Description
Book SynopsisIn its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be. With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, "Critical by Design?" aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Critical by design? An introduction; Genealogies: What is a critical object? Design as «desubjugation» (after Foucault); The vitality of the negative: critical design between social philosophy and conceptual art; Ask what can be! Modal critique and design as drivers of accidence; What are the politics of ontological design? A critical reflection on the mutual becoming of «the human» and «the world»; Engaging in epistemic disobedience: on the decolonialization of design discourses; Unsettling individualized design practice through collaboration; «Ci concimiamo a vicenda»: building support structures as part of design practice; Re-visioning pelvic care through design; Trojan horses: ambiguity as a critical design strategy; Grey design: critical practices of design at the peripheries of the discipline; The ineliminable aesthetic dimension of art; Design culture as critical practice; What might be the speculative social?; Biased design, or the misery of neutrality; Undesign and understanding; Epilogue: The life and death of critical and speculative design: post-disciplinarity, post-truth, post-self and post-capital; Appendix: Critical by design? The book's design as SF figures; List of Figures & Tables; Biographies; Imprint.
