What is "Critical" About Critical Design? (original) (raw)
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Critical Design as critique of the design status quo
2013 DEFSA Conference Proceedings, 2013
Contemporary design practice (and theory) is growing up. There is evidence to support the emergence of a new breed of designer who is able to reflect on her or his role in society, and to be critical of what they make and what the resultant consequences of that may be. Design is often used as a vehicle to criticise and comment on issues, highlight problems and shortcomings in society, and present views and perspectives. This suggests that design is at a distance and impartial, but the truth is otherwise. Design is ideological and an expression of the values mediated by the designer and commissioned by others. This is the status quo: affirmative design. When design steps away from this position and critiques itself, critical design is the result. Presenting alternative perspectives and reflecting on the role of design is its purpose. This paper will address this emerging phenomenon that originated in product design, and the discourse extant to the work of Dunne and Raby. By identifying the characteristics of critical design and visualising the pathways, processes and consequences that distinguish it from affirmative design, the paper will argue that design practices, other than product design, can be scrutinised according to this model. Furthermore the virtues of the designer’s authorial voice will be extolled as reflexive of this and necessary to establishing a culture of design critique, and to positioning critical design as an integral, important and necessary part of design discourse.
Gentes, A., & Mollon, M. (2015). Critical Design: a delicate balance between the thrill of the uncanny and the interrogation of the unknown. in D. Bihanic (Ed.), Empowering Users through Design: Interdisciplinary Studies and Combined Approaches for Technological Products and Services (pp. 79–101). Switzerland: Springer Verlag. - Abstract: Critical design does not solve problems but raises questions. It uses design to explore alternative views of the world, to materialise questions and to engage the audience into a reflective state. However its generalisation suffers from a lack of shareable methodology. Based on a review of literature on critical design and the analysis of three projects, we observe that these practices play on emotions to elicit interest, concern and reflection. But we also show that: these artefacts employ a narrative strategy relying on "the uncanny" (concept developed by Freud); that the mediation of the project counterbalances this uncanniness, allowing for curiosity, concern and avoiding visceral reactions of rejection. Learning from an exemplary case study produced by one of the authors we also introduce two complementary dimensions of critical design strategy: its rhetoric is based on the authenticity of the author and the structure of the arguments to support and counterbalance the uncanny narrative. This chapter aims at opening the definition of critical design, and to encompass a larger body of work. It emphasizes the communication dimension of this design practice.
Difficult Forms: Critical practices of research and design
Proceedings of the IASDR Conference on Design Research, 2007
As a kind of 'criticism from within', conceptual and critical design inquire into what design is about – how the market operates, what is considered 'good design', and how the design and development of technology typically works. Tracing relations of conceptual and critical design to (post-)critical architecture and anti-design, we discuss a series of issues related to the operational and intellectual basis for 'critical practice', and how these might open up for a new kind of development of the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of design. Rather than prescribing a practice on the basis of theoretical considerations, these critical practices seem to build an intellectual basis for design on the basis of its own modes of operation, a kind of theoretical development that happens through, and from within, design practice and not by means of external descriptions or analyses of its practices and products.
Reflective HCI: Towards a critical technical practice
CHI'04 extended abstracts …, 2004
HCI is increasingly a focus of interdisciplinary interest, enriched by investigations not only from traditional perspectives such as computer science and cognitive psychology, but also alternative views grounded in social science, design, literary theory, cultural studies, critical theory, and phenomenology. These new perspectives have broadened our view of what HCI might be, as a discipline; perhaps more significantly, they have also broadened our perspectives on how it should be practiced. In particular, influences from domains such as ...