes critical artefacts design if they are NOT used outside the gallery? Because there is an interesting difference if things look like design, but function as pieces of art. A radical and clear separation of both realms is probably pointless. However, the discussion evolved earlier about users, and the use of objects in an exhibition is quite different to that of an everyday product. So I wonder if the gallery is also a temptingly safe place for designers to put their stuff in, and if this is part of the attractiveness of critical design, and maybe even a step back from engaging with users.
Maybe Simon's point of a
Maybe Simon's point of a 'primer' object from the previous session can be useful again to look at how we can attend to the debate that (hopefully) follows exposure to a piece of critical design. In the instances where those primers (concept cars/planes, design probes...) are used in an industry context, they are presented (in addition to the public) to professional audiences and/or peers from the same organisation or different departments. This can present a very intimate and productive setting for a debate, where statements, views, opinions or even responding 'rival' objects can be harnessed and documented.
Katharina, perhaps if you
Katharina, perhaps if you want to put stuff in an exhibition you don't want to engage with the users of your products as 'conginitive beings' as described by Alex.
This is a choice relating to design concived as a partuclar form of prcatice, it's not a matter of stepping back from the responsibility of dealing with people.
However, if you then say that the role of that work is to create debate, and in this sense your users are those who come to the exhibition, then you have a responsibility to attend that situation, and treat those people respectfully.
Katharina, perhaps if you (and tobie)
another way to appreciate what artefacts do in such situations (and how design is being accomplished for want of a better word) is to look at the type of arrangements that are put into play. For example, what kind of institution-designer-artefact-audience-discourse are enacted in specific gallery-based contexts or institutional arrangements. Here, I would argue for close attention to the particular forms that are instituted.
I think this is something that Tobie is getting at as well...
and so
rather than policing disciplinary boundaries, or asking questions about what 'counts' it might be about what gets put into play in very concrete and specific circumstances.
Question 5...
Hi Tobie and Katherina,
I intended Q5 to be provocative as, of course, there isn’t a black and white distinction to be made.
A related question is what the function of the critical artefact in the gallery is. Does it operate more like an art object? In which case, the practice is design (as Tobie points out) but the product is art. Henry Dreyfuss was one of the first designers to have their designs shown in a gallery, but in this respect something very different is happening. As Katherina notes, the fact that the designs are used outside the gallery affects how they are viewed inside the gallery – Dreyfuss’ work was exhibited as examples of good design.
I’m not suggesting that critical artefacts need to manufactured and sold to qualify as design. But I think that it’s important to unpack how people engage with them inside and outside the gallery. The former might be more of an intellectual reflection, the latter could be more interactive use.
Of course, the critical artefacts could be presented in the gallery as if they were products available for purchase and everyday use. Which is another interesting form of engagement, and raises questions about how it can be afforded and attended to.
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
Different kinds
Re Tobie: Exaclty (if I understand you correctly), there are instances when design can serve an intra-design discourse, and instances where it's meant for the public - just like a scientific paper intended at a conference audience is different from an article aimed at informed non-experts in the pop media...
Yes, it's about taking
Yes, it's about taking responsibility for your design, attending to the things that you say your design does.
Simon in your thesis you argue quite persuasively for a from of PD where a technical artefact is iteratively designed with a focus group of users.
You then seem to say, critical design is elitist because it does not do this. But I don't see where claims are made that critical design does a form of PD.
Why do you want to evealuate critical design in relation to PD?
Outside in, inside out (reprise)
Hi All,
I can think we can agree to step away from the design/art divide as you’ve all raised more interesting facets to unpack.
I wonder if Ramia’s outside in/inside out framing could be useful here in thinking about how designers attend to the affects of their practice.
For outside in (intra-design), as Tobie suggests, the user/audience is themselves or their peers in which case the discourse could be partially tacit – we design differently as a result.
For inside out, which could be inside or outside the gallery, how do we attend to affects? We might, from Tobie and Alex, may not be attending to users/audiences as cognitive beings. In which case, what are we attending to and how?
The flipside is then that we attend to users/audiences more directly. As cognitive beings or, perhaps, as political actors in their own right. And how do we do this?
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
Critical subjects
There could be an interesting bridge here between Simon's well-formulated position statement and some of the comments in the previous session! An important question for critical practitioners is what happens when their 'critical objects' meet 'critical subjects' (borrowing terms from Brian Hatton) - ie., users, viewers, audiences, publics... Li made a very good point that the designer's intention or critique, embodied in a material/tangible form, is not necessarily perceived/interpreted in the same way by a user/viewer. Alex's point about 'reflexivities' is really useful here, because we might also want to talk about the kinds of criticality(ies) and reflexivity(ies) that happen within experiences/processes of using or viewing an artifact (whether or not the artifact has been designed to be 'critical').
Li also made the point about the 'temporal asymmetry' between designing and using (use comes after design) - which always gives the designer a head-start, ownership or authority. It is usually the case in participatory design that the designer still initiates/directs the process, framing the starting issue/problem, forming the group of participants, guiding the process, etc. For the participatory discussion, it would be interesting to think of how participatory design could happen that is not design-led? One of the premises of Scandinavian Participatory Design was that participants in such processes would gain awareness of their own knowledge/skills as well as gain power in situations in which they were otherwise disempowered/disadvantaged by articulating their perspective (in verbal or material form). Ie., PD would be an (personal+social+political) emancipatory practice, as well as a design practice. Of course, participant's articulations may also be critical... 'critical subjects' may also make (design?) 'critical objects'!
Katharina, your point might come in here too... The process of embodying an idea (or critique) in an object might be seen as an affirmative act, a material (rather than a hermeneutic/analytic/conceptual/reflexive) process. But in 'critical practice' (by designers or by users), the material and the critical can be intertwined... (Simon's reference to Schön is relevant here, and I find Stan Allen's discussion of material/hermeneutical practice to be useful, which is also related to interesting discussions of major/minor science and those implied power dynamics that you also raise!)
Hatton, Brian. "Exploring Architecture as a Critical Act, Questioning Relations between Design, Criticism, History and Theory." Architectural Research Quarterly 8, no. 2 (2004): 105-198.
Allen, Stan. "Its Exercise, Under Certain Conditions." Columbia Documents of Architecture and Theory 3 (1993): 89-113.
Critical design practice and PD
Hi Tobie,
When I wrote the thesis I saw that most critical design practice were not participatory in the sense found in much PD (accepting the many nuanced forms in PD itself). So, I’m not suggesting CD is PD.
I want to evaluate critical design in relation to PD because I wonder if critical artefacts, or more particularly the affects that they have, can be used more instrumentally within a participatory design process. To put it another way, can designers use critical artefacts during a participatory design process to enable designers and “users”/others to explore broader possibilities and design something more innovative or radically different as a result?
This is not to denegrate the affects of critically-designed artefacts in themselves (be they inside or outside the gallery). Rather to ask whether such affects might directly inform further designing where others participation is a key part.
Hence all the questions about who designs, who reflects, on what, for who/what and how.
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
I wonder if critical design
I wonder if critical design actually is a somewhat honest way of dealing with the agency and influence that designers can have in political discussions, a kind of avant-garde (and well, probably, elitist) practice: Because it enables them to make much more controversial statements and exploit their imaginative professional skills best? And then maybe the challenge is to provide appropriate ways to record the response to those critical artifacts in a way that influences the production of things, or the direction of scientific research, or the legislative process? After all, you want to achieve something by stimulating a debate, right?
Housekeeping: Lunchbreak
Again, we are already approaching the end of our session. We will have a lunch break of about an hour.
Hope to find you all in good shape for our next session here:
https://www.designresearchnetwork.org/drn/content/feature-discussion-ses...
Best,
Katharina.
an hours difference...
Oooopps,
me (Li) and Tau got the lunch hour at the wrong time, so unfortunately missed this thread. See you in 1 hours time.
Participatory critical design practices
Thank you for weaving these threads together so well, Ramia.
The notion of critical design as producing critiques is something I’ve also previously explored, and I wonder if it could provide some purchase here. I.e. critiques as alternate readings of “how the world is”, critical theories in the sense of offering alternatives that seek to both explain and change the social world. So, critical artefacts could be seen as embodied critiques.
Who creates these artefacts then has a say in what these critiques/theories/social changes are. One route would then be to involve “users” in the creation of critiques, which could then serve both the political (emancipatory) and technical aims (as Ehn put them). Of course, as others have noted here, this needn’t be restricted to critical design.
To pick up on Katharina’s and Li’s points. If design comes before use, and designers produce critical artefacts, it Critical Design in this sense is an honest way of dealing with designer’s agency. But, where others are involved in co-creation and use is the basis for design, another form of Critical Design practice is offered that demonstrates different agencies and is, perhaps, less susceptible to being elitist?
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/
Quick summary
Thanks everyone for an interesting and stimulating discussion. A couple of points that came out for me during the session (feel free to add your own):
How do critical design and participatory design each construct the others involved or affected by their practice? We might consider them as critical subjects, cognitive beings or political actors. Each has implications for how we attend to the affects of our practice.
Attending to the affects of our design practice has an ethical dimension. We have a responsibility to attend to the values and needs of the users/audiences etc.
Considering the design and application of critical artefacts within a participatory design process raises other issues. It may diffuse the view of the designer as promoting their own views of what is “high” if design follows use and participants co-create what is designed.
There is value in (non-participatory) critical design, in giving the designer a political voice and the means to influence change.
Looking forward to this afternoon’s discussion.
Best regards,
Simon
______
http://www.simon-bowen.com/